Board 8 > Did I miss the Squid Game topic? *Spoilers maybe after first post*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, with regards to that last post (guess theres no point in spoiler barring now) that was just setup in case nobody finished. In a way that doesnt really make sense either though I guess because then there wouldnt have been a winner to the games. Maybe they shouldve exploded one by one to panic the players into finishing instead.

Why explode them at all, in every previous game they just shot them.

I liked Squid Game but didn't love it. Most of the games were needlessly unfair or too RNG-based. The main dude was lame the whole way through (North Korean girl was the best and should've won). It was a neat concept overall, just could've been executed way better.

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WazzupGenius00 posted...

The glass exploded because time ran out. If they had completed the game faster it would not have been a problem.

That's still poor planning on them. There's no rule against finishing on the last second. The winners should have been escorted to safety first.

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As tilted against the start that game was, Raka is upset if those at the end had something possibly that COULD go against them. Lol

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Mobilezoid posted...

Why explode them at all, in every previous game they just shot them.

I liked Squid Game but didn't love it. Most of the games were needlessly unfair or too RNG-based. The main dude was lame the whole way through (North Korean girl was the best and should've won). It was a neat concept overall, just could've been executed way better.

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Epic-Handshake.jpg

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Corrik7 posted...

As tilted against the start that game was, Raka is upset if those at the end had something possibly that COULD go against them. Lol

Look man, if you bet your life savings on the North Korean defector lady you would be upset too.

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Corrik7 posted...

Who cares she is the best character

Don't know if I'd rate 212 so high, but she's hilarious and made for some fun scenes (Honest Trailers compared her to "Nicolas Cage reincarnated as a Korean woman") even if the character's so despicable. And for so much heat the English dub got, I thank that I live in a country that consistently makes good dubbing.

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Mobilezoid posted...

Why explode them at all, in every previous game they just shot them.

Tug of War


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Real talk though nosering was best girl

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Shes the most different looking one for character to actor. She doesnt even look like the same person off set

I watched the last episode, and the gut feeling I got that I could talk about the series holistically without watching the finale was correct. It was whatever. The ending was dumb.

Sticking to my guns that most of the show is kind of whatever but it got popular because of a few scenes of sheer brilliance. Episode 6 could be nominated for an Emmy imho.

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finished this last night. only really wound up liking sang woo in it, but i really enjoyed watching most of the games. the tension in the series felt earned and thrilling. glass bridge has to be one of the best in that sense.

almost everything outside of actual games i found tedious, but the show could thrive in store of that
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I really loved it and it was very engaging. My favorite parts were the tense bits with the detective trying to bumbling fit in as one of the random mask mooks without knowing how to do that. I figured the dad main character would survive, but I had no idea what was going to happen to the detective.

Are you sure

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Just watched the first episode. There were people getting shot who werent moving, which made the whole setup kind of dumb.

They were moving after the song, then stopped, but it was already too late

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Is that nosering?

Because yes.

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Oh wait no that's pickpocket and also yes. But she's actually a model so that makes sense.

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Both of them look great, but I do have a thing for Asian women

I dont think she looks that great in the show, but shes beautiful and looks completely different in other images Ive seen of her off set

Episode 6 is my favourite. Heartbreaking, but so good.

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Ep6 legit top ten tv ep

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yes

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FFDragon posted...

I think that one of the central themes was them saying everyone was equal but then arbitrarily following through on it on their whims.

Another example being literally no punishment when the knife was found.

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It was a good metaphor for the real world. Constant insistence that everyone is equal and everything is fair but then arbitrary, disjointed and varied in actual implementation.

As far as fairness? 100% agree

In the context of being entertainment for the douchebags though it makes complete sense

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Would I recommend Squid Game to others? Mm... I'd say it's a solid 7/10. It's for sure overrated, but still good in its own right. I think the average, casual viewer would probably enjoy it without much thought. But I'm not sure who specifically I would recommend it to.

By the end I realized it probably doesn't appeal to people who like Kaiji in the same way that Kaiji does. The lack of mental games and even structured luck based games is a huge thing that is missing from this series that would have made it much better. The luck based games in this are almost all instant lose bullshit RNG, it's not the same as playing out 50 hands of poker and using your skill to deal with the variance. And unlike Gantz, Promised Neverland, and other high stakes desperate survival games, we never see the heroes do anything heroic or triumph in this series.They just constantly get beaten down into the fucking dirt with no hope and no payoff.

I think episode 6 in particular is overrated. It's very predictable: As soon as they asked people to split in pairs I knew they would be facing off against each other, even though somehow no character suspected this. Every pairing ends with the more main character winning and the more supporting character losing. There's not a single upset in the entire series, actually, but it's particularly egregious that not a single dark horse won in all of the marble games. The game itself is very lazy: Here are some marbles, go make up your own games. If I was a VIP I'd be asking for my refund at this point. The idea of this being a way to sort out players makes very little sense and is unsatisfying narratively and within the logic of the universe. It really only makes sense from the perspective of the writers room setting up ways to kill off characters in a way that will tug at the heartstrings of the viewers.

Overall the games suffer from a lack of good game design, but some of them were entertaining to watch.

It's essentially a neatly packaged experience for people who wouldn't have watched this type of thing before, and didn't realize they would enjoy it until they gave it a try. It exploded in popularity for the same reason that HololiveEN did: Vtubers already existed, and vtubers that spoke english already existed. But this was released at the right time, with the right coat of paint, at a time when the lack of mainstream supply and high demand was perfectly in balance

The ending is particularly bad, but the start of the series was good enough that I was still overall happy that I decided to watch it. I did get some entertainment out of the series. I'd watch another season of this as long as it was not a direct sequel and if the directors and writers promised to put more effort into designing actually good games next time.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Okay this show wasnt very good until the mob guy beat someone to death in episode 4. That is a good twist.

And I would totally dominate that one in real life, but sadly I would have zero chance of getting through Red Light Green Light.

This is maybe the most twisted post in B8 history, lol

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I'd be fine unless people went "okay that dude is huge, we need to gang up on him or we're all dead".

Also known as the "big show just entered the royal rumble strategy"

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A lot of people in this topic talking about this sub-genre: any recommendations for someone who doesn't know anything about it?

Besides like... Battle Royale

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MajinZidane posted...

A lot of people in this topic talking about this sub-genre: any recommendations for someone who doesn't know anything about it?

Besides like... Battle Royale

Alice in Borderland since it's already on Netflix. That one is live action. Are you open to anime recs as well?

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https://kotaku.com/12-things-to-check-out-after-youve-binged-squid-game-1847875371

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Hah. The old man is player 1 and he isn't actually locked in during the tug of war, and he makes sure he "dies" before the one game that's unpredictable enough to kill him. That is so good.

The RLGL doll doesn't detect him like it does the other players in the first game so would have never flagged him moving. Only staff look at the honeycomb things in game 2 so he wasn't at risk there. Like you said he wasn't strapped in during tug of war. I'd suspect the original plan was him to be the odd one out for marbles and then just not return for the next game but even in the game he found the house to be in at the end and they never showed his body or death like everyone else. The list of competitors when the cop finds the book starts at 002 too. Oh and when he's collected by car to be taken to the games, there's no knockout gas.

I think the only time he was at risk was during the riots. The only time he looked scared was when the intruder alarm went off to signify something with the games itself was wrong.

My favorite (unconfirmed) theory I've seen after the show was that when the dude approaches people at the subway and asks them to pick red or blue, the color they pick determines if they are invited as a player or as one of the admin mooks.

I'm glad to see Gantz on that list. Though it is weird they are suggesting to watch a movie than only adapts one of the later arcs completely out of context.

While it's not technically a Battle Royale it was really easy for me to see the similarities between Squid Game and Gantz, especially in the first few episodes. I wouldn't say that if you like Squid Game you will automatically like Gantz, but if you enjoyed the tension and improvisation of the players during Red Light, Green Light, I think that Gantz has the same type of appeal. Up to and including the moment where Ali reaches out his hand and saves another player he doesn't know, putting his own life at risk. That's more like something you would see in Gantz. I specifically referred to it as "a total Kato move" in my episode write ups. Additionally, Gantz is also heavily dependent for most of the story on the downtime spent between rounds. It's more like Predator than Squid Game, but in between hunts the characters are allowed to return to their normal lives and we learn a lot about them as people and see them develop as a result, as well as learning the circumstances who made them into the people they are during the hunts. Kato also has a story about him and his orphan little brother waiting for their parents to return, which is why I think the creator of Squid Game was likely influenced by Gantz and was probably a fan of that character.

Major differences is that Gantz is a lot more focused on action and violence and it's way more unpredictable in terms of who is safe from consequences. Additionally there is no traditional game or prize to be won, but over time the characters who manage to survive also get better at the hunt. Things are more deterministic based on skill and nerve and less reliant on complete random chance. Instead of getting pummeled repeatedly until the "winner" goes into a catatonic state, imagine if the good teams from episode 4 continued to fight together and grow strong together for success in later games. If you found yourself craving that, I think Gantz has an appeal you might be into.

Okay with that out of the way the major hurdle for getting into Gantz is that it's incredibly dark and also incredibly sexual in a way that Squid Game are not. The author is kinda a huge pervert and it has that ecchi anime angle that you simply can't ignore and can't pretend that it doesn't exist. It's a shame because the series is so fantastic otherwise for most of the run, but it's difficult to recommend to casuals. It also delves much deeper into the whole 'people are shit and treat each other awful' angle, both in an outside of the game. Imagine if something as violent as Game of Thrones was made by a guy who couldn't resist drawing a woman in a bikini at the start of each chapter.

I'd also say if you're going to bother with it, you should read the manga. While it's true that there is an anime adaptation, as well as a few movie adaptations... Okay so the anime is not terrible but it has god awful pacing. The dub is particularly funny, it's one of the ones where they say FUCK a lot. However, it ends in a really dumb filler arc, and never gets to the best material from the manga. The movies are just mediocre all around and they have the same problem that they stop right before one of the best hunts in the manga. The best hunt from the manga is never adapted, and while there are some amazing, probably even top tier moments in the first few hunts, I feel like the best part of Gantz starts right after the adaptations usually end.

The movies cut out a lot of the extremely sexual material, while the anime is borderline hentai in some scenes. I think one of the advantages of reading the manga is that if you're not into the fanservice it's much easier to ignore.

Anyway, I probably wrote more about it than is warranted and I'd be doubtful if even one person reads Gantz after reading my thoughts. But oh well, there it is. Proceed at your own peril.


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Raka_Putra posted...

Alice in Borderland since it's already on Netflix. That one is live action. Are you open to anime recs as well?

@Raka_Putra

Very open to anime recs. Prefer good dubs (sorry) if possible

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i thought this show was great. Odd to see so much hate for the ending I thought it was solid.

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