LIAR GAME

I usually like the naive to the ways of the world with a heart of gold type characters…but Nao is just pissing me off at this point. I wish Akiyama would write a list of ground rules out for her to follow. She’s obviously not bright enough or savvy enough to deal with manipulative, ill-intentioned people on her own. Akiyama knows this and has seen her repeatedly put herself in harm’s way because of her lack of understanding. If he wrote out rules that included things like: “do not join any more liar games or any similar games without consulting me first” or “Before agreeing to anything, ask my advice” or “do not speak to anyone who has lied to you before, especially those involved in liar game and don’t let them in your house” Then maybe she wouldn’t keep making such irredeemably stupid, dangerous decisions. I mean, I get it to some extent. I’m AuDHD (autistic & adhd) and I was super stupidly trusting & naive when I was younger. It’s a miracle I’m still alive. But I did learn from my mistakes and bad experiences. I didn’t want to keep going thru the same miserable things and falling for the same nasty tricks, so I paid attention and matured. Maybe Nao isn’t capable of that. If that’s the case, then she needs a guardian or supervision of some sort to prevent her from putting herself in danger constantly.

As if Nao letting Tanimura in and listening to his story about Akiyama wasn't infuriating enough, she actually believed him and showed up to the revival game. If I were Akiyama, I'd fucking strangle this girl. Like, what do you mean you're risking yourself again after I fucking saved you?! I would absolutely love it if the next time Nao sees Akiyama, and she brings up his tragic backstory, he'll just go "WTF? My parents are still alive. Why the fuck did you believe him?"

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It’s tragic what happened to Akiyama’s mom, but at least he got his sweet revenge on those dirty grifters. I guess I can see where his sense of justice comes from and why he’s so drawn to Nao. I really don’t understand Nao’s decision to join the loser round. It’s frankly moronic. She’s done with the games. She’s got 40 mill in the bank and no debt. Like, that’s it. You’re done! Akiyama’s gonna be absolutely fine. He’s the one who carried her through the games. What does she think she can do for him? She’s a liability.

I hope he took down his moms' "friend" too who recruited her. I can understand why she feels indebted to Akiyama and doesn't want to leave him alone to cover for her problem in Liar Game...even though he's probably the most qualified to compete and she's proven numerous times how much of a terrible fit she is for this. I guess maybe this is her chance to prove she has what it takes to be the main character unless Akiyama swoops in and saves her again.

She is dumb as hell. I could support her honesty and such before but this goes beyond that now. In the car he told her why he wanted to continue. He has a good valid reason to want to continue. The story she heard about his past even should be a clue to her. She is like the Mom and needs to chill out she has an out. She even learned he took down the MLM that caused his Mom's death. She should understand of course he wants to take down the game. This is arrogance and self righteousness now thinking she needs to help or save him. He has reasons to continue she does not.

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I want to like the show, especially with the minority vote game being more interesting, but Nao is single handedly dragging the show down. I dont have a problem with a dumb or naive character but if they dont develop and just keep repeating the exact same mistakes over and over it becomes annoying fast. We are only 7 episodes in and shes already been conned into joining 3 different games, I mean come on! Is this going to hit episode 30 and we have to watch how Nao was somehow conned into joining her 15th liar game?

I don't think the show would work without Nao. Her character's role is as handicap to Akiyama, so that he can overturn a hopeless situation. If it is just Akiyama, then he would win the games easily and we won't see awesome strategies to overcome a losing situation. I get why lots of comments here hated Nao, but she is like a Watson figure to Sherlock Holmes. Because I watch Liar Game for the strategies and games, I prefer to have everything stacked against Akiyama rather than him playing the game normally and win easily. After all, it is more awesome to watch a chess grandmaster still beat his opponent with only pawns rather than playing normally.

I like this logic and def agree about like "the more roadblocks for our genius MC the better," but I think there's a case that it's the opposite too actually. In the previous game & the minority game we've seen Akiyama make excellent use of Nao's behavior as a tool for his strategies: Letting her believe she's lost to help convince the old teacher to lower his guard further, having her chat with everyone early on + distract Fukunaga throughout. He's kept her out of the loop bc it's an excellent distraction. In general, people lower their guards to Nao, they think they can trick her. They let their masks slip bc they perceive her as harmless, which Akiyama has made great use of so far. Plus! So far, no game has made her an actual liability since there's been no stipulation that he couldnt feasibly ignore her completely, let her lose, win the game & then split the winnings to bail her out as long as he continues on. As long as he wins he doesn't need to give her any attention at all. Paradoxically, they make a great team, at least better than ur average rando for sure.

I'd be fine with a Watson character to Akiyama's Holmes. That's not what Nao is. Watson is intelligent in his own right, just not anywhere near on the level of Holmes. He also brings real value as a doctor. Nao, on the other hand, is extremely useless and annoying and actively harms every scene she's in. If she wasn't the dumbest and most annoying person to have ever existed, it would work fine. If she was just an average person and didn't have a full on emotional breakdown every time anything happened at all and didn't fall for the most extraordinarily blatantly obvious tricks, that would be fine.

The thing is, I don't think Nao is stupid in all area. Agree that she is very oblivious and susceptible to social manipulation. However, she can quickly perform mental calculation with huge number in ep.4 when Akiyama asked her a question. I think most people probably couldn't do mental math that fast. Most blunders Nao made so far in this show is due to very poor social intelligence. For other area, the jury is still out.

Too late for SeasonalShock I was pretty confident in my theory from the previous episode, but I got the tiniest doubt when I saw how #15 was acting surprised with the rest of them hah. I wonder if Akiyama directed him this way just to fuck with them! It's not like they could still do anything at this point, even if they did realize he was betraying them! (I suppose it might have been to surprise the viewers some more) But yeah he's right, they were damn stupid! The only way to lose at this point is a betrayal... So why in the world did they give him their tickets, WITHOUT asking him to give his (which he's not supposed to use anyway)? That's something I would've expected of Nao, but not of these wannabe players! And confirming the teams also allows him to pinpoint the betrayer, if there was any doubt, given he's on both teams! Nao's still feeling bad about the losers... They had a chat about it, and I wonder if this is foreshadowing her becoming more ruthless, OR Akiyama and Nao feuding over this at some point! He played along with her "giving money to the loser" once, but he might not be willing to do it every time... It's hard enough to win the games, without "winning them for no benefit"! It's funny how pretty much every show with such an organization, has the MC/someone trying to figure out who they are! It makes sense for Akiyama given his backstory and all, but personally I wouldn't want anything to do with them! She really needs to get a restraining order against him! What if you could only pick one though, would you pick good, or honest? Given her innocent, happy life lead to her offing herself, I wonder if this is also foreshadowing Nao changing! Akiyama might want to knock some sense into her at some point, so she's not Mom#2... (Also, it puts these comments in a new light; He might've been thinking about his mom, when he chastised Nao like that!) Hah. It's supposed to be a positive thing, but it sounds like "Hey, we're hosting a party for losers, here's your invite!" Oh wow, they turned into a kind, benevolent organization! They just want to help everyone get out of their debt! My girl, I'm pretty sure Akiyama can save himself, more than you ever could! Only way she's gonna "save him", is if HE goes there to save HER, and winning that game helps him... ANYTHING? Pack up a machine gun - 'No gun' DAMN IT. Can she pack Akiyama in a suitcase? W-Why do I need luck, for this near-100% odds of winning game? You weren't lying, were you? Ah, so technically he was correct about the odds... Though it was "in general" and not "for her specifically"; If Akiyama doesn't show up to save her, her odds of winning the game are pretty much 0% hah. In an ideal world, people would vote Traitor-kun out and split the money, but I'm guessing they'll have to make offers to the others to buy their vote for someone else, etc... I think I played a boardgame like that once, and it left everyone miserable (and we were playing for fun/pride and not for 100 million yen), so they should all get along just fine!.

The way they reveal Akiyama’s twist with the other two not even noticing because they were too busy gloating was really well done. Nao allowing the lawyer dude who already betrayed her and revealed that he is a Liar Game employee to enter her house and giving him the time of the day is too stupid in my eyes. I don’t care how honest or good of a person you are this lawyer already proved to you he isn’t worth your time or trust and you are still allowing yourself to be tricked into entering the Liar Game again.

Honestly, they should've known Akiyama wouldn't be that confident during the voting if he wasn't absolutely certain of his victory and basically lording it over them. Though it was kind of funny how they were planning out what to do in the next round that they missed that they'd lost. Turns out Mysterious #15 screwed them over! He was working with Akiyama! So he let Akiyama be the minority so he could win! He played mohawk-kun and Yoji like a fiddle! I mean, it's Liar Game, of course someone would lie their way to win. It's funny how Yoji basically screwed himself over. Akiyama was able to make #15 realize how sus Yoji was (and throwing in Akiyama's Michiko nametag so #15 had incentive to believe in and get a cash out no matter what) and Yoji proved it was valid when he did his big villain reveal. Not to mention now he has to give back the check that basically outted him to Akiyama as X. His own lies and manipulation caught up to him! But there's still the matter of #15 getting his payout for himself and his team...which means there's still Nao and the teammates they promised to pay back. Which means Akiyama STILL has to play Liar Game to get more money to pay everyone back. But he's not doing it out of a sense of loyalty, not even to Nao (at least not entirely), this is a matter of principal for getting to the bottom of Liar Game and an organization that would take advantage of the weak. Akiyama can't accept that. Just like Nao can't accept Akiyama sacrificing himself into Liar Game for her sake while she's basically in the clear...so of course her FAVORITE lawyer shows up because he can't leave her alone. But much as Nao is well within her right to want nothing to do with him, she can't resist getting guilt-tripped over Akiyama and his mysterious past. Once upon a time Akiyama was a good kid who lost his father in an accident, driving her mom to work as many jobs as she could to put him through college while still maintaining her integrity as an honest, sincere, woman (sound familiar?). Of course then the debts piled up, her health failed, and a "friend" recruited her into the Shouei Group to help her pay back her debts...only she was getting recruited into a pyramid scheme. And when she found out and quit, she got even MORE debt. Enough to kill herself and force her son to use his psychology/criminolgy skills to turn to crime and avenge her. And now he has to do what he can to make sure Nao doesn't end up like his mom. I KNEW he was going to try to talk her back into playing Liar's Game. The Loser's Revival Game! But, I mean, Nao has this in a bag! It's a game with players who've already lost! She's in the black! She has a 100% chance of winning! What could go wrong? Nao, I'm...really not sure how a teddy bear and a steamer is going to help you here, but I guess it pays to be prepared. Well, she can probably use the calculator. Oh hey, it's the bowling alley in the OP! And mohawk-kun and Yoji are there! Wait, are Yoji's boobs rea!? You can tell this is the "Loser's" game because Leronira doesn't even appear in person. But that doesn't make things any less tense...can Nao survive without getting downsized? Without Akiyama there to back her up? Even though it seems like he's about to figure out she's trying to get back into Liar's Game!?

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I wish so badly this show was just about Akiyama, it would have so much potential. Nao is just so mind bogglingly stupid it genuinely hurts every time she's on screen. Yeah, sure, let in the shady lawyer guy who has screwed you over twice and then blindly believe everything he tells you. When he says you'll definitely win the next liar game make sure to believe that the most. Like Christ it's one thing to be an idiot but at least have some self awareness. At this point I'm just hate watching the show hoping that Nao gets killed off so we can get a much better show with Akiyama at the center.

Of course she allows the guy who got her in the last game and laughed at her into her house, and of course she joins another game. This time Akiyama won't be there to save her.  I'm glad I got Number 15 and Akiyama alliance right, I didn't expect Akiyama to pay for Number 15's team though.  I think I'm done with this. The game sounds like it could be interesting, but having seen two games fully, I just don't believe the directing of this anime will suddenly change so that there's more tension, and Nao's just annoying to watch.

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Ah, it makes sense that #15 was willing to work with Akiyama. Akiyama himself did enough to garner #15's trust to ensure the votes went his way. At this point, I can't say I hate or like the fake lawyer. He's obviously there to recruit people like Nao in these games, even offering up Akiyama's backstory to convince her. (At least she tried to close the door shut - she really should have a chain lock moving foward). I wonder why with an 8/9 supposed win odds, these "losers" are playing in a dilapidated run down bowling alley...

#15 being in cahoots with Akiyama wasn’t entirely surprising seeing as he took the lead during the trio’s negotiation. The interesting part was how Akiyama got him to join his scheme. Akiyama knew he himself couldn’t be trusted so he devised a way such that teaming up would be a win-win situation. That imo was the clever part of Akiyama’s scheme. What a tragic life Akiyama had gone through. Granted, the dodgy lawyer could’ve just cooked that sob story up to get Nao to join the revival round but it did line up with Akiyama’s attitude so far. Why bother lying when telling the truth could still get the lawyer just as close to his objective?

I knew 15 would stab the others in the back and team with Akiyama! Hitomi really is untrustworthy and the punk seems to have advanced through sheer luck and alliances. I liked how Akiyama gave him the nametag as collateral. I knew Nao would be dumb enough to reenter the Liar Game when the lawyer came around and she really is stupid to trust someone she knows works for Liar Game and has deceived her before. I also suspect the lawyer made up the story about Akiyama's mother out of whole cloth, like how would he know so much about his life? It is possible hes telling the truth but shows Nao is a gullible idiot not questioning the lawyer at all. Also as far as I could see, Nao was the only person in a winning alliance to join the loser's game, the rest probably had nothing to lose. I didn't really understand the Downsizing Game since they didn't give it a thorough explanation yet but I suspect Nao will be the loser even if there is indeed only one loser unless Akiyama gets involved.

Hopefully this time Akiyama doesn’t bail Nao out, not that I don’t like Akiyama, in particular after his backstory I like him more Tho, it’s a much more interesting ordeal to see Nao have to play alone It seems weird for Nao to win for multiple reasons, her being gullible and way too empathetic Like, in this game one person has to be singled out as the sole loser and I feel that Nao doesn’t have the heart to condemn someone to lose and ally with everyone else, even if the one guy that gets singled out is for a good reason, after all Nao even forgave and helped her teacher So even if you disregard Nao just not being fit for liar game for a variety of reason, I still can’t see Nao winning based on her empathy and morals Here my interest is fully on Nao winning and both on the how and what that entails If instead Nao actually does lose I wouldn’t find that interesting because Nao being tricked or sacrificing herself is something that I don’t find very interesting

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Can't believe people downvoted me when I said I am going to drop this at episode 3, because of Nao. Looking at these comments makes me feel vindicated. Ironically I only wanted to skip through the episodes after and yet I still watched 2 more episodes to see what the 2nd game actually does to get a better picture of how the solution is written. On top of that only todays episode resolved the 2nd game and it's resolution was exactly what I assumed it to be at it's start. Let's see where the next game goes. I think I remember people saying game 3 or 4 should be better

How is this chick this fucking stupid? She's been duped by this same "lawyer" 3 times now, the lawyer just thoroughly explained to her Akiyama's past, thoroughly explained to her about scammers, and when he immediately says "you could really help Akiyama by playing this game, and you totally have an advantage" she bites hook, line, and sinker. Words cannot express how bad I feel for Akiyama. He has put so much effort into helping out Nao, and Nao thanks him by not learning anything. I hate to say this but Nao deserves that mountain of debt, how do you fall for an obvious trap 3 times in a row? I'm genuinely getting frustrated at every second of screen time Nao has, the show is perfectly enjoyable until she shows up and does something profoundly stupid. I do not understand how she even has a job.

Nao in a game by herself is gonna be so cringe, she is gonna get conned by everyone. Funny how they came up with a game where only one out of nine people can lose, because thats really the only way she can win anything, and even then Id be shocked if there is someone even more naive than her in the group. She will probably make it through just by having someone sacrifice themselves for her or something like that, basically being handed the win. What a horrible character. She is gonna need to have the best character development of all time to become even remotely likeable by the end. And she thinks she can "save" Akiyama? Lol.