“I just wanted to tell something that was true to myself and then hope that somebody else out there could find it, and maybe they could see themself in it too,” Christine Mari, author of Halfway There, reflected about her decision to illustrate her graphic memoir.
Published in 2024, Halfway There: A Graphic Memoir of Self-Discovery documents Mari’s year abroad in Japan and her struggles with identity, social isolation, and adulthood as a biracial Japanese American born in Tokyo who grew up in the United States. Filled with heartbreak and healing, Mari’s evocative illustrations create visibility for those excluded for their multiracial identities and compassion for those living with mental health challenges. Humanizing and honest, Mari’s masterpiece embodies its own incredible journey from sketch to published graphic memoir.
Pathway to Art
Mari’s love for art stems from her Baba, or grandmother, who carries a passion for arts and crafts. “I think if I’ve inherited my artistic side from anybody, it would definitely be Baba,” she recalls affectionately. As a child, Mari loved watching children’s shows, ranging from Japanese cartoons, like Doraemon, to American ones like SpongeBob. As she grew older, Mari’s passion for art continued through Japanese manga and American graphic novels, such as those by Hope Larson. “I was getting the best of both worlds,” she explains. Mari’s art style would soon emerge from these influences of her biracial identity.
“I feel like my art used to look a little bit more like manga,” Mari reflects. “I would draw people with really big eyes,” she laughs. Drawing comparisons to people’s natural changes, Mari acknowledges that her art style has evolved over time. This can be observed in her Instagram posts that juxtapose old art with panels from her new graphic memoir. Mari explains, “I did that on purpose because I kind of wanted to show people the evolution of how things changed. Not just the style of my artwork, but also showing … here’s this story as part of this larger story.”
Even as her style changed, Mari carried the spirit of her old art in fundamental ways, especially when drawing themes of identity or emotions. “I always notice I used a lot of symbolism, even in the old comics,” she explains. “I tried to carry that over into this new book just because I found that symbolism to be a really good way of graphic storytelling, a way of conveying things that you can’t put into words.”
This metaphorical approach complements Mari’s journey of using art as a journal to document and express her feelings. Using illustrations to communicate personal topics that were difficult to discuss, Mari began the long process of making her memoir, even before she realized it. “I started drawing comics about my experience with mental health, my experience as an Asian American, as a biracial Asian American,” she explains.
What started as art for herself evolved into comics posted on social media, eventually culminating in her graphic memoir. Even as she balanced the pressure of marketing associated with signing a book contract, Mari remained faithful to her reason for drawing. “This was really a project for me to just tell my story,” she reflects.
The Making of the Memoir
The creation of Halfway There was a three-year process of hard work and heavy emotion. Mari was driven by the lack of representation of multiracial and Asian American experiences in the graphic novels and books of her childhood. In response, she created the memoir not only for herself, but also in the hope that younger generations would resonate with her story. “I was thinking to myself … what would I like to have been able to relate to when I was younger,” she reflects.
The memoir began with the comics Mari was already drawing about her personal experiences. “I never thought that [my comics] would turn into a full-length memoir,” she says. For three years, Mari illustrated, compiled, and condensed the various short comics she published online into a newly formatted memoir. Because of the book’s fixed print length, she also had to decide which stories to include and which ones to cut, a process that forced her to revisit themes from her early adulthood.
Unlike short comics, Mari found that the years-long process of creating a memoir required an enormous amount of reflection and an exploration of past, painful emotion. “It was difficult at times to revisit negative memories,” she says. Nevertheless, the raw and heart-breaking moments that distinguish her memoir’s pages are a reflection of her courage to share her personal experiences. “I actually ended up including more painful memories in the memoir because I had more time to think about, ‘What was this thing that really affected me when I was young?’” she reflects.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Mari found the process of creating her book cathartic and healing. “It really gave me the opportunity to just expel everything I’ve ever suppressed about my struggles with my identity,” she says. In fact, Mari was able to find greater peace with herself. “I think it really helped me come to terms with myself,” she reflects, “accepting that I am still Japanese American even if I can’t do these things or even if I didn’t live here long enough.”
By fall of 2024, as the result of this incredible process, Halfway There was completed and ready to be sold at local bookstores. For anyone interested in purchasing Mari’s memoir, it can be found on her website. For the author, the memoir’s publication was a significant moment in her personal journey.
“[This story]’s been in the making my whole life, and it was really like a huge, huge, huge weight off my chest to tell that story,” Mari says.
Halfway There and Reflections
As with publication, the question of readership, public taste, and audience approval was nerve-wracking for Mari. She reflects on how one of her friends gave her advice in response to these new stressors. “Don’t think about if people are going to like it or not,” she remembers them telling her. “The people who like it are going to find it, and it will reach those people.”
Halfway There did reach the right people. Mari’s virtual community on social media formed the foundation of her public network. “This book wouldn’t have even been possible without the support that I got from this online community,” she reflects. Even before the memoir was published, Mari appreciated how social media allowed her to transcend geographical barriers and connect with strangers across the world through her experiences.
However, she also acknowledges that social media is a double-edged sword. “Especially when I was in college, I was such a victim of just getting sucked into the other side of social media, which isn’t really about connection but is more about presentation,” she reflects. She comments that social media encourages a culture of maintaining “perfect lives” through selective posting. Therefore, Mari continues to use her social media accounts to counter that “perfect” mentality by sharing the challenging but real experiences of her life through her art.
This commitment to honesty recurred in every step of making her memoir, from selecting which stories to include to drawing without regards to social expectations. She explains, “I have to tell this story for myself and I have to make it as honest as I can because the way that I’ve been living my life, as seen in the book, was not always [honest].” Through her raw truthfulness, whether on social media or in her memoir, Mari has created her own tangible community centered around complex human emotions. “By sharing those personal stories, I actually found that I was able to connect more with people because they found it relatable,” she says.
The message Mari hopes readers will remember after reading her memoir is compassion for themselves as they are. “If there’s any takeaway from this book, I’d want it to be that people read this story and recognize that they might have some of those struggles … insecurities or anxieties or uncertainties, but that’s ok,” she explains.
As seen in Halfway There, Mari continues to challenge the social pressure to conform to an impossible standard of “success” by embracing her humanity. “Society is just very focused on projecting success and image and status and power,” she reflects. Even as she hopes that her memoir’s vulnerability will encourage readers to accept themselves, Mari also recognizes that self-love is a process, one she is continually working on. “I am still working on [self-acceptance] like every single day since writing this book,” she says.
Combating the Stigma Around Mental Health
One of the significant aspects of Mari’s memoir is her courage and vulnerability to share her experiences with mental health and depression. With the author’s privilege to dictate the ending of the memoir, Mari explains that she was illustrating a hopeful ending for her book even as she was personally going through a difficult time. “It’s really easy to conclude things in a story [and] … to come to a happy ending,” she reflects.
However, the artmaking process created renewed possibilities for hope. “I was going through a new process of healing while making this book and drawing about healing,” she says. Importantly, Mari challenges the idea that her struggles have ended with her book’s conclusion. She emphasizes that she does not want readers to assume that she is now able to live a perfect, “happily ever after” life because she went to therapy in her memoir. “I don’t think that’s realistic, obviously,” she says. “Mental health is a journey, and there’s setbacks and improvements.”
Halfway There continues to challenge the stigma that surrounds mental health. Through sharing her personal experiences, Mari has created opportunities to connect with other community members, challenging social isolation. When considering cultural context, important discussions about mental health can often be ignored or sidelined because of a prevailing stigma. “Especially in Japan, I know, and I think in a lot of Asian cultures and households, … [mental health] is something that people don’t want to talk about,” Mari reflects.
In response to this barrier of socially imposed silence, Mari has responded with compassion. She continues to use her personal experiences as the foundation to create more open discussions. “[By] creating a conversation around [mental health] and nurturing more compassion for people, then that’s really all I can hope to do,” she says.
Journey and Hope
Life is an evolving journey, one that Mari finds herself reflecting on as she grows older. In fact, she observes that much of her childhood was signposted with goals, such as graduating middle school or applying for college. “You’re always working towards something,” she says. However, Mari explains that her perspective changed once she graduated from college, and she no longer had any obvious signposts. Although it was freeing, she also found the experience overwhelming, with so many different choices available. Through these experiences of adulthood, Mari says she has now learned to be kinder and more patient with herself. Most importantly, Mari’s approach to life has changed. “I’m trying to enjoy the journey more instead of just racing towards the next destination,” she says.
In the spirit of this perspective, Mari is approaching her future not in terms of what she wants to accomplish, but in terms of how she wants to live her life. “I want to be truthful and realistic,” she explains. As she continues to balance the challenges of adulthood, particularly her authorship and art alongside her career, she continues to wait for the next story she feels compelled to tell. Until that story arrives, Mari is going to continue working on her comics. “Hopefully as I keep experiencing life and living it, something will inspire me,” she says.
Nevertheless, for all the storytellers out there, Mari encourages you to follow your passion. “I would just encourage you to go for it,” she emphasizes. Rather than worrying about popularity, she highlights the importance of persevering in sharing one’s work. She reflects on how her own art following started small and locally with friends, until she eventually built a large following on social media. At the heart of storytelling is Mari’s belief in being authentic. “If you’re creating something that’s true to yourself,” she says, “I always believe … that passion and honesty, it can really be seen through what you make, and it will reach other people.”
Perhaps most exemplary of this suggestion is Mari’s own phenomenal memoir Halfway There. As readers continue to purchase its beautifully colored pages at their local bookstores, they will find themselves taken on a journey of what it means to be human. At the heart of Mari’s story is a message that she hopes her readers and herself will learn to embrace throughout their lives. “I just want people to recognize that they’re actually enough as they are,” she says.
Note: Interviewee’s quotes have been edited for clarity.
© 2025 Kayla Kamei
