Liar Game (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shinobu Kaitani. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from February 2005 to January 2015. It was adapted into a Japanese television series in 2007, with a second season which ran from 2009 to 2010. It was also adapted into two live action films; Liar Game: The Final Stage in 2010 and Liar Game: Reborn in 2012. A South Korean television series adaptation aired in 2014.

Plot

An uncommonly naive college student named Nao Kanzaki receives a package containing 100 million yen (about US$1 million) and a note that she is now a contestant in the Liar Game Tournament. In this fictional tournament, contestants are encouraged to cheat and lie to obtain other contestants' money, with the losers forced to bear a debt proportional to their losses. When Nao's first opponent, a trusted former teacher, steals her money, she seeks assistance from a con man named Shinichi Akiyama. Though they manage to defeat him, Nao and Akiyama decide to buy out his debt and advance through different rounds of the Liar Game Tournament against merciless contestants, while at the same time attempting to free their opponents from debt and defeat the Liar Game organization from within.

Characters

Protagonists

Antagonists

Liar Game Tournament Office

The purpose of the LGT Office is revealed in the last chapter. At the head of the office are those who wished to recreate the conditions in a radical political work whose last volume was confiscated in order to surmise its contents, the other members with patterned masks had participated in an initial attempt to conduct a simulation of the radical work (i.e. a first Liar Game Tournament). They agreed to return to help in the second (successful) attempt at holding a Liar Game Tournament. "Handlers" manage individual contestants and provide information on upcoming rounds, and "hosts" carry out the actual rounds of the Liar Game and observe the contestants. The identities of some of the LGT Office members are revealed:

Media

Manga

Liar Game, written and illustrated by Shinobu Kaitani, was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from February 17, 2005, to January 22, 2015. Shueisha collected its chapters in nineteen volumes, released from September 16, 2005, to April 17, 2015. A short story, titled "Roots of A", was published as the title piece of a Shinobu Kaitani's anthology released on July 18, 2008.

Live-action

Liar Game was adapted into a Japanese television series: Liar Game, a 2007 series broadcast on Fuji Television, followed in 2009 by a second season. In 2010, the full-length film Liar Game: The Final Stage was released as a continuation to the television series. A sequel, entitled Liar Game: Reborn, was released in 2012. A 2014 Korean drama adaptation also titled Liar Game aired on cable channel tvN.