Sensei no Shiroi Uso
Sensei's Pious Lie

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Trigger warning for basically everything that comes with toxic masculinity.

STORY: 6

A heavy story focusing on the relationships of a female school teacher and the persons around her. The focus is on woman/man interactions and for once dynamics of power (aka sexism) are at the center of the story.

ART: 6

Akane Torikai's art is pleasant but clearly not the focus here.

... POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 7

'Sensei's pious lie' exposes the violence of patriarchy all across its chapters. Physical violence, rape, emotional abuse, cheating, loneliness, family pressure, trauma, incest, women pushed against each others, support from colleagues for the male aggressor.. All of this is portrayed in a realistic way and without complaisance.

FEMINISM: 8

This manga is far above the average in terms of feminism.
First there's a frontal description of what women are subjected to in the patriarchal society of japan and this level of violence and realism is extremely rare in manga.
Second, the artwork is always avoiding the male gaze so even sex scenes are sober and to the point instead of the usual 'rape is drawn to be arousing' common in the industry.
Dialogues are smartly written, characters are complex and the time spent on their background makes things quite (not perfectly) coherent. Women are doing their best at solving their issues and there is not male hero to save the day.

That being said, there's a slight feeling of masculinism here and there, with some story elements going a bit too far with the 'men are also victims of patriarchy' aspect. If you are hoping for a huge scream to the face of men you will feel that this scream is not as powerful as you would have wished for in the end.
'Sensei's pious lie' ended in 2017 and in an interview the author said that she had put feminism a bit aside when she married Asano Inio (very famous mangaka) in 2018, is it related to that feeling of tameness? Or is it because of the author own efforts or the editor's directions in order to not alienate too many readers? I don't know but I'm happy for her to hear that they have divorced, especially since the infuriatingly masculinist manga 'Downfall' written by Asano may in some ways refer to his relation with Torikai..


CONCLUSION: 7

It's not everyday that a medium tackles sexism within its own sexist industry. If you are ready to face the subject with a heavy approach don't miss this occasion.

I'm conflicted, because even though I didn't really enjoy the story -and I was frankly tempted to put it down more than a couple times-, at others it did seem to grasp me quite firmly. I think that the overall execution is disappointing, and that some of the messages it conveys are questionable, if not outright problematic (particularily about that one relationship). Regardless, I do feel that there's a lot of potential there that hasn't been quite tapped into, kinda like an idea that hasn't yet had the chance to develop to its full extension.

While I believe this one in particular was a miss, I ... think I'd still be interested in reading some other (maybe more recent) works by this author.

ART: 5
Sort of bland. Not too pretty to look at, not too offensive to the eyes. It has some charm, but it doesn't have a clear identity.

PLOT: 3
Both all over the place, and nowhere at all. Not much happens, and what little does happen, seems so unimportant and inconsequential in-universe that it's hard to care as a reader. The pacing is off, and the outcome of some of the events is unrealistic to the point of absurdity. Overall, the storyline seemed way too convoluted.

CHARACTERS: 2
Somehow, the weakest point. Even though half the narrative is driven by internal monologue, you never get to fully comprehend the motivation behind any of the characters' actions, and as a result a lot of what happens seems uncalled for and unnatural.

SOCIAL COMMENTARY: 5
I'd give this a lower rating, but I'm aware that in the case of Japan, this work is already very transgressive in terms of feminist prerogative, and I commend it for that.

What starts off as an interesting but dark story devolves into a convoluted mess of contradictory preaching.

The author tries to make some sort of nuanced statement about the relationships between men and women and the natural power struggle they're locked in, but ends up implying some absolutely horrifying hot takes such as:

Women may say they hate rape, but in reality they love it!
Trying to abort another woman's baby isn't a bad thing, because a MAN made you do it.
Women have no agency
The only way to overcome rape is to find another man. Good dick cancels out bad dick; it's math!
Emotions dictate everything, and that's a ... good thing!
Men are always hurting women
A woman's lot in life is to be hurt, used and dirtied by men. Lay back and think of England.
The most horrible punishment that can be inflicted on a man is not death, but fatherhood.
Love means letting your husband beat you and sleep around
Society is 100% totally OK with every single behaviour stated above

If the story had just focused on the Teacher character and her struggle with rape/blackmail it would have been a better story, but the author shoves in a shitty romance between her and a student and focuses on some of the worst characters ever put to paper. Every single person in this manga is either a hollow slave to emotion or an irredeemable piece of trash. Since this author decided to take a massive dump all over humanity she made all the women sorry sacks of crying and estrogen and all the men vile tyrants with a constant erection.

On a technical level, the story is awful. It's slow, characters trudge along from one bad scenario to another with no real pacing or motivation, character's actions are not dictated by their previous actions and everything is always rape. All the time. Rape. Everywhere.

Near the end the story devolves into characters giving speeches outlining the author's warped worldview. The bad characters get away like nothing happened (because feelings), and everyone's life is ruined but no one learned anything (other than sensei who learns to stop worrying and love the dick)

The art is competent, at least. Shame it couldn't service a better story.

In conclusion: Over all this was a trainwreck of shallow characters raping/getting raped because nature says men shall rape all women with some nice art and some of the worst writing since Bobo the chimp got his hands on a typewriter. It also manages to set women back 5,000 years. That's an accomplishment, right?