Inside Mari, Volume 4

I've never seen a manga with such a thoughtful earnest exploration of gender before as this one. Isao comes to learn the pressures of being a high school girl intertwined in all these relationships directly from her shoes and unlike other gender bender mangas it's not a joke, escapist or some dumb sexist bullshit but an earnest and very depressing look. I would say it's like the opposite of escapism. This word is overused and I'm unsure about this sentence but it's almost like a deconstruction of gender bender mangas, most of which are vapid and do not even attempt to broach genuine questions about identity or the subject that would be naturally raised by the premise. I'm not sure if that sentence is right, you could also just say it's a serious gender bender that is actually done well.