Academy Island is a city of schools where students battle in games against each other to win Stars. Each student shares the same goal, to win and collect enough stars to snatch the prestigious title of Seven Star.
Hiroto Shinohara, a new transfer student, shakes things up by unseating Sarasa, the previous years’ Seven Star, and introducing himself as the Seven Star that will reign over all. However, what they don’t know is that it is all just one big bluff.
Hiroto beat Sarasa by sheer luck and uses the special ability of the star he won to pretend to be the new Seven Star even though his rank is much lower. Now he must use every lie, cheat, and manipulation to stay at the top.
I enjoy a good anime about games, strategy, and lies, but this series often felt like a lot of dull talking about not terribly interesting games. It did succeeded in one key element, though – having cute anime girls. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Liar Liar, head on down below.
Anime Like Liar Liar
For Fans of Clever Games
Kakegurui
Hyakkaou Private Academy is an institution for the elite of society with a very special curriculum.
These students are the children of the wealthiest people in the world, but they won’t need athletic prowess or book smarts for a successful life, they will need to know the art of the deal and how to read people.
So instead of traditional classes, this school features a curriculum of rigorous gambling where the winners live like kings and the losers suffer.
However, they haven’t seen anything yet until they meet new student Yumeko Jabami.
Both Liar Liar and Kakegurui are about elite schools where the students are more encouraged to play games with each other than they are to go to class and learn something.
While Kakegurui is more about traditional gambling, the games are fairly diverse like Liar Liar, though often more steeped in reality.
If you enjoyed the competition aspect in Lair Liar against a variety of different characters, Kakegurui takes the intensity and turns it up to the extreme. It likes making its characters almost psychopathic-looking when they are playing.
No Game No Life
In the real world, siblings Shiro and Sora are NEET shut-ins. However, in the virtual world, they are a legendary gaming duo.
One day, after a strange email, they find their reality taken away as they are transported to the realm of Tet, God of Games. Here, Shiro and Sora must play games to defeat the sixteen races of this world as well as Tet in order to become the new gods.
Games, games, games! Liar Liar and No Game No Life are all about characters playing games with each other to win something.
Unlike Liar Liar that is modern set in a city full of schools, No Game No Life is an isekai anime in a fantasy land where every single dispute is settled by playing a game.
While Liar Liar has more of an element of lying, cheating, and manipulating, No Game No Life is more about just being clever and really good at games.
Battle Game in 5 Seconds
It was just a normal day for avid gamer Akira Shiroyanagi who, while playing a game on his phone, was suddenly dragged onto a battlefield by a being named Mion.
He and the other participants are told that they have been erased from society in order to participate in an experiment.
They are each granted a special ability and told to use this power in order to win a series of games.
Instead of being set in a city of schools like Liar Liar, Battle Game in 5 Seconds is about a group of people kidnapped and given powers to battle it out with each other.
Both Liar Liar and Battle Game in 5 Seconds is all about strategy and being able to use the abilities you have in the situation you are in. However, while Lair Liar often has “prep time” and also a series of girls in his ear to help him cheat, Battle Game in 5 Seconds is more about thinking on the fly.
While both series have a diverse array of games available, Battle Game in 5 Seconds is often more battle-focused.
Kaiji
Kaiji Itou is a thug in the truest sense. With his days spent drinking and stealing hubcaps, his world is turned upside down when a co-worker tricks him into taking on a huge debt.
In order to pay it off, Kaiji takes up a shady offer to participate in illegal gambling on a cruise ship that is filled with even worse scumbags than him.
Both Kaiji and Lair Lair are about playing games with a gambling focus. However, while Lair Lair focuses on school kids battling it out, Kaiji is more about a bunch of criminals and scumbags doing high-stakes gambling.
While they feature different players, they are actually focused on similar tactics. Both Lair Lair and Kaiji are about not just playing the games well, but cheating your way through them if you can.
If you liked Lair Lair not so much for the games and cheating, but for the cute anime girls, Kaiji is not for you, since a cute anime girl is nowhere to be seen among these dour men.
Darwin’s Game
After receiving an invitation, Kaname starts playing a mysterious new mobile game called Darwin’s Game. Unfortunately, when his opponent attacks him in real life, he must fight to survive.
After narrowly winning his first fight, he discovers a hidden world of players that kill in order to win points.
Darwin’s Game is a survival game anime where the players are actively trying to kill each other, which makes it quite a different experience from Liar Liar. However, while the “games” in Darwin’s Game are often fights, like Liar Liar, they are often won using strategy rather than brute force.
Both Lair Liar and Darwin’s Game are about using every advantage to win. In Liar Liar, it is more about cheating and manipulation while Darwin’s Game uses clever strategies and basically anything they can use to win against superior opponents.
For Fans of Lies and Manipulation
Classroom of the Elite
Koudo Ikusei High School seems like a paradise with state-of-the-art facilities and where almost 100 percent of students go to university or find employment.
However, while the students appear to have a good amount of freedom, only superior students get favorable treatments.
After being careless on his entrance exams for a particular reason, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka finds himself dumped in D-Class with the other inferior students.
Both Liar Liar and Classroom of the Elite feature prestigious schools where the status quo is shaken up by a mysterious new student. The students are ranked and receive preferential treatment based on that.
However, while having a lower rank in Liar Liar isn’t really penalized, Classroom of the Elite does make lower ranking students suffer a little bit.
What these series most have in common is they are packed full of liars and manipulators that engage in a variety of schemes to better their own rank. While Classroom of the Elite isn’t game-based, the main character still often ends up thrust into the drama of others.
Tomodachi Game
Although he suffers from financial hardship, Yuuichi Katagiri has always been kept positive by his friends. They even inspired him to furiously work in order to get the funds to go on the school trip with them.
However, when the gathered money goes missing, his friends are blamed.
Days later, the friends all get mysterious letters that end up with them being force to join a Tomodachi Game where each game they win together lowers a debt.
However, when betrayal and secrets start pouring out, these simple games become a malicious test of trust.
Both Liar Liar and Tomodachi Game are about students playing games with each other. Instead of several schools worth of students doing it, Tomodachi Game is all about one group of friends playing with a huge cash win on the line.
However, while Liar Liar has some malice to it in some instances, Tomodachi Game is all about sinister malice between a group of friends. Watch them destroy each other with lies, mistrust, and all the manipulation that they can bring to bear.
In essence, when Hiroto wins, he usually makes a new friend. In Tomodachi Game, it not quite so wholesome as you watch the friendship of the group rapidly deteriorate.
Danganronpa
Hope’s Peak Academy is an elite high school where those accepted are given special titles that showcase their skills. This year, only fifteen were accepted, and one of them was the completely normal Makoto Naegi who got in on sheer luck.
The students are thrilled to be in such a prestigious school. That is, until they are trapped inside the school by principal and bear Monokuma who tasks them with killing one of their peers and not getting caught by the others in order to escape.
However, if they are caught and found guilty in a trial, they will be executed instead.
Danganronpa is an innately different experience from Liar Liar in that it is about a bunch of school kids trapped in a school and told to get away with murder if they want to escape. However, both series, while about different things, are all about lying.
While Liar Liar is often about the lies and manipulation that the main character uses to win, Danganronpa is actually the exact opposite. The main character is honest, innocent, and naive, but most everyone else around him is lying and manipulating people.
As Danganronpa is a murder mystery-solving series, it is a different experience from Liar Liar, but great if you enjoy your liars.
For Fans of Competitive Schools
Baka and Test
Akihisa Yoshii attends a school where the student body is divided into classes based on the results of tests. Unfortunately, after helping a fainting girl on his placement exams, Akihisa is placed on the lowest rung – F Class.
Although in this school he can fight with augmented avatars empowered by test results to steal the perks of higher classes, Akihisa is an idiot and his classmates are none too bright either.
While Liar Liar takes place in a whole city of schools where the students are ranked and compete with each other, Baka and Test keeps it smaller in scale by focusing on one elite school. However, both series are about competition in that school. If you want something, you have to win it.
Baka and Test features a system where they can battle using avatars, so the system is not quite as diverse as the games presented in Liar Liar.
The major difference between these series, however, is the tone. Liar Liar is often very serious and sometimes even dramatic whereas Baka and Test is very much a comedy.
Chivalry of a Failed Knight
A certain selection of people, known as Blazers, are able to manifest their souls as weapons. To harness these powers, a number of schools have been established to teach these people how to use them.
Ikki Kurogane is an aspiring Mage-Knight, but unfortunately is also one of the lowest ranked Blazers around. However, there may be more to his powers than meets the eye.
Liar Liar and Chivalry of a Failed Knight take place in schools where the students are encouraged to compete against each other and are ranked based on their wins or abilities. However, while Liar Liar uses a win-based rank system, Chivalry of a Failed Knight ranks students based on the strength of their abilities.
While Chivalry of a Failed Knight is more about straightforward battles using strategy, like Liar Liar, the school is all about those battles.
Furthermore, both series feature main characters that amass a sort of harem around them, but there is a clear main love interest.
The Asterisk War
Ayato Amagiri just got accepted to an elite academy for Genestella – a new breed of humans with amazing skill. Through duels at this school, the students learn to better control their powers.
Unfortunately, due to some unfortunate peeping accusations, his new school life is off to a rough start.
Both Liar Liar and The Asterisk War are those sort of school anime where no one really attends class, and the bulk of the series is the students getting into fights with other characters using their abilities.
However, while Liar Liar at least attempts to have a diversity of games that rely on strategy, The Asterisk War is more straightforward by just having people fight it out with their abilities.
While both series feature schools competing with each other and a main character that is increasingly surrounded by girls, The Asterisk War is more ecchi.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Liar Liar? Let fans know in the comments section below.
