The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Liar Game

At the sight of greed, your average human being always chooses money over integrity; however, such a thing is impossible for Nao Kanzaki, who is about the most honest person you can find. But when she accidentally joined "The Liar Game", her honesty proved to be a deadly poison. In a game where every player has to either trick their opponents and gain a large prize, or be burdened with an equally large debt, the honest Nao Kanzaki has no choice but to get help from Shinichi Akiyama, who is a genius con artist who conned a multi-billionaire company. With the help of Akiyama, Nao Kanzaki now participates in the dangerous world of "The Liar Game."

Liar Game is based on the manga series by Shinobu Kaitani. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

ANN received screeners of the first two episodes.

I don't know about you all, but if I received an incredibly ominous black package in the mail, complete with an ostentatious invitation to a competition literally called “the Liar Game Tournament,” I would simply throw that shit in the trash and find a new address in a remote part of the country. Then again, our heroine Nao has the unfortunate luck of being the protagonist of a twenty-year-old thriller manga that predates many of the killing-game and murder-puzzle anime and video games that we have all become so familiar with over the last couple of decades. I know for a fact that I am neither elaborately stylish nor utterly deranged enough to work my way into the ranks of Main Players in one of these things, and there can be only one “Freakishly Normal Protagonist In Way Over Their Head” type in any of these things. I wouldn't even need to meet the deceptively cute mascot character with the list of convoluted rules to clock how screwed I would be. Poor Nao never stood a chance.

Her gauntlet of psychological torment is our gain, however, since Liar Game's first episodes pretty immediately establish why a story like this would still be worth adapting so long after the fact. The whole setup basically guarantees, at minimum, a decently compelling half-hour of television. Nao has been given oodles of cash and a futuristic tablet that informs her that she must either outwit whatever opponent the games deliver her or face such an insurmountable pile of debt that it might as well be a death sentence. What's even worse is that she isn't the usual type of completely generic protagonist we might usually see in a story like this. Hell, if the Liar Game really were just about, like, staging elaborate murder mysteries or using a suite of increasingly ludicrous superpowers to explode the heads of your enemies, Nao might actually stand a better chance at winning. The Liar Game, though, is all about, well, lying, and Nao might actually be the single most gullible and naive person on God's green Earth.

Seriously, the girl somehow manages to get her entire first bundle of cash robbed from her instantaneously, and I was just rolling on the floor and cackling the entire time. As I said, Nao's suffering is a boon for us watching along at home, because her incomprehensibly poor skillset doesn't just make her any old underdog. To have any hope whatsoever of making it out of these games with her dignity and future both intact, Nao is going to have to come up with some seriously impressive plays, which is the kind of conflict that entertaining television is made of.

That's where Akiyama comes in, since the only way for Nao to get ahead of the Liar Game is to learn from a professional liar, and Akiyama is just the con artist for the job. The pair's dynamic is fun and engaging enough to make you believe that this guy really would take on the world's most impossible job (and it doesn't hurt that he stands to make 50 million yen if things work out).

As the show's first two episodes play out, Liar Game operates its straightforward but satisfying formula of sending Nao and Akiyama through the stages of their redemptive heist. It's just a shame that the show looks so drab and cheap most of the time. If Liar Game had a bit more flair to its presentation, it could become a cross-generational hit. As it stands, this strikes me as the kind of old-school adaptation that will mostly be carried by the strength of its writing alone. Hopefully, the show will manage to find some sort of audience, even if it struggles to stand out amongst this season's very stiff competition.

In the romance novel community, there's an acronym for a heroine whose naivete and stupidity actively undermine reader engagement – TSTL, which stands for “too stupid to live.” Nao Kanzaki, the protagonist of Liar Game, absolutely fits that bill. The idea seems to be that her honesty is simply too pure for the corrupt world of high-stakes mind games, such as the one she finds herself an unwilling (and unwitting) player in, but the reality is that she mewls and cries her way through these episodes, making foolish decisions one after another, and just generally being annoying. The Holy Grail of Eris may not have been a perfect show, but its treatment of Constance Grail and her sincerity makes this look like it was written by twelve-year-olds.

Nao's foolishness also takes away from the suspension of disbelief required of this sort of show. While we don't really know what a “liar game” is yet, the implication is that randomly selected people who are likely in need of money are pitted against each other. They must somehow secure their opponents' funds. Nao's first encounter is against her old homeroom teacher, Fujisawa, and he knows her well enough to use a reassuring manner to lull her into a false sense of security. It works, but at the cost of any credibility (or likability) that Nao might have otherwise had. Everything about this man screams “do not trust!”

That's something the art has a field day with. Once Fujisawa's true nature is revealed, the constantly-panning camera (take your Dramamine if you're prone to motion sickness) delights in closeups of his toothy maw. Since it also adores Nao's stunned and/or weepy face, it's clear that someone believes this to be a shortcut to creating tension. That's as may be, but a bit more subtlety would have made this feel less soapy and allowed the voice actors to do their jobs. Of course, since I also found the art utterly unappealing, that may be part of the problem, because I did not want to see so many stiff, awkward zooms on specific facial features.

It may well be that this story improves as it goes on. I'm 99% positive that Nao's mildly unwilling new mentor, just-released conman Shinichi Akiyama, is using his skills as a master of disguise towards the end of the second episode, and maybe Nao's learning to be a bit less trusting. But I have zero desire to see if she manages to develop a slightly cynical edge or learns to use her wide-eyed sweetness to throw other players off. This committed the cardinal sins of being kind of dull and fairly irritating, and I'm done.

There's a lot to like about Liar Game. On its most basic level, it's a story about idealism versus pragmatism.

Nao is a woman who unflinchingly believes the best in people at all times. She takes them at their word and believes that, if confronted with their wrongs, they will eventually do the right thing. In her everyday life, this serves her well enough. People may mock her naivety, but they do so in an almost wistful way. After all, if everyone were like Nao, the world would unquestionably be a better place. With this anime, we take this extreme example of humanity and pit her against her polar opposite—those who believe only the worst in people and are thus self-serving to the extreme.

Enter Shinichi. Unlike Nao, he sees the evil in people—especially when money is involved—and faces it head on. He has no issue with stealing from Nao's old teacher once his mask comes off; however, it's clear that he has a conscience. Not only is it stated that he went to jail for conning and then exposing a scam company, but he also feels personal guilt for deceiving someone like Nao. And once it's clear that helping her steal the money is legal, as it's part of the game, he is all in. Now, of course, the question remains as to how altruistic he truly is, but for the moment, he is the best chance Nao has at even breaking even in the game.

But while the drama and themes are interesting, the looming issue I have with this first episode is the Lair Game itself. Namely, I can't find a plausible purpose for it to exist. There don't seem to be any cameras around, so it doesn't seem like it's entertainment for the ultra-wealthy. The lack of cameras also makes it seem like it being a twisted social experiment is unlikely. Perhaps it's aimed at people like Nao to get some kind of sadistic pleasure from crushing their idealism? But if so, surely there are cheaper and easier ways to do that. So while I'm all in on what's happening, the lack of “why” is lowering my enjoyment a bit—though that won't stop me from watching episode 2.

You know, it's easy for me to sit here and judge Nao for being too stupid, but I'm not sure if that's entirely fair. She's always been honest and trusting to a fault, sure. When a box full of money shows up on her doorstep with instructions that she must not lose it, but will be in competition with another person in the same situation, she's relieved to find that it'll be a teacher she was fond of in middle school. When he proposes that she entrust her money to him so he can put it in a safety deposit box, she fully believes him. Is it her fault that he turned out to be a snake?

I don't want to victim-blame, but… No! No buts! One must never victim-blame! After all, she's only 18 years old and in a scary situation. She's been trained her whole life to trust adults, and she turns to one of the few who didn't make her feel bad about her honest nature. It's only natural that she'd seek help from a reassuring figure, and it's on him for taking advantage of her.

But also, it's literally called the Liar Game.

I somehow doubt I was ever intended to do a deep analysis of whether or not it's believable that Nao would trust her former teacher; Liar Game doesn't seem to be that sort of series. She's the audience entry point for a psychological thriller, allowing us to be the sort of midpoint where we yell at her for believing obvious lies, but also don't know how Akiyama is going to get her out of this situation. We're not here because we want to fall in love with and understand the characters; we're here because we want to see them wriggle their way out of situations.

The problem is, if I'm not invested in the characters, it's tough for me to get invested in the story. I know this won't be an issue for a lot of people, since Liar Game is already a massive hit. However, I don't know if it's going to be enough to make the anime hit among the uninitiated. The direction is thoroughly stolid, failing to make a talky story more visually engaging. The camera, for some reason, is almost always moving. Not like the motion sickness-inducing swoops and spins that GoHands is so infamously fond of, but a constant slow pan over characters either standing still, talking, or completely static.

Actually, I think I'm going to go lie down now, because the camerawork gave me a headache. Liar Game is fine if that's what you're into, I guess. It's just not for me.