The original post: /r/television by /u/keepfighting90 on 2025-08-07 19:13:18+00:00.
I caught Alice in Borderland back when it released during the pandemic, and ended up really enjoying it. It gets compared to Squid Game almost constantly but tbh even though they’re both nominally about death games, in practice they barely resemble each other in any meaningful way. Although I did think SQ is the better show overall, AiB had its own set of charms and it does some things better than SQ - especially the actual games the characters play.
Finally caught up with season 2, and overall I did enjoy it - but I also have quite a bit of criticism. It’s interesting because the second season both amplifies what was great about the first season but also enhances some of the negatives.
In terms of what it did really well - the actual games themselves. This was always the selling point of the show, and it’s no different for S2. There are some really fun games here in the form of the face cards/Kings and Queen face-offs. I especially liked the 2 main mind-game ones that Chishiya played - the prison cell guess-the-suit and the courtroom numbers. The prison one was intense as hell. Another awesome one was the Osmosis game with the rock band vs Arisu and the gang - in the running for best overall episode of the show with its most compelling villain.
The show looks great visually as well. There’s some sketchy CGI but the overall direction and cinematography is quite well done, and the action scenes are often spectacular. The music can be a bit overwrought at times, but it works for the most part.
But the issues I had with the first season of the show are still present here, and magnified even more. There’s just an overall cheesy vibe to the dialogue and characters that keeps reminding you that it’s adapted from a manga. Also, this is an issue with a lot of Japanese media in general but goddamn there’s so much endless exposition and monologuing with characters outlining exactly what they’re thinking and feeling, and what the themes are. It gets to be just eye-rolling at points, especially when they’re literally in the middle of a life and death game and stop to deliver a corny speech about willpower and survival for minutes at a time.
There are also so many scenes that completely rip through any kind of suspension of disbelief, especially when it comes to character plot armour. The penultimate episode, with the battle against the King of Spades mercenary soldier dude, is egregious for this. I know the ending kind of put this into context and showed that the will to live and survive in the Borderlands is more important than what they can physically handle, but it’s also inconsistent with a lot of what we’ve seen throughout the show.
The above things combined really make the show feel extremely cartoonish at times. This is where I really feel Squid Games runs laps around AiB - the former feels so much more grounded and raw (the VIPs notwithstanding)
A lot of the acting can be pretty hit or miss too. The main cast is solid enough, and some of the new villains are solid. But there are also quite a few wooden, stilted performances that kill immersion, especially combined with the occasionally awful dialogue.
I generally liked the ending, and am a fan of the idea that although the stuff in the Borderlands didn’t actually “happen”, it’s still real because the characters’ actions in that world literally determined whether they would live or die. It’s an interesting way to handle the stakes because they’re simultaneously huge and inconsequential.
I’m not sure how season 3 would work because I think the ending does work really well as a series finale but I like the show enough to still give it a shot.