When Squid Game was released, Netflix wanted to make more seasons, but creator Hwang Dong-hyuk was less convinced, especially after the stressful process of making Season 1 resulted in him losing “eight or nine” teeth. He later told the BBC that the main motivator for making Seasons 2 and 3 was mainly financial, as he didn’t make much from the overwhelming success of Season 1. That shows in the story, which drags its protagonist back into the games for a second time with even higher stakes, and more redundant story beats.
That familiar story is being told again with Alice in Borderland, the Japanese live-action manga adaptation that did the “deadly games” thing even before Squid Game. Its latest season begs a comparison with the final seasons of Squid Game, but each time the Japanese series veers a little too close to copying the hit Korean show, it makes a bigger and bolder choice — for better or for worse.
Alice in Borderland follows Arisu, a young man who finds himself transported to an alternate dimension where players play different games denoted by playing cards: the suits revealed the category of the game, while the number aligned with the difficulty. He survived those and started falling for fellow player Usagi, but Season 1 ended with a twist: the face cards. Season 2 was a series of boss fights, with Arisu and Usagi facing off against all the different Kings and Queens. After a final confrontation with the Queen of Hearts, they chose to leave the Borderlands and return to their lives before, where they learn that the Borderlands are, essentially, purgatory — a last chance to win the games and earn a new chance at life.
It was a perfect ending: it set the characters up with new lives, solved the mystery of the Borderlands, and most importantly, adapted the true ending of the manga source material. But then, at the last second, the camera zoomed in on a playing card on a table: a Joker.
Alice in Borderland Season 3 is very much like the Joker card that looms throughout: superfluous, chaotic, and a little bit tiring. That said, there are some excellent moments. Arisu isn’t transported to the Borderlands through a freak meteor attack (the real cause of his first visit). Instead, his now-wife Usagi chooses to go back to chase a dream of her dead father, and Arisu has no choice but to go back, find her, and win the games not only for her but for their unborn child.
The games involved this time under the Joker card can’t be categorized into suits. The “rain of arrows” seen in the trailer, for instance, is the result of a game of luck, intelligence, and endurance that is thrilling to watch. With every game, the most exciting moment comes when Arisu figures out the clue to the game built into the game itself, and this season each game gets more and more complicated and more difficult to solve. At one point, the games bore more similarity to the super-genius reality competition show The Devil’s Plan than the playground games of Squid Game.
But not every element of Squid Game is elevated for the better. One of the sillier choices in Squid Game Season 3 comes when a player gives birth and the VIPs decide to have the baby become a player. Alice in Borderland takes that one step further, in a twist so absurd that it beggars belief. Even worse, the final moments of this season are so similar to Squid Game’s that I wondered if there was plagiarism afoot.
Alice in Borderland may have come first, but ever since the premiere of Squid Game, it’s been overshadowed. This season proves that even if the shows both got completely unnecessary third seasons, this is the one unafraid to take the bigger swings. This is Squid Game through the looking glass, and it’s finally time for it to have its moment.
