Stars: Kento Yamazaki, Tao Tsuchiya, Nijirô Murakami
A lot of time is spent in “Alice in Borderland” talking about different worlds. There is the one where your characters find themselves and to which they want to return. The first is a largely abandoned Tokyo, with only a fraction of its citizens wandering the streets after being mysteriously transported there. One afternoon, Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and some friends sneak into a bathroom to hide and emerge to find their town almost completely empty.
In this Netflix show based on Haro Aso's manga, Arisu is just one of a more or less undefined group of people seeking to stay alive in their new alternate reality, where each person avoids death by playing wickedly manipulative games designed to confront players to each other and themselves. Each set corresponds to a specific playing card in a deck. The higher the risk, the higher the reward for going all the way.
So, the first season of "Alice in Borderland" was a primal story of survival. There was the discovery of the rules of this purgatory city, with Arisu and a shifting crew of compatriots trying to figure out how to see tomorrow, let alone return to the version of life they knew before.
That home is the second world that is talked about even more in Season 2. Death still lurks around every corner, but for those that have lasted long enough for the city to be covered in vines, grass, and undergrowth, that “The Last of Us would be proud, survival has become a job. And, naturally, stuck in their makeshift daily offices waiting for the next test of wits and/or strength, many of them dream of what it would take to quit smoking.
For those who fear that those atmospheric changes could lead to a change in range, fear not. There may be nothing in season 2 as arresting as the image of Arisu and his two friends standing dumbfounded at a completely empty Shibuya intersection, but director Shinsuke Sato still makes the most of painting on a giant canvas that spans the entire city. . Picking up right where the last season left off, there's barely time to take a deep breath before the real threat of violence hits the derelict avenue. Before long, Arisu and the gang find themselves at the heart of one of the most exciting car chase sequences on a screen of any size in recent memory.
Having cleared out the rest of the deck in Season 1, Arisu, Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), and the remaining group of friends find themselves collecting the face cards, marked by giant airships floating in the sky. Everyone is playing by similar "win to stay alive" rules that governed Season 1. But this time, it's not some shadowy force calling the shots. Each trial involves heads-up encounters with the Jack of Hearts or Queen of Spades or any other of the 12 endgames. Looking the mastermind of each challenge in the eye makes it less of a back-and-forth ordeal and more of a knockout round. Arisu's homecoming ticket has to be punched at the expense of an official challenger.
Of course, it's hard to describe the logistics of "Alice in Borderland" without putting words like "real" and "home" into the imaginary quotes that characters on the show basically put around themselves when they speak out loud. Much of the philosophy here can get repetitive throughout the season, especially when it comes to different players psyching each other out mid-game. Sometimes there are some legitimate advances (both for the audience and for the people involved) about what people value. There are also plenty of times when members of this capable cast are reduced to expressing the weakest subtext out loud.
And as dazzling as these game designs are – watching Sato move the camera across multiple shots during a maze-like game of tag is just one example of Season 2 indulging in sheer, brain-switching fun: "Alice in Borderland" has never quite figured out the middle ground between letting the audience assemble the pieces for themselves and having the characters pause during the action to outline specific stakes and strategy at crucial turns. Drawing from Aso's original illustrations, there are times when the clear markers and visual signifiers the show uses would suffice. Making players de facto commentators often takes time away from more nuanced gameplay or a more cerebral approach to some heady challenges.
Where "Alice in Borderland" lands on a semblance of subtlety is in leaning towards being a pandemic parable.
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