Imawa no Kuni no Arisu (2020)

Can you survive?

I begin watching this series at the recommendation of my friends. I wasn't a reader of the manga, hence i actually entered with zero expectations but this short series proved to be worth it? It's sort of like a mixture of hunger games x death games? It's set in a dystopian community where individuals clear games to buy time for their survival. These games are split into different types and difficulty based on a set of cards. Clubs represent team work/interpersonal, diamonds represent wits/mental, spades involve physical strength while hearts represents psychological games. Difficulties are ranked according to card numbers. Through these games, we see how far humans can go for survival. At the end, the real question is whether these are justifiable? We see the dark side of nature, and Darwin's evolution sorta because it's like the survival of the fittest. At the end of S1, we identified the game master (supposedly), so i guess the next season will revolve around games based on the picture cards and maybe the leads + more characters coming together and discovering the HQ of the game masters (like hunger games)

While there were parts you felt disgusted by how humans can behave this way but really. If i were in their shoes, what will i not do to survive? Never underestimate the willpower of humans. They are all fighting an endless battle with themselves, for a future they aren't even certain will exist. While we see the horrific and gruesome side of humans, we also see many noble sacrifices? Especially in the heart games? Arisu's friends were so noble with pure intentions of just wanting Arisu to live his life to the fullest. That's some true sacrifice there. Also the plot twist with Aguni?? He was always portrayed to be evil, but turns out he just wanted the best for his friend. While he lives with the regret of killing his best friend, he did had his redemption when he saved the rest of the survivors from the other psycho at the last episode. Also, it's touching to see Arisu and Usagi forming a bond while they were completely strangers Also together with the other players, whom are more rationale rather than focusing on only sacrificing other people for their own benefit.

While it's unsure when Season 2 will be released, i am just thankful there are such awesome shows to watch at the comfort of our homes with the ongoing pandemic! Let's hope the sequel can be released this year!!

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If you Like Liar Game and Gantz This is Perfect For You

This series is very good, and the overall quality if good. Seems like since netflix money, Jdramas are stepping up their production value.

If you watched the original liar game drama or even Gantz movie you'll like this drama.

The setup is very similar to Gantz, in that people who are teleported/transported to a tokyo where most people have disappeared.

It's an ongoing mystery as to if the people who got transported or the ones who got transported or if it's the other people who have gone.

Anyways, the mainpoint of this drama is similar to Gantz and Liar Game to have many characters and impossible situations.

If you like that then this is great. If you want answers to the overall arching questions you will not find them here.

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achei q não ia gostar e acabei amando!

Assisti tudo em praticamente um dia, eu adorei! A atuação dos atores, o trama, o suspense que transmite, a ansiedade de querer saber quem tá por trás do jogo, vc fica supondo (pelo menos eu) mil e uma possibilidades de ser pessoa x ou a pessoa y kkkkkkkkk enfim, sinceramente tudooo!

P.S: Eu não costumo gostar de ver séries asiáticas dubladas pq me incomoda um pouco (frescura), mas essa série eu assisti toda em português, simplesmente um show de dublagem, eu amei :) Demorei muito pra começar a assistir, mas quando comecei não parei mais. Enfim, vem 2° temporada!

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Alice In Blunderland…

There’s a lot of things to say about ‘ Alice In Borderland’ after finally getting round to watching it but I’m trying my best to keep this spoiler-free so I’ll start off by saying some things I thought the show did well and not so well;

STRENGTHS
Setup- Whilst I’ve never had the opportunity to read the manga before I’ve heard from friends that ‘ Alice In Borderland’’s manga is naturally a lot more in-depth than the series. Nevertheless not having a personal bias towards the original series, I have to say that the setup initially did grip me.

Intriguing characters- Admittedly I’ll be brutally honest by saying that there were some characters who were far more interesting than others but the series did present a wide range of players in the series from our main leads to side characters also.

Tension- A lot to keep you on your toes.

FLAWS;
Storyline - Often could become too weighed down.

Characters- Our main leads never had enough opportunities to be explored in more depth.

Acting- Could vary too much from moment to moment
Ending - Evident cliffhanger with season 1 and hinting at season 2 but felt too incomplete.

Overall not a bad drama but a slight yawn-fest also.

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No fim, os humanos é que são verdadeiros monstros

Eu resolvi assistir essa série porque o tema me lembrava do anime Sword Art Online que eu adoro e também porque tem muitos atores que eu gosto. Porém, havia lido uma resenha falando que o conteúdo era muito indigesto então fiquei postergando...

Já vou começar dizendo que as cenas não são tão pesadas assim. Tem MUITA MORTE, muita mesmo! Mas não dá nem para comparar com produções Ocidentais onde o nível de crueldade, detalhes e sadismo é incomparavelmente maior e faz o seu estômago revirar. Eu não consigo assistir mais as produções ocidentais pois as cenas são muitos fortes. Em Alice tem MUITO SANGUE, muitos tiros e tem crueldade sim, mas da forma como foi produzido o conteúdo você consegue assistir e dormir a noite sem ter pesadelos.

A série demora um pouco para engrenar, os primeiros episódios são de muita ação e tensão, mas o espectador fica um pouco perdido. Vale ter paciência porque quando ela começa a desenrolar fica muito boa! É interessante observar que a série trás referências a Alice no país das Maravilhas e outros ícones da cultura pop, quando você assiste fica especulando e tentando juntar todas as referências. É uma série que te faz pensar.

Algumas coisas que eu não gostei: trilha sonora e história dos personagens superficiais. A série praticamente não tem trilha sonora e para mim isso deixa o ritmo mais lento (mesmo com as cenas de ação), eu entendo que a trilha foi omitida para causar um certo tipo de reação, mas quase dormi no começo. Outro ponto que acho que poderia ser mais bem trabalhado é que a visão que você tem dos personagens é bem rasa, por isso, o espectador não cria tanta empatia por eles e assim não se sente comovido quando algum ruim acontece.

Por fim, a série realmente precisa da segunda temporada pois fica com muita coisa a ser explicada, mas também já resolve alguns enigmas. Eu também acho que você precisa ser um pouquinho sádico para assistir essa série porque é assassinato em massa, em um jogo que não tem outra explicação a não ser ganhar para viver. Não é uma série para qualquer um.

SweetHome X Alice in Borderland
É inevitável fazer um comparativo entre Sweet Home e Alice in Borderland, então eu resumiria assim: em Sweet Home você vê como monstros ainda possuem humanidade e em Alice você conhece humanos que são monstros. Ambas são muito boas e com temáticas parecidas, escolha a que faz mais o seu estilo ou assista as duas.

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an awesome ride!

warning: might contain a lil spoiler but not too much

The show is definitely not for everyone if you cannot sit through some violence, blood, or some racy scenes, but Alice in Borderland will have you at the edge of your seat and for good reasons!

I first watched the show cause I had nothing better to do and the season only contained 8 episodes that are all shorter than an hour, so the show is very binge-able within one day. It is a good time killer, but also the kind that will have you keep wondering what's going to happen next (if you haven't read the manga, which I haven't).

AIB follows Arisu (who's pretty much the equivalent of Alice) who falls into the story's own version of "Wonderland" which is "Borderland" an empty out version of Tokyo where the only way to survive is through competing in deadly games at the risk of your sanity, friendship and all kinds of shit that will have you mind fucked. It thrives off human's selfish nature and how one will go to such an extent just to survive at the cost of others. Just when you think have something figured out, the show does a 180 and literally insult your IQ... and I kind of like that? Lol.

Our hero at first, seems like a lazy good for nothing bum who has all the right materials but isn't willing to do anything productive with his life. Even then I liked him because I felt for him in a strange way since emotionally and mentally, I knew something much deeper was going on. He hangs out with his 2 other friends who are pretty much just freestyling through life in the dark but gets to experience what happiness is when they're together. Their friendship is executed beautifully and it will make you cry ugly tears. Truly the perfect epitome of why you should not judge a book by its cover because inside, everyone is fighting their own demons. As the story progresses, you see exactly why Arisu is the protagonist. He has his heart in all the right places. He's intelligent, kind and selfless. Not once can you not see in his face that he felt guilty about surviving at the cost of others. Amazing character!

Our heroine is equally as great. She may seem a bit cold at first probably due to the fact that she's been on her own for a while and regarding her past, you kind of just grow to become numb. But even then you can tell she's a good person. As the story plays out, she learns to trust and rely on another person again and slowly, her mentality of you can only trust yourself disappears when she meets Arisu. She becomes Arisu's will to live and Arisu becomes someone she deeply care about, knowing in this fucked up place, they only have each other to rely on. I love how she's a mountain climber which really plays into her skills (it was satisfying watching her climb lol). Also love the bus scene because homegirl literally outran everyone. Kickass character.

I honestly love their chemistry. There's little to no romance in here, but even then you can tell they have that spark around each other and I love how the directors/producers doesn't force anything. You can just tell that they're starting to grow fond of each other. I hope in S2 they get together or at least hook up lmaoo.

Though if I have to complain about something, it'll have to be how Saori's character was executed. Like I said, I haven't read the manga (though I heard she was better in there) but I just hated how her character was so sexually objectified from start to finish and although she definitely wasn't an angel, girl was done so dirty. But that's for you to decide when you watch it.

but if you like a good looking cast, great storyline, great characters, intense scenes that will have you biting your nails and a couple mind fucks, what are you waiting for :)

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A Great Watch

One of the finest series watched in the recent times. The trailer gave an interest to watch this series. I do believe sometimes even though the series is not up the mark trailer can make even an average movie/series to create an interest to watch or give it a try. In that perspective the trailer made a great impact to watch this series.
Coming to the series, it is one of the interesting and exciting series to watch. Every episode gave made an interest and move onto the next episode. The story was well made and executed. Although it is fron the manga it made a justice to its original .
I do felt that the episode 3 was little dramatic but when we are going through the story it made justification why that particular part of the story is little dramatic because the story has to move on. You would sometimes feel that the cinematographic gives the manga vibes, but that's not giving a negative thing to the story/series.

On the whole very good action, thrilling and very engaging series in this year. I hope Japanese dramas should adapt more manga series and made it into a series, so that Japanese dramas can make a unique place in the drama industry as the Korean dramas has.

Glad that I watched this series. Should thank Netflix for bring more interesting Asian dramas and movies in its streaming business.

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while watching this I thought this was like Saw mixed with The Liar Games. maybe even a little Matrix and The 100, ooh also The Hunger Games.. now I'm not made for this kind of shows, I'm sensitive and I have a soft heart but I appreciate the change (and I just needed to close my eyes a few times, though I still saw stufffff...)


so the story wasn't that high quality, even some of the game "twists" weren't that shocking. they did pull a little at my emotions, especially the screams in agony, but still storywise it wasn't that great.

I used to be a fan of Saw (ik shocking) but then as I grew up I was like the heck did I watch as a kid, I watched like 7 of them? and I'd always cry too, like they just needed to work together! also recently with The 100, I watched 4 seasons until I thought why am I watching this!
I'm a scaredy cat and I hate violence, so I think they could've lived without all that gore and blood, atleast that burned eyes wasn't necessary...
on the other hand the hunger games was a dystopian future were people naturally lived in a "game of death", so like here what was their story?


it's like, I actually don't remember much from the matrix but what was behind it? a person? an alien? an evil organization? here too, yes we saw that lady at the end, but WHAT'S THE STORY. are they real people? are they a game but don't know it? do they die if they get killed in the game? is the game just a mental game like the matrix? did people from Tokyo go missing or are the people in the game the one's who got "kidnapped" and do the people outside the game know? are they living their lives not knowing anything? do they think the people in the game were just missing cases or deaths no one cared to investigate? come on, there was no answers....

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The acting is terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. I may be biased because I in general have a hard time getting into Japanese Drama. While I love anime and manga, I'm not into their "drama style". The mood is depressing most of the time and the acting is so exaggerated, it doesn't feel natural at all. Talking about this series in particular: The main character's acting was the worst. He made such strange faces most of the time, but what was even more annoying: he had no charisma. He was friends with the other two guys, but they had zero chemistry. Zero. Later on he met a girl, and it was the same: zero chemistry. The older actors who were also friends (I don't want to spoil the twist) had much more chemistry going on. Also, their friendship seemed deep and genuine even though we didn't get much background information about them. To sum it up: horrible characters, not likable at all, horrible acting most of the time. The film-making was good, though. Nothing special, but decent. The reason why I rate this so high is the plot. It was pretty intriguing. The games were nice. It's the kind of plot where you want to know what happens next, and you will watch it to the end for sure. I forgot: there was ONE good character - the trans girl. The portrayal was very refreshing, the actress did a good job. She was my favorite. I will watch season 2, despite finding those characters very annoying. But like I said: the plot keeps you watching.

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The people who have some problem with high stuff don't see it

I like it though ,kento yamazaki is such a great actor he always does a good job .I really like every single show by him . but this is different than others,a great show with minimum mistake.i appreciate every character and their chemistry between themselves. I would like to suggest you to see this drama/show.it would be a good killing time,as I said before,if you have guts then you can see this show on Netflix or asian websites such as drama cool or kiss assian .it is available now. Majority of this drama,I really liked it,but some parts I don't wanna see ok.hope u enjoy it

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Yeah, this show was somehow at once a great disappointment but also a very pleasant surprise. I was dreading watching this because literally everyone and their mothers seem to be comparing it to Sweet Home, a K-drama with a similar apocalyptic concept that I ended up loving to bits. What if its similar and I hate it because I've already seen it? Thank goodness the similarity is exaggerated, because Imawa no Kuni no Alice is completely its own drama. The more I watched it, the less and less it was like Sweet Home. That doesn't necessarily mean I still totally liked it.

To start off, I'm really surprised at how good an actor Sakurada Dori is. Admittedly, I've only ever seen him do boring shoujo male lead roles like in Good Morning Call and Coffee and Vanilla, and never really gave him a second glance. Here, it took me a solid 2 episodes to squint and twist my head whenever his character appeared on screen to finally figure out who was, and I was s-h-o-c-k-e-d! Man's brilliant. A quick run through of his theatre experience and its clear that the Japanese drama industry is short changing him, 'cuz this man can ACT!

Tsuchiya Tao, my queen, great as always. Yamazaki Kento surprisingly was decent as well, one of the rare times he's not a cold shoujo love interest or whatever, though Yamazaki Kento is Yamazaki Kento in all his roles, which can be a great thing if you're a fan of the dude himself, but ultimately makes his acting style kinda boring.

My main gripe with this drama, and the reason I rated it a 7, is how the viewers eventually stop caring about characters because literally everyone except the leads die before we can form any serious bond with them. I know certain deaths were supposed to be really gut wrenching, but because we got so little time to get acquainted with the characters, I literally felt nothing. Whenever the main character agonised, I fast forwarded. I want a little bit of unpredictability in my deaths, and honestly I don't want the good guys to live and bad guys to die in a world where fair is fowl and fowl is fair. I want to be angry and outraged. This was just eh.

Plus, the extremities in this show are almost comical: Mr. Evil Evilini is super Evil, Ms. Good Goodman is super Good and Evil People do Evil Things because they are Evil. Yeah, alright, TV show. The brief attempts at making them complex falls flat because its not sustained or explored deeply. By the end, I grew kinda tired over how Good the main characters were because...BOOORING.

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An adrenaline rush coming of age type of story

This drama was nothing spectacular in terms of story but it had its stimulating & intoxicating moments...
Worldclass in terms of production; the opening credits were stupendous and the scenery was stunning. Such things are naturally to be expected from a Nextflix Original.
The setting was done on a huge scale in a fake town, where roads, and some structures were solely built for the sake of this project. That entire empty Shibuya crossing sequence was breathtakingly beautiful!

The dogfight, battle royale mindgame concepts were nothing new in the competitive death match genre. But surely, they were thrill-inducing!
The worldbuilding & the game rules were intriguing. This kept me guessing: What will happen next? Who the Game Master is? What will they do to come back to their usual lives?
The drama & suspense had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, the games keep me guessing how they'll end, who will be sacrificed in a cruel & unusual death & how will the next game rules be defined...

Characters:
The title's pun "Alice in Borderland" and the "Alice Illusion" aspect in terms of referential names (Arisu=Alice, Usagi=Bunny, Chisiya=Chesire, Hatter, Doudou, ..) was a good "clin d'oeil" to the masterul literary work.

The NEET MC was definitely the most fleshed out character. His internal struggle & character evolution was well elaborated. Despite his larger-than-life intelligence & gaming skills, he was a relatable flawed character, who went from being presented as a relatively simple & plain-looking young NPC to a rough, battered, determined MC displaying heroic willpower. The strength of his character leveled up by a new found sheer force of will & empathic virtue.

The strong FL character aka "athletic badass action girl" was worth rooting for as a composed, dependable, well-determined, likeable tough cookie.
Both lead characters were memorable, their complicity in/out of battle was symbiotic. Their actor casting choice was also appropriate.

The rest of the characters and their individual backstories were clichéd. Though they had diverse talents, struggles and goals. They were altogether enjoyable to watch.

Cons:
-The live action format is very limiting but this is the best example of a potential anime story being translated extremely well.
-The viewer must overlook the nudity & the gratuitous explicit scenes. That were "just there" where they could have been hinted at subtly instead. This "mature audience appeal" though is expected from Netflix.


Overall:
Although there were no grand "moral lesson" to be had. The whole concept applied the rule of cool really well. The journey was definitely entertaining & gratifying.

10/10 in terms of enjoyment. An enthusiastic 9 out of 10 if everything else is taken into account.

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