LIAR GAME is a ‘psychological thriller’ drama about Nao, a girl who gets pulled into a game of deceit, lies and backstabbing, all in the name of making huge amounts of money, and how the various players play clever schemes to ensure their victory. So here’s my review, the first of my ‘drama reviews’, but hopefully not the last!

Drama Info

Title: ライアーゲーム (LIAR GAME)
Episodes: Episodes
Genre: ‘Psychological Thriller’, apparently.
Reception: 11.4 million viewers average.

Synopsis

Alright, here we go. LIAR GAME kicks off with our hero, young and naive Nao, wandering home and finding a briefcase containing 100 million yen (that’s a lot of money), a card and a video. The card and video between them explain the rules, which I’ll sum up in three easy steps;

• Both Nao and one other person recieved the same amount of money.
• In 30 days time, representatives will come to collect 100 million yen.
• Any money you have taken off the other player is your prize money.

It’s as simple as that. Nao then proceedes to pretty much hand over all her money to her opponent, who turns out to be a teacher she used to like who somewhere along the line turned into a right meanie. Anyway, she recruits the help of Akiyama Shinichi, an ‘expert swindler’, who helps her get it back. But it turns out that was just ’round one’, and that’s where things start to get crazy…

Review

Don’t be fooled by the show’s synopsis – this is not a serious psychological thriller. It’s kind of hard to tell where it wants to go, really – the twists (and oh my there are hundreds of them, at least two big ones every episode) make it very hard to predict and occasionally a little hard to follow, although all the characters consistantly demand the chance to explain themselves over and over. It does have it’s funny moments, with some genuinely funny set ups, along with the usual wacky characters and strange voices.

In fact, I think it’s this constant switch between psychological mind game and slapstick comedy that makes the show so watchable. Every time a big scheme or plan is revealed, the character doing so explains it to Nao (and us) in a sort of offbeat lesson style – at one point they use a chessboard, for example. These are brilliantly funny when the guy doing it has just been screaming his victory at Nao, and now he’s calmly sitting down and discussing the finer points of his strategy.

Character wise this show is very strong, with the two leads (Nao; Toda Erika | Akiyama; Matsuda Shota) doing a great job, and the show is very nicely produced. There is the occasional wobbly camera attack but it’s not too bad.

The plot itself is pretty cool, although it’s entirely riddled with twists. Whilst this does mean that the show moves along at a good speed without much time to slowdown (looking at you, Lost and Heroes!) but it does occasionally feel a bit crazy. Furthermore the character of Nao can get a little grating at times, as it seems she’s on a constant loop of get fooled, cry, get overly excited, repeat. Akiyama is super cool throughout though so there’s your hero to cheer on.

Conclusion & Stuff

I’ve only seen up to episode 7 (of 11) at time of writing. The reason I chose to publish it now is twofold; first it stops me accidentally spoiling any ‘big twists’ that might be coming (and there usually are a few), and secondly I wanted to post what I felt about the drama whilst I was watching it, rather than look back at the whole thing. Bear that in mind when reading this.

LIAR GAME is definitely worth watching. My flat mate and I have had great fun simply trying to guess how the most recent fix Nao has got herself into can be solved. It sounds strange, but having these cute colourful explanations about statistics and chance actually is really entertaining, and each episode usually has enough new twists and shocks to satisfy.

I don’t know how many of these drama series reviews I’m going to do, but this is definitely one of the best I’ve ever seen. Alright, in honesty it’s probably not one of the best in regards to character development or direction, but the different rounds of the games are written so well, it’s impossible not to get drawn in. Strongly recommended!

Please don’t post spoilers in the comments! Thanks!

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