Liar Game review: The long-awaited anime reels us in with its opening episodes

The game is afoot in the tense opening episodes of Liar Game

Kaitani’s Liar Game was serialized between 2005 and 2015, and has been adapted into a Japanese tele-drama and two live-action films so far. Now, Madhouse, the production studio behind Parasyte: The Maxim and Perfect Blue, has finally given us a long-awaited anime adaptation. While only episode 1 of Liar Game has premiered on Crunchyroll so far, critics were given the first two episodes for review consideration.

If you liked Squid Game’s subversive use of children’s games for a violent death match, chances are you’ll appreciate the mature psychological bent of Liar Game. The premiere succeeds in establishing a ruthless dog-eat-dog world, but episode 2 takes this bleakness up a notch by emphasizing that only the most conniving can survive.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Liar Game]

In Liar Game, college student Nao Kanzaki is honest to a fault. Our naive protagonist receives a suitcase containing $1 million along with a note informing her that she is now a contestant in the Liar Game Tournament. According to the rules, Nao must keep her money safe, as other contestants — whom she will be matched against — will try to steal it. If a player is unable to retrieve the stolen amount within a set period of time, they will be forced to pay a debt proportional to the loss.

Although Nao is also allowed to steal from others to win, she refuses to consider this option due to her trusting nature. When she is matched against her former teacher, Kazuo Fujisawa, she immediately places her faith in him and entrusts him with her $1 million for safekeeping. Unfortunately, she soon overhears him calling her “stupidly honest” and boasting about how easy it was to deceive someone as overly forthcoming as her. Realizing that she was hoodwinked by someone she considered kind, Nao’s world comes crashing down. After appealing to Fujisawa’s humanity proves fruitless, she makes the drastic decision to hire a con man named Shinichi Akiyama to get her money back and win the tournament.

In Squid Game, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) undergoes a similar transformation. Although he is nowhere near as naive as Nao, Gi-hun’s compassionate nature is brutally tested during the final stages of the first competition. Even his decision to re-enter stems from hardened cynicism, as Gi-hun’s life goals have now been overwritten by the need to dismantle the games from within. Such a one-tracked desire comes at a cost, but Gi-hun ultimately chooses selfless sacrifice over self-serving dreams.

Nao’s unwavering honesty impacts her ability to assess a situation with the shrewdness required to disorient an opponent. That’s why she hires Akiyama, who is fresh out of jail after pulling a sophisticated con. Although Akiyama brushes Nao off at first, he is stunned by her inability to see through obvious lies. Eventually, Akiyama demands a share of the winnings in exchange for helping her, but it’s clear he relishes the thrill of the chase before cornering an opponent he will inevitably outsmart. Episode 2 demonstrates this with impressive precision, as we see Akiyama help Nao navigate the situation and explain why psychological pressure is a more useful tool than brute force.

Liar Game is a cerebral death match. The rules are bare-bones enough to push participants towards desperate measures, while the worst impulses of human nature do the rest. Fujisawa’s case underlines the fact that we can never take someone’s social reputation at face value. Nao remembers him as a gentle teacher who was empathetic to her ailing father, but we learn that Fujisawa couldn’t care less about any of his students. Personal hardships have rendered him bitter and distrustful towards everyone, including Nao, whom he is more than happy to lie to and exploit. Being deceitful is integral to winning the Liar Game, so one would expect a duplicitous person like Fujisawa to win. That said, he’s no match for Akiyama, as the ex-con is always two steps ahead.

Episode 2 is a glimpse into what makes Liar Game so compelling. As the deadline for the first match approaches, the psychological pressure that Akiyama and Nao put on Fujisawa starts suffocating him like a noose. There are no bursts of violence by guards like in Squid Game, or enclosed walls to keep participants trapped. Here, the prisons are of their own making. Fujisawa’s greed keeps him going, even when he is on the brink of insanity from the accumulating stress.

Kaitani’s manga has been lauded for its clever twists and ability to map the complex desires that fuel us. Money is hardly ever a sole motivator, as it is often mixed with the urge to provide for someone, protect a loved one, or the desire to climb up the social ladder. Liar Game delves into these complex human impulses within the framework of deceit and one-upmanship. That said, Nao emerges as an anomaly, given her instinct to be unquestioningly compassionate. Can such a guileless approach triumph in a game that forces you to lie at every turn? This is what the Liar Game anime promises to unravel, and its first two episodes are already on the right track.

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The first episode of Liar Game premiered on April 6 on Crunchyroll.