The Players.
Honest people beware, you have just entered the Liar Game.
This manga slapped me upside the head while I was reading my boards. Someone was raving about it, calling it the new Death Note. That made me curious, although being compared to Death Note is at best a mixed blessing. Its over-the-top 30 Xanatos Pileups and a Harajuku gothic veneer made Death Note a good read once through, but it’s not something I’ll ever come back to. Some of the revelations and leaps in logic made me roll my eyes, and the second half of the manga was definitely a lot weaker than the first.
Liar Game, though, makes the back-and-forth mind games not just the best part of its story, but the entire premise.
The story revolves around Nao Kanzaki, a stupidly honest girl, naive to the core, who winds up with more than she bargained for when she opens a mysterious package with a note attached:
Congratulations! You are one of the 1 in 100,000 people who have been entered in the amazing LIAR GAME TOURNAMENT!
Along with the postcard there are 100 million yen in notes. That’s the beginning of the Liar Game. When the game ends, in 30 days, you will have to return your 100 million. If your opponent steals them, he can keep them as a prize, and you will have a debt of 100 million…
Naturally, Nao thinks it’s all a joke at first, but soon she sees how incredibly screwed she actually is. Upon realizing this, she begs for the help of a notorious con man named Shinichi Akiyama. Little does she know that Akiyama has his own plans for the Liar Game…
I read all 83 available chapters of the manga in one sitting. It’s beyond engrossing. Each round of the Liar Game introduces us to a new game and a new set of characters, and every round the stakes are higher. And, as a reader, each game gets better. The games are logic puzzles, and the manga is deeply steeped in game theory. A knowledge of social dynamics and zero-sum games is key to winning the games (and to truly enjoy the manga) and the real joy is to be able to figure out how people are manipulating the games to suit their own ends. And the characters, unlike Death Note, are actually likeable. Nao’s desire for honesty and fair play becomes a pivotal plot point, and everyone has the own reasons to keep on playing. This manga is pure crack. Go read it!
