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In fact, watching another series explains the secret of the success of "The Squid Game"

"The Squid Game" and "Borderland" - both excellent Asian-made series featuring contestants who are forced to fight for their lives, otherwise they will die horribly.

So how did it happen that only one of them won an extraordinary title?

The answer is surprising

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• The squid game

• Borderland - Alice in Borderland

Mia Agassi

Monday, 25 October 2021, 09:14 Updated: 09:27

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Trailer for the series "The Squid Game" (Netflix)

Shortly after it aired, Netflix announced that the Korean hit "The Squid Game" had become its most successful series ever, as of October 12, 111 million viewers worldwide modeled it, and in 94 countries the series topped the list of most popular series.

Did you think that corona is contagious?

Look at how viral conversation on social media can infect people to the screen.

In a world where you can share everything with everyone at the touch of a button, surfers excite each other with recommendations (and grout recommendations) about the series, jokes, memes, scene analyzes, clarifications, questions about unanswered questions and more.

Many series receive a sweeping wave of sympathy that is reflected in social media.

"Queen Gambit," for example, has received quite similar treatment.

Still, the "Squid Game" seems to have a magic secret that makes it different from the rest.

I discovered this secret precisely when I watched another recommended series, also on Netflix - "Alice in Borderland".

But even though one is asked to compare them, in my opinion one of them cannot be crowned as better than the other.

Yes one can understand why the "squid game" came to its achievements.

More on Walla!

Under the boot of the rich: "The Squid Game" succeeds because it arrived at just the right time

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There is almost nothing Japanese about it.

"Borderland" (Photo: Haro Aso, Shogakukan / ROBOT)

Let’s start with the obvious: both series came out of Asia. "The Squid Game" takes place in South Korea while Bordeland takes place in Japan. In both series the characters have to play games to survive, while being trapped in a physical arena ("The Squid Game") or a virtual one ("Borderland") where the only options are a brutal death or a life of torment. So far the similarities. And now, the differences that make the difference.

In "Borderland," the characters are imprisoned in the game arena, and as of the end of the first season we don't know why.

In the "Squid Game" we know exactly what led the bunch of poor people there - huge financial debts.

Only one character has a good enough reason for the existence of these duties: a girl from North Korea (Tseng Ho-yun) who managed to escape with her little brother from the cruel country, and is now trying to bribe the right factors to help her mother escape as well.

All the other characters we are exposed to in their story are there by choice, because of financial complications that wreaked havoc on them and their families, due to wrong choices, or in the case of "456" (Li Yong-ja) - simply due to a lousy character.

Under the auspices of these excuses they become killing machines.

The players betray their friends and opponents and devise murderous strategies that will allow them to survive and win the grand prize.

Even when they have a chance to get out of the game, they choose to return to it and to its death scenes.

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The dissonance between child play and nauseating killing is gravity.

"The Squid Game" (Photo: Netflix)

In "Borderland", the games are divided into four types, each of which has several difficulty levels. Whoever wins them wins a "visa" - a strip of a few days during which he can be calm and know that an unknown laser beam will not emerge from the sky and pierce his internal organs. Fanan. But - and this is a big but - in the "squid game" the playground is completely different. One does not have to be a television genius to understand why the dissonance between the disgusting killing and the ticklish naivete of children's games, is the magnetic attraction of "The Squid Game".

To get to the playground where they will be found dead, the players are led down the halls in what looks like a giant dollhouse. The coffins in which they are thrown into the crematorium, are wrapped in cute pink ribbons. Even the soldiers in charge of keeping order and eliminating the losers in the games, look more like an adlaide of costumes from AliExpress, as opposed to the frightening horse heads who are forced to wear the killer players in one of the arenas in Borderland.

So true, the stick of using infantile elements with creepy adaptation is not new, as quite a few people who to this day suffer from nightmares starring Chuckie, the psychotic doll.

Still, "The Squid Game" took it a step further.

Everything there is bigger, more present and bleeding.

Even when it has been done dimly in the past, it does not feel worn out.

What I can not say, unfortunately, about "Borderland" - a series based on manga and got its name inspired by the classics of Lewis Carroll.

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V marks on familiar things.

"Borderland" (Photo: Haro Aso, Shogakukan / ROBOT)

We have to go through about half a season until we get to understand why and meet the crazy hatter, who does not come close to the ankles of others who played the character in the past, such as the immortal Johnny Depp. The hatter runs a disguised dictatorship in a debauchery and lewd compound, nicknamed the "Beach." wait, what? A utopian commune full of secrets and intrigue called the "beach"? Hyos Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in 2000 in a film of the same name and concept, long before even the manga of "Borderland" was published.

But all of these elements are relatively marginal compared to the true power of the "squid game." Ironically, this power lies in the cultural differentiation of a series that has gained its popularity in the tumultuous virtual networks of the small global village. "Borderland" does take place in Tokyo and is based on a genre that originated in Japan, but beyond that, there is almost nothing "Japanese" about it. It is true that the sudden disappearance of millions of people has a powerful effect when it comes to a crowded metropolis like Tokyo, but if you take it out of the equation, you can imagine the plot taking place in any other busy and trendy city: London, Paris, Berlin and even Tel Aviv. The names of the characters are also more catchy and easy to distinguish between them. On the other hand, a quick browse on social networks reveals that the characters of "Squid", the surfers are classified according to the criteria that are most accessible to them: "456", "The Bully", "The Old Man", "The Doctor", "The Good Man", "The Girl" And so on,Simply because the names of the characters are too complicated for someone who does not speak Korean.

In contrast to Borderland's universal thinking games, some of the children's games in "Squid" are based solely on the cultural experience of Korean childhood.

Viewers even get an explanation of one of them at the beginning of the first episode and another explanation, in case they forgot, as part of a dialogue between the front man and one of the celebrities, in the last episodes. All of these are joined by the series' leading soundtrack. "The Squid Game" offers another taste of the exclusive cultural character, with distinctive music and a catchy Korean song, which have become part of the series' hallmarks and branding. Need more proof of the anthropological journey that viewers go through?

More on Walla!

Most popular ever: "The Squid Game" broke a record on Netflix

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Part of the branding of the series.

"The Squid Game" (Photo: Netflix)

"The Squid Game" offers viewers something distinct.

In a world where direct viewing service is installed in hundreds of millions of homes around the globe, gaining a shared viewing experience that they rush to share on world-wide social networks, we probably still have a basic curiosity to discover and understand what is different from us.

The players in "The Squid Game" are dressed in identical suits and the only thing that distinguishes them is the number.

111 million people probably want to be more than just a number, wrapped in the same global suit.

They want to hear and see what other cultures have to offer and how they translate their way of life into television works.

Will this aspiration strengthen the blurring of global identity, or will it contribute to the intensification of differentiation?

time will tell.

Until then we will wait for the second seasons of the two series, which certainly have not yet said their last word.

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