On Assumptions and Absolutes

Ahh! I really didn’t expect to have to be on such a complete hiatus. >.< Sorry.

Just some thoughts about the current state of the Infection game, and the speculation that’s out there, particularly on the One Manga Forums.

There are some small spoilers for rules the  “Musical Chairs Game,”  but it’s really, deliberately obscure. If you know even the most basic rules, of the game, you’re probably safe.

What seems like the best strategy to get a short-term advantage ends up becoming problematic in the long view. And conversely, what seems really stupid in the short-term might actually help in the long term.

Also:

A lot of the “twists” in the game don’t come from stated information being false, but unstated assumptions being false.

I think those statements could really become a thesis for the entirety of Liar Game, and how the story works on an arc-to-arc basis.

Akiyama working for the LGT?

More random pet peeving, than analysis.

It seems like there’s a few people (on MangaFox) who think that a good plot twist for Liar Game would be if Akiyama was discovered to be working with the LGT folks, or if he ended up being the mastermind behind the LGT.

Certainly there would be some drama to it. It would be interesting. But personally, that sort of plot twist wouldn’t work either on a story level or on a character level.

Chapter 107

No wonder the literal Japanese for “Musical Chairs”  is “Chair Taking Game” ^.~

Raw is on Mangahelpers.

Usual spoilers apply.

Player Roster

Since this is somewhat easy, and amusing to look for patterns, all the names, ages, and occupations for everyone in the Liar Game up through the 4th Round Preliminary. In other words, this has nothing about the Musical Chairs game. These are also fairly literal translations, except in a few cases where I took some liberties.

Invitation Answers and Information

So, my copies of Vol 10, and Liar Game Invitation finally came in.

Information and comments before.

No spoilers. Promise.

Where are all the Updates?

For the curious and/or the slightly enraged.

Yes, I’m slowing down posting here a lot. Reasons for this:

1. School has started back up, thus the time spent writing fandom analysis has gone to doing homework.
2. Working on my thesis and securing an internship (i.e. Real Life issues) need to be a bigger priority than Liar Game.
3. Spending time with my fiancee when our schedules match up needs to also come before fandom.

This does not mean I’m giving up on summaries or analysis, just that I can’t promise huge elaborate updates on a timely basis. I’m working on whether I should keep the summaries and analysis simpler, or post at the same level but less often.

Anyway speaking of summaries, now that a good portion of them are out in scanlation, I want to ask what people think of them. Are you finding them accurate? Enjoyable? Worth reading?

Chapter 106!

In which black is white, and up is down, and Nao actually wears pants.

Raws are at Mangahelpers.

Spoilers are a given.

On the Outbreak.

Since it’s now actually allowed to talk about Chapters  86 and 87 in the light of day. Thank you cityshrimp for that. ^^

Just some random thoughts, particularly about Nao, Akiyama, Yokoya, and the spreading of infections.

More on “Liar Game: Invitation”

I found out a bit more information about the Liar Game: Invitation book.

A lot of this is probably garbled (am lazy and using Google Translate instead of going out and translating myself), but this is what I’ve picked up about it.

Not a lot of illustrations.

There’s more information about the other players, including their occupations. Apparently Akagi is an apprentice chef. Don’t know why, but that makes him about 100x cooler than I thought he was before.

It also seems to have things like money balance for the characters, and ability charts for the major ones. Plus “rankings” for the players.

The best thing though, I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to get my hands on it. So depending on what’s in it exactly, I’ll start translating/posting the information when I get my hands on it.

Feel free to ask questions here, and I’ll answer them in a new post if/when I get a copy of the book in hand.

Source.

Yokoya Norihiko, Again

Yokoya Norihiko…

Ah. I must admit, I had a really hard time trying to do a real analysis of him.

He’s a psychopath who desires control and finds Adolf Hitler to be inspirational, except that the loser killed himself.

Uh…I don’t want to enter the head of a character like that. It’s not fun for me.

But I think with the conclusion of the Pandemic Game, I at least have a sense of Yokoya’s limits, which really helped with working back to understanding his motivations. As with my really, really early analyses of Fukunaga and the others, it draws on knowledge from later chapters, but doesn’t actually say anything explicitly. This is basically my idea on who Yokoya is, what he does, and why, in the end, I think he does it.

Of course, this is all speculation.