Just Like Mona Lisa Manga Review
“I’m not a boy or girl, but I’m both at the same time. I just want to live as a human being.” -Lisa
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗Spoilers˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Summary
The story of Just Like Mona Lisa follows Hinase, an eighteen year old genderless person who lives in a world where people develop their gender by puberty based on hormones and preference. Confused on what they want to be, this only adds to the confusion when their childhood friends, Ritsu and Shiori, both confess their feelings. Hinase must choose before graduation because they are the oldest recorded gender less person and eventually they can die.
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Sex vs Gender
Before we get into the real review I want to first talk about the difference between sex of the body versus gender because there is a distinct difference between the two. So let’s clear the air for those who don’t know the difference very quickly. Sex: refers to biological characteristics (chromosomes, anatomy, hormones) typically assigned at birth, usually as male or female
Gender: refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and internal identity (man, woman, non-binary)
Let me add the last part that is listed as well: While sex is biologically based, gender is an internal sense of self and a social construct that can vary across cultures and change over time.
Keep these in mind throughout your reading.
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Story
At its core, Just Like Mona Lisa is about social pressure that society puts on people on what a certain gender should and shouldn’t be. Girls shouldn’t be into sports. Boys shouldn’t wear dresses. Girls must be taken care of by boys and boys are stronger than girls. Girls are kinder and more emotional while boys are reliable. This is how it is “supposed” to be because we’ve been told this for years. In the story, both childhood friends of Hinase are also faced with the social pressure despite having chosen their genders already as children. Ritsu (female) is into sports and is seen as not girly enough because of it. Shiori (male) loves art, but his father doesn’t approve because it’s for girls. Restricted roles have fit them both into boxes and labels that they didn’t realize they were signing up for when they swayed towards a gender.
We later on in the story meet a gay character in the story who falls in love with his male best friend. He hadn’t meant to of course, but it happens. How can you change how your heart works? Yet when you live in a world where you’re told that it’s not okay all you want to do is tear it out and scream at it and tell it to change and look at the correct people. To love “normally”. He wishes he had changed into a girl. That maybe he was born in the wrong body and chose wrong. He wishes that they could be in a normal relationship, but knows that it will never happen and has to accept that. Once again, social pressure is pushed down on him and he looks at his best friend knowing he can never be with him, but at least knows that he can one day be comfortable with who he is. What I appreciate about this side story though is that they address it delicately by saying that there are many ways to feel about a person. Friendship and love exists on a scale and that there is a spectrum and that he might feel a strong like towards his friend and that might not be love, but he might still be attracted to men or both. Or he could love his friend or it could just be a strong friendship. The point being that he doesn’t have to figure out anything now. He can just exist with beside his friend and love himself and not have to worry right now with what he’s feeling and focus more on the fact that he gets to be beside the person he cares about. Easier said than done yes, but honestly I think that’s a beautiful way to phrase it. You don’t have to figure it out right now. Just be there. Going back to Shiori and Ritsu, they confess to Hinase and Hinase realizes that they too have feelings for them as well which complicates things. They wonder as well if what they feel for them is love or strong friendship. An important question crops up then: If they had been born a specific gender would they realize they love one of them instantly? Would that mean that their gender would define their love? Hinase always saw them as their most precious friends and never thought of them romantically. It was always the three of them, but the problem is that Hinase is afraid that if the dynamic changes then the whole friendship will fall apart. Hinase slowly begins to realize their feelings throughout the story, but also knows there is a big hurdle: both Shiori and Ritsu want Hinase to choose a gender to date them. Ritsu wants Hinase to be boy and Shiori wants Hinase to be a girl.
Their idea is to teach Hinase how to be both and hopefully influence them to be one. Ritsu takes Hinase out and shows them how to be a girl and Shiori does the same and shows them how to be a boy. I also want to touch on the fact that I noticed Hinase chose the male uniform at school, which as a non-binary person myself, I would have done as well. It seems like the most unisex out of the two, but why? “Because boys don’t wear skirts”. If Hinase wore a skirt than they are automatically a girl yet girls can wear pants. This idea of thinking is addressed in the story. Dresses and skirts reserved strictly for girls, but if boys wore them they are automatically cross dressing. So Ritsu and Shiori show Hinase that they can switch uniforms and immediately Shiori gets embarrassed to wear a skirt.
Before I continue I want to actually want to talk about men in more feminine wear throughout history. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
History If you were rich you didn’t walk therefore you wore heels. It was as simple as that. Heels were a status symbol as far back as the 10th Century. Persian cavalry soilders wore heeled boots designed to lock their feet in stir ups while riding which made them ride easier and good in battle. When Persian diplomats visited European courts in the early 1600’s, Western aristocrat fell in love with the style and decided to make it a symbol of the military power and high status. King Louis XIV of France became the era’s most famous for it. Heels started to become popular in the lower class too so the rich made theirs taller to the point where it was absurd and “distinguished” that they couldn’t walk (which was the point). If you couldn’t walk then you had help to do everything for you.
Dresses and skirts were never seen solely “for women” for a very long time. In Egypt all the way back in 3000 BCE, men wore what is called the shendyt which is a pleaded linen wrap skirt that was a pure symbol of power. Greek and Roman men wore tunics and togas which was daily dress and soldiers wore leather skirted armor called pteruges into battle. Even through the medieval period, men wore these things as a symbol of wealth. The more you wore the more rich you were. Pants were considered barbaric. When the Romans went to Gaul and saw Celtic men in pants, they viewed them as uncivilized.
Why Have Things Changed?
Enlightenment: In the mid 1700’s, intellectuals across Europe started pushing different ideas such as practicality and fashion of the rich into looking less like power and more self indulgence. They wanted to look more “disciplined” and less “beautiful”. Bright colors, heels and dresses were abandoned for suits and dark colors.
Politics: The French and American Revolutions made aristocratic excess genuinely dangerous. The working class and middle class wore practical clothing to show their democratic values. Wearing more loose and skirted clothes was a sign of oppression, a stark shift. The very thing the Romans once marked became permanently part of the normal wardrobe. Industrialization: The 1800’s demanded that men were working in factories and workshops. Suits became more profitable and easier to mass produce. Dresses as more artistic became aimed more so towards women so it could reinforce the idea that women were more emotional and men were rational. It wasn’t biology or tradition. It was capitalism, politics and designing gender into clothing.
The irony is that men are defending rules that are barely 200 years old, in a history that stretches back over 5,000 years in the other direction. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Mona Lisa
Before Hinase, the oldest person in the story, Lisa, was a gender less person in their twenties who ends up committing suicide when they find out they are becoming female because they would rather be in between than one gender. Hinase learns of this and knows that sooner or later they will have to choose as well. Either they will feel that crumbling ache of needing to choose before their hormones choose for them or they someone could choose for them by force feeding a gender.
Lisa’s story is where it all clicks into place. The parallels of the painting Mona Lisa is that no one knows if “she” as a woman or man. If she is smiling or not. That she is looked at for 500 years and the beauty of this painting is allowed to exist and just be watched and yet is a puzzle that people look at just as Hinase and Lisa are. Just as people that do not fit into a box are. You stare at them for years and years and wonder who they are, why they don’t fit into the binary, and may never understand who or what they are or even why. Yet it gets to exist in it’s beauty and a person doesn’t get to just exist. They are constantly questioned and can never be.
One thing Lisa brings up in the story is the story are pronouns. Lisa speaks French and explains that French has masculine and feminine pronouns. We even have pronouns for inanimate objects. The whole world is divided into male and female and we don’t even think twice about it. They say their tired of being seen as male or female, their even fine being seen as an animal, as long as their seen as alive. Person. Something. Just don’t fit them in a box. They didn’t care being called she or they or whatever as long as they were seen as a person first.
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Force Fed
There was a certain image in the story that really got me and I want to touch on it. It was Hinase being force fed the school uniforms ribbon and then the tie, their mouth spread open. Obviously this shows that they felt like they were being forced into one gender and forced to choose one but I liked the way they described it. They said that it was like one day everyone ate together and then suddenly Shiori and Ritsu began to eat sludge and Hinase didn’t know why. They expected Hinase to eat it too and like it, forcing it down their throat. There’s nothing wrong with the sludge because obviously Shiori and Ritsu are doing just fine eating it, but Hinase can’t stomach it even if they have to grow up and eat it. They just can’t. It makes them sick.
This was one of the few times I cried. I can remember in my life when things like this happened to me in my own life. Being force fed a gender you can’t physically stomach truly does make you sick and watching everyone else do it and wondering how the hell they can is truly confusing and also a bit scary. It makes you feel alone and out of place. Not to mention I understand what Hinase says at the start. That it was fine when they were eating together and then suddenly everyone ate sludge. I get that because as kids we don’t have societal expectations of gender just like how they don’t have to choose a gender until puberty. When we’re kids we don’t see gender as anything yet. We just play and hang out with other kids. Boys, girls, in between. It isn’t us that see’s kids as strange for wearing clothing that might be different, it’s the adults that do. If a girl wears a power rangers shirt kids will say it’s cool. If a boy wears a pink shirt none of the kids will bat an eye. It’s the adults who make one comment that it’s a “boys shirt and girls shirt” that gets imprinted on the kids minds forever because they’re little sponges and from then on they will never let go of that comment. Hinase is referring to that. That once upon a time as children they weren’t so different. They had no gender, no walls, no barriers. They were all just hanging out as friends and there was no stigma attached to it. Now suddenly everyone has to pay attention to how they walk and talk and dress and it’s exhausting how much pressure that is put onto them. Not to mention hurtful. So now they have to choose which accessory they’ll take on. The boys tie or the girls ribbon. Whichever it is...it’s permanent. In it’s own way that is. No one will ever look at Hinase and see “Hinase the person”. They will see “Hinase the boy” or “Hinase the girl”.
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Bottles
“The world treats you very differently…depending on whether your bottle is red or blue. It feels so suffocating…that you can’t just be different shades of purple. Some people can’t even bear to live with the idea of forcing down things that they don’t want just to survive.” -Hinase
We are all made up of different shapes and sizes. What’s inside us is also different and doesn’t often reflect what is on the outside. What we also do with our bodies is dress them up in different clothing to reflect how we feel on the inside. But everything in our lives right now has been color sorted. Boys get this color, girls get this color. There is no room for other shades when in reality we are all made up of a mix of both colors inside. No one is one or the other. What Hinase says about this quote is that we start out as see through bottles: completely gender less. That is until we grow up and take on either red or blue and then how you decorate your bottle is how you express yourself on the outside, but people treat you based on what you look like anyway so you still dress how you’re supposed to, decorating your “bottle” correctly. His metaphor made me cry and truly stuck with me.
Being fit into a box is suffocating and I know how it feels. In the end though Hinase picks a gender, but what I like about this is that despite having done so they don’t care. It’s left ambiguous which they choose which is the point of the story. Whether male or female, Hinase will always be Hinase. They are a person no matter what they’re body looks like. Your bottle does not define the person you are on the inside. Who you are is the color that resides in you. Whether that’s blue or red or transparent or purple or some other color that is mixed within the rainbow. You are you and everyone else is themselves and I hope that you understand that and are happy with that. The series is technically ten volumes long, but the last two are “What If” stories. If Hinase was a girl and if Hinase had been a boy which I feel defeats the purpose of the story. Hinase is Hinase and I feel I personally don’t need to know what gender they are. My personal canon is that the story ends at volume eight. It ended beautifully with them going off with the two best friends although they did not get with either of them which honestly I am fine with. I think they had a stronger friendship anyway because in the end the friends both understood that forcing their ideals onto Hinase was not okay. It took Ritsu longer to understand, but Shiori really was the one who genuinely told Hinase that they didn’t care what gender they ended up being which really made me happy. So that’s it. Thank you so much for reaching the bottom of the lake and thank you for reading! ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
“To those who are just like Mona Lisa: No matter how your body changes it’ll be okay. You will always be you. Be yourself and keep letting your beautiful colors bloom.” -Hinase