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“People should be doubted. Many people misunderstand this concept. Doubting people is just a part of getting to know them. What many people call ‘trust’ is really just giving up on trying to understand others, and that very act is far worse than doubting. It is actually apathy.” – Akiyama Shinichi (well his criminal psychology professor actually).

If you like psychological strategies and brain tactics, Liar Game is the manga for you. I’d be surprised to hear if you said you’re a psychological genre fan and haven’t read Liar Game. In my opinion, Liar Game is the most well-written, versed, and theorized manga ever written which ... deserves much much more recognition. It’s a real headscratcher at first, some of the concepts and mind trick that strings throughout the plot are insane to imagine.

It has many different types of characters with different personality traits and beliefs and how all of them compete with one another in this game of lies and deception. The characters are not dependent on physical strength to overcome their enemies but depend on their mental abilities, either by intelligence fighting a formidable opponent or by trying to stay in a perfect psychological state. The manga will make you question many things and help you view things differently in a good light. It’ll help you understand how different people act when put in various situations based on what they know and how they view things. You’ll often find yourself in the characters’ shoes and try to make out what you would’ve done if you were in that situation. You’ll have to put a prodigious amount of brainpower into every text to understand the tactic and strategies made by the character, and the manga does a very good job of explaining through graphs, maps, arrows, statistics, and many other types of graphic representation which is actually easy to understand if you read it carefully. The amazing part is how the author portrays commetamorphicity (which is basically a character development method that uses one character to develop another). It’s surprising how many games are correlative to actual life if you look at the deep meaning behind it.

The first theme that Liar Game demonstrates is that trust is not blind faith or belief, but rather understanding instead of apathy. Throughout, we also receive this idea of an oppressive society, of power, money, greed, and dominance, and of how harmony can overcome that. The amazing part is how the author portrays commetamorphicity (which is basically a character development method that uses one character to develop another).

Akiyama Shinichi, one of the main characters, is a student majoring in criminology, he is embedded with extensive knowledge and aptitude for analyzing and assessing the human mind. His biggest forte is being able to predict and manipulate people's minds, which lets him get cooperation from other players as he presents them with a logical and brilliant plan and gets the best out of their opponents by predicting their chain of thoughts and actions. He seems like a perfect candidate for the tournament, but we can’t say the same for the other main character, Kanazaki Nao, who has an honest-to-god idiotic personality. She is a person who believes in honesty and truth and thinks that it’s a bad idea for people to deceive or lie to each other. This might be a noble mindset which everyone’s grown up learning, but in this tournament, it only results in her getting swindled and completely outsmarted at every turn. On top of that, she has a weak heart, she’d start crying if things go south, which they obviously do, considering her personality. In other words, she’s the absolute last person to participate in the Liar Game. Nao functions sort of like a holy saint willing to take on the sins of others in order to try to save their souls and forgive them. She doesn't worry about herself, all she wants is for no one else to fall into heavy debt, and instead profess that it is the company responsible for the whole Liar Game that is the real enemy, not the other players.


Nao has made a significant impact on many side characters and swayed their hearts with her honest-to-god idiotic personality. Liar Game won’t be Liar Game without Nao and Akiyama wouldn’t have the upper hand in most situations if not for her. True, Akiyama was all brains and did all the schemes and plans, but Nao was the one who helped in the execution of the plan. It still seems unbelievable that her plans to save everyone and help them with their debts actually worked in every single round.

The multiple games are probably one of the main things which are gonna pique your interest and keep you from putting it on hold. It’s surprising how many games are correlative to actual life if you look at the deep meaning behind it. Ridiculous games and money, drive people to do certain things and take certain measures which might be foul actions from a reader’s point of view but if you put yourself in the character’s shoes you’ll find yourself doing something along the lines similar to them. It’s just human nature to help yourself and find ways to survive oneself instead of looking after another and this aspect is very well shown in every arc of the manga and very often taken advantage of by tactic brains like Akiyama or Yokoya and some others who occur in manga.

The art isn’t all magnificent but it fits the theme of the manga perfectly, it shows petrifying scenes or faces perfectly. I’d highly recommend it. It’s one of the few 10/10 mangas for me.