Liar Game


Reviewed by: lady.phan

August 25, 2008

Rating: four

Japanese title: ライアーゲーム
Genre: Psychological thriller
Episodes: 11
“Top 20 JDrama of 2007” conducted by Oricon, rank: 9 (69.2%)

Cast
Toda Erika as Kanzaki Nao
Matsuda Shota as Akiyama Shinichi

Review
This, thank god, diverts from the norm genre. It’s typical for script writers to get carried away by over exaggerating their flowery lines to complexity, even the enticing plot lines really has no effect due to bad pacing. High level intrigue usually equals boring dialogue that nobody can follow or inadequate presence/acting or both. Overall atmosphere is created well, with slightly gloomy darkness that kind of lingers. Flashbacks are used in the style of snippets. A wide mixture of characters is thrown in the bash, which personally seems like a surreal circus that is very very scary. It makes the real world seem entirely cynical and evil, there are no such thing as a good person. Even if there is, betrayal and greed is enough to ‘shed some light’.

The main cast is not exactly standing ovation material. Matsuda Shota has excellent hair (for this role). He plays a hatred filled smug young adult. Kanzaki Nao is a good hearted girl, who always prefers to see the good in people and forgives every person that’s ever wronged her in the past. This foolish trait coincidentally resembles Akiyama Shinichi’s mother. One could say both woman and girl are annoyingly stupid, yet Toda Erika portrays Kanzaki Nao as not that. It’s hard to speak of the character as each and every person is from the outside in, medico rely insane. It must take insanity for a person such as rich old guy Fujisawa Kazuo to set up such a game to test people’s limit, to prove to himself that all people in this world is bad and no person is TRULY good. He sleeps in a room shadowed by darkness and occasionally paints a painting of chaos. What’s hilarious is such an idiot and unconfident guy like Ono Wataru could pull off a scheme. Overall most people turn into maniac machines ready to give their own teammates the boot once things start to crumble or something new looks more appealing.

Recommended or not?
Although it does not scream originality, it’s psychologically interesting. This is one of those series that does not rely on acting but more so plot line as it is a waver of scheming and manipulation. As silly as it sounds that this whole madness branches off of just a GAME, it’s nevertheless alluring to watch the fine line between genius and insanity.


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