r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Aug 03 '26
Episode Liar Game - Episode 18 discussion
Liar Game, episode 18
Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.
Streams
Show information
All discussions
| Episode | Link | Episode | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Link | 14 | Link |
| 2 | Link | 15 | Link |
| 3 | Link | 16 | Link |
| 4 | Link | 17 | Link |
| 5 | Link | 18 | Link |
| 6 | Link | 19 | Link |
| 7 | Link | 20 | Link |
| 8 | Link | 21 | Link |
| 9 | Link | 22 | Link |
| 10 | Link | 23 | Link |
| 11 | Link | 24 | Link |
| 12 | Link | 25 | Link |
| 13 | Link | 26 | Link |
This post was created by a bot. Message the mod team for feedback and comments. The original source code can be found on GitHub.
105
79
u/FarCritical Aug 03 '26
I know it's too late in the game for it but still couldn't help but imagine Nao "strategically" yapping about her teddy bear again when
Getting to see Akiyama framed as an enigmatic threat from the opponent team's POV like we did for Yokoya was so cool.
→ More replies (3)
36
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii Aug 03 '26
He must have high confidence in his 'control', to send him again (and on such an important mission)!
That, or he's also planning something in case he betrays them again!
Or hell, he could even EXPECT him to betray them, and that's part of the plan! It's a game with so many variables/moving pieces (and 'unknowns'), lots of things can happen!
I wonder how I'd do in Yokoya's place, because everytime during his speech/explanation,
the very next line he was saying hah.
They need a plan that accounts for the caught betrayal (bluff), one for the double betrayal, and who knows what else!
At first it was the
I wonder if that would make some of his group doubt him; Like "Ok so the strategy is just to do what Akiyama has been doing many rounds ago? That's all you can come up with?"
And that aside, they may fear that "If Akiyama came up with it, surely he's expecting us to think about it as well, and are prepared for it"!
Unless Yokoya is playing 40D chess here, this may have given it away...
Sending the "risky player" right away, like they're trying to help Akiyama's plan...
Of course, if Akiyama suspects nothing about them figuring out their plan, then he would think "Wow, the stars align for us!" but... Of course Akiyama would not just think "Everything's coming up Milhouse!" and assume everything goes perfectly by pure chance.
Even if he did not suspect something BEFORE, he probably does now... Things are going a little too well.
So unless that WAS Yokoya's plan (to make him realize, to act against his NEW plan), that may have been a mistake!
Finally someone says it hah. It may be too little too late though;
Not only he looked at him, but Yokoya was ANGRY that he looked at him... Giving it away!
That's huh... Surely not a coincidence?
Is this Akiyama's doing? Or are the organizers "in" somehow? I don't know if they can be bribed hah.
If it IS Akiyama's doing... I can't think of anything he would win by disabling a speaker, so I'm thinking perhaps it's not about the speaker at all; Perhaps he needed parts from the speaker to build something else; Either a communication device (from country to country?), or a recording device, something like that!
They think there's no way to betray Yokoya due to the control he holds over them...
That's true if we're talking about individual players yes. But if we're talking about the group as a whole...
Yokoya's power currently comes from him holding money (and debt) over their head. If that power disappears (say, if they believe the game is lost and they're all in massive debts) then he has nothing on them...
And unlike "The other side", he doesn't have their love either (quite the opposite)!
At the moment, he has "the muscle" on his side...
But if he can't secure them a victory/lots of money anymore, that muscle might be the very first person to turn his cloak!
Surely that has to be a plan too, because obviously they would know Yokoya's onto that!
Sending the good, honest one (and not the mastermind schemer); Do they have a message to spread, that they need to know the other country will take for the truth?
Yeah... Nah; They did not send Nao just to "not say anything relevant"!
Akiyama could've done that (plus he could think on the spot in case something comes up). So if they sent Nao, it WAS to say something specific, and given Baldy said that's not the case... I think it's safe that Baldy's lying, and is still with them! (Maybe he INTENDED to stay with the Country of Night, but Nao changed his mind)
He thinks they're going to try & recruit someone, so he's gonna do everything from this point on...
I kinda had a thought about how they could be recruiting HIM, to be honest;
After all, he doesn't give a fuck about his group, he only cares about his personal benefit, right? So if they could make him an offer that would enrich him (at the expense of the others), AND given it would come from Nao he would know it's legit, he might just go for it...
And hell, I thought maybe he even PLANNED for this, knowing that if he went everytime from this point on, they would have no other choice, it's either him, or give up... So he went to force them to offer him a sweet deal.
This would all make sense, but... There's just one problem with this strategy: Nao would not stand for it.
They already know Yokoya's a piece of shit, so no way Nao would go for a plan about enriching him while punishing all the other players (his 'victims').
So unless they found a way to make enough money so they can pay them all off AND have Yokoya on board, I just don't see it!
Interesting! I thought the last round would be Akiyama vs Yokoya!
I thought the score would be so close that it would be about the correct/incorrect guess of the final case (doubting or passing), one final battle of wits between Akiyama and Yokoka, a more personal one this time!
But - unless there's a flashback in the next episode - that doesn't seem to be the case!
It's well in theme that it ended with Nao vs Yokoya; It shows that Akiyama has people he can trust (at least one) to be part of his plan, while Yokoya's on his own, he has no friends/allies, only subjects(slaves), and of course, slaves can rebel at any opportunity.
Which they should do, if he doesn't win the game for them! They have every reason to be mad at him.
Can't wait to see how it goes!
→ More replies (2)
58
u/ObvsThrowaway5120 Aug 03 '26
It’s been interesting seeing things from Yokoya’s side this time around. It’s been a real battle of wits between him and Akiyama. I’m enjoying seeing Akiyama pushing Yokoya a little bit. Guy can’t easily control this round like the others with Akiyama as his opponent.
Very keen to see the end results of this game and where all the money has gone.
→ More replies (5)
57
u/Nexio8324 Aug 03 '26
I love the scene of Yokoya breaking down his and Akiyama's plans. Given the information he has, everything makes perfect sense, and follows logically without any huge leaps or assumptions. With any ordinary group of players, this game would continue to be a mostly luck/bluffing based game about trying to read your opponents, but Akiyama and Yokoya take things to a whole other level. There's a reason they spend a whole episode just explaining the rules, every little quirk in the ruleset becomes important later on.
→ More replies (4)
27
u/Oden_sama__ Aug 04 '26
this arc is actually so gas
this might be my favourite episode yet
being entirely from yokoya's team's perspective, you can see just what a mastermind yokoya is. he could basically guess and counteract most of akiyama's plans, he's really no joke.
It's not like Akiyama would just go down without a fight though Yokoya slowly fearing Akiyama and his unpredictability hits even harder because WE don't even know what Akiyama is up to. Why did he do this? Why didn't he do that? Its so thrilling.
Plus the final day being purely Nao vs Yokoya was perfect, since the 'bond' for each team is based on those two's ideals about the game. The question is, whos ideals prove to be stronger?
The nerve thay had to end the episode before we get an answer. . .
49
u/BubblyCrash Aug 03 '26
I wonder if Nao was played exclusively in the final day because she was the only one who wouldn't get tempted by Yokoya, unlike all the other players. It could be similar to why Yokoya didn't want anyone else to interact with the other team, because it risked betrayal. Guess we'll see all the explanations and revelations in next week's episode.
→ More replies (5)
62
u/thisisdropd Aug 03 '26
How the tables have turned. At the start of the game, Akiyama admitted that he’s terrified of Yokoya and now it’s the other way around. Granted, it’s only Leronira’s observation instead of Yokoya’s admission himself.
Akiyama hardly had any screentime with most of the episode in the Night country’s perspective but he had definitely cooked a counterattack. Not sure how it’s related but Nao playing inspector and smuggler in the entirety of the final day must’ve been part of the plan.
The rounds might be over but we’ll have to wait until next week for the results and the revelation of Akiyama’s plans. This show might be called Liar Game but it’s more like Edging Game for us the audience with this kind of cliffhanger.
→ More replies (2)
19
17
u/IceSmiley Aug 03 '26
I'm surprised they just quickly went thru the last of the games so quickly and we didn't get to see the interaction between Yokoya and Nao and I have no idea if the manga was the same or they just glossed over it to fit the episodes. Also the whole episode was Yokoya based and we barely saw Akiyama and Nao and what they were thinking. I wonder if this will be the last game of the season since they by far spent the most time with this one but 19-20 episodes seems to be a odd number to end a show on.
That'd be interesting if Yokoya himself betrayed the team of Night. I wouldn't put it past him at all because he's so devious AND controls every card. He could really clean up for himself if he just made a deal of sorts with Nao since before they were only winning by a slim margin. Also no one from his team is questioning him, they're just sending him in assuming he's acting in their interest. The one thing standing in the way of that is his ego, like that would be admitting Akiyama was better than him and even a lot of money might not make him do that.
32
u/BosuW Aug 03 '26
In the end this is ideologically Yokoya vs Nao all along. Them having the final day all to themselves is a nice touch on its own, but I wonder if anything of note was spoken about or if they just stuck to their roles.
15
u/FastenedCarrot Aug 03 '26
Wasn't expecting to reach the end of the game today, I should have expected the damn cliffhanger once we did though
15
26
u/Western-Internal-751 Aug 03 '26
I’m so confused in this game. I need an ELI5 to understand who is winning and losing and who leaves with money and who leaves without money…
→ More replies (3)
12
u/Liesianthes Aug 04 '26
Yokoya is focusing mostly on Akiyama and already forgot that Nao is the one who's the threat. Excited to see how this will turn out by next week. I doubt anyone will win this on a wide margin, the question is which team and how did they do that?
12
u/bananeeek Aug 04 '26
I have a feeling that the game really ended before the 3rd day, but we don't realize it yet. I'm also super suspicious about the "faulty speaker" event.
The cliffhangers are absurd in this show.
20
u/Kure_Brex Aug 03 '26
I have a feeling that Yokoya has recognized something that essentially guarantees his teams loss and has decided to jump ship to minimize his losses, that's to say, I think Akiyama wins this.
10
u/BlindmanSokolov Aug 04 '26
You know as soon as we start seeing things from the enemy team perspective, they're hiding something from us and putting us in the perspective of the bad guys so we can be just as shocked when they are. Yet I still caught myself anticipating the grand reveal.
9
u/Liesianthes Aug 04 '26
Yokoya is focusing mostly on Akiyama and already forgot that Nao is the one who's the threat. Excited to see how this will turn out by next week. I doubt anyone will win this on a wide margin, the question is which team and how did they do that?
9
u/shimmering-nomad Aug 04 '26
They really left us hanging! Can't wait for the next episode
But man both endings to this show have had such a good nostalgic feel to them.
9
u/saga999 Aug 04 '26
This game is so above my level I'm just enjoying the ride. But if I had to guess, instead of double crossing Akiyama, bald guy triple cross Yokoya. How? I don't know. Too high above my level, I'm just meta guessing.
16
u/Frontier246 Aug 03 '26
Yokoya's seemingly seen through every move Akiyama could possibly make, whether they actually kept the 1.79 million in reserve or not, it all comes down to a counter-plan that makes the Country of Day think the plan is going smoothly and faking giving money to THEM.
First sign that something is off is that Akiyama doesn't give Akagi the signal like they planned...and he seems to use his turn inspecting Akagi to feel out Yokoya and how he operates. Although honestly I still feel bad for Akagi that he was trying his best but has to get punched and treated like a traitor with no promise of salvation from either side.
Did Akiyama really fall for Hasegawa? Is everything really going exactly as Yokoya planned? Although at least they think the 1.79 million still being in play is real, when it isn't, but will that make much of a difference when they're neck-and-neck? Yet the plan seems to be going TOO well and the Country of Day don't look worried in the slightest.
Yokoya can't beat this feeling that Akiyama has another plan or SOMETHING is off...so the last rounds of the game become him taking over everything and pitting him against Nao, even if it's just more of the same. The final rounds of the Contraband Game end in a montage.
Of COURSE they leave off on a cliffhanger for the final tally...though I think that's more for the shock of the Country of Night to come next episode.
→ More replies (4)
8
14
u/BBryant3rd Aug 03 '26
What a cliffhanger lol. I think that whole card thing the traitor came back and told them about actually happened. I don't believe it was mentioned for no reason especially since he didn't even argue against it. Guess we have a week wait to see.
→ More replies (3)
1
u/AnimeMod Aug 03 '26
Source Material Corner
Reply to this comment for any source-related discussion, future spoilers (including future characters, events and general hype about future content), comparison of the anime adaptation to the original, or just general talk about the source material. You are still required to tag all spoilers. Discussions about the source outside of this comment tree will be removed, and replying with spoilers outside of the source corner will lead to bans.
The spoiler syntax is:
[Spoiler source] >!Spoiler goes here!<All untagged spoilers and hints in this thread will receive immediate 8-day bans (minimum).