At the beginning of the volume, we start to learn a bit more about Akiyama. He used to be a normal graduate student, and he had a loving mother who made sure he had a path of education for him. Sadly, she was an honest woman and was taken advantage of. The sad part is that she killed herself so her son didn’t have to take on her mistake. That only fueled Akiyama to use his criminal studies education for revenge. Which is where we have him now as a swindler.
The most curious thing is that Nao reminds Akiyama of his mother. Which is probably why he gets so aggravated that she is as naive as she is. At the same time, he feels guilty about what if Nao makes a mistake that will haunt her like what his mom did. It is clear by now Akiyama has a good heart.
Sadly, we get to the point where Nao is still frustrating as she agrees to compete in the Revival Round to help Akiyama. However, nothing she has done has been of notable help to him, and quitting the Liar Game would be the best thing she could do for him. To illustrate even worse, she ends up trusting Fukunaga, who betrayed everyone in the previous round.
Akiyama coming to Nao’s rescue again isn’t surprising. Getting back at Fukunaga involved cheating, but it was a clever play to ensure that Fukunaga couldn’t catch on that Nao was cheating. The strategy is impressive.
The next strategy Akiyama came up with for Nao was basically to buy 10 votes for 70 million each between the 9th and 10th rounds. Much like Fukunaga, she illustrated this in secret, so this deal she made with the rest of them.
This is a genius ploy by Akiyama because now Nao was controlling the results. As if any of the contestants did nothing, then Nao could give the votes to anyone else. Essentially it is a monopoly, and their bid price would only get higher and higher. We even see why this bidding strategy only works for Nao because she was in the lead and her votes had the power to change the tide. As Satou realized, once a decent number of votes was sold, he could no longer sell anymore. Why would they buy votes from someone on pace to lose?
Nao’s analysis of the Liar Game is interesting. She has a point that the Liar Game only benefits if someone drops out; that is when they make money. That is money they receive that another player owes them. Nao’s speech is very much that of an honest person. Though humans are greedy individuals, can we expect that they wouldn’t take an opportunity to take the money if it presents that option to them?
