I finished watching it yesterday and for me season 2 was kind of a mixed bag
SPOILERES AHEAD
While I really enjoyed the first half of the season (king of clubs game was my favorite, but also jack of hearts game was great). I felt like they took a lot more time for those 2 games, compared to the later ones. I'm not sure what happend in the second half, maybe it was ininitially planned to have 3 season and then they noticed they ran out of time and most of the games got cut short?
The King of Diamonds game (with the lawyer) started really fun, but its one of those where I wish they had spend more time on it to see how the players try to outwit each other. Also I was not a fan how it ended, it felt weird for Chishiya to just give up like that and having the king of diamonds decide his fate.
For Queen of spades I mainly disliked the game itself. It just felt like for most of the players the stakes are really low as they would not really care in which team they end up in, as long as its the winning one. Also it was extremly inconsistent, at the beginnin the Queen of Spades was like a super manace protecting all their players on the entire field and not a single of her guys could be taken until the last 2-3 rounds, where she suddenly lost everyone and could not do anything anymore.
I was also really dissapionted, that Kuina got pretty much written out of the series after the King of Club game.. she still showed up from time to time, but even the few games we got to see from her where montages at best
She was my favorite character and I thought she's really fun, wished she could also have gotten a full game where she is the main character
I can imagine she would have done really well in the queen of spades game and could have made it more interesting, if she stayed with the group or is she had parcipated instead of Arisu and Usagi.
The queen of hearts game was okay. It was more likely the comet stuffthat I didn't like.
King of Spades wasn't my cup of tea since they didn't explain the game and that the guy was a machine who resisted to backstabbing, a bomb, a car and multiple shot. I guess it would be okay to have a character like that in the manga but imo it didn't translate that well in the serie.
The previous games were more interesting such as the King of clubs, King of Diamond (good surprise) and Jack of Heart (amazing mind game).
I also think Queen of hearts game was rather fun, probably my favorite in the second half of the season. The actress did a really great job imo! Heart games were always the best in general, as they would mess with minds of the contestants.
But yeah I also really really disliked the ending, I find there are 2 really lazy and annoying ways how you could end a series:
- A meteroid / bomb hits and kills everyone
- It was all just a dream
They kind of managed to combine both
I would have preferred any explanation the queen of hearts offered over the real ending.
Regarding the King of Spades... yeah I fully agree here. Addtionally I thought its so confusing how he started to strip down at the end, why did he throw away his armor and stuff?? When he finally got blown up, I fully expected him to raise from the fire like a Terminator and keep on fighting.. it would have honestly all made a lot more sense if he was a Terminator actually!
I was really confused they tried to make us feel bad for him all of a sudden when he was dying, I did not understand his final scence with Aguni at all or what relation they had, but that character had killed an unbelievable amount of people (I would be hard pressed to name anyone from another series / movie with so many ruthless onscreen kills), so this felt really unnecessary to me and I did not want to emphasize with him.
I can see that! I think the idea is that the Borderland is a place where you're on the verge of life or death and your actions determine how things go. But I'll let you know if it's different once I finish the manga! From what I've read, though, the series cuts pretty closely to the original.
Yes, I think the face cards lived up on the whole! Everything I've learned from mystery stories is that I am lousy at deducing; I would totally die at the Jack of Hearts. I completely got bamboozled by the cute girl. I enjoyed seeing Chishiya backed into a corner and worming his way out; his luck stat must be insane. xD
I think you are right that borderlands referres to this realm between life and death. I would be very surprised if its different as the ending at least makes a lot of sense in relation to the series title: Alice (Arisu) in Borderland
The cute girl was the only kind of bad part for me in the jack of hearts game. I thought her plan to form this group was so cool and I was really curious to see how the jack of heart could overcome this great strategy, but then she just ruined it herself by backstabbing everyone for no reason
What do you guys think regrading the joker card at the end? I think they're just teasing... but it would be cool if the ending was just a troll and they had a real ending in store where everything gets explained