The purpose of my research is to analyze themes of adolescent sexuality in the work of Japanese manga artist Oshimi Shuzo, specifically his two series Inside Mari (2012-2016) and Welcome Back, Alice (2020-2023). In both of these series, Oshimi presents normative gender and sexuality as a stifling, constraining force from which his characters try desperately to escape. In Inside Mari, I argue that this force is represented by the gaze, borrowing Laura Mulvey’s term from film studies. In Welcome Back, Alice, I apply Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity to understand how cissexism and strict gender roles influence the characters and their resistance strategies. I also argue that these two works show a development of Oshimi’s thinking about gender, with Welcome Back, Alice depicting gender as more fluid, eroticized, and central to ones’ identity than Inside Mari. In my analysis of these works, I pay special attention to Oshimi’s use of imagery and comic tropes. Imagery plays a large role in both the cinematic gaze and gender performance, making graphic novels an especially apt medium to explore these themes. Oshimi also critically engages with and subverts common tropes in manga, especially manga aimed at teenage audiences, such as high school drama, romantic comedy, erotic fan service, and cross dressing. While there has been a lot of research into queer manga in general, there has been no academic English-language study of Oshimi’s work, despite his popularity and critical success. I hope to help bring Oshimi’s work to the attention of other scholars of manga and queer literature, as I believe his entire body of work is unique, complex, and fruitful for further study.