October 5, 2025

I cannot believe that ‘Alice in Borderland’ has become complete ‘Game Squid’ ‘

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Alice in Borderland is a series of Netflix death games which has long been taken in the gravitational attraction of Calmar game. His second season fell following Calmar gameThe breakdown of the first Calmar game‘s. For a while, the two programs felt like a twin series with Calmar game Like the star in small groups and Alice in Borderland like the cult favorite. Their thematic overlap has made comparisons inevitable, but also exciting: two cakes, cool.

Alice in BorderlandCreated by Haro Aso, the creator of Zom 100: List of the bucket of the deadfollows Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), a closed player who one day was transported in a parallel world with his friends, known as the name the border. There, Arisu and his romantic interest, Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), compete in the games of death to extend their visas in the mysterious world. If they fail, they are executed by a laser from the sky.

Initially, Alice in Borderland stood next. His games were more cruel, more brain and less on the class war and more on the randomness of the universe, with abundant psychological torments. Or Calmar game based on the show and the failures of capitalism, Alice explored survival as introspection. His puzzles looked more like the death traps of Quiz Pop, inviting viewers to play along, deciphering hidden clues and suffering when characters bite the dust without ceremonies.

However, the tone of the show has managed to be less austere and more common, with characters forming makeshift ties that more like the camaraderie of the summer camp in hell than a group of assholes who believe themselves to be double-fired and not to grow. Throughout his seasons, Alice in Borderland gave to its domestic and interpersonal depth, avoiding the trope of disposable side characters or “curly” motivations while engaging in the story of the death game.

In his last season, Alice in Borderland Returned with the opportunity to be more than a reserved space, ready to capture these persistent desires of the spectator of psychological carnage and narrative closure in a death game. Which begins as a captivating evolution of the series turns slowly into a perplexed imitation of its peers of gender, leaving behind the originality which once made Alice in Borderland Separate.

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In a story, years after the events of season two, Arisu returns to the border to save his wife, Usagi, who was removed and transported to the kingdom of the game of science fiction. At the beginning, he delivers: his games are inventive, the issues are high and the evolution of Arisu of a Hikkikomori to a husband on survival, feels won. The history of quickly abandoned amnesia of the show with Arisu and Usagi is clumsy, but it manages to serve the program of science fiction of the show fairly well, allowing the story to take place fully while they recall the horrors of the border without dragging the viewers through scenes of endless memory overlap.

However, as the season takes place, the similarities with Calmar gameThe second and third seasons have gone from fortune to strange. On the one hand, the return of Arisu and Usagi reflects the back-to-school back to Gi-Hun. Although you can crache trophies in the series of death games, its history – in particular its scenarios of moral dilemma and tram – feels like a work of copy. Technically, Alice in Borderland Impossible to be called a copycat because it was published first, and its manga concluded in 2016, four years before the first in the Netflix Live-Action series. In addition, its second season ended where the manga did.

And this is where the problem lies: season three, not attached from source equipment, turns into the territory of the Canon fanfiction. It is Alice Comes back, but more with the Slapdash modes of Game of Thrones“Infamous eighth season.

Alice at Borderland S3 Kento Kaku Tao Tsuchiya
Tao Tsuchiya and Kento Kaku Alice in Borderland. © Haro Aso, Shogakukan / Robot

On his credit, Alice BorderThe games – notably trains with poisoned fleas, explosive kick and wars of zombie infested card – are exciting. But the “why” behind them is misty like hell. Ryuji (Kento Kaku), the pseudo-antagonistic ally in Usagi, a wave of motivations that change without gain. The reason for the return of Usagi to the border, which turns out to be less a kidnapping and more a voluntary decision between it and Ryuji, is even less defined.

In addition, a romantic triangle at an advanced stage between the three presents itself as a desperate hacking for the drama, with Usagi and Ryuji displaying more chemistry than the central couple. Arisu and Usagi, despite their marriage, always feel like being in the first annoying stadiums of dating. And in a spectacle whose whole intrigue is completing to its foundation, the only meritorious wink towards something valid to look in epilogue to a differently large spectacle is a parody-in particular considering that halfway, halfway, Alice in Borderland go full Calmar game In the most uncompromising way possible.

Alice at Borderland S3 Netflix Tina Tamashiro
Tina Tamashiro like Rei Morikage Alice in Borderland. © Haro Aso, Shogakukan / Robot

The final of season three looks hard Calmar game Already seen, presenting a disadvantaged game master who waxes on nihilism and throws in a dilemma which happily spares us a baby CGI, to replace him with something more absurd. The philosophical issues, already troubled, become obscured by the show. And just when you think he could wrap with Grace, the last episode goes towards the expansion of the franchise with all the subtlety of a death laser from heaven.

This is the kind of end that does not leave you out of breath – it lets you collapse, looking at the credits roll in silent resignation. Honestly, Cate Blanchett could have come in by carrying a embroidered costume with an “IP synergy” on the front pocket, and that would not have felt in its place. This is how the spectacle paraded its mimicry, echoing the same unnecessary bloating which transformed its twin series into a recovered ball – its first formerly with a distant and commodity memory.

Alice at Borderland S3 Kento Yamazaki Tao Tsuchiya Netflix
Tao Tsuchiya and Kento Yamazaki Alice in Borderland. © Kumiko Tsuchiya

And it’s tragedy. Alice in Borderland had the bones of an exceptional death series, the third original season of which could have served as a decadent drawn horse to finish the whole stallion. His cinematography is elegant, his polished CGI and his tribute to Cube And Royal battle is sincere. So far, Alice in Borderland never felt derived. But trying to stretch your ideas barely in a third season, it has become Calmar game Already: a series swollen by its own success, gorging on the show while starving its history.

In the Pantheon of Death Games, Calmar game Perhaps made up of a child’s sketch of the head of a horse. But Alice in Borderland already had the outline of a complete sketch to adapt – defective, detailed and daring. Unfortunately, season three is the quintessence of creative greed, and if not that, something so stripped, passing in front of the finish line and losing the plot.

Do you want more iO9 news? Find out when you expect the latest Marvel outings, Star Wars and Star Trek, what is the next step for the DC universe on cinema and television, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.


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