Alice in Borderland Season 2 review: Not game over yet

Note: This feature was first published on 13 December 2022.

After two long years, Alice in Borderland is back to terrorise us with more demented games.

The Netflix adaptation of Haro Aso's manga series was a hit back in 2020, bringing to life the weird and wonderful Borderland and all its attendant horrors. At the end of Season 1, the players manage to collect all the number cards, and are then confronted with a new set of games to collect face cards.

Season 2 picks off from where the previous season left off. The games are harder than ever, and each face card game is actually run by a citizen of the Borderland.

A consistent thread of mystery runs through the series. The Borderland continues to defy explanation — it is a mystery wrapped within a mystery. When the players peel back one layer to get at what they think is the truth, it is simply another layer that they must contend with.

The face card games come with a twist. Each citizen is playing for their life. If they lose, they will die. Arisu (Yamazaki Kento), Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), and the remaining survivors also have to deal with a new and ever-present menace — the king of Spades.

For this king, the entire Borderland is his playground and nowhere is safe. Armed with everything from artillery to fully automatic weapons, the king of Spades prowls an abandoned Tokyo and mows down anyone that he sees. A giant blimp follows him wherever he goes, heralding terror, mayhem, and dread.

While Season 1 concerned itself more with world-building as the characters took time to understand how each game worked, Season 2 is all about their escape. What is the Borderland? Can one actually choose to return home if they win all the games? Those questions pervade every moment of Season 2.

Arisu's main character armour is also as impervious as ever. There is never the sense that he is in any real peril. It is never a question of whether he will beat the game. It's a matter of when and how. The cast that surrounds him isn't quite as resilient — before the end of the series, they are bloodied, battered, shot, and stabbed, and by the end of the series, the body count is higher than ever.

Fans of anime and manga will find the series extremely familiar, playing as it does into its signature tropes and moments of emotive excess. However, if you're not accustomed to it, it can grate on your nerves. Arisu's moping in the final episode is alternately hilarious and frustrating — he lies prone in a stupor on the floor, while Usagi literally slits her wrists in an attempt to shake him out of it and get a reaction.

Elsewhere, the players display a stunning lack of teamwork and coordination for people who have gotten themselves so far in the game, throwing themselves at the King of Spades one by one.

For all the show's maudlin musings and moments of ludicrousness, the citizens of the face card games are a particular bright spot. They are each such unique caricatures that it is difficult not to be pulled into their orbit. From the pensive Kyūma (Tomohisa Yamashita), who has completely dispensed with all articles of clothing, to the maniacal Queen of Spades (Chihiro Yamamoto), each face card game master is delightful in their own dysfunctional way.

To be sure, there is no shortage of action. The games themselves are also more creative than ever, allowing individual characters to shine. Chishiya (Nijiro Murakami) gets his moment in the spotlight when he plays the Jack of Hearts' and King of Diamonds' games, running circles around everyone else in a brilliant showcase of his raw intellect and wit.

These fleeting episodes are the show's saving grace. Alice in Borderland is best when it dives deep into the machinations of each game, instead of being carried away by eye-roll-inducing expositions on human nature, the value of human life, or how horrible the real world actually is.

That said, you'll also need to suspend your disbelief. Certain characters are also ridiculously hardy, such as Niragi (Dori Sakurada), who survives a shotgun blast to the chest and actually makes it out to the real world, despite hacking blood all season and plenty of bluster about not having much time left.

If you missed the adventures of Arisu and gang in dystopian Tokyo, Season 2 delivers more of that in spades. The series remains plagued by inconsistency and shaky writing at times, but it is still one of the most fun imaginings of a post-apocalyptics world on television right now.

Just make sure you don't think too hard about it.

Season 2 starts streaming on Netflix on December 22.

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