Apr 18, 2024
-- spoiler free -- (spoilers at very bottom)
The story is honestly pretty interesting, in my personal opinion. I personally think that everyone in this story do end up hurting each other (mostly) voluntarily, obviously to varying extents. Sensei no Shiroi Uso contains many heavy themes, such as sexual assault and violence, unfaithfulness (cheating), mental illness(es), bullying (+ power imbalance) and the biggest theme: sexism. Honestly, I could not put this down at all; I binged it in around 2 days. The depiction of how 'men are always right and strong' and 'women are always wrong, weak and used to only feed men's
...
satisfactions' is done very well. There is some slight 'women supporting women' moments, but that's not really the main pointer of the manga.
You follow Misuzu, the main female protagonist + high school teacher, and her experiences, the people around her, what she has to deal with, so on and so forth. Her students, friends and acquaintances, all have complexity and depth to them; even branching off to side characters, but they play a part in helping the reader understand why character A or B has turned out in the way they did. All the experiences that Misuzu goes through, such as blackmail, being threatened, raped, forced to do things she doesn't want to, are so real and exist in real life - probably is what makes the manga extremely hard-hitting.
To reiterate, Torikai-sensei does a really good job in portraying the imbalance between men and women. How men have much more power, are in charge of everything, can cheat if they want external satisfaction but 'will forever have their partner as their main priority', how its okay to rape women because its their duty because dick solves everything, so on and so forth.
my (personal) ratings!
ART: 7 - i found it pretty enjoyable, and it also had a 'raw' feel to it. however, sometimes i mixed up some characters with each other because of some similar designs (eg, some female side characters having long hair and similar facial features). some scenes were also portrayed really well, so props to Torikai-sensei!
PLOT: 6/7 - it may not be the 'best' plot, but it is something that is genuinely very much real and exists in our life. however, the theme of rape is brought up a few - no, numerous times - throughout the manga, which may put off some readers.
DIALOGUE: 7 - i think most of the dialogue was very well written; only in some filler scenes i had to pause and reread certain lines because they didn't really add much to the main point or the story, basically acting like background noise.
CHARACTERS: 4.5 - as much as i really enjoyed this manga, some of the characters felt quite messy; along with the art, i felt like some characters never really got to be explored.
OVERALL FORMAT: 5 - when i first read the manga, i didn't understand why there would be a black rectangle at the top with a character's name in it, but i soon came to understand that the specific section was in the perspective of the character mentioned. but after the first few volumes, that doesn't occur as much (compared to the beginning) throughout the rest of the manga.
Overall, i really recommend this manga. Give it a shot! It really is 'real' (the whole hierarchy between men and women) and 'raw'; which may allow some readers to resonate with some certain scenes more than others. I'm personally not a massive fan of all the rape and the constant cheating, but it is what it is.
-- slight spoilers, but further commentary --
I personally wanted more development between Misuzu and Niizuma as it touches upon a 'forbidden, teacher-student relationship', but of course beggars can't be choosers.
i feel like Misato's brother (the creep who peeps at Misato whenever she has her own 'alone time') never got to be explored enough; we only got a few back shots of the guy, but never provided a reason on why he spies on Misato all the time. Misuzu never really got to use the alarm that Niizuma got for her, huh? tbh i really liked Niizuma lol, i wish he got to actually properly get together with Misuzu. the whole hotel beating up scene between Misuzu and Hayafuji made my stomach churn a little though, mainly because of how she turned out in the end. well, it was a really interesting read anyways. 𖠳 ᐝ ꕀ
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
