Netflix’s Squid Game has become a global sensation ever since it hit the streaming service. While the show has added new twists and turns in its “battle royale” storyline, the plot is similar to several other graphic novels and mangas. The scenario of people engaging in a challenging game of death has been the running theme in comics like Alice In Borderland and Suicide Island.
Most of these comics are characterized by plot twists and graphic violence. Some like Snowpiercer also address issues like class difference much like Squid Game. The latter covers similar issues as its lead characters struggle to repay their debts while competing in the titular game.
Battle Royale
A Japanese manga with a cult following, Battle Royale is centered upon a hyperviolent deathmatch in which several school students are forced to kill each other for survival. Loyalties are tested and blood is shed as these naive students have no other option but to think like adults.
Apart from themes like a loss of innocence, the characters of Battle Royale are similar to those from Squid Game. In both cases, the players go through unexpected challenges and fits of desperation. The stress-inducing levels of the Korean show are comparable to the sheer unpredictability of the manga. The classic has set the benchmark for many other battle royales in movies.
Snowpiercer
The French graphic novel Snowpiercer received popularity with Bong Joon-Ho’s sci-fi movie of the same name. The grim and dystopian setting of the book is in the aftermath of a climatic catastrophe that covered the planet in snow. The few survivors are huddled up in a train that runs on a perpetual railroad. As a mystery brews inside the Snowpiercer train, secrets behind the class division are revealed.
Within the train, the passengers are assigned compartments based on their economic status. The rebellion from the poorer sections is similar to the efforts of the Squid Game’s players to fight off the system that entrapped them in the first place.
Doubt
The party game Mafia was popularized recently with the mobile game Among Us being its latest reinterpretation. The same game is played in the horror manga Doubt as a group of rabbits needs to find a wolf amongst themselves. The stakes rise when they start dying off one by one.
Along with the scares, Doubt also benefits greatly from its strategic elements. Much like the Squid Game ensemble, Doubt’s rabbits cannot trust each other. They must devise strategies and tactics to use each other as bait until they find the real ‘impostor.’
Alice In Borderland
When three high-school students wish for a better life, they are teleported to a post-apocalyptic parallel dimension called Borderland. Struggling to make sense out of their new surroundings, they are also required to complete dangerous games to survive.
The concept of survival games is similar to Squid Game with the only difference being the latter’s characters intentionally join the game. Talking about the Korean Netflix series, Alice In Borderland was also adapted into an underrated 2020 Netflix original series.
Old Boy
The source material for Park Chan-Wook’s iconic Korean film, the Japanese manga Old Boy tells the story of a man who is imprisoned in a private prison for no reason. When he is finally freed, he sets out on a violent crusade to seek revenge and find the reasons behind his confinement.
Even though its premise is vastly different from Squid Game, the protagonist Shinichi Gotō is comparable to the lead character of the latter. These characters come from everyday walks of life but their forced confinement turns them into toughened people with enhanced fighting skills.
Morning Glories
This Image Comics mystery series takes place within an exclusive boarding school involved in the torture of students and supernatural phenomena. When six students decide to fight back against the school, they must engage in violence themselves while balancing their academic life.
Even though Morning Glories doesn’t include a game show, the quest for survival is comparable to the episodes of Squid Game. In both the comic and the Netflix thriller series, the ones holding the power hide a shady past. For Morning Glories, it is the Morning Glory Academy and for Squid Game, it is the ominous staff hosting the titular game.
Gantz
After a group of people lost their lives in a train accident, they are required to play what seems like a ‘semi-posthumous’ game. Basically, the undead characters must kill off alien invaders in order to get a shot at living their previous life.
Gantz’s unconventional premise makes for a thoroughly entertaining and unpredictable page-turner. Just like how the Squid Game players are desperate to get over their debts, Gantz’s ‘zombie’ players play for their life. Be it money or life, the stakes are still the same.
Suicide Island
In the future, the Japanese government is unable to accommodate its suicidal patients. So, it ends up devising a twisted scheme to host such people on an island with harsh living conditions. Whether they wish to die on this island or appreciate life in this threatening situation, this is what forms the remainder of the premise.
The process of selection is virtually the same. For a trip to Suicide Island, the patients are asked if they consent to it just like how the main characters of Squid Game are asked in the second level. But once, they give a ‘yes’ from their side, a notorious game begins.
Liar Game
Instead of violence, players in the Liar Game resort to mental tactics to outsmart each other and secure financial gains. The game’s rules require them to empty each other’s bank accounts to emerge as winners. If readers can be put off by the graphic content in the other entries on this list, this manga would be a better and less bloody alternative.
The ultimate cash prize in Squid Game is also immense riches stored in a piggy bank. So, the goal in both games is financial in nature. In this manner, the games end up testing the limits to which people can go to satisfy their greed.
Blue Heaven
A sea-survival manga, Blue Heaven starts off with a cruise trip in the middle of the ocean. When the luxury vessel encounters a wrecked boat, the crew ends up finding two survivors. Chaos ensues after that as the crew starts dying off one by one. A race against time is set in motion as the passengers try to find the connection between the deaths and the survivors.
The intriguing mystery and the betrayal of trust among the passengers are what will excite fans of Squid Game. Even in the Korean show, the characters accept that they are in a dog-eat-dog world and they must do anything in order to live.
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