Liar Game: Difference between revisions

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Using the help of recently released conman/genius/ChessMaster Shinichi Akiyama, Nao seeks to rid herself of debt and also save those who are participating in the games. Expect all [[Gambit Index|all kinds of plans and cunning]] to apply here, as it is a Battle Royale of wits.

 

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]: "'''Doubt''' them."

** And she did.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: Before it dissolves into a [[Gambit Pileup]] between Akiyama and Yokoya, the third round begins with a series of these simpler gambits.

* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: Fukunaga.

* [[Big No]]: A lot. Some of them are quite impressive.

* [[Blinding Bangs]]: It seems like Akiyama has this in his panels sometimes.

** Note this only applies if you're looking at the first Liar Game drama; it's popularity has now spawned a Liar Game 2 and a finale movie, where Nao is acknowledged to have grown.

* [[Briefcase Full of Money]]: Played straight in the first round. [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] in the third round, whose scenario involved smugglers sneaking money past customs in briefcases.

** Also averted in several rounds, where the money is given in the form of rare gems (on a nameplate), M-tickets (check-like objects), or poker chips.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Forli-san (dealer of Pandemic Game) for the LGT Office, on occassion.

** Musical Chairs has Harimoto (waiting to see how that round finishes), and {{spoiler|Young Jump, albeit acting as Akiyama's proxy}}.

* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: Yokoya. {{spoiler|This trope also includes Harimoto during the fourth round}}.

* [[Combat Commentator]]: Several in most games, but especially the third round and the second revival round; used to explain what the chessmasters are doing.

* [[Convenient Miscarriage]]: {{spoiler|"Office Lady" Mikamoto had a affair with her boss and got pregnant. It's stated that she lost the child.}}

* [[Crash Into Hello]]: Nao and Akiyama's first meeting.

* [[Cult]]: Lead by Harimoto, he teaches that {{spoiler|the human race bred with demons which made humans evil, so only the purer humans can get in the cult (they classify with demonic dominant and demonic recessive for the Mendel enthusiasts). Ironically, one of the "wise ones" (Yukiko, the Ponytail), thought ''Nao'' was evil, especially when she heard about Nao's honest intentions and figured it was a lie. Also, Harimoto is supposed to be 10,000 years old and Yukiko is supposed to be 500 years old ("by virtue of her wisdom").}}

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: The second revival rounds 24-chamber [[Russian Roulette]]. {{spoiler|Fukunaga was crushing her opponent quite handily until Nao convinced her to tie the game on purpose.}}

* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: Played straight, deconstructed, then reconstructed again. {{spoiler|In 3rd round, the team consists of people Nao and Akiyama plundered in the Revival game. Everyone, who had seen Nao's true character in Revival game (she saves the only person who was mildly nice to her by letting him drop out safely) agrees to work with them. Then, Yokoya, [[Magnificent Bastard]] he is, manages to cause a rift in the team. The team only held on because of [[The Messiah|Nao's kindness.]]}}

** Nastily subverted with {{spoiler|Yokoya. Those he defeated in the first revival round did join his side, but they weren't in any sense his friends.}}

* [[Disappeared Dad]] - Akiyama's father had died in an accident when he was a child.

* [[Divided We Fall]]: Happens frequently in the third round due to Akiyama and Nao's teammates being self-serving, [[Idiot Ball|not-terribly-bright]] cowards. {{spoiler|Nao sees a larger version of this as the entire point of the Liar Game - everyone can avoid falling into debt, but only if they all stop [[We ARE Struggling Together!|struggling together]]. This happens most directly in the second Revival Round, in which the players can actually make a net profit if they call a truce and thus stop the dealer from having an opportunity to reclaim chips.}}

* [[Driven to Suicide]]: {{spoiler|Akiyama's mother in his backstory.}}

** {{spoiler|A couple members in the Harimoto cult were going to kill themselves but then they met Harimoto...}}

* [[In Medias Res]]: (Nao's perspective)

* [[I Will Definitely Protect You]]: Akiyama to Nao in the second revival round.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Yokoya opts to squeeze hamsters instead.

* [[Knight in Sour Armor]]: Akiyama to a certain extent.

* [[Loophole Abuse]]: Frequent source of Akiyama's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

* [[Love Triangle]]: Apparently, there's one building up now between Nao, Akiyama, and {{spoiler|Fukunaga}}. It's pretty obvious that Akiyama only regards {{spoiler|Fukunaga's}} feelings with awkwardness, but it's unclear how he feels about Nao...

* [[Malevolent Masked Men]]

** {{spoiler|"Artlier-San," is the name of the man behind the corporation (Ch 140). He's in a cloak and mask.}}

* [[Missing Mom]] - Nao's mother died when she was one.

** The difference is; The ones who tricks Nao usually will [[Evil Gloating|happily gloat about it]] [[Hannibal Lecture|to the point of making us sick]], while Nao, even after tricks people, [[Defeat Means Friendship|will always be honest with her]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|''real'' intention]]: [[The Messiah|to save]] ''[[The Messiah|everyone]]''. Oh, and Nao is indeed ''[[Moe Moe|cute]]'' - so it seems that the core of it isn't 'lying is bad' as much as 'don't be a douche.'

** Further, the people that Nao tricks never suffer any ill effects - Nao and Akiyama always pay off all their debts afterward. Unless the subject was greedy and looking to turn a profit, being tricked by Nao gives them exactly what they wanted in the first place.

* [[The Plan]]: Every game involves this trope, in some form.

* [[Ping-Pong Naivete]]: Nao. She gets better, and even gets a Crowning Moment or two.

* [[Restored My Faith in Humanity]]: Part of the [[Defeat Means Friendship]] package, such as Nao's victory over Fujisawa Kazuo in the first round.

* [[Retcon]]: In the first ten episodes of the Drama's first season, the LGT Office is vague and mysterious, just like in the Manga, with no leader in sight. The eleventh episode {{spoiler|plugs a man named Hasegawa into the role at every turn, rewriting the reason why Nao and Akiyama were even thrown into the Liar Game. And THEN, the second season reveals that Hasegawa wasn't even the creator of it; he just invested a lot of money, despite the first season stating specifically that he was, Leronira coming to him for instructions.}}

* [[Russian Roulette]]: The second Revival Round has a ([[Captain Obvious|harmless]]) variant of this.

** Then it came back, took frequent breaks, and went on hiatus ''again.''

* [[Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up]]: Yokoya for {{spoiler|Kikuzawa (and, indeed, Kikuzawa's ''entire'' school)}}.

* [[Ship Tease]]: "Basically, I'm just another one of Kanzaki Nao's belongings."

** Not to mention this little scene where Akiyama takes Nao's hand to demonstrate something. "Will you do the honours?" She does mention that she felt shy when he took her hand.

** There is the panel where Nao looks concerned and wonders whether Akiyama went to sleep from exhaustion during the fourth round's night break.

** The fact that especially in the beginning, he would always come to her rescue and help her out with little to no profit to himself.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: It's obvious the author looks very deeply at each game.

* [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]]: The first round's major opponent is Nao's middle school teacher who's about as clever as a normal person. The second round and revival round have Fukunaga, while the third round's is Yokoya. After a short break for the second revival round, the opponent is Yokoya and finally the [[Big Bad Duumvirate]] of Yokoya and Harimoto.

** The "Extra Alliance" in the Musical Chairs game throws a major wrench into the until-then three way battle with Harimoto, Yokoyo, and Akiyama.

* [[The Cake Is a Lie]]: Yokoya enforces a points-based loyalty scheme during the Contraband Game. He encourages the members of his team to spy on one another and report disloyalty; those who score the highest points will be given money as their reward, with those at the top getting enough to cancel their (large) debts. Fukunaga spots that Yokoya is probably not keeping count at all, and is just telling everyone they are hovering around 4th place to spur them into spying on one another and feeding Yokoya information.

** Lampshaded when Nao's nickname in the Fourth Round Qualifier is "The Only Woman."

** {{spoiler|The main Fourth Round (including Fukunaga's qualifiers) has some women. Shady-looking women. Women that are, for all intents and purposes, mindless puppets of the new antagonist introduced in that round.}}

** "...Is this really the same Kanzaki Nao who easily got duped by me just a while ago?"

* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]] - Akiyama's mother was a very kind and honest person, just like Nao. Despite not having lots of money, she worked day and night to pay for her son's education. Until she fell ill and an old friend of hers deceptively pulled her into an MLM and despite honestly working hard, she finally realized that she was never paid and her debt remained the same. When she tried to get out of it, the company required a huge sum of money to do so. Which she would never have been able to pay off. So she took her life in order to save Akiyama's education.

* [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]]

* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Pretty much anyone who isn't Akiyama, Yokoya, and Harimoto is this at all times. {{spoiler|Nao and Fukunaga begin to grow out of this after the third round, but they promptly gain some new allies to take their place.}} As of the fourth round, {{spoiler|this trope now includes Yokoya}}and probably {{spoiler|Harimoto}}.

* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: A plausible alternate title for the series would be ''[[wikipedia:Game theory|Game Theory: The Manga]]''... Although many concepts are well explained, it seriously helps to have a good understanding of [[wikipedia:Prisonerchr(27)s dilemma|the Prisoner's Dilemma]], [[wikipedia:Social psychology|social psychology]], [[wikipedia:Cold reading|cold reading]], and [[wikipedia:Imperfect competition|imperfect competition]] in [[wikipedia:Microeconomics|microeconomics]]. ([[wikipedia:Nash equilibrium|Nash equilibria]] haven't come up... ''yet''.)

* [[Walls of Text]]: It's a dialogue-driven story which touches on areas of game theory, individual psychology, ''sales practices'', economic theory and sociology...

* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]]: In the J-drama, Yokoya

** Subverted by the fact that Nao's idealism usually wins over the cynicism of the other players. Which is not actually unlikely; as con artists say "you can never con an honest person". Almost all forms of con require the mark to be willing to be greedy or dishonest.

* [[The Worf Effect]]: How are we made immediately aware of the potential danger Harimoto poses? He utterly wiped the floor with Fukunaga.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Seinen]]

[[Category:Manga]]