Tags: Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Harem, School Life

Sub-Tags: Misunderstandings, Game Elements, Traditional Games, Tsundere

Can a Liar Remain on Top?

A Cheat to Win System

For my latest review on the roster, I look at a series that others have rightly pointed out marks a certain resemblance to a popular edgelord, school-life fantasy.

Liar Liar, a long-running title from the MF Bunko J label, follows the misadventures of Hiroto Shinohara as he starts a new life on an academy island where games determine prestige. Contented with living under the radar to achieve his goal, his life is turned upside down after accidentally defeating the island’s strongest competitor. Now, to keep his secret from getting out, Hiroto has to continue playing games with opponents way above his level to survive. 

Had this series decided on a serious approach, I suspect my review would’ve taken a much more negative direction. As it stands, however, the story will escape its fundamentally flawed verdict due to the series’ clear signalling that it should be thought of as fun yet irreverent. Thus providing the series with a little more leeway when it jaunts into fantastical elements.

Secrets and Lies

Your typical harem fantasy is what best describes this series. True to this genre’s style, as the titular protagonist decides to rub his remaining brain cells to reach a solution, it isn’t long before he’s swaddled by a group of beautiful women. In this volume, Shinohara’s bluff and bluster earn him favour with both Himeji and Saionji.

As for the story, the gist of it finds Shinohara struggling to stay at the top of the pyramid through competing in a series of games. This is where the author gets to be at their most inventive, creating both easily recognisable and more complex games that are then switched up through the use of a student’s set abilities. These abilities grow more powerful and numerous as a student climbs up the starred ranks (seven being the highest).

Unfortunately, it’s with these abilities that some of the series’ main flaws come to light. Being a fake seven-star means that Shinohara only has the abilities that he had before the battle with Saionji – a one-star. As a result, he doesn’t have the power to go up against some of the island’s strongest competitors and often falls back on a team that cheats for him.

Whilst he manages to win every game in the first volume, none of them feel particularly deserved. Save for the final battle, where his acting abilities come in handy, Shinohara’s wins mainly come about due to cheats, coincidences or deus ex machina.

Furthermore, character motivations throughout the first volume are a bit spotty. Both Shinohara and Saionji have secrets that they need to keep hidden, but by the end of the first volume, these seem to have gone by the wayside as their actions run counter to these goals, more often than not hindering their efforts.

Fun but flawed, Liar, Liar makes for an entertaining read, provided you don’t look too deeply into the mechanics of the plot. Its fast pace and misunderstandings style humour bring an overall light feeling to the affair.

Unfortunately, even as fast food, the flaws still manage to make themselves known. Its constant victories hanging on through coincidence and characters that flip-flop on motivation are hard to ignore.

I will give this series a second shot, but with a second volume focusing on a battle royale, I’m not sure whether it’ll improve.