When she knew that Fukunaga would playing in the Liar Game Tournament, she started to wear dresses, heels and make-up. She didn't wore that in the first games, and of course, Nao is always asking about Fukunaga. The final scene in the manga show her with Fukunaga watching their "movie", and they only phoned Akiyama. The girls were closer, while Akiyama was just a friend.
- A team of seven people willing to be honest with each-other can get six of its members through to the fourth round. First all infected people in the group single themselves out. Then one or two designated "doctors" get two vaccines each and cure the infected person then themselves. Once the entire team is infection free they can theoretically create 4 vaccines each, but since only 6 can proceed to the next round one will have to drop. There is no worry about infected people pretending to be normal since they have nothing to gain by it.
- The only trouble is choosing the sacrifice. The other 6 would obviously agree to save them, but it still requires that the volunteer trust them. Akagi seems the obvious choice, as he may be willing to trust Akiyama and Nao, and volunteering would achieve his stated goal of helping them and eliminating Yokoya. However, Yokoya will also have was ways of forcing someone to become his sacrifice. In that case it will turn into a race to get enough team-members, something Yokoya is very good at, so Akiyama will have to come up with some plot that totally invalidates my 'team of seven' plan above, and results in them both going through to a final showdown in the actual fourth round.
- They already created teams in the Minority Game. And it went horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. I am not sure if they will try the same strategy again. But, on the other hand, the strategy was good, the only problem was that someone was exploiting it.
- It's the money the LGT takes in from rich jackoffs that bet on the game. The whole thing is a more mean-spirited rat race or less intense (somewhat) version of a Deadly Game. Of course, if that plot twist shows up, it kind of negates the whole idea that anyone can take down the LGT, because they're making money even if everyone DOES end up freed with one person assuming all the debt.
- Proven incorrect in the final chapter. The money comes from a big government payoff intended for suppression and they had no intention of ever actually making money from the current Liar Game.
- Think about it, she's virtually the only girl to participate in a game full of guys, and most of them are losers anyway. And the games just happen to be the kind of stuff that Akiyama happens to be very good at. So she gets to see that Akiyama is obviously the best choice among all of them to be her collaborator. Which might be your best chance to get laid if you're an asocial ex-con with trust issues.
- I love this theory but I just want to poke this pin into it: why would Akiyama choose Nao? Unless there's more dramatic past building than Roots of A presents, it seems a bit odd that Akiyama would pick Nao. It seems highly unlikely that if Akiyama did pick Nao based on that scene in Roots of A. It seems funny to me that a university student would take interest in a passer-by middle school student who was returning a whatever yen coin to the police. [I have only read up to the "musical chairs" arc so I apologise if my reasoning is irrelevent or already jossed.]
- It's evident that Akiyama wants to destroy the Liar Game by screwing over the system, and Nao wants to save everybody with the winnings. To do either, one of the two has to win. Considering there will only be one winner, the two will eventually face off. Nao has been progressively becoming better at conning than she was at the start, and by the end of the series could possibly be on par with Akiyama, or at least know him so well she can read through everything. The resulting match will be something that puts Death Note and Future Diary to shame with mind-games.
- Let's hope so!
- As it stands (as of Chapter 184) the final round is a contest between four teams with four people each. Akiyama is in one group, while Nao ended up in Yokoya's group for the sole purpose of Yokoya preventing Nao from being on Akiyama's team. Not "one on one", but it's close...I guess.
- We know Fukunaga loves Akiyama and is determined to not let him be the one who carries a huge debt, so they battle. Or Nao (and maybe Akiyama) realizes what Fukunaga is after and they have to battle.
- Yokoya seriously beat Fukanaga in their "revival round". Therefore, this is unlikely.
- A bit of a mix between the previous two. The final match in the final tournament will have the three of them competing against each other in order to see basically who makes the Heroic Sacrifice. Remember, that going by Akiyama's projection, if they continue with their current methods of paying off the debts, nobody will owe the Liar Game anything except the winner who will be burdened with an enormous debt. Naturally, Nao would want to do this in order to save everybody else, but Akiyama would try to stop her and do it himself because he wants to take down the Liar Game and because he wants to protect Nao, and Fukunaga would try to pull it off before Akiyama because he loves Akiyama.
- Fukunaga was eliminated in the Bid Poker "revival round" where he had to spearhead the assault against Yokoya without Akiyama or Nao to help him. Therefore, this is unlikely.
- Kaori from chapter 3 may be the female employee of the LGT office that delivers information to Yokoya.
- Fukunaga in chapter 4 (dressed as a woman).
- One of the contestants is from the couple of @lovers. He/she may even end up as a main character.
- Asuka Kiryu (Fortuneteller) is the true head of the Liar Game and true Big Bad.
- He runs the tournament to look for someone with a 100 palm to change his fate of death.
- Maybe he is different from the jerk Liar Game employees and wanted to prove that Rousseau Was Right, or the complete opposite.
- Jossed. He is movie director Tad Miyagi. Though he did want to prove Rousseau Was Right.
- We get a Downer Ending where Yokoya wins and we are left with not-so-obvious clues with what happens to Akiyama and Nao.
- Yokoya ends up as the loser with all the debts from the participants thanks to Akiyama and Nao. The LGT Office takes all of Yokoya's fortune (maybe Yokoya commits suicide, but that's not the point) and the LGT Office is not bankrupt. They are able to continue the Liar Game...
- Or maybe Akiyama and Nao launch their own Liar Game tournament if the LGT Office is bankrupt. They became cynics or wanted to prove that Rousseau Was Right...albeit in a somewhat questionable manner.
- It'll all turn out to have been an extremely convoluted Immoral Reality Show, which is why the "hosts" of the game are always serving as a Combat Commentator when talking to one another.
The fourth theory has been confirmed, sort of.
- In the future (or there were enough from the past), there were enough Liar Game tournaments they they hold an all-star competition featuring the winners or particularly impressive players (with mandatory participation, of course, due to them knowing the stakes). We thus get another manga series to read!
Yokoya thinks he's seen through the facade and wants to peel off the mask. He'll be very, very surprised when Nao drops The Masquerade (of naivete, not of her kindness) and cheerfully destroys him...and then turns around and offers to take up his debts, in exchange for a deal he can't refuse.
- Jossed. It doesn't come up again.
- True to a point. They indeed aren't making any money as they aren't actively forcing the debts to be paid. However, Asaka is not involved in any capacity and the money fueling the Liar Game comes from a completely different source.
- Untrue, as shown when the veil of the LGT comes down.
-The contestants will pick up chairs and hide them somewhere on the island
-Someone will manage to get tokens from everyone, so they get prize money whoever wins
- Two of the three are correct. The Eliminated People do not sit on chairs though as it wouldn't help sitting on teammates' chairs, and they'd have to find the opponent's chairs (and if they could do that, they wouldn't need the eliminated people to sit on them and would just take it outright or eliminate it at the first opportunity).
- He is a Nao Fanboy, but no bet was involved.
- Jossed. The Lawyer never comes up after Nao is sent to the final game.
- This one's a bit tricky to break down. Well Yokoya was uninvolved as the Third Revival Round split up the contestants into two groups due to the excess size. Yokoya and Fukunaga got separated of. Ultimately though, Team Nao/Akiyama and Team Harimoto are absolutely at odds, despite Nao's usual attempts at cooperation but then thanks to Nao's optimism, Harimoto and Abe relent.
- Nope, was just an extreme coincidence.
Also note something: we've yet to meet someone who was in debt and decided to give up the game and should be suffering the consequences. Now, this is very much in line with the somewhat ambiguous nature of the LGT office and there's one potentially very good reason for why this is the case: if my theory holds true, then anyone who's in this situation will simply have their debts forgiven and are subsequently allowed continue on their lives, no penalties enquired.
Ok, but why then? Wouldn't the LGT office lose money this way? Why would the government want to lose money? Well, the fiscal branch wouldn't want to do this, most likely, but for the Central Bank of Japan, losing money would precisely be the point. Allow me to explain: Japan has had deflation/been on the zero bound of interest rates for over 20 years now. The reasons for this are complex, but basically after the late 80s/early 90s bubble burst, inflation collapsed, as did interest rates, without a corresponding increase in economic activity since then. I.e., the main tool available for the Japanese Central Bank to deal with low to zero growth, cutting interest rates, has simply ceased to exist (much like the US and Europe is undergoing right now).
So what can the CB do in such a situation? Well, one solution, which empirically seems to be working at least a bit in the US and the UK, is to do quantitative easing. What's QE? well, effectively QE means expanding the money supply and it is normally done by buying bonds and equities. The thing is, the Japanese CB has never tried this strategy, in part because it's been afraid that if it did and QE didn't have much effect on growth, it's reputation and effectiveness would be ruined. That's where the Liar Game comes in.
If the LGT office does as I've proposed and forgives debts, then it means that it's 'losing money', i.e., it's giving money away to the winners, with an overall net deficit... which is, to some extent, what QE does/should do. If this (weird) version of QE works, it would pick-up economic activity and the best part: denialbility. I can't stress this enough, as the CB (like almost all CB's) jealously and actively guards it's reputation, which would explain this convoluted method of doing QE.
See, by doing things this way, the CB doesn't risk it's reputation and it still allows it to try QE without anyone suspecting with the bonus that, if it's successful, they can even try doing it through legitimate means in the future. I mean, if they wanted to implement QE secretly, they could do it other ways, say, just giving out cash to random stranger, but that would raise suspicion quickly. Doing via a system that seems to make money for the people behind it (even though it doesn't, if they forgive debts) and seems illegal, means there's no suspicion of the real reasons and the people behind the Liar Game.
Want more proof? Well, so far the games chosen are heavily laden and constructed with game theory, something the LGT officers clearly understand like a second language. And game theory is an economist's basic tool set; in any CB, even though CBs have much more experts in macroeconomics, there should still employ large numbers of economists who understand game theory to fault.
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense too... it even explains why they don't mind that Shinichi's implementing his 'one big loser' strategy; to them, it's not too bad a thing, because although it does reduce the effects of the QE, since the more people win and lose (and have their debts forgiven), the more money enters circulation, they can just run more tournaments in the future without him; it's better not to raise suspicion of their real motives than to have a more effective QE.
- This theory has not only made overanalysis an art but at the same time has positioned itself at the very pinnacle of it.
- They don't make any money at all as it's not their goal.
That's where the Liar Games come into effect. After the initial game, the follow-up games take place in isolation, over many rounds, with incentives to both cheat and work together. This is all to see if, when actually placed into an appropriate situation, Tit-For-Tat will actually work.
- While not the specific goal, this theory is actually not too far off the mark.
Ted Miyagi was merely another alias of Ueno Takashi. With the death of his parents, he set out to become a movie director and reveal the truth about the Government Conspiracy that victimized him. After the Liar Game failed in its purpose because the government shut down the video, he decides to gain great wealth and accomplish his plan another way- by marrying a powerful rich woman and seizing control of her business. From there, he masterminds and ultimately succeeds in a plan to destroy the Japanese economy, which will eventually bring down the Government Conspiracy with it- and he also kills Prime Minister Kamiya, the man who ordered the Liar Game to be censored in the first place. This sends the world into a mass panic.
Unfortunately for him, the organization known as Midas Bank then steps in and fixes Japan’s economy- using their Midas Money, which has the powers of a Reality Warper. The Magasakis create the Financial District and battling system to see how to distribute the money. The Government Conspiracy, thanks to the Midas Money system, is kept running (and the Magasakis may have even been the creators of the conspiracy, assuming Midas Bank is not itself the conspiracy).
At some point, for some reason, Suitengu is reborn into the world as Kimimaro. He is unaware of his past life, but nevertheless goes on his journey into the Financial District and meets Msyu, Mikuni, and the others. However, when Mikuni puts his plan into action, Kimimaro and his allies rise up to stop him. In the end, Artlier/Suitengu/Kimimaro finishes what he started, and bankrupts Japan for good, hopefully destroying the conspiracy for real this time. And all it took was him ruining billions of innocent lives three times. Way to go, so-called hero.