Liar Game

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Historically, capitalism has functioned by convincing everyone that the poor are responsible for their poverty, and that the impoverished must scratch and claw their way to survival by using the people sharing their situation as stepping stones—it’s a dog eat dog world, so they must take from people suffering just as much as they are just so that they can survive. The rich turn the poor into each other’s enemies when in reality, the only reason they’re poor is because the rich are hoarding all of the wealth. Their enemies are not each other, but those at the very top of society. If the people ... were ever to realize this and unite against the upper class, they’d stand a serious chance of taking what is rightfully theirs—not money, but the right to live. And that is why the people sitting on useless piles of money like dragons have to use psychological warfare and manipulation to keep the lower class suspicious of and hostile to each other—to make sure this never happens.

And this is exactly what happens in Liar Game, too!

Liar Game is a manga about the aptly named Liar Game, a shady game about manipulation and deceit that lures people in with the promise of life-changing amounts of money, only to leave them high and dry. The Liar Game is about making money by tricking it out of the hands of other players, leaving them in insurmountable debt to the Liar Game Tournament Office—the corporation running the game. The LGT Office makes a profit by baiting people—usually those down on their luck financially—into thinking they can make enough money to escape the bottom of the food chain, only to make it so that very few of the players ever actually win, leaving dozens if not hundreds of already impoverished people stuck paying money to the LGT Office until the day that they die.

Liar Game follows a protagonist named Nao Kanazaki, who entered the Liar Game completely by accident. Her name means ‘foolishly honest,’ and it’s also a perfect descriptor of her. Her whole life, she has done nothing but trust people unconditionally. She lives every day on the principles of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. So, she’s exactly the type who would fail horribly at the Liar Game. And she does! Or, she would, if she didn’t have help. She teams up with an ex-con known as Akiyama to help get her out of the Liar Game in one piece. And that’s initially how it goes, but soon, they realize the Liar Game goes much deeper than they initially realized. After that it becomes not about survival, but doing the right thing.

Nao, with her big heart and strong moral compass, sets out to save every other player in the game—shouldering the massive amounts of debt herself so the other players can win enough money to pay theirs off, leaving the LGT Office broke, as they now only have one debtor who could never possibly pay such a large amount back. Akiyama, on the other hand, cares not about individual people and what they do with their lives. He simply holds a burning hatred for exploitative corporations such as this one, due to tragedy in his past, and he aims to take down the LGT Office once and for all by progressing through the game to find out the truth.

Nao is quick to realize the truth of how this game works. In the Liar Game, everyone can benefit simply by trusting each other, but with the way the LGT Office has planted the seeds of distrust in everyone—preying on humanity’s natural skeptical nature—there is no way any of them would believe her. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma, plain and simple.

So instead of going occam’s razor and just trusting each other so they all turn a profit, they do exactly what the LGT Office wants them to do: turning against each other so they can save themselves, not realizing that it’s not the other players who are their enemy, but the corporation who put them in massive amounts of debt to begin with (and, to a lesser extent, society at large for putting these people in situations where they would be desperate enough to play the Liar Game at all).

And so, every round of the Liar Game progresses as the LGT Office planned it to, leaving the players to manipulate and deceive each other to win as much money as possible for themselves and only themselves.

Or…that’s how it’s supposed to go, anyways. Because every time, Nao and Akiyama, the heart and the brains, manage to create an outcome that is exactly what the LGT Office doesn’t want—one where they win enough money to pay the debt of all of the losers and free them from the game. And, every time, Nao’s genuine compassion and the trust these two have in each other manages to win some of the other players over, making them realize Nao’s philosophy is entirely right—allying themselves with Nao and Akiyama, further making their goal possible.

These two saw a system that was nothing but exploitative and cruel to those already suffering under capitalism—one where the rich make the poor even poorer and use it as entertainment—and decided to take it down, and they are only able to do that because they never waver in how authentic and real their conviction is.

Nao is an absolutely perfect main character for this. At the beginning of the manga, it’s easy for audiences to quickly grow tired of watching her blindly trust someone only to be tricked again and again, and I will admit that even I was worried she would never learn. But, fret not, because over the course of the manga, she learns how to recognize people’s deception, play into their games, and fight back against their manipulation, all while making sure to never compromise her values in the process. She may not be as smart as Akiyama (or any of the various antagonists they face), but her growth is admirable and real. What she lacks in brains she makes up for in an unwavering kindness that embodies the manga’s themes. She isn’t the smart one, but she *is* the heart behind the operation. While Akiyama can get incredibly far manipulating people’s minds, Nao appeals to their consciences, giving them that final push that they needed to win. The heart is just as important as the brain. She may not have been able to do it without Akiyama, but he couldn’t have done it without her either.

And if only one of Akiyama’s teachings to Nao will stick with me, it is this: in order to truly trust someone, you first have to be able to doubt them.

We’ve all heard this argument before, just with different concepts. For example: you can’t truly know happiness if you don’t also know pain. You need to be able to compare something to its opposite and still choose it for it to really matter, because if you don’t have a choice, can it really count? It’s a pretty common talking point in philosophy. However, I’ve never seen it applied to the concept of trust before, and I felt it was an extremely valuable viewpoint to have.

And it’s great in-story too. Just as I have not forgotten Akiyama’s principles, so too has Nao, and she applies it later in the game to great effect. She is still the kind-hearted person she is, but now her trust in others is not blind. Being able to apply this principle to even Akiyama herself, she rises to the occasion to help not just herself but everyone else win the Liar Game.

But it’s not just the philosophy that makes Liar Game great. It’s also one of the smartest, well thought out stories I have ever read. Not just the psychological manipulation tactics but the way each round of the game is played are things I could never possibly conceive of. I cannot express in words just how impressed I was by how complicated and clever every single aspect of the plot was.

Besides Nao and Akiyama, the rest of the characters are great too. The characters we only see during one or two rounds of the game manage to endear themselves to us with the short time they have (and if not endear, well…at least they’ll be memorable!). The only complaint I have, which is what makes this a 9 instead of a 10, is that one of the characters really did not age well, but even then I still like the character very much.

The recurring antagonist characters in the game make for perfect rival characters. You’d think there would be no sense of anticipation, as we know our protagonists are going to win, but our protagonists do not best their rivals by winning the games. No, they win by losing but managing to screw over the competition in the process, and I was on the edge of my seat every time wondering how they were going to make it out of this one.

When I first started Liar Game, I thought “oh, so it’s like Death Note meets Battle Royale or Squid Game without the death,” (Squid Game turned out to be an apt comparison, as Liar Game was one of the inspirations behind Squid Game) and I expected it to be nothing but a fun romp about mind games and high stakes. However, much like the other genius works of fiction I was comparing it to, it was laden not just with clever mind games but deep-rooted social commentary that is absolutely genius in its messaging and delivery.

Unfortunately, no English release of Liar Game exists, but if you are willing to sail the seven seas (or you speak a language it was released in), it is one you absolutely should not pass up.

It's hard to approach writing about such a behemoth of a manga. Sporting 203 chapters, “Liar Game” is all about Trust. A story that puts the most honest person to ever exist on earth, in a game about becoming the best liar. She teams up with one of the smartest characters ever put to ink. The premise is quite engrossing, endearing even. Probably what hooked so many into such a series.

Story: 6/10
For starters, the story's great. It gives off a sense of true anguish and pain when the games are so high stakes and our protagonist can't do anything against the people lying to ... her. The conflicts are divided in long (at least it felt like it) arcs of each game. Every single one tries to employ a different conflict and meaning to be reached. Characters fight, deceive, scheme, play extreme mind games to reach the winning line. Information is constantly obscured or revealed with a selective nature to make scenes as interesting as possible. High risk story that can end in a hard loss and terrible consequences. The big problem comes with formula. Every game starts to get repetitive in how it's won. It's just a little game for the reader to figure out how will this be won out of nowhere.

Now why a 6 then? No spoilers, I just wanted to warn. The ending is one of the most terrible ones I've seen for such a long series. Rushed to hell, inconsistent and nonsensical. Many reasons could be responsible. Cancelation notice, being bored at the story, maybe that was the intended end. I can't vouch for it as much, though. The characters shift, out of nowhere. The story comes to an abrupt happy ending, oh but wait it isn't happy anymore, “The End”, “Bye bye”. Go in with caution, since a bad ending like this can very much sour the experience.

Characters: 7/10
I don't like the formulaic way they worked around the plot, even if some were pretty good. I enjoyed Nao, the protagonist, a lot. Her journey towards doubting people, to understand how humans actually work, while looking inward. The other ones range from “part of an arc” to “interesting”. They work, and don't intrude in the story. I did like how there were times of big changes with very meaningful scenes of realizing your place in the world. Personal stances against those who obligate people to be horrible to each other. It's powerful at times.

Art: 8/10
It specializes in extreme expression. Mouths dislocate to show how much anguish, happiness, or hatred people feel. Eyes sometimes look in different directions to show extreme confusion. Shadows are used for threatening effect. I love the realistic framing of each of the character beyond the extreme moments. It feels like a very realistic version of what death games or battle royales normally show. I enjoyed it very much, even if sometimes, it's just talking heads. There's fun with perspectives, and some panels have so much personality packed into them. I just wish I didn't see speech bubbles covering a whole page, like a novel with some drawings.

Enjoyment: 6/10
I forced myself to continue at times. By the halfway mark, I felt like dropping out. What kept me there was to see the protagonist grow more, and become smarter, or more interesting. I won't say much, but I did finish it, let that tell you as much as you want.

Overall: 6.8/10
“Liar Game” is much more like a very well drawn novel, with pages that take pretty long to understand and dissect. I did have a blast following some games and their logic, while others are atrocious to get, or too simple for their own good. It stands as a very good psychological manga that's held back by a terrible ending. Really long, fascinating for some people, but for me, it took me too long to commit and finish.

TL:DR
Tensionless plot with bland characters and an ending that makes it all worse. Clever schemes but you know nothing will ever go wrong. Don't recommend.

Description
College student Nao Kanzaki has always adhered to her name's meaning: "foolishly honest." However, after opening an unsolicited package containing one hundred million yen, she inadvertently accepts an invitation for the "Liar Game." In this tournament, contestants are encouraged to betray and deceive their opponents to gain a massive amount of cash; conversely, losing will incur a lifetime debt. With all hopes lost, her only option left is to seek help from a con artist.

On that same day, the infamous swindler ... Shinichi Akiyama is finally released from jail. This former psychology student is known for single-handedly bankrupting an entire company, and Nao believes he is her only chance at escaping her dire situation. At first, Shinichi is hesitant to commit another crime, ignoring Nao and her request. But after seeing her desperation and persistence, he agrees to assist her.

In this fraudulent world, Nao and Shinichi have their own motives. Yet, soon they see the true nature of not only the game, but also everyone involved.

Story: 4/10
There is zero tension in this manga at all. No matter what happens, Akiyama will invariably either effortlessly destroy his opponent(s) or will reveal that the fact that he seems to be losing is actually all part of his secret plan and then win anyway. The unfortunate fact is that the author has written themselves into a corner where the characters cannot afford to ever fail and therefore they never do. Now, I understand that the protagonists will win at the very end but usually there are stumbling blocks, unforeseen situations that the characters must work their way out of. In an action story for example the main character will lose a few fights to show their not invincible, even if they win in the end. But this just doesn't happen in “Liar Game”. The main characters just win every time and it's just so boring. What's the point of reading about something going perfectly?

The ending is nonsense. It comes entirely out of nowhere. It's so bloody stupid. I just can't understand what the author was thinking, I guess it had a message but there is no foreshadowing about this, it has a one chapter long backstory about something completely irrelevant and the epilogue was just dumb. I can't explain exactly why it crashes and burns so hard without spoiling it but I assure you, it makes no sense logically or narratively.

The pacing is also abysmal. I understand this is a very cerebral manga but do we need to have the ‘action’ interrupted every other chapter to have every detail spelled out to the reader? Is there really no better method the author could think of?

Despite my complaints though, the manga really is clever. When the plans are revealed, their boring yes but they don't feel bullshit. They plans are always something a very clever person really could pull off. This is frankly the only thing that kept me reading, seeing what the neat trick, what crafty ploy the protagonists

Character: 3/10
Akiyama is boring but at least it's entertaining to see his scheming.

Kanazaki is really annoying, she constantly makes the same mistakes over and over and is generally just “why don't we all just get along!” the entire time. There is nothing in this woman's skull and it's bad.

Our two priciple characters are never actually developed in anyway. What are they're personalities? What do they like and dislike? I don't know, the author never bothers to make them anything other than ‘the clever one’ or ‘the nice one’. It's so dull.

Yokoya is somewhat interesting in that he's a decent villain. Hateable enough and pretty intelligent. His motivations are revealed later and it's frankly really weak.

The Masked men are… weird? Initially they're non-characters that just advance the plot but half way through, they're introduced as spectators and commentators of the games. They have personalities, though simple, but their real purpose is to exposit what's happening for the readers benefit. It's pretty strange, firstly that they're just suddenly important to the manga and also the fact that they have SO MUCH DIALOGUE. Holy crud, the author makes them explain all the plans like narrators or they say ominous things like “ah they fell for his trap, no I will not explain, just watch” and it's such a bizarre decision to do this. I swear that the dealers get more dialogue than the actual characters! It's such a lazy way of building tension and so boring to have it interrupt the flow of the games.

There are some other interesting characters (Fukunaga, Abe, etc) but they're never properly developed and they're ejected from the manga nearly as soon as they're introduced.

Art
Pretty basic artwork but it's got a good art-style and it isn't anything worth talking about.

Overall: 4/10
No tension, no likeable characters, no satisfying ending. Yes the scheming is entertaining but it's not worth the rest of the manga. Don't read this.