Story: 9

The story of Liar Game is primarily about these two main characters Nao and Akiyama taking part in different mind-heavy games where the players' greed is tested and they have to find a solution that would benefit all participants as much as possible. The main obstacle in their way being the human nature itself and other players inability to remain true to the same pure ideals.

Overall I would consider the story a very original premise that shows tons of creativity from the author. The rules behind the games are all well planned out in advance to benefit the complicated solutions the characters eventually find.

There's also a consistent sense of uncertainty on the readers' part since the POV changes between the characters at a pace that complements the eventual conclusion as much as possible.

In Liar Game there are still few moments where certain things are repeated unnecessarily or explained in too many words for the scene itself to have the right impact. Most of the time it's not an apparent problem though as I see it.

Characters: 8

A lot of the critique towards the manga is targeted towards the main character Nao. Her exaggerated honesty rubbed some people the wrong way because of the contrast it has with the story itself. The way I see it is it wouldn't really work any other way. If there was no one challenging the Liar Game's logic with their own morals there wouldn't be much conflict. And thanks to Akiyama there's still enough detail in the clashes between brains themselves.

Akiyama's beliefs towards doubting people and using psychology to read other people is the perfect combo to Nao's eagerness to save everyone. Even if the two don't agree on almost anything and don't even have the same objectives, the chemistry they have with each other keeps the story going and brings up interesting questions with no clear answers.

Aside from one or two most of them aren't that memorable and are mostly treated as masses than individuals. I kinda like this because it's more realistic and brings more tension but it' still a shame when characters like Fukunaga who are super entertaining are pushed to sidelines with their stories still left inconclusive.

Overall I'd say the characters that need to be relevant are done very well and the characters that are there just for exposition work for that too. It's better not to get too emotionally invested in them though since that's not really what the story focuses on aside from Akiyama, Nao and Yokoya.

Visuals: 7

The art-style is very simplistic in order to not deviate focus from the dialogue and they even use illustrations to demonstrate some of the more complicated elements to make following the story easier.

However there are times when the perspectives of manga panels are simply off in relation to each other and the assembly of pages ends up bit clunky as a result. It almost feels like the manga could have benefited most from being in novel form since while the visuals don't distract from the narrative they don't add much either in terms of style.

Ending: Brilliant

Liar Game finished with 201 chapters on a controversial ending that some consider genius, some just lazy. Some even interpreted it as a cliffhanger leading to a sequel series. Personally I found the ending very fitting to the message the author was going for and there aren't too many series that would have dared to take the same approach.

Overall: 8

I'd say it's definitely worth a read in terms of story and characters if the iffy visuals or the vast amount of dialogue aren't a problem. A lot of Liar Game focuses on exposition and diverting the focus from that on to actual mind games. This means there's a lot of text but the visual demonstration is used well to accompany that so it's not that challenging to read. Figuring out some of the twists beforehand isn't that hard but then again the story is built in a way where the readers are supposed to do that.

Liar Game is not the most intellectually provoking or visually appealing work but the effort put into the games themselves and their narratives is enough to make it a worthwhile experience. And a one that stands very much on it's own with a strong theme and message.