English Dub Review: Liar, Liar “The King and the Lie/Loyalty and Performance”

Overview:

Hiroto Shinohara is currently the top-ranked student at Academy Island. At least, that’s what everyone thinks.

Our Take:

Hiroto Shinohara is a transfer student on Academy Island, where everything is settled with a game. Each student has a star ranking and they wager stars in these games. Shinohara’s first game just so happens to be against the top-ranked student, Sarasa Saionji. The craziest part about it is that Shinohara actually beats her despite the fact that he has no idea what he’s doing or how the system works. The headmistress tells him that he’s in trouble now, unless he becomes a seven-star student, that being the top rank. There are special red stars that give the holder the ability to tell a lie, which is how he pulls off this ruse. Now Shinohara is the top-ranked student on the island.

This does come with some perks, such as a luxurious dorm and a personal servant. However, it also comes with a lot of challenges. He constantly gets a stream of game requests from other students. Since he’s actually a one-star student posing a seven-star, it’s unlikely that he can win these games on his own. His servant, Shirayuki Himeji, and other members of the company help him cheat in order to keep this façade going.

Sarasa Saonji is also telling a lie that she can’t let other people find out. Since Shinohara is the current holder of the red star, he has access to her lie as well as every other prior holder’s. Neither one of them want their lies to get out or suffer any potential consequences from that, so they decide to form an alliance.

This show has a very interesting premise. It reminds me a lot of anime like No Game No Life, Classroom of the Elite, and Kakegurui. I also get hints of Baka and Test regarding the battle system and how background students are designed. These first two episodes do a very good job at explaining how Academy Island works. We learn about the rankings, the games, abilities, and plenty of other details that make the show work. There are some more intricate details that I’m interested in, such as deciding which students are placed in which of the 20 academies on the island. I’m curious to see if that will be explained later on, along with other details that could add to the intrigue.

We have a pretty diverse cast of characters so far. Shinohara is an average weakling who is doing a great job at acting like the top dog. Saionji gets ahead of herself a lot and tends to jump to conclusions. Himeji is a monotone servant, which has its own unique charm. Plus, there are plenty of other side characters who are either already entertaining or seem to have promise.

This is a pretty strong showing from these first two episodes. They lead the viewer into the show pretty well and offer an interesting twist on the strategy game anime genre.