During its
panel at Anime NYC, distributor REMOW announced
that Shinobu Kaitani's Liar Game manga will
receive a television anime adaptation that will premiere
in 2026. Details on its global streaming distribution will be
revealed at a later date.
A
top-notch creative team behind it
The
production will be handled by Madhouse, with Yūzō Satō (Kaiji, Akagi, Trillion
Game, The Gene of AI) as chief director. Asami Kawano (The
Vampire Dies in No Time) will be directed, while Tatsuhiko Urahata (Baki, Monster)
will oversee the scripts. Kei Tsuchiya will be in charge of
character design and Kisuke Koizumi will take over the sound
direction.
A
message from the author
Shinobu
Kaitani himself
expressed his excitement for the project: "This year marks twenty years
since Liar Game's first appearance in Young Jump,
and what better way to celebrate it than with its anime. At the time, the work
revolved around the importance of trust, but with the pandemic, the
rise of social networks and an increasingly distrustful world, I think its
message is more relevant today than ever."
The author
also assured that this adaptation will resonate with both fans who followed the
original work and those who discover it for the first time.
A manga
that marked an era
The manga
was published between 2005 and 2015 in Weekly Young
Jump magazine, with a total of 19 compilation volumes. The
story follows Nao Kanzaki, a woman dragged into a dangerous
competition called Liar Game, and Shinichi Akiyama, a
brilliant con artist who decides to help her survive in this twisted game of
deception.
Legacy
Beyond Paper and Expectations
The work
previously inspired two live-action films, two TV series, two
web dramas, and even a play in 2023. In addition, Kaitani is
also the author of ONE OUTS, a manga that in 2008 received its
own anime adaptation.
Two decades
after its debut, Liar Game returns to captivate a new
generation of fans with an anime that promises to transfer all the intensity of
its psychological suspense and mind games to
the animated field. 2026 will mark the return of one of the most influential
works of the genre.
