4-nin wa Sorezore Uso wo Tsuku

4 uso is easily the hidden gem of the season. Airing on a packed day like Saturday led it to get overshadowed by other titles, but this was one of the funniest and most enjoyable rides of the year. Japanese comedy isn’t for everyone. A lot of times it simply doesn’t hit, but on rare occasions, like 4-uso it’s genuinely hilarious. The whole story revolves around 4 girls at a school who have massive secrets they’re hiding from each other. While on the surface they’re having normal middle school girl interactions, on the inside they’re having these hilarious monologues and working out how to keep their true identities from one another. The show is really easy to digest, knows what it is, is confident in that identity and does a great job of presenting Japanese comedy in a digestible manner for western audiences. I found the show to be a nice de-stresser after a long week and absolutely loved the girls’ chemistry and antics. Seeing them gradually building up the confidence to be honest with each other was really nice. The plot is pretty non-existent in the show, it’s a flavour of the week type of anime with some generally consistent themes, but no deep story or anything. But, the gags and skits are more than enough to keep you satisfied. I think this is a perfect show for people who typically don’t think anime is funny, but still want to give comedy a try. It’s got a bit of magic to it that’s really hard to describe and needs to be watched to be believed. Do yourself a favour and check it out. 4-uso gets 8 UFOs out of 10.

Secrets. Lies. Everyone has a tale that they don't want to tell to hide it away from the world for 1001 reasons. Be it being a human or an extraterrestrial, a boy or a girl being in the suit of the opposite sex, straight or transgender, this is what makes the world revolve in its oddball-shaped mess of a planet that we call Earth. But in this season, there's a show like it: mangaka Madoka Kashihara's 4-nin wa Sorezore Uso wo Tsuku a.k.a The Little Lies We All Tell, that showcases the bizarreness between hiding what's true to the heart as opposed to exposing whatever is appropriate in reality. And with just 2 volumes in circulation, one would expect that shows like this needed more time to get noticed, but apparently by the grace of the anime gods, this feels like a breakneck speed of fast adaptations being cash cows, but I guess that there's a silver lining of interest, especially in a very diverse and stacked season such as this. The series title, also literally translated to "Four People Lie in Their Own Way", it's exactly what the show is going for with its absurd comedic gimmick of ordinary people, but unordinary in their own way of fashion: the loli alien Rikka, the glorified former ninja Chiyo, the scrupulous psychic Sekine, and the tomboy-ish real male Tsubasa/Tsuyoshi. All 3 girls and a boy roam together in their school being the best of friends, but also at the same time, maintaining their posture that they are just as ordinary as they come, forebearing their "true" origins, almost akin to playing Among Us where all of them are sus in their own way. Be it preposterous or full of shenanigans, these 4 characters try to subvert one another into revealing who they really are, while navigating and trying to negate any suspicions along the way to protect themselves and the friendship between the 4 of them. And as weird as it sounds like, it can be funny, or constantly feeling like a hit-or-miss affair. Each of the 4 characters complement one another by the way of their own personalities, and as eccentric as it is, it's hilarious to see them be hard-wired towards the perception of others, sometimes overthinking to the point of situations like "the total destruction of the world". No doubt that this is a psychological battle of wits and valour to try and see who can get the most suspicions right, but knowing when to take a step back relinquishes the know-it-all minds of the people, preserving the friendship as such. Alas, as much as I would want to like the antics here being in the vein of the superpower-like school setting that's pretty much filled with gag humor, the comedy felt dry sometimes and didn't quite punch the way that it should. Nevertheless, I can understand that "comedy is subjective", and this to you, may be good or bad depending on your watching experience with the show. Studio Flad is a rather miniscule studio with 4-nin being the 3rd show in its line-up (Winter 2018's Dame x Prince Anime Caravan with Studio Pierrot's production assistance, and last Fall's Shin no Nakama with WolfsBane for production cooperation), so it's obvious enough that they had to have some form of external help, and it came in the fashion with Studio Pierrot and WAO WORLD for production assistance. And for the most part, though bombastic as it comes, it is serviceable and looks decent to the eye for the unkempt weirdness that is its style for flattery. Same goes with the OST, it's really fine though, but nothing to write home about. There's a reason why the anime community have developed this thinking of "turning off your brain for enjoyment", especially for shows derived from source materials that are unlike the usual fashion of expectation. And while 4-nin is a show where either you find the comedy good or bland, it's really up to personal preference, and this is something that you must gauge whether if this is the type of comedy that you're looking for. While I can say that it's just a fine show, some might find it better (underrated even), and some will find it boring. What can I say? If Pop Team Epic was already weird enough to begin with, why not works like these? It truly boggles the mind.

The characters are definitely what made this show somewhat enjoyable, cute girls doing cute things (( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)) but funny enough to be enjoyable. I like the fact that 'I' as a viewer can see them lying and make assumptions on how they'll try to hide the facts about them either by playing it or trying to be weird to the extent that the others just turn the other way. It somewhat reminded me of Daily Lives of High School Boys, it pretty much the same vibe, funny and cute but most certainly enjoyable moments. The goofiness also is top notch like how Rika erases their memories or turn all of them to the opposite sex. Especially the boy was the most absurd one between them, because how do you hide the fact for so long and nobody notices? Was hilarious to me with how Tsuyoshi scare shitless whenever he gets close to being found out. Sekine who can read only girls minds and trying so hard to know what's on his mind every time and gets fat if she abuses her powers. Chiyo and her brother's WWE Ninja championship as her brother always attacks her because she left the hidden village. If you live like a ninja you die like one, you don't live a normal life f* that. Although this isn't for everyone and also the fact that this season was packed as heck but I still love me some SOL comedy that give you a unique experience like this show has given me. It is worth checking out. Solid fun 7/10

underrated. > STORY/ENJOYMENT: 9.5 i wanna start with the ending cause that's one of the only reasons this isn't a 10: the ending feels relatively rushed and not very satisfying, but it still feels natural with how the show's pacing and story development usually go. it's also quite wholesome, so i still like it a bit. pro-tip on most comedy, sol, cgdct, and especially gag humor: don't focus on the story. it shouldn't matter if the story is pointless, unreasonable, nonsensical, or almost nonexistent—but here, it does. because that's what makes it so good. a lot of humor is based on non sequitur and just sheer absurdity due to the fact that all the main characters are really weird and try their best to be "normal." they also just do the most unnecessarily dumb things, unwarranted, on a whim, and you just know that's when it's about to be a real knee-slapper. beware, there are A LOT of ass-pulls that feel like lazy writing, but it's a comedy. "lazy" writing becomes satire or absurdist, and it gets a pass. and, honestly, wtf did you expect from an anime with a trap, ninja, psychic, and a seemingly omnipotent fr*ckin alien? that alien can literally control the story because she has reality and time alteration for some fucking reason, but she chooses to live with her friends as a middle school girl BECAUSE IT'S FUN. the jokes aren't all unpredictable, and you might see some from a mile away, but damn is the execution spectacular. and it hab jojo reference so its gud ^^ also amogus (possibly unintentional, but still) tldr, you'd get the most out of this experience if you just turn off your brain for 20-ish mins and laugh like a monkey. > ART: 8 pretty standard. nothing crazy. character design is good, but nothing that unique or memorable. it's quite simple, but specific effects and situational artstyle choices fit the tone very well, so i think it's great. > SOUND: 7 voice acting suits the characters perfectly, imo. op and ed are fairly decent, but not so good that i would put them in a playlist. the opening impressively captures the vibe of the anime tho, so i bumped up the score a bit for that. the soundtrack is kinda forgettable and could get a bit repetitive, but it sounds very natural in basically every scene, so in the end, i'd still rate sound quite high. > CHARACTERS: 11 the main characters are all just so dumb and so silly and so goofy and so weird and they just use their abilities for the stupidest things. i love them. these four characters literally carry the show because it's just them, like, 85% of the time. still, not a single scene is boring because of how unique they are individually, which also leads to how unique interactions and dynamics can be. the characters are not necessarily well-written or fleshed out, but again, this is a fucking comedy. the character writing, in a narrative sense, is nothing amazing, but i think it's interesting how each main character is constructed to bring out as much as possible. from the most mundane character traits to the strangest, all the little unique peculiarities add on to the story and humor in extremely entertaining ways. the road we're riding on doesn't seem to have a clear destination, but who the heck cares? the characters here are the fuel, the engine, the driver, and even the goddamn wheels. all they need is a little push on the pedal to drive forward to a fun time. > OVERALL: 9 is this a biased rating? yes. but you can never be completely objective when it comes to entertainment. does this anime really deserve something that high? no. of course not. does it deserve the rating it has rn? also no. just watch it. i loved it from the first few minutes, and kept on loving it since then. it won't take much of your time to check it out and decide whether you wanna watch more or not. i seriously think 4-uso should have a higher rating. i don't get why it doesn't even scrape the bottom of 7.5 KATSU!

4-nin Uso does bring to mind comparisons to similar shows such as Asobi Asobase and JoshiMuda, in that it's a show with a primarily female cast (well, almost) that deals in rough, physical comedy instead of the usual girls being cute-and-nice-to-each-other affair. Although this one is a lot less grounded in reality. The premise is simple, with the show often having each character fulfill their roles through out each episode's runtime. They can get pretty repetitive, especially with the Narrator over-explaining the jokes at times. I didn't mind this much, since I do like the Narrator butting in at times, but they do age the joke and add to the repetition. A petty complaint I have is that the series doesn't go far enough in exploiting its characters for their full potential, like, the Rikka=Alien Colonel joke is pretty funny but it's never really taken anywhere beyond the same set of jokes. Same with everyone else really. I think the most was the show actually turning Tsuyoshi into a girl or replacing him with the real Tsubasa, but otherwise it's all fairly one note. While not bland or boring, 4-nin Uso presents itself as an entertaining show but one that's never laugh-out-loud or especially memorable. It's a fine watch, but nothing special. 6/10

Remember Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi? That small show that no one remembers about? And how the premise of the show was how it had a time traveler, a psychic, and an alien? Of course, the biggest surprise was that Haruhi herself. That being said, this show contains extremely similar themes. A ninja, a psychic, an alien, and instead of Haruhi, we have a crossdressing guy. However, the shows can't be said to be really similar to each other. In fact, despite having virtually the same plot, the style, the comedy, and the pacing of the shows are completely different. That's what I love about comedy. There's just a limitless amount of scenarios that you can do even with similar characters and setting. So I also find it hard to review this show. After all, in a show about slice of life and comedy, it's all about the comedic timing, the execution, the delivery, the pacing, and most importantly, if you like it is if you find it humorous. And what can I say, it was interesting. Not all episodes were a home run, and there certainly where dry parts to the show that weren't particularly great. It has a lot of room for improvement, but it certainly has its charm. Sure, the animation isn't anything spectacular, but the facial expression and body movements during moments when it really mattered is nice. There's definitely a lack of backgrounds, too many still frames, or just a low budget in general, but the show made it work when it needed to. The characters are good. While they might have been ruined if the episode scenarios or skits were boring and predictable, they pair well with them instead. Even with the best characters, if the comedic delivery and scenarios are bad, then nothing can save it. Fortunately, while these scenes and episodes aren't anything out of the box, they certainly weren't predictable and were executed cleanly for the most part. Chiyo's a scatterbrained ninja that lightens up the mood, while liking all things cute. She quit her life as a ninja, and now fights for her life in order to keep her current high school lifestyle and her friends. Tsubasa's a cool, crossdressing guy. He always is trying to keep up his image as a female student, but also considers his group of friends to be precious. He's also a wildcard since he's the only person Sekine can't mindread. Sekine's a psychic that functions mainly as a Tsukomi for she's the only person that knows everything, and tries to keep the group together. It's fun watching her act flustered, cursed with the knowledge that only she knows. Rikka's the boke that introduces chaos into the anime with her alien nature. Whether it's her lack of understanding of culture or terms, or her supernatural powers to create fun episodes, Rikka definitely brings life to the story. Yet, while the characters and scenes are fine, there's the problem with the lack of side characters. There's a lot of to explore here. Rikka's fellow alien compatriots, Chiyo's little brother, Tsubasa's sister, and Sekine's organization. While some of these characters appear to spice up some of the episodes, a vast majority of the episodes focus on our four main characters. That's fine and all, but introducing some more mainstay side characters enable for more variety and ability to create even more vibrant chapters and scenes. The first few episodes of the show were definitely the best quality, with good gags, but as the episodes drag on, the quality worsens, and you definitely also see that the author runs out of super good gags as there's a lack of character diversity. It's like the anime took the best chapters in the manga and put them all in the first few episodes. There's no side character students at the school, and you never even see the characters go to class, really. While the later episodes aren't as good as the first few, I truly appreciate the anime keeping up with the theme. There's no super big melodramatic finale or anything. There's definitely more heart to heart scenes, and that's actually good. It helps characterize our main cast, and makes us feel more connected to them when there's comedic jabs or scenes. I'm glad that there wasn't some dramatic reveal where the anime creates a serious finale that nobody really wanted. Things are just status quo, which is four high school students that might be hiding some secrets, but are also great friends. I appreciate that.

An alien, a ninja, a telepath and a cross-dressing boy walk into a bar… I mean, go to an all girls school and have zany adventures while trying to hide their secrets from each other. This was a very silly and funny comedy show, but also went completely under the radar for some reason. As befit a gag comedy show, it was very episodic and plotless, and yet it managed to regularly make me laugh out loud. The characters all had very strong and well-defined personalities that played off well from each other : - Rikka the alien played the role of the cheerful and clueless little girl to hide the fact that she had no idea what life on Earth was actually about. Her impulsive nature and superpowers created a lot of trouble for the other three. - Chiyo the Ninja had a rather sweet nature and wanted to be a normal girl, but kept having to fight her brother sent by her ninja clan after her for going AWOL, and obviously did not have a single brain cell in her thick skull. - In face of those two idiots, you had two "straight men" : Sekine the psychic was the only ones who actually knew the other secrets because she could read their minds and was here to comment and react to their antics. She was the smartest one, with a down to earth, pragmatic (and rather selfish) personality always trying to protect the rest of the world from Rikka and Chiyo. - The last member of the quartet was Tsuyoshi/Tsubasa, an easygoing but rather dumb boy forced to crossdress by her evil twin sister to replace her in school, who was regularly the butt of the jokes and always seemed to wonder what he was doing here. Thanks to those characters, that show ends up often being very funny. The setup and characters were weird enough that it could regularly throw the characters into new crazy situations without getting repetitive.

So, I read Manga instead of anime. From what I experienced, after chapter 22, everything became so confusing that I couldn't understand anything, and that's why I dropped it. Was it bad? No, the characters were good, I enjoyed it very much, very chaotic. I enjoyed the comedy, but ye, ah after 22 chapters I was getting confused, and I dropped it. Honestly, it was refreshing. I like the action/romance genre, but this was something new. The only comedy anime I liked is Grand Blue, but this anime made a place in my comedy anime list. It is also because I have not seen much comedy anime. Do I recommend it? Yes, character and comedy are God, maybe I am the only one who understands after chapter 22, but it doesn't mean everyone will be confused. Overall good anime, recommended!

Overall, it is an anime with a well-utilized plot, in which the author demonstrated versatility and applied it very efficiently. They showed skill in interpreting different types of contexts and situations. For example, in a typical anime, a character pretending to be of the opposite sex could be treated superficially, without us caring much about that plot. However, the author gave proper attention to this character, highlighting their discomfort in various situations. This also applies to the other characters, making them unique and distinct from each other. Humor is subjective, so I won't dwell on it too much. In my opinion, it is well executed, working with sarcastic situations resulting from each character hiding their secrets, leading to comedic misunderstandings. This, to me, was very enjoyable. The ending was predictable and could have been more emotionally intense, with each character sharing their secrets and experiencing intense moments. In conclusion, I believe the characters were excellently written, each one being quite different from the others, and the plot was well constructed.

Four Lies, One Cock. The absurd lengths people will go to hide the biggest secrets about themselves from their friends out of insecurity or a fear of rejection can’t be seen as a good thing to do in real life, but in a Japanese cartoon about a former ninja on the run, an alien, a psychic and an unwilling crossdresser it can lead to some hilariously stupid scenarios. That is the premise and the story of The Little Lies We Tell in a nutshell. Four friends who spend every day together also have to secretly navigate around bizarre scenarios brought on by the fact that Chiyo is a former ninja, Rikka is an alien, Sekine is a psychic and Tsubasa is an unwilling crossdresser, whilst maintaining the facade of being completely normal people. Of course, being a psychic Sekine already knows Chiyo and Rikka’s secret, but not Tsubasa’s because her psychic powers are so rubbish that she can’t read the minds of men, and Sekine is kinda dumb so she doesn’t put two and two together. Tsubasa on the other hand is only attending an all-girls school because his identical twin sister blackmailed him into keeping her attendant score up whilst she slacked off and the result of hanging around with girls coupled with his androgynous appearance leaves him with a case of gender dysphoria. Between the four of them and their crazy circumstances, they’re all well-balanced as a comedy quartet. We are mainly put into the point of view of Sekine as she is the telepath and the only one who knows the other's secrets (except Tsubasa’s). However, unlike Anya from Spy x Family, she’s not a 6-year-old child who obliviously and disarmingly uses her power to break through the defences of her Lloyd and Yor. She’s usually performing damage control on behalf of Chiyo and especially Rikka after she decides to use an alien device to change everyone's gender or to make Chiyo’s IQ anything higher than 5. Although the jokes are on point where this anime is let down in its art and animation. The school that the girls and one guy inhabit feels surprisingly empty as there's not another student in sight unless it’s for a gag. This is also the same for many of the other locations too. The art overall is kind of bland looking thanks to the bad line art. I feel like some of the jokes may have landed better with better animation to back them up, but luckily the hilariously over-the-top ost and voice acting make up for it. As far as absurdist comedies go The Little Lies We Tell is very enjoyable. If it didn’t air in the same season as Spy x Family I feel like it would’ve got a bit more attention, but if you’ve finished Spy x Family and are looking for something similar then I think you should give The Little Lies We Tell a shot. 7/10 Good.

Yare Yare. Do you love Saiki K? The similarities between the two shows is profound but with a very different cast of characters. This show will be hit or miss for you, but if this is your kind of humor every episode will have you laughing out loud. The writers always "lean in to the bit" pushing it too far which is a must for this type of humor. I wish both this and Saiki K would just keep running as the story really never ends. They just reboot when it gets too far along, and these shows always deliver a smile when needed. Easy, funny, a perfect no commitment laugh. Heck even the deadpan narrator kills it. The opening song is fun too. You'll know after one watch if this is for you. If it is, there aren't enough episodes. If not your thing you can confidently pass as it isn't changing. Hope you enjoy as much as I did. Haven't laughed at an anime that much in some time and that enjoyment earns my top score.