Comparison between the Manga version and the J-drama version.

I aim for this post to sum up the major differences between the manga and the drama. Spoilers go through the end of the drama, and through volume 6 of the manga.

The first thing to realize is that, taken on it’s own, the drama isn’t bad.  It’s pretty cheesy, but cheesy is fine. The games get explained pretty well, with the addition of visual aids that make it easier to follow in the drama. Akiyama is also pretty cool, and I think they’ve gotten his character about 80% correct. The messages and themes in the drama are different than the ones in the manga, not ones that I respond to personally, but they make for a happy ending.

The second thing to realize is that the drama has its limitations. Doing Liar Game in the same way the manga does it would require a huge cast of characters. It also has to connect to a much wider audience than a Seinen manga about psychology and mental games would normally appeal to. Oh, and the drama only had an 11 episode run, so they had to cram an entire 6 volumes worth of manga in to 10 40 min shows, and a 3 hour special. Plus they had to close it neatly on round three.

So keeping that in mind…

The first major difference between the drama and the manga is that everything is personal in the drama.

• Akiyama’s personal motivations for helping out Nao are revealed (from his P.O.V.) in the very first episode. Whereas in the manga, while there’s clearly a personal motive,  we can only tell by Akiyama’s actions. We still haven’t seen anything about his past or motivations from his P.O.V.
• The LGT Corporation has personal motivations for getting Nao and Akiyama into the game.  Nao’s innocence made an impression on the LGT’s sponsor and the woman who acts as the agent of the game, and the MLM Akiyama took down to avenge his mother was owned by the same man. And managed by Yokoya.
• All the players in round 3, with the exception of Yokoya have heard Nao’s speech about saving everyone. So there’s much more of a motivation to help everybody out compared with the manga version, where only Yokoya, and those that Akiyama is targeting.

The second big difference  is that each of the three main characters are much more static in the drama.

I think that in the drama, Akiyama is traumatized by his mother’s death but at the same time his emotional defenses against others aren’t built as high as they are in the in the manga. He doesn’t have as far to go in dealing with his past and coming to terms with what happened. On one hand, it probably makes for better television, but on the other hand, his role in the game never really changes or evolves beyond that of a master planner.

Nao and Fukunaga’s developments on the other hand…

After reading through the end of the currently released manga, they’re what makes the drama incredibly difficult for me to watch without yelling at the screen or writing up rants on how badly the drama compares to the manga. Oops.

Nao doesn’t evolve at all. According to the drama, she doesn’t need to. Nao is this perfect paragon of trust, honesty, and kindness, that people should be inspired by her to walk the path of honesty.

…

Yeah.

Do I need to get into why I find this troublesome? No? Too bad.

The Nao in the manga starts out almost exactly at the same spot she is in the drama. They’re both completely trusting, they’re both something of crybabies, and they’re both entirely dependent on Akiyama. But whereas Nao in the manga thinks about the situations she’s been put in and is gradually learning from them, Nao in the drama has exactly one brilliant insight that turns out to be both a fluke and the key to getting out of the game.

And the thing is… the kindness that everybody praises as the light of hope by the end of the drama. I find it much shallower than the smaller, more informed acts of kindness Nao shows throughout round 3. My largest evidence: Round 3 in both the manga and the drama end with Akiyama in emotional turmoil for completely different reasons. Nao’s reaction in the manga:  she stays with him, understanding why he’s grieving, even though she knows there’s nothing she can do to ease the pain. Her reaction the drama: she smiles at him, because he’s made the difficult, and ‘right’ choice. There’s no indication at all that she understands what he’s going through.

Seriously, this is the kindness that we should aspire towards?

…

Moving on to Fukunaga:

At least his appearance in the drama already tells us that he’s completely different than his manga counterpart. Yes, Fukunaga is a man. They switched the genders around in Round 2 (#15 was a woman and so was the person who stole the check, supposedly), and Fukunaga only played at cross-dressing in order to get the check. So, at least there’s no mistaking that Fukunaga Yuuji in the drama has almost no relation to his manga counterpart.

So, besides the gender differences, Fukunaga Yuuji is much weaker character. He still has something of a predatory nature, and he still takes glee in tricking others–especially Nao–but he lacks the physical strength and sheer guts that his manga counterpart possesses in spades.

He also gives in to Ono’s (think Kikuzawa’s) powertrip in Round 3. He has to, for the sake of the drama, since there’s only 5 to a team instead of 9, and certainly Nao and Akiyama aren’t going to give in. But it really weakens his character and proves that he is just as much motivated by money and fear as everyone else who isn’t Nao and Akiyama.

The last major difference, and the reason why the character development couldn’t be so deep, is that the drama had to end neatly after the end of Round 3.

This means that the game itself had to end somehow, which is where the deus ex machina ending with Nao’s kindness came in. This means that Round 3 had to end neatly as well, with everybody getting out of it without any debt at all. And I guess this means that everyone as a character had to end with most of their issues resolved.

It sounds pretty small, but I think just the fact that the game in the drama had to close on Round 3 made a huge difference in how the characters and events were played out, and I think, changed the overall message of Liar Game.

As I said in the intro, taken on its own, the drama is by no means bad. It’s good entertainment, and it has some pretty good eye-candy to go along with the puzzles. If you want  entertaining, go watch it.

If you want an incredibly deep psychological take on Liar Game with some truly masterful thinking and character development, then stick with the manga.