Mlm Blog - Blog Posts

What Boy Meets Maria Means to Me

SPOILERS AHEAD

CW: mentions of SA and pedophilia. These topics aren’t comfortable even with me most of the time. Please stay safe, okay?

So. I picked up this manga because I fell in love with the art style and heard it didn’t have the usual fetishization most MLM stories have in manga. It seemed sweet, if not exceedingly dorky. Two theater kids fall in love. A one-shot MLM grumpy x sunshine story.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

“There’s nothing worse than always being alone.”

Now, this story felt deeply personal for a number of reasons. Let’s start with the main character, Taiga. He wants to be the best actor in Japan. He’s loud, determined, and doesn’t seem to notice when people find him utterly annoying, nor does he seem to understand the social rules of the world around him. All in all, he reminds me a lot of my current boyfriend.

And then there’s Maria. Or rather, Arima.

I’ve never been so hurt by how close to home a character hit before.

Arima was raised by a mother who wanted a daughter. He was raised as a girl, and often felt enough like one to be okay with it. But it never felt quite right. On this alone, I could relate a lot to that as a more feminine trans man. Girly clothes felt fine, being referred to as a girl didn’t feel inherently wrong. But being a boy felt entirely right, and that was something to feel guilty about. But there’s more than that.

Now. This is hardly something I like to discuss, so I’ll keep it to a minimum. At a certain point, Arima’s insecurity with his gender got to a point where he was driven to ask his teacher how he’d feel if Arima really was a boy. And, as soon as that was said, that same teacher assaulted him.

Of course, reading this was beyond painful. It’s natural to read something like that and get the pit in your stomach that’s usual when hearing of other’s tragedies. But how the event changed Arima meant just as much. The event led Arima to view being seeing seen as a man as dangerous, as something scary and vulnerable. And he found safety in his femininity, as that was never subjected to the horrors his masculinity did.

It’s often speculated that trans men are the way they are because of some bad memory they have with their born gender, rather than it being a part of their identity. I face the blunt of this rather often, as a trans man that also happens to be an SA survivor. Seeing this told from an AMAB perspective made it feel less belittling, somehow. My struggle with my identity since that point feels more real. My assault followed the same pattern as Arima’s. I disclosed with someone I trusted that I might really be a boy. And then I was assaulted by that person the same day. And like Arima, I still find safety in being perceived as feminine. I still often hide behind it, as being seen as the man I am seems more vulnerable. I’ve never seen my exact feelings written out the way I feel them.

Now, back to Taiga. I mentioned that he reminds me a lot of my boyfriend. Taiga, throughout the book, seems to look up to Arima for his talents. Arima however, is jealous of Taiga for his ability to be so open and outspoken about who he is and what he wants for himself. Neither understand how the other could want to be more like them. This was something me and my partner struggled a lot with as well, for a lot of the same reasons. It felt so silly and cliche at the time, for us to be jealous of each other like that. And yet, there it was. Not laughed at. Not mocked. It was seen as a real struggle. The reason we grew was the reason they did. It was real growth, and growth I can be proud of.

“I couldn’t help looking up to you. I didn’t want you to see my weaknesses. But it didn’t matter what I showed you. With you, I could be masculine. I could be myself. That’s how I felt. It was refreshing. And now, I really can’t let you see how pathetic I am.”

I’m happy I can say that I was able to make the same progress Arima’s character did. Healing is painful. PTSD is painful. And seeing my own painful view of the world put into words hurt. But I needed it. And I thank the author for giving this to me. I will treasure it forever, even if it was only one small book in a sea of other wonderful works. This one is mine.

For those who read all this but never read the manga, thank you, I guess, for being interested in what I have to say. If you decide you want to pick it up, please check the content warnings beforehand. And if it grows to be too much, drop it. Nothing is worth risking your mental health for, let alone a single book. What means so much to me does not need to mean as much to you.

I love you all dearly.

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