Review of Liar Game

This drama tells the story of Nao Kanzaki, a very naive girl that accidentaly gets involved in a thing called Liar Game. In this game, the contenders receive a huge amount of cash and have the objective of tricking the oppoent and get their money. The loser ends up with a debt of, at most, 100 million iens. Desperate, she insists until she enlists the help of a professional con man named Shin'ichi Akiyama.

The drama is very clever, with a lot of rational thought, sometimes I can even believe the writer of the original manga, Shinobu Kaitani, is a genius. Akiyama is very smart and constantly we, the viewers, don't know what's happening, but he does. Many of the games presentes in the show are original, and even then they're well done and interesting.

The drama's unpredictability is one if its greatest assets. Another one is the character of Akiyama. He glues us to it, hoping for one of his great moments. Nao is kinda weak in comparison, but she's also responsible for some twists that happen. The twists themselves are very impressive and some episode endings leave you craving hardly for the next.

Liar Game shows the worst side of humans. And despite being extremely focused on the games, there is still a little bit of background plot, involving the organisation that realizes the Liar Game, its objectives and the motives that lead certain characters into certain actions.

Speaking of characters, outside of the main ones, we have a lot of bizarre. Definitely it would work better with less weirdness and wacky secondary characters, but when you take away all of this tacky layer, what stays is pawns and characters with good objectives, therefore deep down they're good and deliver what they ought to.

Once upon a time I've read that Liar Game the drama has "neon in weird places". And after further verification, I can corroborate that. LG tries too hard to be edgy and cool. Indeed it does manage to accomplish that, but it sometimes goes too far. Especially in the editing.

But even with these howevers, I have to say Liar Game is awesome because, despite the weaknesses, the main part, the writing, is above above average. The acting is also good (even when the character itself is not). It's a drama to leave you tense. Recommended.