Liar Game - Recommendations

• TV (26 eps)
• 2007 - 2008

Kaiji Ito is as pathetic a person as they come; a man who gambles his days away, only winning enough to lose significantly more. He hates himself, is riddled with envy for others, but is ultimately too weak to think of a way out of his massive debts. Then one day he is approached by a strange man who offers him what seems the solution of a lifetime – to take a short journey on a ship called Espoir, during which time he will be given the chance to win more cash than he can dream of in a card game like no other. Ever the desperate, Kaiji takes the gamble of his life; however, the game turns out to be far darker than he expected and the hard lessons pile on thick and fast. Now stuck in a closed world of unsavory characters willing to do anything to destroy him, can Kaiji gather enough courage to outwit them all?

• TV (12 eps)
• 2022

High school student Katagiri Yuichi, who values friendship above all else, enjoys a fulfilling life with his close friends Sawagiri Shiho, Mikasa Tenji, Shibe Makoto, and Kokorogi Yutori. However, after a particular incident, they're dragged into a debt repayment game. The only way to beat the "Tomodachi Game" is to not doubt their friends. Bound together by solid friendships, the game should've been easy, but– The hugely popular comic that sold over two million copies is finally becoming an anime! Will they trust or betray their precious friends? The true nature of humanity is exposed in the ultimate psychological game!

• TV (26 eps)
• 2011

Sunk deep in colossal debt, Kaiji must spend the next decades of his life working it off in an underground slave pit, shovelling dirt with other disgraced down-and-outs. But far be it for Kaiji to have learned his lesson from his experiences on the Espoir. Upon discovering that the only fast track out of gambling-induced slavery is to gamble even more in a dice game called chinchirorin, he throws caution – and presumably his senses – to the fickle winds of luck! As well as giving him plenty of reasons to weep, this takes him up against formidable foes like his supervisor, Ohtsuki, whose dirty delight is to ruin the workers psychologically as well as financially. As the saying goes, in a bet there's a fool and a thief, and Kaiji can only hope he will not end up the former.

• TV
• 2024

The second season of Tower of God.

• Web (2 eps)
• 2020

Recap episodes, covering the first season of Tower of God.

• OVA (1 ep)
• 1991

Hiroshi Zenno, a gaming genius, finds his world turned upside down when he accepts an anonymous invitation to join a new 3D virtual game "Expers". A girl materializes into his classroom and gives him an "Exper Suit", granting him superhuman abilities. Forced into a real life death-match with 99 other players, Hiroshi, now as Exper Zenon, battles to find out who or what is behind the killing game.

• TV (26 eps)
• 2005 - 2006

One stormy night, a desperate man finds himself playing Mahjong with yakuza thugs; the prize is his life. He is losing, and death seems certain, until a teenage boy stumbles out of the darkness into the Mahjong parlor, drenched in rain. Allowed to watch, the boy soon offers to play in place of the marked man, and that night, a legend is born. After his first taste for Mahjong, Akagi Shigeru finds himself entangled in the dark underworld of Mahjong gambling: for money, reputation, and lives.

• TV (12 eps)
• 2015

When two people die at the same time, they're sent to a place that's neither heaven nor hell: a lavish bar between worlds where the stakes are high and the rules are simple: if you win you live again, if you die you're gone for good. Decim is the bartender charged with serving the souls who enter Quindecim. He may make a mean cocktail, but his true profession is to play the role of arbiter: a judge who determines whether or not a soul is worthy of reincarnation. To aid in his judgment, the bar's patrons are forced to play simple games laced with sadistic twists designed to bring their true natures to light. To Decim, judgment has always been black and white - that is until he meets a mysterious young woman whose fate seems impossible to decide. His indecision shakes the very foundation of the games and raises the biggest question of all: who is fit to judge the dead?

• TV Special (1 ep)
• 2007

When a group of children discover a strange cave at the beach, their lives are forever changed. Inside they find a hide out filled with computers and a man named Kokopelli who gives them a curious offer: to participate in a special game in which they save Earth from fifteen giant monsters. To defeat the invaders, he will give them a powerful mecha of black armor. The children eagerly sign the contract, name their new weapon Zearth, and must now take turns to pilot it; but the 'game' is in fact all too real and the consequences of battle become the stuff of nightmares. With no option to cancel the contract, is there any way to stop the game before it is too late for all of them?

• Movie (1 ep)
• 2013

When two strangers find themselves trapped in a mysterious lounge with no memory of arriving, they're informed by the bartender that the only way to escape is play a game like their lives depend on it. With a spin of the roulette wheel, their fates are set: the men must play a game of pool, but it's no ordinary game! In a suspenseful, macabre twist, the balls aren't numbered but rather represent a different organ in each man's body. Just what kind of fate awaits the loser of this anything-goes game of billiards?