Alice in Borderland gotta be one of the BEST survival game shows thus far! And Season 2, might not be the end of it. Now I'm not gonna lie, I tend to get very nervous when shows, anime, and etc come out with multiple seasons. That's just asking for trouble sometimes. Because sometimes the later seasons might not be up to par.
Tokyo Ghoul and Promised Neverland are just two examples of this.
However, I'm proud to say that Alice in Borderland is definitely not one of those cases.
One of the things that made Alice in Borderland so interesting was the whole plot behind it & then having these regular people come together to try and survive these messed up games.
Personally, I would describe it as an Isekai gone wrong because the games that they were playing were games I seriously wouldn't want any part of. I mean especially considering that there were characters that arrived with friends, but those friends did not make it out of the game.
Specifically our MC.
That was a brutal sight to see.
That game absolutely destroyed him, which one would expect.
I mean lets face it. ALL of the games were brutal because these are still survival games at the end of the day, BUT the games in season 2 didn't quite hit as hard as the Seven of Hearts games in season 1. I don't think any game will compare to the hell that particular game caused. Then again, we also have to take in consideration that in season 1, we simply didn't know what was going to happen and things got pretty dark real fast. Whereas in season 2, we kinda already knew what to expect to an degree.
So let's do a bit of a comparison after we get some of the basic info out of the way.
GAMES:
The games are categorized by suits. Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs.
Hearts (Psychology): Games of Pyschology, Trust, Betrayal
Spades (Physical): Games of Endurance, Strength, Agility
Diamonds (Intelligence): Games of Intelligence, Strategy, Wits
Clubs (Balance): Games that balance all three concepts with an element of teamwork.
Something to also keep in mind that the number of the card indicates the difficulty of the game. Like Seven of Hearts is going to be more difficult than a Two of Hearts for an example.
Season 1
Here you had that Brutal Game with Heads Exploding AKA officially called Seven of Hearts. This has got to be the most memorable game in this season or probably throughout Alice In Borderland period. With this game, you had to be a "wolf" at the end of the time limit. Sounds simple enough right? Until you realize that there can only be ONE wolf. AKA ONE survivor.
And at this point this particular friend group is basically in some deep trouble and the end result really surprised me.
Like this was where I realized that this show was unpredictable and this moment officially solidified my interest in the show even more. Part of me expected them to find some way out of it, but they ALL got snuffed out.
Except for our MC.
To be blunt, I like dark things and I'm not too bothered if things don't have a happy ending, but I kinda always expect to see one. IMO, happy endings kinda makes things less interesting and less enjoyable. I mean what's the point of watching something if I know how it's gonna go from beginning to end?
I want to be surprised, I want to feel and be moved; I don't want to be able to mindlessly watch anything.
So 8/10, I tend to really like darker things or things that involve some sort of problem or tribulation that needs to be fixed.
Again, ALL of the games are pretty messed up. There's no debating that, but I really feel like we felt the weight of Alice in Borderland in Season 1. Like the consequences felt a lot heavier for our MC and we saw how badly the aftermath of the Seven of Hearts destroyed him.
In Season 1, there was also the Ten of Hearts game. And people at the beach had to find out who Momoka Inoue's murderer is burn them in the fire. Like that was clearly some castevania shit. Being burned alive in a fire is crazy. I rather be deleted by water - at least that's less painful.
Season 2
Now in season 2, The games don't seem AS brutal as it was compared to Seven of Hearts in season one. And I say that because the MC isn't pit against other characters we genuinely care about or characters that are important to him. Like legit all of the characters, at least the ones we care about, are pit against irrelevant people.
It would have been interesting to see Arisu lose someone again. Like maybe his love interest. Or really see a lot of this particular group battle against each other. That's kinda really my only beef with season 2.
It didn't hit the same emotionally as season 1 did and it seemed like the stakes were a bit lower this time around. Still, season 2 had games like Balance Scale With The King of Diamonds AKA literally messing around and getting acid dumped on you.
Then we had, the Solitary Confinement with the Jack of Hearts where it was kinda like Among Us. This was pretty interesting because you really had to trust your potential enemies here. I don't think I'd be able to trust strangers what my suit is. Friends and family, yeah sure. But even then there would still be this slight fear in the back of my mind that I'm being lied to.
And had a game with the Checkmate With the Queen of Spades. This one was kinda less like a survival game and more like the American Ninja Warrior Game because the stakes weren't as high. Like more people were capable of surviving this particular game compared to a good bit of other games.
ACTION:
Both seasons had a lot of action in there own right, but I feel like Season 2 outdid Season 1 here especially with that huge fight with King of Spades fight. I honestly didn't expect the King of Spades to hang around as long as he did. I felt like he should have been more easier to deal with and battle with because you can literally see him. And even though it was still a game, it wasn't a game where your head could be exploded. Or a game where you could melt away in seconds from a pot full of acid.
He dropped a lot more people than I thought he would've to be honest.
And the fact that it took most of the cast to take him down shows just how much I underestimated him.
ENDING:
Season 2 ending was slightly confusing, but began to make sense. The reason for the name was in the title and I think I'm beginning to like stuff like that. Like at first I kept wondering why it was called Alice in Borderland and legit nothing came to mind. But when they explained that this borderland is kinda like this in-between place where people on the brink of being snuffed out go, I felt stupid and impressed at the same time.
At first, I wasn't sure how these people were going to make it back.
But that ending does two things: open the door for a lot of continuous content and more seasons as well as open the door for new characters to experience this phenomena. Now I can see them getting off with one more season, but I wouldn't want them to drag it out or try to milk it.
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