- Titles: 4-nin wa Sorezore Uso wo Tsuku, The Little Lies We All Tell
- Genre: Comedy, nonsense, science fiction, superpowers, slice of life
- Episodes: 11
- Studio: Studio Flad
I bet a lot of you slept on The Little Lies We All Tell and now that title has you curious. What could an anime called The Little Lies We All Tell be about? What mysteries and intrigues are held prisoner in those episodes? Should I tell you? That seems too easy. Ok, how about I just give you a taste. Have you ever watched School Live? Wait no, that’s misleading sort of. Let’s try this again. We all have little things we keep to ourselves. Little secrets that we don’t want to share with the world. Rikka, Chiyo, Sekine, and Tsubasa are no different, it’s just that their little secrets might be just a touch more… surprising than most. And just like any other high school girls, they firmly think their lives will be over if anyone finds out. Ok, they might not be entirely wrong. So they protect those secrets fiercely. The Little Lies We All Tell is the story of four friends who love each other dearly and lie to each other constantly. Also one’s an alien…
If I haven’t made it clear enough, I decided to watch The Little Lies We All Tell entirely based on the title. I didn’t even look at the key visuals or genres. It was love at first read with that title. What’s more, I sort of forgot about it once I put it on my to-watch list weeks before the beginning of the season. True story, I was at a friend’s house and I got a little AniList alert on my phone that the first episode had just aired. And I did one of those little snicker/grunt sounds because I had forgotten I had put an anime with such an intriguing title on my list. Of course, this made my friend curious so I said, oh an anime called The Little Lies We All Tell just aired. And we both decided we needed to watch it right then and there. How can you resist that title?
Production
I’m not gonna lie, the visuals don’t get much better than “fine” here. The best thing I can say is that the simple designs and pared-down backgrounds really fit the tone of the story. The visuals never once bothered me or felt out of place but let’s not kid ourselves, they aren’t that impressive.
One really good thing about having more modest designs and animation is that it usually pays off in consistency. It certainly did in The Little Lies We All Tell.
On the other hand, as a comedy anime, I find that voice acting is even more important than usual. Actually, I take that back. Voice acting is always very important. Forget waht just said, what I meant is: The voice acting here was great. Even the narrator who chimes in from time to time had good chemistry with the cast and sounded playful and happy to be there.
Also, I don’t know why, but I really liked the space octopus. It’s a super simple little childish doodle of an octopus but I found it very cute!
Story & Characters
There’s no getting around it, at its core The Little Lies We All Tell is a slapstick absurdist comedy. That usually means that a lot of anime fans will have trouble getting into it and I will love it. I could sit here and explain the premise to you but instead, I think that this scene from the first episode does a fantastic job. Like I said, this is from episode 1 so I wouldn’t consider it a spoiler for the series but honestly, if you have already decided to watch it, you might as well skip it now and just watch it when it comes up in the episode:
So there you have it. That’s the premise. From there, we just get a bunch of vignettes, usually two to an episode, with all the wacky shenanigans you can imagine. This particular premise is really rife with possibilities and The Little Lies We All Tell does a decent job of figuring out the silliest way to apply it.
As a story, there’s not that much to tell. It’s a series of jokes or funny anecdotes more than anything else. There is continuity as each “girl’s”‘ secret constantly comes back to haunt them but other than that, the episodes are pretty stand-alone. Once you know the basic premise, essentially once you’ve seen the little clip above, you can pretty much pick up any episode in any order and enjoy it.
I’ve already spoiled my personal feelings about it. I thought The Little Lies We All Tell was just tons of fun. I always enjoyed watching an episode and it’s the type of show I can just watch mindlessly for hours. If I had waited to binge it instead, I probably would have finished it in a day or two at most.
However, I also know from experience that my tastes in this regard don’t match up with the average fan. The humour in the show is mostly absurdist and rather wholesome. It does dip into some black humour here and there as 3 of the 4 “girls” have dark and violent pasts, but it stays extremely pg. You can watch this one with a small child, no problemo.
And I think that’s all I can really tell you without starting to just spell out the jokes. And when you do that, you just kill them. You guys know if you like innocent nonsense humour. If so, this is a fun little show. It won’t change your life but it could make you giggle. And that’s important too!
I will say, what I got was certainly the last thing I was expecting from an anime titled The Little Lies We All Tell.
You might like this anime if:
I think you’ve probably already figured it out. If you like goofball jokes, you’ll like this one.
My favourite character:
Oh, this one is tough. Actually, all the “girls” are great but they really shine when they interact.
Suggested drink:
- Every time we get a ninja flashback – duh duh DUM
- Every time Rikka’s tentacles come out – uhm… take a sip
- Every time Sekine feels slighted in her feminine wiles – take a sip
- Every time Sekine can’t read Tsubasa – stroke your chin knowingly
- Every time Tsubasa’s sister shows up – take a sip
- Every time there is a shining star – make a wish
- Every time Rikka fails to grasp the situation – take a sip
- Every time there’s a shuriken – take a sip
- Every time Tsubasa takes a mental/emotional hit – there there
- Every time the narrator chimes in – take a sip
- Every time Sekine takes her glasses off – hide
- Every time there are references to another anime – take a sip
- Every time the space octopus shows up – YAY!
I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.
I liked to say this was Asobi Asobase Jr. I loved this show. You mentioned gag humor or absurdist humor. I love that stuff in anime. I think it’s becoming a lost art. So many ‘70s-‘80s anime comedies were like this. It kinda culminated with Gintama in the 2000s and then seemed to disappear afterward. So I love seeing things like this.
Really? Do you have any 70s shows to recommend? I’m not as familiar with that decade?
Unfortunately I don’t. I know the ones I’ve seen are very nice visually in a nostalgic way, but I too am making an effort to get into it. You probably are aware of the Urusei Yatsura remake going on right now; that’s was from 1981 originally, and that original is so much fun visually and every other way. It’s hard getting into those shows because I have to keep up with current seasons (and I’m still catching up on One Piece!). I’ll get into it one of these days much more.
Ah, yeah. Going into this show, I knew nothing but the title and that it was a comedy. Then, when I clicked play on the show, the first thing I saw was an UFO stuck to the school, and nobody caring. I wasn’t ready for this.
Then, at the beginning of the show, I thought that they were basically outsiders banding together and would slowly learn to get along. Ah, no. I mean, yeah, they *were* outsiders banding together, but they didn’t need to learn to get along. They were fine from the get go, and actually really already cared about each other.
From then on, nothing really surprised me anymore, but those were two pleasant surprises. And I continued to enjoy the show from beginning to end. Pretty much the onely thing I didn’t enjoy were the fat jokes, but they’re mercifully rare.
One of last season’s most pleasant surprises.
Unfortunately I think it went mostly ignored but it was a good time