Despite the fact that the second season is inferior to the first in terms of tension and drama, for me it seemed to be a plus. And in general, I feel like I will rewatch the second season more actively than the first. One of the reasons for my love and hyperfixation is that I suddenly kin Gi-Hun. No, not because I have crush on Frontman. (Well, maybe a little bit because of that) In the first season, I didn’t feel anything like that, because I was basically in mute horror, tension and eating glass while watching, that there was no time for kinns. But Gi-Hun from the second season won my attention by literally becoming the type of characters with whom I associate myself all my life (I’ll attach my kinn list for comparison in the comments). After what he experienced in the first season, he turned into a protagonist who longs for justice and naively, but boldly tries to achieve it. Seeing that the people around him are cruel and unfair and perhaps even knowing, that nothing can be done about it, he still tries to change something in the world and with all his determination he remains humane, loyal, kind, brave and altruistic, despite the hellish cruelty around him and the fact that he is fucking sick of everything. This resonates very strongly with me. I am the same naive fool. Yes, I am a puupy too and I admit it. And if in the first season I headcanoned that I (and Jonsy by the way) were guards, then in the new season I see myself in the game.
Btw, the second season does have its shortcomings. For example, I did not like how the guard's life was shown. It seemed to me much more boring than in the first. As if their discipline there had weakened and there was no feeling that the staff were also some kind of prisoners of this place. In the first season, I was interested in the guards even more than the players, which is why I inserted myself with a triangle guard with the temper of a circle.
So the second season is different from the first, but does not sag in quality, in my opinion. It just has a different vibe and, to my delight, it moves in my tastes. It's just simpler, I was able to easily get hooked on it, unlike the first one. Yes, I love horror, drama, cruelty and suffering of characters, but I have a hard time with morally complex choices/moments, which is why I just admire the first season, but I haven't rewatched it (although I want to), because it evokes so many complex and strong emotions and that's good, but it's too tense for me. But we watched the second season with friends and it flew like clockwork, it really is more fun, but it hasn't lost the amount of blood, but it is presented without the pathos that was in the first one. Just because the hero and the viewer are at these games for the second time.
FCK well and old man toxic ya0i is SO readable that even the non-fandom community noticed these languid glances 001 and 456. I fell into this ship as you can see on twitter. But no matter how much fun we had with it, the second season ended in such a fuck(in a good way), the continuation of which will have to wait until the summer (??) then I will quickly get to Hwang (the screenwriter) and bite off something on his nerves in an attempt to imagine HOW to finish the arc of the characters that they started. I have already come up with so many comics and animatics that I can’t draw (cuz my work, time and skills) and I am sad because of this. Well, and the division of seasons is so strange, it feels like the season hasn't ended, but should just continue later, I don't know why they divided it into seasons, they could have said wait a moment, we'll finish filming later
(spoiler ahead)
And the lack of pronunciation about some nuances in the second season puzzled me. Like why didn't Gi-Hun, when he was convincing people to vote against the games, say that those who wanted to would be able to come back again?? He would have said it once, and if this rule had been changed, the guards would have explained it and people who were thirsty for money would have had more reasons to vote for the circle. But I imagined that since you can leave with money at any time, it would obviously be impossible to come back and it seems to be okay anyway