Super LTTP but I played and beat both 999 and VLR in succession over the last couple weeks. I loved 999: the feeling of dread looming over everyone's head kept me up for hours and the puzzles were fun. VLR was also really good but it wasn't nearly as suspenseful as 999 and I disliked a lot of the puzzles. Maybe I should've played them on Easy first but I thought the answers to some of them were really "out there" and I felt tricked. I also managed to get the Secret Passwords quite easily sometimes and then couldn't figure out how to get the Escape password. But anyway, they're both really good games and I'm glad I played them.
I kept being reminded of the drama "Liar Game" while I played the games, and when I finished VLR I couldn't help but rewatch the series for the third time. I know the series isn't very well known and I figured that maybe the Zero Escape community would really enjoy this series because they share a lot of common themes. So I'm just gonna introduce it to you guys and maybe you'll give it a try (it could also help soften the pain of waiting for ZE3 news
)
Liar Game is originally a manga series, but it has also been adapted to a live action drama series spanning two seasons of 13 and 9 episodes respectfully. I'll be discussing the live action series.
It's about a girl named Kanzaki Nao, who one day finds 100 million yen on her doorstep, with an accompanying letter informing her that she has been forced to play the Liar Game. Simply put: It's a game of deceit in which players try to gain the most money by tricking their opponents out of theirs. The problem is, Nao is known to be "too honest for her own good" and thus extremely gullible, which obviously doesn't play into her favor. She seeks help from Akiyama, a genius swindler, and together they beat the first round, thereby automatically entering into the second round, etc.
The best thing about Liar Game is definitely the various games being played in each round. Many things you've heard about in 999 and VLR are also used in Liar Game, such as the prisoner's dilemma. The rounds also have varying amounts of opponents: 3 vs 3, a 9 players free for all, 1 vs 1, etc, and the games they play are almost all based on human psychology. (There is also a game in which they use wrist watches btw
)
The fun thing is that all the rules are made clear in the beginning and as the viewer you're trying to figure out the solution because there is
always a smart trick to manipulate the game in your favor. But it's almost useless because when the solution is finally explained you just want to hit yourself for not figuring it out yourself. The tricks they come up with are so well thought out and smart but still logical and easy to understand. The series itself has really good production values, a fun cast, though the acting gets a little over the top sometimes when a character bursts into a maniacal laughter when someone just "activated their trap card" so to speak
.
I wish I could find a good English subbed trailer to give an idea, but all I could find is this trailer from one of the movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZhNiBpDRto
I should add that they're really trying to pander to the Nao x Akiyama fandom in this trailer (and movie) and there is no romance at all in the regular seasons. So please don't let this scare you off. The tv drama is purely about the mind games and there is hardly any fluff or filler. The pacing is extremely good as well, as most games last about 2 episodes before almost immediately continuing with the next game and they're all really interesting.
If you want to read some reviews, there's a bunch of helpful ones
here, that might help you get a better understanding of how the games play out because I suck at explaining
.
As for availability, both seasons can be found on
Crunchyroll. They don't seem to have the movies, of which there are two iirc. One of them, The Last Stage, serves as the conclusion to the series but the main storyline isn't resolved in that one which is a shame. The manga has not been licensed unfortunately, but
as far as I know it's still ongoing it ended last year, as pointed out by some people below. Oh, a Korean live action adaption has also started recently, but I haven't checked that out.
I hope some of you will give it a try. Every time I recommended Liar Game to someone they ended up loving it. If you like Death Note btw, I can almost guarantee you'll love this too.
Ok, long ass post over, back to speculating about participant 6 again
