liar, liar It’s a pretty immature anime. Like many works of fiction that chase trends without really understanding the appeal of what they’re copying, you can easily identify which popular series each story element was directly inspired by:
- In a closed school environment, points determine your social status: Elite Classroom
- Students bet their lives on enhanced versions of simple games and cheated to complete them: Well of Gambling
- The protagonist’s motivation is to find a childhood friend he cannot remember: Ai Hina/Second Love
Perhaps one of the compelling ideas is that the protagonist must maintain his reputation as the strongest one in school through cheating and bluffing… which in practice amounts to nothing more than a lackluster melee that doesn’t feel clever or satisfying at all. For a series about mind games, the strategy is very cerebral, and you never feel like any character has above-average intelligence.
In the postscript to the first volume of the light novel, the author describes it as “Game + Lies + School + Romantic Comedy”, and yes, it’s pretty much all of those components and nothing more.
So why am I blogging about this very mediocre series? Well, I want to talk about the difference between the entertainment of light novels and the entertainment of anime.
Stories and characters in the original light novel liar, liar As thin as in the anime. Aside from a few slightly drawn-out dialogue scenes, you won’t get a stronger impression of these people.
But really, the whole point of light novels is to be informative and easy to read. liar, liar keep up a good pace and make something Happens in every scene. Even if the story has no substance, it doesn’t make you feel like it’s a waste of your time. Read the book very quickly, at which point you can easily say, “Hmm, that’s good.”
But animation needs more than just readability and comedy to support a script. There are a lot of comic book adaptations out there that give this impression – you know, the ones based on silly funny comics that repeat the same jokes every chapter. It’s great to read and giggle about, but when you see it playing out on your screen every week, it starts to get old.
I talked a lot about adapting in my last post The Reign of the Seven Demonic Blades Again, but in this case, I don’t think there’s actually any theoretical way to make liar, liar “Realize” its potential as an animation. Of course, the poor animation doesn’t help much, but the story itself just doesn’t do enough to make for compelling television. This was my candid impression after reading the first volume of the light novel, which actually caused quite a stir in Japan when it was first published.
I think this shows that light novel readers tend to have different expectations for story narration and presentation. The line between the light novel being “good” and the anime being “mediocre” can be quite blurry. It’s not hard to see how liar, liar This is the result. Anime is also moderately entertaining as long as you don’t try to follow the logic of the game or obsess over the existence of other media works that perform better on the same concept.
What I want to say is that I think the tsundere characters in this series are cute. What I particularly like is that, per the fundamentals of this trope, she’s so bad at lying that she even gives away her backstory in the first episode. This is an interesting character to include in a series whose entire concept revolves around lies.
I also thought it was really hilarious how the anime went about it, where the MC didn’t have an actual story resolution, but instead summed up the main themes with some short clichés. It all amounts to “lying about everything will make your life better.” Let me quickly quote him:
“A lie can change your life. But now, this lie doesn’t just belong to me. One day, somewhere on Academy Island, I will find the person I am looking for. Until that day, I will continue to lie with my friends here.”
Throughout the show, Dude was under intense pressure and anxious about keeping the drama going, only to eventually turn to the camera and say his story was inspirational. He sounds like the boss of a tech startup.
So, yes, this series is pretty bad, but I guess it’s okay if your expectations are low. This is probably how light novels became popular.