Imawa no Kuni no Alice (2020)

Dubbed Japanese Hunger Games

I watched this after seeing the hype on Netflix and not sure why, it just didn't live up to the hype for me. The first 2 episodes had a great start and after persisting through the next few episodes, i thoroughly enjoyed the final episode.

I honestly wanted to see the storyline move a bit faster in terms of them understanding the reason for the games and looks like we will see much more of this in Season 2.

I haven't seen the manga or anime, but I do really love Liar Game (A similar psychological Japanese drama which i HIGHLY RECOMMEND) and i just felt that liar game was soo much better.

All in all, i still think Netflix did really well in terms of staying true to the anime/manga, so I will look forward to a Season 2, which is hopefully even better than Season 1!!!

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Not for the faint hearted

This is the first Japanese drama that I've watched since the classic Ordinary People and Tokyo Love Story. I mostly just watch Chinese drama nowadays, but this one came up in my Netflix recommendation, so I decided to give it a try. Compared to c-dramas, this is very short and I was able to finish it in just one day. It has a 9 scale on a binge-worthiness level, but declines to 2 or 3 on a memorable and re-watch value. The story is interesting and the first four episodes I thought was very good and succeeded in catching my attention and pushing that "watch next" button on Netflix. However, the second part of the show was just so-so and I thought what happens after Arisu arrived at the Beach was weird with the organization, the parties etc were weird and a bit inconsistent and left me with many questions marks, and even after watching the last episode, I still have lots of question marks.This series is definitely not for the faint hearted. There are a lot of blood and violence and I wouldn't recommend it to you if the sight of blood on your screen leaves you feeling queasy. Acting is just sub-par I think. None of the actors or actresses are good in my opinion. They are just so-so actors with unmemorable performance. I don't watch many Japanese drama, so I am not familiar with the actors and actresses, but I am not impressed with their acting.

You might like this if you are a fan of the manga or the actors & actresses and likes gory psychological thriller. As for me? i am only in for the psychological thriller part, but only like 50% of the series, not like The Bad Kids, which I thought was superb from start to finish and still leaves some impression even months after watching The Bad Kids. Acting of the actors and actresses in The Bad Kids are far superior compared with Alice in Borderland.

But, hey, we all have different tastes and opinions.

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Gory thriller!

This is a thriller with some what similar premise to hunger games. However it is more gritty, fast paced with lots and lots of blood. The mysterious game master and brutal games keeps you guessing and pulls you inexorably into this world. I was able to watch it knowing that it is complete fiction. It ended at a great cliff hanger and has been renewed for a second season. Great acting, story and production. It warrants a one time watch if you are able to tolerate gory scenes.
PS: When I watched it on Netflix, I turned off the English audio and watched the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The English audio dubbing felt strange.

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Try to be wise but not enough.

Though there're many aspects of this series that I give low grades, I don't think it's worth my time to scrutinize all of them here as it'll be too much, so I'll just talk a bit only about one point out of the aspect that annoys me the most which is the story. To make this genre works, outsmarting the viewers is the most important. This story already tried to do so, but it was still not wise enough, not thorough enough, not good enough. I'm not satisfied that I foresaw the answers to 3 games plus the overall plot while the characters struggled too much to find them and even intended to overlook some of them so that they could show that they had to struggle. There're a lot more to criticize about the story, but it's too messy to clarify it in a short time and I don't consider this series worth that much of my time.

I think I should also mention that I came to watch this series after watching Squid Game. They both are in the same genre broadcasting one year apart, so it's difficult to not compare them while watching. Squid Game is smarter, more unexpectant, more succinct. There's much clearer of the system design of the story's circumstance thus more convincing. The editing is more skilled. The production as a whole brings a new taste to its own genre. It's more surprising and exciting to watch. Though I'm not that satisfied with the acting of Squid Game esp. in the early episodes, when comparing to this one, Squid Game is still more impressive.

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Entertaining Action Spoiled by Inconsistent Writing

I was not impressed by Squid Game. With all due respect to the fans of Alice in Borderland, though, I have to say that for me this series is even worse than the South Korean one.

The first four episodes were great, almost on the same level as Squid Game in terms of gore and intensity, and the characters were just as interesting. I found the main character, Arisu, to be more likeable than his Korean counterpart. He is a good, principled, and smart person, so I cared about him and wanted to know if he would survive. Furthermore, the games seemed to me to be more clever than the ones in Squid Game.

Then, in episode five, the story started going downhill at a rapid pace. I felt like I was suddenly watching a different series. What should have been a survival story began to resemble a badly written mafia movie. Instead of games, I was fed tragic backstories and unnecessarily dramatic dialogues, mostly from characters whom I was given no reason to sympathize with. If the scriptwriters thought that I would feel sorry for a crazy mass murderer who tried to rape a woman because he was bullied at school, they thought wrong. They should have at least put some effort into making those tragic backstories less clichéd. At some point, I started skipping most scenes.

Aside from Arisu, the other character who kept me watching through these absurd episodes was Chishiya. Morally gray, charismatic, and smart, he was intriguing. The fact that the scriptwriters did not assign him a tragic backstory made him even more appealing. Murakami Nijiro, who plays him, is a great actor. He nails the Cheshire Cat smirk.

The last episode made a relatively successful attempt to improve the story and reach the quality of the initial episodes, but the plot twist in the end was neither emotionally devastating nor particularly surprising.
What made the final plot twist in Squid Game so memorable for me was that the character who turned out to be evil had convinced me that he was harmless and good, and I had come to care about him. I felt betrayed, and I had missed the clues, which had been in front of me the whole time, partially because I did not want to believe that this character was capable of such evil.
Things were not so with this series. The character who was revealed to be the mastermind behind the games had almost no screen time, so I did not care about them any more than about the extras. There were not any hidden clues that would have pointed to them. At the same time, though, every time this character was shown they looked confident and slightly unhinged. It was not difficult to figure out that they were plotting something.

Overall, I think that fans of Squid Game might not enjoy its Japanese predecessor that much. The production team of Squid Game learned from the mistakes of this series and delivered a story that, while flawed, is more consistent and thrilling than this one.

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Best adaptation ever.

this series has been in my plan to watch list for a long time, Since I had huch that this one is gonna be good. I definitely doesnt want to watch this partially, now second season about to come out I had to complete it. now i saw the mdl score im kind of mad this series deserve score over 9 honestly.
Story :
written by a fucking genius mangaka, then pictured and directed nicely as adaptation.
first of all the games, mechanism of the game is really good split in every each category spades, clubs, diamond, and hearts
spades games of physical and survival. diamond game of wits, hearts game of psychology, clubs games of balance of other three categories. each categories game difficulties pictured in numbers with the hardest numbers games showed with number 10, though too bad no aces game were showed since ace could be the hardest or the easiest. each game are meaningful on their own as a test if the player are worthy to lives longer, based on categories and numbers. unlike other death game that forces to have casualties, each game surprisingly fair there is actually a way for everyone to survive and hints to it. but of course not so easy.
spoiler alert if there are players of course there are dealers which revealed later on, both sides plays with their lives at stakes, really interesting.
Characters :
how work for every series, yet I pretty much like everyone. each one progressed on their own and has reasons to survive on their own each pictured really well not too long yet understandable. you'll care about every characters, every player will have regrets such as "things could have been better" as they plays every game and grow as a character.
Music :
its pretty much subjective for me, music fits well with the intensity even though none are really memorable. music fits, not too loud for you to have jump scare, thats it need to be for a good music in a mystery series for me.
Rewatch :
this is what so special, I believe you can watch this series multiple times as many as you want, especially if you are a locked-room mystery fan, there is so much solution in every game you can try to find the hints yourself. the characters that plays the game may or may not get the hints but there always is a way, spoiler alert especially in game 7 of heart.
INTP people I see you. you'll definitely love this series.

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I just watch it in 1 DAY

My sister reccomeded it to me but i was like ... 'i am not sure if its my type of drama that i watch usually', i had no expectations

BUT

I WAS WRONG

◇The story... the only word that come to my mind is WOW, ITS JUST DIFFERENT/UNIQUE it fantastic. I really loved the fact that the games were like riddle.
◇ It was addicted as you can see(when i finish it, i was like 'where am i - i want MORE')
◇It was like i played there, especially in the second episode which is my favorite episode
◇The acting was really good & the ost
◇The production was ?
◇FULL OF ACTION


YOU SHOULD WATCH IT !!!

(WHY NOBODY TOLD ME THAT THE GUY WITH THE YELLOW HAIR - one of the 3 friends- WAS KURΟSAWA FROM CHERRY MAGIC LIKE ???
AFTER I FOUND IT, I HAD 10 HEART ATTACKS but now i am ok )

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Don't get me started

Caution!: I never read the Manga nor watch the anime so this is purely based on this experience!

The Characters? Great! The actors did their job perfectly and the whole experience was great! I binged it right after I binged Sweet Home and both were the best thing I ever watched.

There is only ONE thing that bothered me. Nijiro's (Chishiya's) wig. Like whoever made that happen like THIS, jail time for you. But fortunately it didn't influence the top notch acting.

I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed the actor portraying Karube is the same as the one from Cherry Magic (watch it, it's great) and the one portraying Arisu is L from the 2015 Death note drama! (Must watch too ;3)

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Decent show, but falters badly after episode 3

This show is compared to Squid Game a lot, and as a fan of SG, I gave it a shot only to realize the comparisons make no sense whatsoever. The two shows have nothing in common other than having death games as a major plot point.

Overall AIB is entertaining with lots of fantastical elements. It starts off strong, and some early episodes hit me in the gut, mainly due to excellent acting. But the story takes a weird turn around halfway through the season, and, in my opinion, loses its appeal. Plot twists are cheapened and unnecessarily confusing, and the character development is shallow and uninteresting.

It's a good show for a weekend binge, but not one that left a deep impression on me. That being said, I'll still be watching season 2 :)

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Don't watch Squid Game first.

Ok, i liked the series it was really good but there's just something missing.
I know there's a manga about it but i never read it and i don't plan to honestly.

I came in here with really high expectations because people in my entourage and people on the internet said that Squid Game was over hyped and that Alice in borderland was in fact better. I watched SG when it came out and really, no death game, no series of that genre was better than this... STILL.

Maybe if SG never came out AIB would've been the best series of that genre out there no discussion, but SG ate AIB up sorry not sorry.

First off, how the story takes off makes no sense. Literally no sense. Arisu doesn't even really go at it with his brother or father to leave, he just finds an excuse to get off the game and leave. And then he says that he got "kicked out"... What ? No, your spoiled ass didn't get kicked out, you ran away like an ungrateful kid.
Then you got Karube kissing his boss wife, seems like it's not the first time but oh my oh my, he suddenly gets beat up and fired THAT day. At least with Arisu we somehow got a hint of his background but with Karube it was like "ok, he has a job but we need to make him leave the job and show that the 3 bestfriends are all losers in some way"???? A whole bunch of nonsense put together.

Talking about their friendship, it was boring. Really boring. None of them are funny or interesting. The only one that was at the very least charismatic was Karube and I think he made the whole friendship.

It took half of the first episode to really get into it and i don't mind taking time to really set the story up. But now stories were boring, briefly cut to let place to 3 boring guys struggling to find something to do (pretty sure the director did that just so he can gain more minutes because he didn't know what to do). Then the story starts with electrical power just cutting off, phones too, people disappearing. To me that was really unrealistic and it's an overused method to start a death game story. It's always either you see people but they don't see you or people disappear. Always that "isolating" start.

Arisu is the character that pissed me the most off, especially during the 7 Hearts game in the botanical garden. He ran away with the wolf "mask/title" and then hid and acted like he was sorry and then when only 3 minutes were remaining, he suddenly "changed" his mind. But at the same time i was glad he was there during certain games. And also can we talk about Shibuki? She was so useless omg. Can somebody just tell me what did she do for the story? Except explaining some of the rules they could've figured out themselves ? If the story went without her, it would've made absolutely no difference.

In my opinion, the series got interesting only from episode 7... meaning the end since there's 8 episodes. I just feel like the rest was so passive, nothing was really happening. Chota was a really passive character, if the friendship was just Arisu and Karube, it would've made no difference as well.

Japan really has a thing for sects. Chota's story was about that, and "The Beach" was definitely a sect or just had a sect-ish vibe.
The way you would see every other girl in bikinis, being victims of attempted rape really made me uncomfortable.

This series felt like there was no story whatsoever, especially for the main characters. I don't even like any of them. Like i said it got interesting from episode 7 to 8 and the male lead wasn't there for most of it. That tells a lot.

The set up was good, i can't really say anything on that. It's just Tokyo streets, they are really cool. Fortunately we got to see other players because if it was the 3 guys from the beginning all along... i don't know.

The actors did really bad acting in my opinion. They succeeded to carry the show but I wasn't really sold about it.

I'm definitely going to compare this with Squid Game because almost every AIB fans i talked to literally DRAGGED it.
I think Squid Game was better. First of all, in AIB, Arisu is from a rich family, he can stay home and not do anything, it won't affect anything, so i don't feel bad or any type of way for him. In SG, the game was made for the players to naturally reveal their true self, while in AIB it felt like they had no choice but act evil. The story of each character in SG was meaningful and left a memory on you, while in AIB you could get stories about a girl that loves her father??? Ok? Or a bullied boy that grew into a villain... Ok?? Still want you dead tho. Unnecessary moments like that made me mad. Or you could get sex/nudity scenes that absolutely nobody needed to see. Like wtf does it add to the story? I'm talking about you Shibuki.
The series (AIB) lacked action and suspense in my opinion. During most of the games i wasn't really impressed. I had a little tension because the games were difficult to clear but that's it. I didn't sweat, I wasn't stressed out, I didn't feel any pressure. It was just like watching white wall, not impressed. And it's really sad because i LOVE feeling stressed out and pressured because this indicates that the show is really good to me.

On the overall, I'll leave a 7.5/10. The show is definitely good but if I recommend this to someone that seen Squid Game first, they're definitely going to be disappointed. So i suggest watching this first and then SG.

Oh and if in season 2 it happens to be all a virtual game imagined or being played by Arisu or anothe person it would be the most boring series i've ever seen hands down.

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Disappointing

Being very honest, as a manga reader, I didn't enjoy this drama that much.
They failed in a lot o aspects in compariso to the source material.
I couldn't bring myself to care for any of the characters. On episode 3 (which in the manga is the part that absolutly destroyed me) the only feling I had towords the characters was desapointmant, it wasn't nearly as emotional as it should have been.
Not to mention the rest of the games and how they changed them, making them simpler and less interesting. Also putting the main characters in games they didn't participate in the manga, basically ignoring Arisu's traumatic experience in the hide and seek game and the ways it affected him psychologically.
Though I liked some especific changes, like the addition of celphones and the aged up main character(witch are teenagers in the manga).
But in the end it wasn't enough to make me enjoy the story.
I will give it someo extra credits for the production, which was quit impressive for a J-drama.
In conclusion: Wouldn't waste my time re-watching and don't know if I would watch a second season.

*Just want to end apologising for any gramatical mistakes*

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This is me mostly talking about s2 lol

This goes in the same category as squid game for me. It really is well done and i enjoyed every episode that aired. I cant help but think there will be another season even if the show was technically concluded but also that joker card at the end... if it actually ended then why would they show that and leave the ending so open? Its not a solid ending, even though i actually love the plot that this was all just borderland between life and death, its so clever and i loved that so much. People fighting for their lives for 1 minute...while it felt like an enternity for them. Wow. Jaw dropping.

Hope there will be another season just to solidfy everything again!

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