Lair Game (2007)

Liar Game

Liar Game is a Japanese television series from 2007 based on a manga of the same name.

Nao Kanzaki is a college student considered to be honest and naive.  one day she receives a black postcard along with a box containing 100 million yen indicated that she had been selected to participate in the “Liar Game” tournament. 

My experience with Liar Game started with the manga. I read the manga up to the beginning of the fourth round with the game Musical Chairs.  I had not wanted to stop reading but I was occupied by other priorities. Recently, I heard that a Korean version of the story would be made, so i wanted to get back into Liar Game.

I just finished Liar Game season 1.  For reasons that are obvious I could not help but compare the series and manga because I was familiar with the later.

The series is pretty closely adapted from the manga but changes have been made.  Paticularly with the secondary characters, the games, mainly the title and names of teams and since the series is only 13 the events too have been changed.  Nao Kanzaki and Shinichi Akiyama have remained relative the same.  

Toda Erika as Kanzaki Nao

Pros:

I did not like was the over the top performances in the secondary characters particularizing Yokoya and Fukunaga.  The editing which involved a lot of cuts, close up and the repetition of the same words or action over and over and over. The crazy laughters, just pulled out of the show especially in contrast to how realistic they kept the rest of things. 

The lack of backstories and depth for the characters, particularly the two mains, which was surprising.  Nao and Shinichi seemed to have no flaws and things that could have made them interest were always quickly negated. 

The relationship between Nao and Shinichi seemed to always be a stand still. Shinichi was always protecting and getting Nao out of trouble but they never really get to know each other well and how each thought and why they thought that way.

Shota Matsuda as Akiyama Shinichi

The suppose big villain and boss behind the game just made no sense to me. I can kind of see what they were trying to do but for me it didn’t work and I didn’t care enough that he was ‘saved’ by just watching Nao and this theme they just stuck about in about Nao being an angel whose light would last everyone else who were just vile humans.  The old man at the end said he created the Liar Game but when he was talking Lerioa to me it came off that he was just part of it, not the creator or the person running it.  Because initially Lerioa refused his request but after the mention of the money he had contributed, Lerioa agreed but gave him a dire warning should something he did interfere with the game.

I felt there was a lack of clarification of ideals, particularly that of Nao. She asks “is there anything wrong with being stupidly honest?”  and she trusts everyone. But what does trust mean?  I think some people believe that taking what someone says without question is trust, but trust is when you are clear on someone’s principles and intentions. That they will be genuine with their words and actions, but you can’t know the intentions or principles of a stranger. There is an idea from the manga I liked which was that you needed to doubt, observe and learn about people and all that takes time and it is implied that is how you trust. So if we look at it, it means Nao doesn’t really get to know people, so how can she be saying that she trust them? Nao also believes that everyone in the world can be happy and that if everyone in the game would just trust each other and work together everyone would get out of the game with no debt. However, the thing is for the most part only Nao and Akiyama came into the game without any particular debt.  Her junior high teacher was already in debt before he got the Liar game invitation and so were most of the other participants.  Also most of the participants did not play the game just to get out (at least not initially) some of them wanted to make a lot of money.  Also there are some characters, thought this was never shown in the television, who were initially like Nao but ended out getting hurt because they believed in everyone even people they didn’t know. 

I grew to the point of being upset with Nao in the series, there is being naive and then there is something else.  She kept falling for the same betrayal and lies from the same people, in the same way on multiple occasions.  This among other things made it hard to connect and attach with her. No one in the series ever pointed out the mistakes Nao made, the ones that usually did were of course the villains, so she never grew or learned at all. 

 Nao wanted everyone to work together and help each other yet in episode 13 she decided she would stop Akiyama from taking revenge and save Yokoya but the action she took ending up putting her teammates in danger.  

The ideal of Nao being complete pure and some angel that 'saves' the old man and in the end was flying and being her saving light on where one else who are vile in the old's man painting, I don't think I like. 

Cons:

I liked the games and how characters work to outwit one another. I also like the exposition by the characters gave on their methods at winning and outwitting each other. 

The acting was good. 

I was disappointed that after Akiyama’s rage erupted and they just stuck with the fact that it was him just acting.  But I found it odd that he had time or thought ahead enough or even had any clue that Yokoya was part of the scheme that caused his mother’s death.  Plus there was a another brief moment when Yokoya mentioned his mother that you saw him get angry again. 

During the contraband game in the manga Akiyama talks about the idea of payoff being a reason why Yokoya was able to dominant his team thought they out numbered him.  I have studied a little bit about payoff and I think it applies to Nao from the series a lot.  By the end of the series I was becoming more and more convinced that Nao trying to save everyone and being overly honest, and being a sort of martyr was a payoff for her.  This was how she wanted to see herself and others to see her even if it meant being involved in dangerous behavior.  Payoff lay into a lot of things we do and how we reacts sometimes for overall wellness or ill. 

I liked the show because I got more off the Liar Game, but I would also like to have interesting characters and story. In the manga for Nao, Akiyama, Funukaga (who is completely different from the series), Yokoya and even the game dealers were far more interest and you had more development. 

I will try to watch season 2. But as it stands I think the manga is much better. But if you don’t or can’t read the manga. The T.V is some fun and good mind games. I just have a hard time getting past some of the crazy acting, Nao amazing ability to always get betrayed and be genuinely surprised by it over and over and the big villains.