English Dub Season Review: Liar Game Season One
Overview (Spoilers Below):
When Nao Kanzaki (Reshel Mae) receives a strange letter and a suitcase containing 100 million yen, she learns that she has been selected to participate in the LIAR GAME. In this high-stakes psychological battle, lies, deception, and betrayal reign supreme. Naive and honest, Nao turns to Shinichi Akiyama (Nick Huber), a brilliant former con artist, to survive the twisted game. In a game built on lies, can honesty prevail?
Our Take:
Liar Game is an anime adaptation of a manga series written and illustrated by Shinobu Kaitani. It is directed by Asami Kawano, with Yuzo Sato serving as chief director and Tatsuhiko Urahata writing and supervising the scripts. It is produced by Madhouse, known for projects such as Reign: The Conqueror, Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and Trillion Game. Kei Tsuchiya designed the characters, and Yugo Kanno composed the music. The opening theme song, “Bubble”, is performed by Yorushika, and the ending theme song, “Asahi”, is sung by Lucky Kilimanjaro in the first cour. In the second cour, Kroi performs the opening theme, “All In”, and Muque performs the ending theme, “Tarinai (Not enough)”.
Most competitions would have players try to win a stack of money by completing tasks, surviving, and, most importantly, being honest with their answers. However, one particular tournament will see its competitors performing the same tasks as the others, but with one huge difference that’ll impact their lives forever. They have to lie their way to the winner’s circle. Breaking trust through dishonesty is horrible, and for the people behind this mysterious contest, that’s what makes it far more intense than an ordinary quiz show. This competition was fittingly known as the “Liar Game”, where deception is the name of the game, and the loser is in debt for the rest of their life. However, its latest competitor has what it takes to prove that in a world full of liars and tricksters, honesty always wins.
This is Shinobu Kaitani’s Liar Game, which follows a naive yet generous college student, Nao Kanzaki, who becomes a contestant in the Liar Game Tournament. With the help of former con artist Akiyama, Nao must survive several rounds of the tournament to save herself and the other players from debt and destroy the organization from within. This is another manga whose success led to a live-action adaptation long before it received the traditional anime treatment. It was first adapted into a two-season television series in 2007, followed by two films, with one being the show’s continuation titled “Liar Game: The Final Stage” in 2010. There was also a South Korean version of the source material in 2014. Following that, we finally have an anime adaptation that aims to recapture the tense, psychological thrills of the characters’ deceptions seen in the manga. I only know this concept through the anime, but the premise of a tournament built on lies intrigued me enough to see if it’s worth my time, or, in this case, money.
This is another anime that immediately kicks off with its concept in the first episode, with Nao thrown into the Liar Game Tournament and facing her former teacher, Fujisawa (Paul T. Taylor). Spoiler alert: he’s actually a two-timing asshat. It throws the audience into the action by showing how the game is played and its rules, putting them in a psychological mind game that tests people’s trust in others. At first, I thought the first game of the tournament would be like this for the rest of the season, risking it being overshadowed by its narrative repetition. There’s also the fact that Nao is an incredibly honest person whose naivety is her biggest weakness in a competition built on lies. Often, she gets easily fooled by people who take advantage of her, including Yuji Fukunaga, a trans woman who later becomes Nao’s temporary ally. Her gullibility may get under viewers’ skin because she gets tricked so often. But as the series progresses, it adds variety in later rounds to make the competition more interesting than it appears. It also becomes a consistently intense, entertaining thriller that highlights the “lie vs. honesty” aspect more than the tournament itself.
Regarding the tournament itself, each round, or game, isn’t the same as the last. Instead, it offers a variety of familiar challenges we run into now and then, but with a twist: they earn money by manipulating others. In a way, it started small in the first round with a simple game of deceit and mistrust, then gradually became more challenging and complicated each round. No joke. The tournament increased the difficulty each round, leading up to the season’s final episodes, where they actually gamble. This approach gave the series plenty of stakes, not just winning the game, but also avoiding the chance of going broke for the rest of your life. Of course, given how the process actually works, that’s easier said than done on both counts. However, it also risks being too complicated for its own good. Each game has its own rules and conditions that become more complex on my first viewing, requiring the characters to explain them in full detail. It dumps plenty of exposition that requires the viewer to pay attention, but it also ends up altering the pace of the competition. While it’s important to understand what they’re doing, it’s sometimes better to let the characters’ actions speak for themselves rather than have them talk about them.
It was pretty confusing on my first viewing, but once I reread what happens in each episode, things started to become clear. However, it can still be a pain when almost every episode follows its exposition-dumping routine. Fortunately for me, the series’s structure is elevated by its engaging depiction of lies vs. morality. Most people are always willing to get what they want, even if it means lying to the person who trusts them. When money is involved, it reflects people who will do whatever it takes to stay out of debt, which fuels their greed and makes them want to get the better of others. The tournament itself takes advantage of that situation, leading to the later discovery that its players’ victories may come at a price. With Nao at the center, she tries to use her honesty to prove that, in a world full of lies and deception, morality always prevails. Sure, her naivety is also her weakness, and being tricked a lot can be annoying to handle amid her growth. But it’s tolerable enough to carry the message the character is meant to convey, notably through Reshel Mae injecting delicate warmth into her performance as Nao.
As for the rounds presented in season one, the arc I enjoyed most was the Contraband Game. This arc, which lasted for nine episodes, sees Nao, Akiyama, and the others competing to smuggle money from the other team for fifty rounds. However, they realize this simple game of smugglers and guards isn’t as simple as it sounds, especially when they’re pitted against the other team’s manipulative leader, Norihiko Yokoya. Like the other rounds, the Contraband Game is complex, with its rules and players’ strategies, but what really held my attention was the psychological battle between the players. While Nao and her Day team find themselves struggling with Yokoya’s genius, the arc also focuses on the Night team members being victims of Yokoya’s manipulative tactics like bribery, making him a dictator who rivals Hitler. It’s an intense yet lengthy mind game that further highlights the characters’ willingness to escape poverty, even if their actions could harm themselves and others. It also emphasizes Yokoya as a delightfully devious antagonist whose smarts and wily persona make him a formidable threat to the protagonists.
I speak the truth when I say that Liar Game is a highly engaging psychological thriller that highlights the source material’s reflection on morality and greed. Its 26-episode season can feel repetitive and lengthy, especially as its complex exposition and Nao’s gullibility threaten to eliminate me from this competition. Fortunately, director Asami Kawano’s strategy of suspense and mind-game thrills worked well enough to keep me in the game, especially since the second season was announced last month. Once you get past those mild issues, I think you’ll end up staying in this dangerous tournament, too. In fact, we may end up participating in the competition’s second half whenever it comes out, especially when it might involve Fuji’s anticipated rematch against Yokoya.
