Forum - View topic(The) Little Lies We Tell (TV).
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11304 Location: Frisco, TX |
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(The) Little Lies We Tell (TV) Genres: comedy Themes: school Plot Summary: These girls may seem like ordinary second-year junior high school students at first glance, but they are a space pilot, a ninja without a clan, a girl with supernatural powers, and a boy in girls' clothes. October 15, 2022 (Saturdays; Crunchyroll) |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23812 |
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Episode 2
This is kind of a fun little show. The premise seems like the start of a bad joke, "An alien, a ninja, a psychic and a cross-dresser walk into a bar..." You can never go wrong with a character who is a military officer but looks like a cute little girl (Hi, Tanya!). I don't expect this one to vault into my personal comedy favourites, but I think I'll get a decent number of chuckles out of it. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15485 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 11 (finale)
I do think that this was a fun show, and I could easily line it up with some past shows that I really enjoyed. But the one aspect I do feel the strongest about is a part that was pretty controversial for me, which would be the queer/gender stuff. A lot of Tsubasa (Tsuyoshi) stuff greatly caught my attention, him being AMAB and presenting as a girl, with also his own look with piercings, and even included a gender swap part. But in practice it wasn't usually so cool, seeing as I guess that him being a male was meant to be up there with everyone else's crazy stuff, in effect it was kind of making fun of the idea that someone born with a penis could be like a girl. And I wouldn't say that it was alone here in queerness, seeing as the part where a fortune teller saw his future partner, acted in mistaking him as a lesbian was another thing to be often seen as shameful or something. That last bit really seemed weird, when you have parts like Chiyo fawning all over Rikka, in ways that loo easy to mistake as more than just friendliness. I want to say its heart it maybe had intended this big inclusive thing, about them being friends no matter what. But at the same time it kind of gave off this feeling of narrow idea of what is right and normal in fitting in, and jokes that do come across as a little mean, such as the occasional fat joke with Sekine. Not to say that the mean jokes didn't always work, a lot of the ones around Rikka being inhuman in things with biology, and the often clash of her cuteness with parts that decidedly were not, were actually good. I can think of the first episode, which set up Rikka's ribbons be orifices, and tying them back was cutting off circulation. At its best mean jokes, it reminded me of Asobi Asobase, an all time favourite comedy around a group of high school girls. Also interesting related black mark on that series was the joke of an implied AMAB character. There can be a place for mean jokes, if done well, but hopefully not in a way that could actually really hurt people who already have it tough. Again with everything I said, I still think that Tsubasa (Tsuyoshi) could work when not jabs of uncomfortableness. Him actually growing into the idea when he was gender swapped, not the worst as I believe most wouldn't do so unless they were already kind of genderqueer (from personal experience). But again it was mostly a fun show. As for my rating, I kind of want to go as Very good, but I have a bit too many black marks for things I don't think were the coolest, so I will go with Good (7/10). Go back several years back it might not have bothered me, whether from my own unawareness or what I would have argued for actually good in comparison to other things, but I would like to think that better can be done now days. |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4613 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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I ditched it three episodes in. I realized that I simply wasn't laughing at all, not even a chuckle.
Humor is subjective though, so if you enjoyed it, I'm glad you could. |
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Beltane70
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I think that you might have forgotten (or I'm just misunderstanding your post) that Tsubasa/Tsuyoshi was pretty much forced into crossdressing (as opposed to him being transgender) by his sister so that she could take his place at the all-male school that he went to because an idol that she likes attends his school. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15485 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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If I did think that he was transgender, I would have used "she", or "they" if I was unsure or thought he didn't associate with just a binary gender. I did not miss in the least that Tsubasa/Tsuyoshi states that he does and wants to see himself as a guy. What I wanted to acknowledge in addition to that is that there is still an inherent queerness to the character, and it is probably still worth noting some of these parts. As someone who took a long time to realise that I don't just associate with a binary gender, especially when I was a teenager, I am going to notice particular things, like there are kind of times where he looks pretty comfortable to switch. And especially noting the episode where his sex is swapped, where at first he does look to have a lot of dysphoria with his new situation, but before he is switched back he actually looks like he starts to be okay with it. A more informed view of gender would see the just changing body thing as not really enough to make a cis boy, probably not okay as he started to be. I accept that I am probably looking way too hard, and who made the show are unlikely to be aware of or agree with this sort of gender thing. But I also think that someone who might connect with parts of the characterisation of Tsubasa/Tsuyoshi, might themselves be not just binary. For that matter you could possibly even bring in Chiyo and her brother, where I think they were saying when younger she was the more masculine and him more feminine. And yet despite all of this gender stuff in the show, I am going to criticise the elements I don't think were the best, such be the sex essentialist stuff. Even when Tsuyoshi enjoying some feminine activities was cool. I would like to see an evolving of entertainment out of Japan, where people enjoying things not typical of their gender/sex, could be done without derision. Tsubasa/Tsuyoshi being mistaken as boy hungry was pretty funny though. |
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Beltane70
Posts: 3894 |
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Ah, now I understand better what you were trying to convey. Thank you for taking the time to clear up my confusion!
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