The Fall 2023 Light Novel Guide

Liar, Liar

What's It About? 

FROM WORST TO BEST IN LESS THAN A DAY On the massive island called the Academy, students compete in star-hunting Games to advance their ranks. And among the many competitors, none is better than Sarasa Saionji, the Seven Star Empress. At least, not until unranked newcomer Hiroto Shinohara beats her by accident. To protect himself and the status quo, Hiroto must fool everyone into thinking he's the new top student despite almost failing his entrance exam. Will he be able to keep this lie going when every student on the island wants to take him down?

Liar, Liar has a story by Haruki Kuō and illustrations by konomi. English translation by Kevin Gifford. Published by Yen On (September 5, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Liar, Liar is such a throwback that it's almost hard to believe that it was published in 2019. It's also a classic magic school story, replete with all of the checklist details that we learned to expect from titles like The Asterisk Wars or Chivalry of a Failed Knight. There's a hapless hero who is more than he seems, a feisty redhead with a chip or twelve on her shoulder, a silver-haired girl with little affect, and, of course, an island made up entirely of academic institutions. By the time you throw in the probably-corrupt administration, you could almost start swapping character names and world details and have almost any story from the magic school boom of days past.

Despite that, it is obvious that author Haruki Kuō is at least attempting to create a unique story. The title is taken very seriously, for one thing – protagonist Hiroto isn't the only liar on the island, and most people are being far more deliberate in their selective truths than he is. Hiroto seems like he'd drop the whole Seven Star act in a minute if he could; it's out of consideration for the secrets other people are concealing that he doesn't try harder on that front. Well, that and the fact that he's more or less being threatened by the school provost, who has her own agenda that she's not sharing. Hiroto feels like someone caught up in a system that he doesn't understand and may not care about, and that gives him a bit of an edge as a main character. He's not actively trying to escape the story, but he's ambivalent about it at best.

The writing suffers from clunky worldbuilding and excessive explication, which drags the whole novel down. We get repetitive explanations about the entire “Game” system whereby students challenge each other to schoolyard games to improve their status, and while we can extrapolate that Kuou may know how silly the whole thing is by the fact that they are magic-enhanced schoolyard games (short races, laughing contests, etc.; I was seriously waiting for “Duck, Duck, Goose” to show up), the seriousness with which the students themselves take them is a little much. Sarasa and Himeji, the two heroines, also aren't particularly interesting, slotting easily into the places established by many a heroine before them.

If you miss the magic school genre, or you enjoyed the anime, Liar, Liar may well be a treat. But with its boilerplate plot and characters and clunky writing, I don't see much appeal outside of those two groups.