Sensei's Pious Lie

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 agood 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?

This is what happens when teenage girls from tumblr meet r/im14andthisisdeep and feminism. This is an incredibly self deprecating, and nonsensical scribble that reads like a manga fanfiction of 50 Shades of Grey. It's a poor imitation of the aesthetic that manga like Pun Pun or Sangatsu no Lion succeed in creating, but instead of focusing on depression like those manga, it focuses on perceived women's rights issues. This manga attempts to convey a message through what some call "melancholy bait", the general atmosphere a manga has when it tries to appeal to a mature audience and convey a message on a complicated or tabootopic by means of explicit realism and representation of the negative events that accompany those topics. Simply put, the manga tries to appear mature and convey some grand message of a prevalent issue in society or with humans in general, an attempt (key word being attempt) which would be admirable if it didn't demonize men and victimize women. The actions of the characters in this manga are unnatural, no two ways about it, and serve to paint a narrative of the author's ideology. The women are children, they have no capacity for common sense, independence or emotional maturity. The manga tries to paint women as powerless victims of men and that they have absolutely no avenues to defend themselves or seek support from. The men are all villains or villains in the making; men are either a rapist, a misogynist, a womanizer, or a fool. The men are also emotionally and intellectually immature and fit all the stereotypes misandrists dream of. Regardless of gender, the characters do not behave like humans, they don't seem to think about what to do in any given case and instead act entirely on the impulse of "what would make the best story", actions that result in over-dramatic and implausible events that are overturned or contradicted shortly after. The actions of the characters and the situations that arise in general within the manga are extremely contrived and only seem to exist to offer an avenue to convey that ideology & message, both of which are conveyed quite poorly as the author seems to have an extremely poor understanding of them, an issue which is further compounded by her poor creative writing skills and poor understanding and unrealistic depiction of basic human psychology and behavior. The story and characters constantly bend and twist to unnaturally fit the protagonist, whether that be to accommodate completely nonsensical actions, morally or psychologically justify her absurdities, or her generic platitudes & speeches instead of taking the time and putting in the effort to convey it naturally. Frankly, the entirety of the story of this manga is best described as ideological propaganda, conversion material, or a self-insert, virtue signalling, narcissistic, ideological ego stroke. Lastly, the manga puts in no effort, it takes the most predictable roads and platitudes to justify or explain the behavior of the characters in this manga. It doesn't take the time, or put in the effort to be unique or well done. It just slaps in a couple of pages or maybe a chapter or two as an explanation for whatever soapbox the characters happen to be on at the time. It's almost masochistic and certainly narcissistic. I feel it could be described as someone trying to make a grand comment on sexism in society and biology, someone who doesn't know what either of those words mean or any of the arguments against her position. It'd be incredibly difficult to aptly describe the ridiculousness of the story and characters of this manga further than that. I hope that's enough to scare away anyone as stupid as me, anyone who would decide to read this because of the pretty cover art. Don't be fooled like me. Edit: According to a June 2022 interview, the author (Who married and divorced the author of PunPun) has acknowledged that she is a feminist, who was trying to convey her feminist ideas in her manga, so it seems I was quite correct about her being an ideologically driven activist with an incredibly low resolution understanding of the ideas she was trying to convey in her (not-so) borderline man-hating misandrist propaganda manga. Not a surprising revelation.

The other reviewers are forgetting that this story goes on in Japan, a place where people are taught to never question the status quo and women are taught to just nod off stuff and smile. It starts with a (very traumatized) Hara saying absurdly dichotomic statements, just in regards to how scarred and hopeless she is at the begining of the manga. The story goes on to show how she's been affected by being raped and controlled by Hayafuji, how she perceives herself as the culprit and not the actual victim, all while showing the progression of the ones around her. This is a manga abouttrauma, about rape, about the feeling of total desperation and feeling like there's nothing that can save you. It's about how far we can go when we're desperate (like Misato or Reina), but also how we freeze in those same situations. In the end, she's finally able to start building her happiness with Niizuma, start a new job and regain her own self.

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.