There is something about the death game genre, including shows like Squid Game and Alice in Borderland, that keeps anime fans coming back for more.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Alice in Borderland and Squid Game, both streaming on Netflix.
Netflix’s Squid Game is the latest pop culture phenomenon to capture the masses. It’s emotional, it’s brutal, and it’s a quintessential death game show. The live-action Alice in Borderland, which premiered on Netflix at the end of 2020, is a close cousin to the series. While these shows handle their premises rather differently, they are both situated firmly within the death game genre. Other pillars of the genre include The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, proving the death game has been a dominant pop culture category over the past 20 years.
Both Squid Game and Alice in Borderland have sparked heated discussions among fans about who from the real world would survive a death game. This “what if” is fun to fantasize about. People like to imagine themselves as winners, reasoning their way through the borderline unfair puzzles and impossible situations. Realistically,though, games have losers, and the death rate of the games in both shows does not necessarily inspire confidence.
Within the death game genre, there is a particular trope that draws fans in. One trait that makes Alice in Borderland‘s Ryohei Arisu so endearing is that he’s just a normal guy. He’s not physically strong, and doesn’t really apply himself in the real world. What he’s exceptionally good at is making observations. Arisu gives viewers hope that they, too, could survive a death game. Similarly, Squid Game‘s Gi-hun is a gambling-addicted father who isn’t all that impressive — but he’s clever when it counts. Both Arisu and Gi-hun are able to pull their wits together when push comes to shove. People love to root for the underdog, and these shows definitely scratch that itch.
Shows and films within the death game genre provide audiences with a safe form of adrenaline chasing. The stakes in both Netflix shows are undoubtedly high, increasing the thrill fans receive simply from watching. This sets the death game genre apart from its peers. Action films, for example, do not promise death to their characters; they might perform risky maneuvers and get a handful of nasty injuries, but they are comparatively safe. By nature, however, the death game genre guarantees the loss of life. Even while some games in Alice in Borderland could have been completed without any player deaths, the dealers of those games would die. And in Squid Game, games like tug-of-war require the death of half of the participants.
On a deeper level, both Squid Game and Alice in Borderland contain important social commentary, as do other death game shows and films. As with most metaphors, however, reality is exaggerated or, at the very least, presented in such a different way that audiences are not made too uncomfortable. For the most part, the death games are considered absurd and impossible, but they contain enough reality to spark conversations about the real world. Viewers are granted a small amount of comfort in the idea that something so horrific isn’t normal in real life, though.
The death game genre reveals the dark side of human nature while providing audiences with the adrenaline rush they thirst for. With Alice in Borderland‘s second season on the horizon, maybe Squid Game fans can also look forward to a continuation of the Korean series.
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