pluckaduck's manga / #gambling(2)

ch 169. it's one of the best mangas out there in terms of strategies and psychological manipulation. akiyama and the antagonist, yokoyo(?), are absolutely brilliant masterminds. even rereading their train of thought, it's sometimes hard to follow. the author is a genius, to be able to create such complex games, with progressively more twists and turns as the players try to deceive and outwit one another. just when you think a strategy cant be maneuvered or conquered, the author blows your mind with a solid counter-strategy. it's extremely well-written basically. the liar game, is basically a analogy for life in general- you can only come out of the game debt-free if you cooperate and trust one another. however, as we know it, it's not like that and thus in the end, there is usually one winner who amassed a large amount of money, usually by tricking the others, and the rest come out as losers with debt. so that is where the mc, nao kanzaki comes in. she's a rare specimen- not particularly smart or special, but full of honesty, naivety, and optimism. at first, she is annoying. in the first 2-3 rounds, she is practically useless, and is always being tricked and betrayed, but she does get better in later rounds, despite still getting tricked sometimes. She plays a critical role in the rounds after, her honesty and sincere desire to help the players soften some players' hearts and enable Akiyama's plans to succeed in the end. edit: bruh the ending was way too rushed. and the message at the end was realistic but in a bad way. is that really what u want the readers to take away from this story?

ch 26. this dumb fuck. if he's supposed to represent the average man, it fcking failed, bc no one will be as dumb as he. imo nao from LG is sooo much better even tho she was canonically dumb in the beginning as well. the difference is that nao is a genuinely kind and honest person, and that is her greatest asset, whereas this dude... his foolishly overconfident fragile self has no redeeming qualities that make me want to root for him. i loathe him. however if the average joe in japan is really perceived as such in the author's mind,,, that's really pathetic for japan as a whole ch111. ok it gets better. still very edgy