Liar Liar Anime Review
Liar Liar is an anime that you will be fine not watching. As the name suggests, it’s a show about playing games and outwitting opponents through lies. While on concept it sounds great, the show is a downgrade of characters attempting to play 4D chess if your benchmark is Death Note or other average psychological anime.
Note: There are some spoilers mentioned here but not too overbearing that it spoils the plot twists.
Setting:
This academy is located in an island and divided into different regions where there’s a minor school per region. The student representatives compete among other regions or as individuals for stars. This is set into a future where technology is so advanced that your smart phones can set a game stage with interactive holograms for battles. Stars are everything in this island and each student starts with one. Collecting 7 stars makes one an elite but for another odd gimmick there are special stars that consists of the colors of the rainbow with each having the unique ability to influence the game. I had to lay out the settings first so that reading the plot makes some sense.
Plot:
Hiroto enrolls at Academy Island to look for a childhood friend. On his first day lost at school, he meets Sarasa, the Empress, an unbeatable player with 7 stars by serendipity but a slight misunderstanding caused the two to battle with Hiroto ended up winning and earning the Sarasa’s Red Star. It was at this point when a long kept lie was revealed that Hiroto is obligated to hide as defeating a 7-star student wasn’t just a simple news, but the 7-star student he defeated was the granddaughter of the Academy’s founder and previous owner of the Red Star. Now he has to play the role of an elite gamer within the Academy and the comedic part is just watching him lie his way through to victory.
I’m going say it out here that it’s a bad anime and I’ve only picked it up because of a habit to watch non-mainstream anime, or anime that have already been aired years ago which I didn’t get to see just to catch up.
Where does the show fail?
It’s the abundance of convenient solutions to most problems that arise in any game. The opponent may use some underhanded tactics but the protagonist has more overpowered tricks under the umbrella of corporate hacking. In a story where you want to frame the protagonist as a cunning character, they botched it the moment when every victory is mostly handed to him. There are moments when the hacks fail and he has to rely on his own resources to outwit the enemy but these are overshadowed by solutions handed to him.
The world building in this story didn’t get me invested enough because of the nature of how the games change. It’s like every episode there’s a new game idea the characters have to play and you have to pause the show button to process the game rules you eventually wouldn’t care because another game will be introduced on the next episode.
The climactic end for the season was unfulfilling where everything goes for both protagonist and antagonist. It’s like the rules for the game events don’t exist and they are just making up the show as they went along. Other than giving the audience less reasons to be invested in the games, there’s also nothing to ground their expectations except the prevalent idea that the protagonist will outsmart everyone.
The characters just felt like they were there for the plot to proceed and even the subplots can be dismissed because there’s a lack of personality pursuing them. I can’t even feel like the wins the protagonist gets is even deserved because there’s no merit in praising a cheat but the show is about cheating and perpetuating a lie. I think there was a concept that could’ve work but execution was poor.
The Harsh Part:
If you’ve watched Death Note, you’d know this is one of the anime that set the benchmark for characters playing the 4D chess game. Well Liar Liar is that botched up kid friendly version without the high stakes attached per match. You can move on with your life not watching this show because you’re not missing anything and I’ve said this a few times over anime I regretted starting.
Conclusion:
I left this show’s season finale feeling glad it’s finally over just to make a review. If there was another season to follow, I’m not going to bother because there’s nothing really worth coming back to this show. It’s one of those average shows to fill a roster you pull up just to pass the time but you got to be desperate to seek it past page 2 or 3 or beyond of the available list which is how I found it in the first place.
Thank you for your time.
I couldn't get through this anime, and I tried many times. I just didn't find a single angle that got me. Other shows like Shadow Garden although confusing, really got me with the action.
Shadow Garden has a lot going in terms of lore from game and light novels for hardcore fans. But in comparing the anime alone, Liar Liar still sucked due to having an identity crisis on what it should be, a botched version of 4d chess show or a generic plot with twists made up like they were drawn from a hat.
Didn't finish this one. Medj off nga sya, was a little disappointing hayst
Finish me senpai.
I have few anime that I watched before which gave me the same feeling as yours, lol. But instead of happiness because it's a good anime that I watched, it's actually happiness because I can finally delete them in my storage, lol. La lang, skl, lol.
Anyways, it looks interesting to me though, I'll try to watch the trailer first and see if I will like it. Thanks for the review, next manhwa naman. Baka may mapulot ako sayong manhwa/hua/ga recommendations haha.
Oh what a pity, the character design looked nice, but as I always say, a nice animation doesn't always guarantee a good story, and vice versa.
Maybe this is more oriented to children, or for those who are just starting in the world of anime and they may find the story interesting and even incredible, and I say this because when I started watching anime, anything I watched seemed great and today no more haha
Very good review, as always, I like your subtlety in describing your dislike of an anime 👌👀
I didn't think it was subtle but not going to lie about being disappointed at it. I finished it because I prefer to finish stuff I started but there are a few anime that were just progressively getting worse per episode that I had to drop. Liar Liar is just hovering below average to average despite how nice the animation is.
I actually love the song being played while they are talking
This anime seem to be an interesting one
Nice one!
Since I read the description of this anime I thought it was a copy of the manga Liar Game (obviously with their clear differences, one is newer than the other), where people are supposed to win money playing games where the only way to win is to be good at lying, what makes this manga interesting is that the main character doesn't know how to lie at all, so we have to see how she can win.
I heard of that anime and it's been a popular recommendation, I think I've seen clips about it too but can't seem to get into starting it. It's not that there is something wrong, it's mostly like finding the right timing to just welp I'm bored, better try it.
I think you must be getting confused, it's not an anime, it's a very old manga.
I think so, it was the live action clip that I saw. The JP one, because there's a Korean kdrama based on the manga.
I also love anime. Thanks for the review.
I am missing out on watching great anime show there
Haven't watched it yet but interested to see how wild this anime is lol, from the visuals it looks interesting but don't know how the story goes. Thank you for sharing your opinion about this anime :)
@tipu curate
Sorry, please curate posts not older than 1 day.