Fans of Cobra Kai and Squid Game should seek out one iconic Netflix series that blends the appeal of the two shows into something new and inventive. While Money Heist was Netflix’s first huge foreign-language series, Squid Game was a historically huge success for the streaming service. This bleak satire pitted desperate South Korean civilians against each other in life-or-death versions of childhood games as an unseen audience of uber-rich patrons watched and bet on their chances of survival.
An unsparing critique of capitalism, Squid Game seemed like an unlikely series to spawn a franchise as big as Stranger Things for Netflix. However, the show’s global crossover appeal was massive, and Squid Game soon became one of the streaming service’s premiere titles. The martial arts drama Cobra Kai wasn’t quite as big a global sensation, but the Karate Kid franchise spinoff did gain a huge fan base of its own and lasted for six seasons.
An unlikely spinoff with a fresh, original premise, Cobra Kai focuses on the later life of The Karate Kid’s one-dimensional villain, William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence. Although Johnny was originally portrayed as a thoughtless meathead, Cobra Kai soon revealed he had hidden depths and transformed him into an unlikely antihero through its morally grey, unpredictable story. Both Squid Game and Cobra Kai earned their acclaim, and Netflix’s Kakegurui remake, Bet, manages to mix their stories in an original plot that deserves to be similarly popular.
Bet Blends The Appeal of Cobra Kai and Squid Game
Developed by Warrior Nun/ Van Helsing producer Simon Barry, 2025’s Bet is an English-language live-action remake of Kakegurui, a manga series penned by Homura Kawamoto. Set in an elite private boarding school, Bet follows the story of Miku Martineau’s Yumeko, a student who transfers after the death of her parents and soon becomes embroiled in her new school’s secret high-stakes gambling ring. Winning bets gets students a spot on the exclusive Student Council, while racking up debts sees them demoted to menial work as “House Pets.”
However, Bet’s heroine isn’t new to this setup. Yumeko is an accomplished gambler who games this system to gain entry into the Student Council, since this will allow her access to the parents of the school’s most powerful students. Yumeko has reason to believe that another student’s parents killed her parents, and she won’t rest until she finds out who it was. A dark psychological thriller set in the cutthroat world of high school with a fast-thinking, amoral protagonist, Bet has a lot in common with Netflix’s action hit Weak Hero.
Bet Is A Perfect YA Spin On Squid Game
However, it is Cobra Kai and Squid Game that prove the most obvious influences on the story of the series. Like Cobra Kai, the series takes something that should not be particularly serious—junior martial arts in Cobra Kai, gambling in Bet—and makes it a life and death situation for the show’s young heroes. Like Squid Game, the kids at this exclusive school are effectively betting on their lives in these high-stakes games, and the show uses the allegory of hyper-competitive gambling games to illustrate the toxic social and cultural dynamics between the ultra-wealthy and those who hope to gain access to their inner circle.
For viewers who aren’t yet mature enough for Squid Game, or perfectly mature viewers who just prefer their entertainment to be a little less intense, gritty, and gory, this YA spin on the series is a perfect substitute. The teens of Bet are as complex as the protagonists of Cobra Kai and although the perils they face might not be quite as bloody as those endured by the contestants in Squid Game, their high-stakes gambling still makes for a thrilling spectacle.
- Release Date
-
May 15, 2025
- Network
-
Netflix
- Writers
-
Simon Barry
