Liar Game season 2 Eps 1+2

Liar Game is back! The surprise midnight dorama from 2 years ago has finally returned except now its shown at 9pm. The first season is probably the greatest midnight dorama ever, at least from the few late night shows that I have seen. It was a story based dorama that didn't require good acting and just required simple sets that would last a few episodes. It is a made to be low budget. Most of all, I'm just glad to see Toda Erika in a watchable dorama.

Don't kill yourself because you're being forced to do crap like Code Blue 2!

Kanzaki Nao is back and she still retains her too good persona. Well, they gotta give her a reason to go back to Liar Game anyway. No one in their right mind would want to return unless they were greedy, in debt or in her case idealistically wishing to 'save' people. The important thing is that she is now smarter. At least they have shown that she has learned something from the previous season.

Kichise Michiko is always typecast as the hot chick from evil organisations. I don't think she looks evil at all. :)

Akiyama is of course back and they use another twist that the boss that they met at the end of the first season is not the real brains of the operation. All this story stuff doesn't really matter. I don't even remember the end of the first season. This series is all about pitting people against each other in a game of wits. I would even say its the equivalent of a mental battle version of Dragonball Z. Player A beats player B for a while and then player B starts laughing and reveals his/her true form/plan and starts winning etc.

I've only seen her in Babel so no comments about her for now.

Its all about the tactics and how the players use the rules to their advantage. Sometimes I'd wish that they'd just cut through the suspense build up and go straight to the reveal, sort of like watching the last episode of season one where they just summarised the whole season in half an hour. I don't really like the new remixed intro music though. Luckily they sprinkle the old intro tune throughout the episodes.

I hate to say this but I wish I were Fukunaga.

A better timeslot should mean a better budget but Liar Game season 2 just looks the same. Its cheap, cheesy with lots of lights. Actually I can't really think of anything they can do to improve the presentation. Its hard to review Liar Game because it is what it is; a dorama about a high stakes battle of wits. As long as non of the solutions to the games is stupid, its all good.


On a side note, the last episode of Liar Game season 2 is going to be a movie which is bad news for any of us not in Japan. Its going to take a few months for the dvd to be released so we're just going to be left with a cliffhanger for a very, very long time. It might be a good idea to wait for the dvd release and watch everything in one go. For me, nothing is going to keep me away from my weekly dose of Toda Erika. Besides, it gives me more reason to rewatch when the movie dvd is out.