Zed
Database Moderator
I just finished Squid Game and I'm really not impressed by it, we ridiculed the idea of death games anime before but it doesn't mean that they can't be done right, and this one certainly does a few things right, but the bad really stands out for me.
Honestly, that ending really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I certainly don't think I care about the show to watch a sequel if they end up releasing one.
For one the discount imposter guys are too ridiculous and really make it hard to take a death game with these guys seriously, if Gru from Despicable Me was the man behind the game it wouldn't have made the show any less serious, and the stupid music theme they played over them was too much hamfisting and it didn't make them creepier. Secondly, the cop subplot just wasted a ton of time and ended up going nowhere, at least half the show's run was spent following him and the conclusion to it was the guy with the mask from Nostalgia critic's Shyamalan parodies was the cop's brother and a previous participant, which really means nothing to the show or its plot.
A bit of a contention point for me is how uninteresting the games they played also like I understand the theme of games they played as children but it really is unimpressive how most of them can be decided by a random choice you make before the game starts, it's just luck-based or relied on physical prowess and has nothing that could've relied on good judgment or intellect inside the game, especially given half the game had a team prematurely prepare for their games since they had an informant.
Lastly, I legit hate that ending plot twist with the old man being the ring leader, he was my favorite character up to that point, a demented old man who only participated in the game because he already had one foot in the grave and had nothing else left to live for, which translated into weird glee during the games where he put his life on the line was amazing, and I really loved the chemistry between him and the main protagonist. I feel like they really ruined his character (not to mention how many cans of worms they opened with that by previous games and how many times he came close to dying with them, the amount of plot holes is staggering).
The best thing the show does is probably the characters, which I admittedly like most of them, including some of the more cookie-cutter ones, after the old man (at least before the ending twist) Sungwoo is probably the best of them, given how clever he is and how ruthless he was in some situations, the rest of the cast didn't stand out as much but after too many horrible death games with sexually frustrated teens that I've seen in anime, it's not really surprising given the show self-selected them to be as horrible/desperate that even given the option they still chose to go back to the game, the only exception is probably Ali who was too good-natured and gullible which made him probably the most likable character.
A bit of a contention point for me is how uninteresting the games they played also like I understand the theme of games they played as children but it really is unimpressive how most of them can be decided by a random choice you make before the game starts, it's just luck-based or relied on physical prowess and has nothing that could've relied on good judgment or intellect inside the game, especially given half the game had a team prematurely prepare for their games since they had an informant.
Lastly, I legit hate that ending plot twist with the old man being the ring leader, he was my favorite character up to that point, a demented old man who only participated in the game because he already had one foot in the grave and had nothing else left to live for, which translated into weird glee during the games where he put his life on the line was amazing, and I really loved the chemistry between him and the main protagonist. I feel like they really ruined his character (not to mention how many cans of worms they opened with that by previous games and how many times he came close to dying with them, the amount of plot holes is staggering).
The best thing the show does is probably the characters, which I admittedly like most of them, including some of the more cookie-cutter ones, after the old man (at least before the ending twist) Sungwoo is probably the best of them, given how clever he is and how ruthless he was in some situations, the rest of the cast didn't stand out as much but after too many horrible death games with sexually frustrated teens that I've seen in anime, it's not really surprising given the show self-selected them to be as horrible/desperate that even given the option they still chose to go back to the game, the only exception is probably Ali who was too good-natured and gullible which made him probably the most likable character.
Honestly, that ending really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I certainly don't think I care about the show to watch a sequel if they end up releasing one.
