Liar Game 2 (2009)

Liar Game 2

Liar Game 2 picks up two years after the last episode, and Kanzaki Nao, Akiyama Shinichi and Fukunaga return to the Liar Game with a new character Katsuragi Ryou introduced. 

The thing I don’t understand is why they created the 2 yrs gap between games in the series. Even though the television series is filmed two years later, the actors don’t look that much older that the time skip was necessary and there is no new information or event that happened in that time gap that it was important to add it. 

There are some new faces and plot that parallel the manga in terms of games and set up, but again they have changed the name of the games and the teams plus they brought in a new villain, Katsuragi Ryou, a former classmate of Akiyama from college.  Katsuragi’s character does not exist in the manga though there is someone who was Akiyama’s college mate. The theme of Nao being an angel that will save everyone continue as Nao returns to the game though she says she doesn’t want to but she just has to save all these players, during the demons and angels game and at the end when she saves everyone including Katsuragi, who she says was merely misunderstood. 

I had a hard time watching season 2, although I still like the games, everything else came across to me as annoying, frustrating and unnecessary.   In this season it felt like there were an excess of repeated cuts, close up of the reactions, revelations, and just unnecessary things. Most of the side characters were just over the top (at times it was fun). And our main characters were for me dull. Nao had just the same two emotions. Akiyama had lost most of his emotions, he just had this low scowl on his face for almost all the season. He didn’t get angry, he wasn’t surprise or even slight nervous when things were dire.  Katsuragi was not very different.  The two just seemed to be in control all the time thought they were suppose to be combating hard. The characters had little relationship or chemistry. 

Kikuchi Rinko as Katsuragi Ryou

The last game,Gold Rush, was just a rehash of the last game with Yokoya. In the manga, the parts from Yokoya’s game and kasaragi’s game are the same.  I could not get myself to sympathize or connect with Nao by the end of this season and there was no longer anything compelling about the story. 

There is this quick conversation in this season, where Nao says that Akiyama is warm but Katsuragi is cold. In the manga, it is Yokoya she is referring to and it has such much meaning especially after all the went through.  Here, I did not believe especially since at the end Nao decide that Katsuragi is just misunderstood and is not a bad person. Where does she get this? We see and hear that Akiyama was always number 1 and Katsuragi was not, which makes us believe initially that this might be why Katsuragi wanted to fight and beat Akiyama in the Liar Game.  But then they show just that their suppose last profiling assignment Katsuragi is the one that won and she uses this many times against Akiyama.  Despite this we see that since Akiyama and she parted ways, Katsuragi continued used, manipulated and often looked down on people. They imply that she had been playing the Lair Game, winning, and hurting others long before Akiyma came into the picture. Suddenly out of nowhere in the end they want to suggest that Katsuragi wanted to be friends or lovers with Akiyana and that’s why she did all this? Did she ever do or say anything to Akiyama to express that she did not want to be is enemy? No. Should she be excused because really deep down inside she has feelings him? No. Katsuragi is an adult and a psychology professor, she should realize that what she is doing is wrong and stop or get help. It seems she is even more at fault because she is has more knowledge of these things than a person that has not studied psychology.

Then we have a clip of Yokoya, who despise Nao having ‘saved’ him continued to plung other players into massive debt, even if he does pull out of the game in the end. What did he learn, what was the point of Nao ‘saving’ him when he didn’t learn, change but just continued what he had been doing. 

There is a Movie and a third season of Liar Game but I don’t think I can put aside enough skepticism since watching those first two seasons that I would start to enjoy it more, even if there is a change of some characters. 

I am however willing to give the Korean version a chance, especially since I have heard good things from reviewers who had similar problems.