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Liar Game Chap

Liar Game: Chapter 1's Cover

Liar Game (ライアーゲーム, Raiā Gēmu) is a Manga series written by Shinobu Kaitani. The manga was first serialized in 2005 in the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Young Jump, published by Shueisha. It was later adapted into a drama series, which started airing on April 14, 2007 on Fuji TV.

The story revolves around Kanzaki Nao, a college student who becomes embroiled in a game called the Liar Game Tournament (LGT), where players use deception to win and cheat other players of their money. Early on, she enlists the help of ex-convict and genius swindler Akiyama Shinichi. The pair battle through many rounds of the LGT, and each time they think the game is over, they are forced to return again with higher stakes. Though initially unwilling participants, the pair choose to continue on in the game in order to discover the true nature of the organization behind it and to try to free other participants from the LGT and the debts they have incurred.

Plot[]

Round I[]

An honest and upright college student, Kanzaki Nao, unexpectedly receives a package containing 100 million yen and an invitation to participate in something called the "Liar Game Tournament". The package also contains instructions for the game, which lasts for a duration of 30 days: Nao will be paired with another player who has also been given 100 million yen, and she is supposed to attempt to steal their money for herself. Meanwhile, her opponent will attempt to do the same to her. At the end of the 30-day period, the LGT Office will collect back the 100 million from each player, with any shortfall to be incurred as debt.

Without any close friends to confide in, and unwilling to seek advice from her dying father, Nao decides to visit a lawyer, Tanimura Teruo, instead, whose contact she found in a phone book. Teruo advises Nao that there is little action she can take as she has not suffered any damages, and advises her to just hold on to the money for 30 days, as instructed.

Nao's opponent is revealed to be Kazuo Fujisawa, her ex-middle school teacher. Fujisawa tricks her into handing him her 100 million yen under the pretense of safekeeping it for her. When she realizes this, she approaches Teruo for advice again. Teruo suggests that she seek help from the ex-convict Akiyama Shinichi.

Akiyama is initially reluctant to get involved, but relents when Nao is persistent. He agrees to help Nao win the game for a 50% share of her reward.

The pair intimidate Fujisawa by declaring their intention to fight him openly, and keeping a constant surveillance on him from outside his house. Fujisawa grows paranoid and avoids leaving his house entirely. On the 20th day, they flood the vents of his house with smoke to trick him into thinking his house is on fire, but Fujisawa refuses to move from his current room and calls his friend for help instead of the fire department. Akiyama deduces that the entire sum of 200 million yen is hidden in a single room of Fujisawa's house, instead of a safety deposit box in the bank, as he claimed. Taking advantage of Fujisawa's refusal to leave the room, Akiyama changes the contents of a letter sent by the LGT Office to mislead Fujisawa into thinking that the game's deadline is an hour earlier than it actually is. He then disguises himself as an LGT Officer and tricks Fujisawa into handing him all the money at that time, leading Nao to eventually emerge victorious. Nevertheless, the pair return their 100 million profits to Fujisawa to pay off his debt.

Nao attempts to pay Akiyama 50 thousand yen of her savings as gratitude for his help, but is instead shocked to find an invitation to Round II of the LGT in her apartment.

Round II[]

As Nao had given away the money she obtained from Round I back to Fujisawa, she is unable to pay the tournament drop-out fee to the LGT office. Akiyama advises her to ignore the invitation letter, but she tricked by Teruo, who is revealed to be an LGT office employee and her personal handler, into heading to the Round II venue and participating in the game.

Realizing that Nao has gone to participate, Akiyama heads to the game venue as well. He encounters a fellow LGT participant, Michiko Takada, who had been cheated of her 100 million yen profits from Round I by another participant who had disguised himself as an LGT office employee, and was hence unable to drop out of the tournament. He decides to participate in Round II as her representative, and announces himself as a player just before the game starts.

The players are introduced to Round II's dealer, Leronira, who explains the instructions of Round II's game, Minority Rule: Participants are initially given 100 million yen in the form of a bejeweled name plate. Each round, a random participant is picked to ask a yes or no question. All participants then cast a ballot with their answer (i.e. yes or no), and at the end of the round, participants who answered in the majority are eliminated, and must leave the premises. The game continues in this manner for multiple rounds, until only one or two participants remain, and are declared the winners. The winners of the game receive the entire sum of money initially distributed to all players, while losers are asked to pay back the 100 million yen initially given to them by the LGT office.

The participants are then treated to a buffet table of extravagant refreshments, during which Akiyama explains how he managed to join the round to Nao. Following the refreshments, a rehearsal for the game is conducted. Leronira also informs participants that they have 6 hours after each question is posed to decide on their vote, and reminds them that their chosen answer (i.e. Yes or No) need not be factually accurate - rather, they should just vote for what they believe will end up as the minority response.The players are given rooms to stay in overnight, and told that the actual game will commence the following day. At Akiyama's suggestion, Nao mingles with several participants, including Matsubara Fumio and Miura Takayoshi, and becomes more anxious about the thought of losing.

Akiyama devises a plan to form a team of eight: by always assigning half the members of the team to vote "Yes", and "No" respectively, they can ensure that that the last player standing will be one of them. This will leave every member of the team with a 40 million yen profit after paying for the winner's drop-out fee (i.e. 1.05 billion yen) and everyone else's debt from losing (i.e. 100 million yen). Akiyama reveals that Takada identified the player who cheated her, referred to as Mr. X, as a "young guy". To avoid unwittingly teaming up with him, Nao gathers up a team comprising all the women - Miyahara Hitomi, Tamura Makiko, Hosoe Jyun, Nishihara Reina, Makihara Yuki - and the only elderly male - Matsubara. The players are all enthusiastic about the plan, and sign a contract agreeing to abide by it and divide the profits accordingly.

When the game commences, the team puts their plan into play. Hitomi repeatedly emphasizes to Nao her suspicions of Player 15 being Mr. X, and advises her to observe him carefully. Nao notices Hitomi mingling extensively with the other players. The first round of voting concludes with ten players in the minority, including Nao, Akiyama, Hitomi, and Matsubara. Akiyama is suspicious of the narrow outcome, but advises Nao to proceed with the plan as per normal. Hitomi asks Nao to vote for "Yes" with her in the next round of voting, but Akiyama declines and asks for Nao to vote "No" along with Matsubara instead, suggesting that it is better that they have one male and one female in each team. The second round of voting concludes with four players in the minority, including Akiyama and Hitomi. Nao is eliminated, and Akiyama is convinced that Mr. X has been plotting something.

Worried over the game outcome, Nao returns to the mansion the following day and spots Player One, who had also been eliminated the day before. She informs Akiyama over the phone before the next round begins.

Akiyama and Hitomi agree beforehand to vote "No" and "Yes" respectively. As the votes are tallied, Akiyama phones Nao to let her overhear the proceedings. "Hitomi" reveals herself to be Fukunaga Yuji in disguise, and triumphantly explains her ploy - she embedded herself within three groups of 8 players each (comprising all 22 players in total) and manipulated each teams' votes to ensure she would always be in the minority. Moreover, the contracts each group did up would be invalid because she had signed her name as Hitomi instead of herself. However, when the votes are tallied, Akiyama is revealed to have voted "Yes" as well, resulting in a tie. Akiyama explains that he saw through Fukunaga's ploy because none of the other players were distressed when they got eliminated; in addition, Player One also returned to the mansion, strongly implying the existence of other similar teams of players. Akiyama also deduced that Fukunaga was Mr. X because she was the most level-headed and passionate about winning; moreover, she knew that Takada had given Mr. X the 100 million yen in the form of a cheque even though Nao and Akiyama did not reveal that detail.

In the next round of voting, Akiyama votes "No" immediately, showing his vote to all the other players. This creates a dilemma for the remaining players - Fukunaga, Miura, and Player 15 - as they are forced to vote "Yes" to end up as the minority, but risk making Akiyama the winner if they all do so. Under the pretense of forming a 3-man team, Player 15 tricks Fukunaga and Miura into voting "Yes" and does so himself, resulting in Akiyama winning. Player 15 reveals himself as Akiyama's ally - Akiyama had given him his name tag as collateral for his cooperation. Before the end of the game, Akiyama also gets Fukunaga to return the 100 million yen cheque she had cheated from Takada by threatening to take her to the police.

Akiyama uses the 2.1 billion yen earnings to pay off the debts of his team (excluding Fukunaga) and that of Player 15, and chooses to continue on in the next round of the LGT.

Revival Round I[]

Some time after the events of Round II, Nao is visited by Teruo. He informs her of Akiyama's backstory and persuades her to take part in an upcoming Revival Round with the other losers from Round II, suggesting that she can earn money to pay for Akiyama to drop out of the LGT.

On the day of the Revival Round I, Nao arrives at the venue and meets eight other players who lost Round II, including Fukunaga and Miura. Leronira explains the rules of the revival round's game, The Downsizing Game: The game takes place over ten rounds lasting an hour each. At the end of each round, participants are to cast votes for five other participants (with repetitions allowed). At the end of the game, the participant who has amassed the fewest number of votes is eliminated, while the remaining players are allowed to proceed to Round III. Participants are also given 100 million yen to start with, and a chequebook of "M Tickets" to make transactions between themselves. Participants were allowed to bring any personal possessions they deemed useful for the game, and hence Leronica suggests that participants can sell items like food and drinks to one another using M Tickets in order to increase their profits for the round.

When the game begins, Nao notices that all the other players are unusually calm. Miura explains that it is because they have all agreed to vote Fukunaga out for her deception in Round II. Under the pretense of killing time, Fukunaga gathers the other players together to share why they want to win the LGT. She tricks Nao into revealing that she actually made a profit from Round II, causing the other players to turn on her. Fukunaga later approaches Nao privately, proposing that they swap votes with each other for all ten rounds to secure their victory. Nao obliges but realises that Fukunaga has deceived her when the the first round of voting ends with 10 votes for Fukunaga, 5 votes for every other player, and 0 votes for Nao.

Chapter 21 End

Nao realises that Fukunaga has betrayed her when she receives 0 votes after the first round of voting.

Nao tries to get help from the other players, but is rebuffed and remains in last place with 0 votes until the end of the third round of voting. Taking pity on Nao, Miura offers her a drink and explains Fukunaga's plan: The rest of the seven players were also going to swap votes, which would led to the game ending in a tie. However, Fukunaga convinced them that Nao was intending to pay one of them off to betray the agreement towards the end, using her winnings from Round II. Fukunaga persuades them to pay her 5 million yen each using their M Tickets for her to betray Nao and make her the scapegoat - by ensuring that Nao is in last place, the other players guarantee their own safety. Unsettled, they agreed to her plan.

Nao remains in last place with 0 votes until the end of the fifth round of voting, when Fukunaga proposes a game between them, with all 30 of her votes or 30 million yen from Nao as the stakes, using their M Tickets. Fukunaga explains the instructions of the games as follows:

  • Two cards - a joker and a misprinted card with two blank sides - are placed in a bag. Fukunaga shuffles the cards.
  • Nao draws one card blindly. If the blank side of the card is showing up, the card is then flipped. If it is the Joker card, Nao gets 1 point. If it is the misprinted card, Fukunaga gets 1 point.
  • The winner is the first to get 10 points.

Not realising that the odds are rigged against her, Nao agrees to play the game and loses 6 - 10.

Meanwhile, Akiyama realises that Nao might be in trouble when she stops calling him over the phone non-stop. He arrives at the Revival Round I venue to find a despondent Nao, who explains the current state of the game to him. Akiyama explains the trick behind Fukunaga's card-drawing game to Nao, and instructs her to request a rematch with Fukunaga, with either 10 of her votes or 50 million yen from Nao as the stakes. Nao wins the rematch by marking the side of the misprinted card with a small dent so she can feel for the cards when drawing them out of the bag.

Nao remains in last place with the 10 votes she won from Fukunaga until the end of the eighth round of voting. Before the ninth round of voting, Nao secretly approaches each player aside from Fukunaga, under the instruction of Akiyama. She proposes to give them 70 million yen, to be paid before the 10th round of voting begins, in exchange for 10 of their votes. To persuade them to trade their votes with her, she lies that other revival rounds are taking place and that one of the winners from the other round has dropped out, leaving an empty seat that she is trying to obtain by being the loser with the highest number of votes.

When the results of the ninth round of voting are revealed, the players are shocked to find Nao in first place with 80 votes, and everyone else with 40 - 41 votes respectively. Akiyama emerges and declares that he and Nao will be selling her excess votes to the highest bidder before the 10th round of voting commences. The other players protest Akiyama's presence, but he retorts that he is simply one of Nao's "belongings" that she is allowed to bring into the game.

Chapter 26

Akiyama emerges during Revival Round I to assist Nao.

Desperate to avoid being in last place, the other participants scramble to buy Nao's excess votes at inflated prices, leading Nao to earn 900 million yen in total. In the final round of voting, Nao distributes her own five votes such that Miura ends up in last place, and gives him an M Ticket of 200 million yen so that he can drop out of the LGT without any debt. She explains to everyone that she did so to thank him for the kindness he showed her after the third round of voting, and persuades everyone to work together moving forward so that the LGT cannot profit at the expense of putting players in debt. She returns everyone the money they paid for her excess votes so that they can proceed to Round III in the same standing as they ended Round II in.

Round III[]

Two weeks later, all the participants from Revival Round I and Akiyama are taken to an abandoned airport for Round III. Leronira explains that they will play a team game for that round, the Contraband Game. Through a simulation, Leronira explains the game instructions as follows:

  • Chapter40

    The venue layout of Round III.

    The game is played between two teams of nine representing a fictional Northern and Southern country. (Revival Round I participants and Akiyama were assigned to be the South.)
  • Each team occupies an identical room connected only by a long hallway with a "Customs Room" in between. At each end of the hallway is also a set of stairs which participants can use to access another corridor with their respective ATMs.
  • Each player begins with 100 million yen in their possession, and an additional 300 million yen is located in their ATMs. The objective of the game is for players to "smuggle" as much of their money out from the ATMs as possible.
  • The game takes place over 50 rounds, with each team taking turns to be play offense and defense for each round as follows:
    • The team playing offence assigns one representative to be the smuggler. They withdraw money from their ATM, place the money in an opaque briefcase designed to hold a maximum of 100 million yen in cash, and head to the customs room.
    • The team playing defence assigns one representative to be the inspector. They head directly to the customs room and have 10 minutes to cross-examine the opposing team's smuggler.
    • At the end of the cross-examination, the the inspector can either let the smuggler pass or call "doubt" and guess how much money they have in the briefcase:
      • If they let the smuggler pass: Any amount of money in the briefcase will go into their possession.
      • If they call "doubt" and the briefcase is empty: The inspector pays the smuggler indemnities equal to half of the amount guessed.
      • If they call "doubt" and the amount in the briefcase is equals to or less than the amount guessed: The inspector gets to seize all the money in the briefcase.
      • If they call "doubt" and the amount in the briefcase is more than the amount guessed: The smuggler gets to keep the money in the briefcase, and the inspector pays the smuggler indemnities equal to half the amount guessed.
  • At the end of all 50 rounds, any money remaining in each team's ATM will be divided equally between members of the opposing team. Each players' money will comprise of their share of this leftover money, money they successfully smuggled, money earned through indemnities, and money seized from inspection.
  • The winning team is the team whose players have the largest total amount of money at the end of the game.
  • Players must also return the LGT the 400 million yen given to them at the start of the game.



Characters[]

(Main Article: Characters)

Protagonists[]

Kanzaki Nao

Shinichi Akiyama

Fukunaga Yuji 

Antagonists[]

Yokoya Norihiko

Harimoto Takashi

LGT Office[]

Teruo Tanimura 

Leronira

Nearco

Solario

Forli

Kurifuji

Alsab

Rabelais

Artier

Media[]

The Liar Game manga is finished and was published in Japanese in Weekly Young Jump. Eighteen volumes of the manga have been released in tankoubon format, and the short story "Roots of A", which looks into the backstory of Akiyama, has been published as the title piece of a Shinobu Kaitani anthology. The manga has been officially translated into Chinese, German and unofficially translated into English.

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