An evening in the Yoshizaki Household, Take Two (and Three)
Sammi had already dog‑eared the relevant pages; the spines of Vols. 4 and 5 were starting to look as tired as Eriko’s margin notes. A late‑July thunder‑shower rattled the fire escape, but inside the apartment the only storm was intellectual.
1 · “I Look at Mari” (Ch. 30)
Sammi flops onto the couch, volume open.
“Eriko, Mari—well, Komori‑Mari—stares at her own sleeping face and says ‘It’s like I’m looking at a stranger.’ What is she doing?”
Eriko pushes her glasses up.
“Remember our thesis: Mari’s desire for girls is still unnameable to her. She manufactures a male point of view to license that desire—an internal Komori who can legitimately gaze at Mari’s body and at other girls. But the scene also shows why Komori is more than a convenient beard: he’s a fantasy of escape. As a hikikomori, the real Isao rejects society’s scripts altogether. Mari wants that freedom from the doll‑like perfection everyone projects onto her.” (Reddit)
Sammi grins. “So she’s literally looking at the prison she built—and, by extension, at the closets she’s still in.”
2 · “Mari Is Searching for Me” (Ch. 31)
Rain drums harder; Eriko’s voice softens.
“Chapter 31 turns the mirror around. The title tells us the ‘real’ Mari is trying to find this Komori inside herself. For a moment Komori vanishes, and she’s terrified—because if the alter dissolves, she’ll be left alone with a desire she can’t yet articulate. It’s the adolescent dread of losing a secret friend before you can integrate what that friend protects.”
Sammi scribbles in her notebook: Adolescence = liminal; Komori = transitional object.
“Like the stuffed animal you finally outgrow, but it kept you company until then?”
“Exactly,” Eriko says, tapping Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble. “Performativity runs on rehearsal; Komori lets Mari rehearse being someone other than the hetero good‑girl.”
3 · “What I’ve Been Searching For” (Ch. 32)
The storm passes; twilight seeps through the blinds.
“In Chapter 32,” Eriko continues, “Mari walks the neighborhood alone at dawn. She senses Komori observing from inside, and instead of panic she whispers, ‘It’s okay—come with me.’ That invitation is seismic. She’s no longer exiling the alter; she’s folding him back in.”
Sammi’s eyes widen. “So the Komori persona wasn’t the destination. He was the breadcrumb trail to her own queerness.”
“Right,” Eriko nods. “By embracing Komori, she tacitly admits the feelings he enabled—especially the pull toward Yori. Oshimi cues that by letting the background boys vanish from the chapter; every gaze is girl‑to‑girl.”
Eriko flips to the final page: Mari silhouetted against first light, echoing the body‑swap prologue but now alone in her own skin.
“From here,” she says, “the manga pivots from body‑horror to gender‑dysphoria‑cum‑closet drama.” (Wikipedia)
4 · Sammi’s “Lesbian Mari Evidence Tracker – Entry #2”
Sammi caps her pen and reads back their new bullets:
| # | Breadcrumb (Ch.) | Lesbian‑coding |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 30 – Komori’s voyeuristic gaze on Mari’s body | Male mask grants permission for same‑sex desire |
| 9 | 31 – Mari’s fear when Komori disappears | Terror of confronting desire unaided |
| 10 | 32 – Mari invites Komori to stay | Beginning of self‑acceptance; Komori no longer a closet, but a mirror |
She underlines #10 twice.
“That’s our hinge,” she declares. “Next re‑read I want tea and stroopwafels—and maybe we start a Queer Mari bingo card?”
Eriko smiles—the small, secret one Sammi loves—and slides closer.
“Deal. But first, let’s celebrate with a kiss—”
Sammi laughs, plants a quick peck on Eriko’s cheek, and snaps the book shut. Storm outside, serenity within.
Why these three chapters matter
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Projection as Shield & Compass. Komori embodies both heterosexual alibi and navigational tool toward Mari’s authentic orientation.
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Performative Gender Stress‑Test. By staging a male alter inside a female body, Oshimi literalizes Butler’s thesis: identity is iterated performance.
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Adolescent Escape Valve. Komori’s hikikomori lifestyle offers Mari a fantasy of social invisibility, a liminal refuge where unspoken desires can gestate.
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Integration Arc. Chapter 32 marks the moment Mari stops running from Komori and begins listening to him—her first conscious step toward naming her love for women.
Sammi closes her notebook. “So Komori is the closet and the key,” she says.
Eriko nods. “And the lock is starting to turn.”
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