The seemingly overnight widespread popularity of the Netflix original series Squid Game brought with it a look into the vicious violence of its fictional world, though the manga that contributed to the inspiration behind the series is much more brutal. Squid Game follows the life of Seong Gi-hun in the slums of South Korea leading up to the offer of a lifetime, the chance to compete in a series of games that could pull him out from his crushing debt and make him incredibly wealthy. That offer was given to 455 other people who needed the cash just as much, leading to the games that would claim the lives of most of the contestants. While the show was a hit with fans all around the world, the premise is one that has been explored in multiple forms of media beforehand, including a manga that inspired the Squid Game Netflix series.
Kaiji is a manga created by Nobuyuki Fukumoto that is eerily similar to Squid Game while existing many years prior to the Netflix show. The Japanese manga debuted in 1996 and follows the character Kaiji Ito who squandered his education and has taken to a life of frivolous activities including gambling which led to him being indebted to loan sharks. As he has seemingly wasted his life that is threatened by his crushing debts to deadly loaners, Kaiji is given the chance to earn vast amounts of money, though the process could have cost him his life. Kaiji is offered to participate in a series of gambles, including something as juvenile as Rock, Paper, Scissors, where winning allows him the chance to play the next game but a loss means a violent death.
In an interview by The Hollywood Reporter, the creator of Squid Game Hwang Dong-hyuk addresses the similarities between Squid Game and Kaiji. “I read a lot of comic books revolving around surviving death games” explained Dong-hyuk, “Manga like Liar Game, Kaiji, and Battle Royale.” While Kaiji wasn't the only inspiration behind Squid Game, it was certainly a contributing factor to the end result as noted by the Squid Game's creator.
The similarities are striking between Squid Game and Kaiji. The first is the similarities between Kaiji’s main character and that of Squid Game—both are gamblers who wasted their lives in the pursuit of easy money only to find themselves indebted to violent debt collectors. The next and most obvious similarity is the nature of the games presented in both series. Playing the game (and losing) will cost them their life, but winning will bring them vast amounts of wealth. Where the differences lie, however, is the level of violence presented in the deaths of those who lose the games of Squid Game and Kaiji.
While Squid Game is undoubtedly incredibly violent, the deaths are fairly straight forward, with people dying by a gunshot or by falling to their deaths depending on the game. Kaiji kills its game’s losers in increasingly creative ways, like impalement, dismemberment, beatings, and dreadful games of chance while falling from great heights, all of which add an extra layer of dread to every contest. Kaiji changes up the way people are killed which makes the games presented in the manga series much more brutal than those in Squid Game—the series it helped inspire.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter