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All the face card games in Borderland are almost finished, which means Arisu and all the players are getting closer to the answer about this cruel world.
King of Diamonds (K♦️) game: Balance
After clearing the Jack of Hearts (J♥️) game, Chishiya is coming to K♦️, the hardest intelligence game ever. It is held in the Supreme Court with 5 tall scales placed around a round table. This definitely is the game in which Chishiya performs the best. The most surprising thing about this game is that K♦️ is one of the Beach’s members, 002 – Kuzuryu. The rules are easy to understand:
– At the beginning, everyone has 0 points.
– At each round, each player selects a number from 0 to 100.
– The average of the numbers chosen is then multiplied by 0.8. The person who chooses the number closest to this is the winner.
– Everyone except for the winner loses 1 point. When a player has negative 10 points, the game is over for that player.
– The one who survives until the end is the victor.
Thanks to his calmness and intelligence, Chishiya excellently passes other players, leaving only him and Kuzuryu in the end. Taking advantage of K♦️’s ideal about the value of life, Chishiya said that he would choose 100, and his life relied on K♦️’s choice. If K♦️ chooses 0, that means he will lose 1 point, but if he chooses 1, the game is over for Chishiya. Surprisingly, K♦️ continually selects 0 until the end, which leads to Chishiya’s victory.
During the game, Chishiya and Kuzuryu have a philosophical conversation about the value of people’s lives. In the old world, Kuzuryu was a righteous lawyer and Chishiya was a great doctor. Their job is to save people’s lives, and that’s why they can understand the dark side of their jobs. Kuzuryu keeps choosing the number 0 because he believes that each person’s life relies on their own choice and no one has the right to decide other people’s lives. Kuzuryu has no right to decide Chishiya’s life, so he let Chishiya win the game. Although this is a Diamonds game, it is the most meaningful game and makes me rewatch it over and over again because of the deeply moral talk about the value of human lives.
Arisu meets Chishiya in Shibuya
After finishing the Q♠️ and K♦️ games, Arisu meets Chishiya in Shibuya. They tell each other all the difficulties they have been through. Suddenly, Niragi appears and shoots Chishiya in the stomach. Niragi asks Arisu and Chishiya to participate in a gun battle. Usagi then appears, Niragi shoots her but Chishiya takes the bullet for her, then Arisu shoots Niragi.
The final battle with King of Spades (K♠️)
K♠️ is coming and everyone is running away from him. Arisu and Usagi meet Ann and Kuina while running. Heiya and Aguni are also here to defeat K♠️. They are discussing a strategy, Arisu will prepare the bomb in the pharmacy, while the rest will let K♠️ go into that pharmacy. Everyone tries their best to beat K♠️. However, he is too strong with many weapons. He not only shoots Heiya and Ann but also stabs Usagi and Kuina. Aguni also fights so hard that he’s almost dead. Finally, Arisu and Aguni successfully put K♠️ in the pharmacy and make the bomb explode. In the end, K♠️ gives Aguni a gun to clear the game.
This game is undoubtedly the hardest physical game when K♠️ is a fully-equipped soldier while the players only have a few weapons. The fighting scenes are so bloody and eye-catching. The plot is also new because it is different from the manga version, which makes this game more exciting. However, what makes no sense in this game is that Ann and Heiya are shot by rifles, Usagi and Kuina are stabbed but are still all alive.
Final game – Queen of Hearts (Q♥️): Croquet
Arisu and Usagi go to Q♥️ arena, a beautiful garden on top of a building. Q♥️ is actually Mira, a member of the Beach. In this game, they have to play croquet. The rules are so simple. It doesn’t matter if Arisu and Usagi win or lose, the game is cleared when they complete 3 rounds of croquet without quitting. After 2 rounds, Mira wants to take a break and have a cup of tea. Arisu wants to know the answer so badly, he keeps asking Mira questions about this cruel world. Mira says that Arisu is living in the future, Borderland is just a virtual reality game and Mira is the administration of the game. She then laughs and says she lied about all that. The truth is, this world is just a game that the ultra-wealthy are playing and betting on which will survive. Again, this is another lie of Q♥️. Then she decides to tell Arisu the truth that this world is just an illusion. Mira is actually a psychiatrist and Arisu is her patient who has suffered from the death of his two best friends Karube and Chota. The next scene is about Arisu and Mira wearing white blouses in a clinic. Arisu is crying and feels like his life is pointless. When he is about to give up, Usagi stands by Arisu’s side and convinces him by slitting her wrist to wake him up. Eventually, Arisu holds Usagi’s hand and gets out of Mira’s hypnosis. Their love really makes Mira cry. Back to the current world, Arisu finishes the 3rd round and clears the game.
Mira is indeed the Queen of Hearts who plays with Arisu’s mind so smoothly. For some moments she really made me believe her theories about the Borderland world. Mira is definitely a dangerous citizen and her game is one of the hardest games.
The final answer about this world
When all the games are cleared, colorful fireworks appear in the sky to celebrate everyone’s victory. Now all the surviving players will be given a choice: Accept permanent residence in this land or decline and go home. Of course, everyone chooses to decline the residence, except for Banda and Yaba.
Back to the old world, when everyone is walking in Shibuya, a meteorite explodes over Tokyo and caused severe devastation in and around Shibuya city. The victims of this explosion are the players who died in the Borderland world. Arisu is injured and his heart has stopped beating for a whole minute. While his heart stopped beating, he was at the border between life and death. When he wakes up, he seems like he was in a faraway place for a very long time. This clarifies that Borderland is the border between life and death, and people have to fight to survive and return to the real world. The surviving players are now in the same hospital, which means Arisu and Usagi are there too. Arisu meets Usagi at the vending machine, they feel like they have met each other before and start a new relationship.
One noticeable detail that makes all the audiences wonder is the Joker card at the end of the series. Who is Joker and what is going to happen next are the 2 big questions that don’t have an answer.
Final thoughts
Alice in Borderland 2 is a successful series in many aspects. Some details of the series are brand-new and different from the manga adaptation. The characters and the casts are praised for their good development, especially Chishiya and the new character Heiya. Besides the good points, there are some details about the series that makes the viewers feel disappointed. The Queen of Spades (Q♠️) game which was created by Netflix doesn’t make any impression, some audiences also said that this game is too easy for a face card game. The rhythm of the movie is also slow and lengthy in many parts. The main characters are seriously injured in the K♠️ game but still alive. Overall, Alice in Borderland 2 is considered one of the best survival series of the year. This series is a masterpiece because it leaves many messages and meanings to each of us. You can read more about previous face card games here Alice in Borderland Season 2 Review (Part 1)
