In 2021, The squid game It became the most watched series in the entire history of Netflix. The story of this group of people with financial problems who accepted a strange invitation to compete in children’s games with a deadly outcome hooked millions of people and made old productions with a similar plot or approach benefit.
It is the case of Alice in Borderland a series released in 2020 whose views catapulted after the success of South Korean fiction. However, for many it remains a great unknown. There have been those who have compared them and chosen their winner, but there is no doubt that each one is unique in its essence. We talk to you about the virtues of Alice in Borderlandthe wonderful and shocking Netflix seriesfrom now on with some other SPOILERS.
A shocking plot
More fantastic and “supernatural” that The squid gamethe plot of Alice in Borderland It surprises and leaves you in shock from the first moment: Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), Karube (Keita Machida), and Chota (Yûki Morinaga) They are a group of friends who, suddenly, meet alone in an abandoned Tokyo which represents a kind of alternative reality. To survive, young people must compete in dangerous games related to video gameswhose type and difficulty are determined by cards from the Poker Deck.
This premise is just the beginning of a fiction that chapter by chapter grows in interest, tension and complexity. The games are fast-paced, deadly and unpredictable and the series hides a criticism of the corruption of today’s societysince many of the players have been adapting and prefer to stay in that alternative civilization rather than return “home” even though their lives are in danger at all times. So, Alice in Borderland does not stop referring to Alice in Wonderland and to that crazy place full of adventures where its protagonist also traveled. A dark place, but where one can be free.
Here, unlike in The squid gamethe participants who have been left in that empty Tokyo (the rest of the people they knew have disappeared from this version) have no choice when it comes to facing the games, but must do it to stay for lifesince winning each game gives you a kind of “visa” that lengthens your time there. If they refuse to play or their visa runs out, a laser beam falls from the sky and ends their life. That makes fiction agonizing, intense and very, very exciting at all times.
In the second season we also meet players who, after winning all the games, decide to stay as citizens in the alternative reality and act as masters of ceremonies for the following participants.
Some characters to fall in love with
It is very likely that whoever sees Alice in Borderland It takes time to forget its characters, so varied in character and personality, so unique in their kind. The protagonist Arisu and his friends are soon joined by the young and brave Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) and later the eccentric and intelligent Chishiya (Nijiro Murakami) and his companion Kuina (Aya Asahina). Each of them is an expert in one of the different themes of the games (the suits of the deck refer to the subject: the diamonds focus on ingenuitythe clovers in teamworkthe swords in physical fighting and the heart in the psychological), which makes them together form a puzzle that is difficult to combat.
Even the villains Hatter (Nobuaki Kaneko)another reference to Alice in Wonderland, Niragi (Dori Sakurada) either Aguni (Sho Aoyagi) They have a build and character arc and a story from their past that makes your hair stand on end, which makes Alice in Borderland be a delight to watch at all times and, of course, each death is difficult to accept.
Impeccable production design
Being a big-budget fiction, one of the few that premieres worldwide from Japan, Alice in Borderland has a great production design behind and teams specialized in top-notch visual effects to create this alternative reality. Thus, its entire opening scene of the famous Sibuya crossing in Tokyo, through which approximately a million people cross a day and which in fiction we see completely empty, is generated by CGI, as well as all the locations in which the events take place. games or the leopard that chases the protagonists in the tunnel.
Furthermore, each fight scene is perfectly choreographed, as well as every small detail of the tests, and the series never ceases to visually surprise. That end of the first season with images of giant Poker cards hanging from zeppelins!
But what makes Alice in Borderland unique and unforgettable is not only the action, but the key moments of its chapters that remain forever stuck in retinas and hearts: the episode 3 of the first season with the game of the wolf and the lambs in which Karube and Chota sacrifice themselves for Arisu, the death of the Hatter in the arms of his former best friend Tal or the wonderful second episode of the second season in which Kyuma (Tomohisa Yamashita) explains her philosophy of life are some of those moments that make her, possibly, more memorable than The squid game.
Third season?
Maybe the end of the second season of Alice in Borderland This is what can be blamed the most on its creators. Yasuko Kuramitsu, Shinsuke Sato and Yoshiki Watabe. That the explanation of what happened is the fall of a meteorite in Tokyo after which the protagonists are left in a kind of limbo between life and death (that abandoned capital where mortal trials live) did not please many, and even less so that the characters did not remember anything about everything they experienced nor did they recognize each other after waking up in the hospital.
However, fiction had not yet played all its cards and had an ace up its sleeve (pun intended): the joker. Thus, in its last chapter, released in December 2022, Alice in Borderland left a small trace, an open door to a future continuation which was a spark of hope for all his followers. one last letter.
At the end of 2023, Netflix confirmed what millions of people around the world wanted to hear: Alice in Borderland will have third seasonwill arrive on the streaming platform in 2025 and it will be even more shocking and macabre than the first two. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?
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