Imawa no Kuni no Alice (2020)

Not for the faint heart

First, the show might be gore for the faint hearted. Shooting, dead people, slashing and exploding bodies...

However the plot and games are nice to watch. It is similar to Japanese dramas like Liar Game, Kaiji - the protagonist has no choice but to join in a cruel game to fight the way out using brains and guts...

What is different for this are the friendship elements. Where participants learnt to trust and battle together in this twisted game.

Worth watching! Pacing was good and games are well thought of. One should also note that this series will have a second series, so the ending was not really an ending.

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How far are you willing to go in order to stay alive?

Tension packed 8 episode netflix drama featuring Kento Yamazaki and his friends trying to survive in deadly games in an alternate abandoned Tokyo. Each survival game will test the characters...how far are you willing to go to stay alive?

Man...there were so many moments where I forgot to breathe. Every episode is intense, bloody and brutal. It was shot well. The acting was good. It was nice to see Kento and Tao paired up yet again in their what...maybe 3rd or 4th time? The editing for the most part was fast paced and kept the tension throughout. The format sometimes reminded me of the Walking Dead where we see flashbacks and glimpses of the character's previous life before the change.

Overall this series was really good. However, you will be left with quite a few questions which makes me think there will be a S2. At least I'm really hoping for one. I watched this for Kento, but came out liking the series as a whole. Would def recommend!

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WOW

I did not expect what I just saw. Totally worth the watch, I can't hype this enough! IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO BLOOD DO NOT WATCH. But otherwise, it's just so great, listen this idea is the most original thing I've seen so far, and it's the coolest shit ever. The characters are really interesting some have interesting backgrounds and some are just totally mysterious and I love it. It's very post-apocalyptic vibes meets jigsaw but less gruesome and cruel. The ending was just the biggest cliffhanger I've seen, like how can they NOT make a season 2?!

Aside from that SPOILER I just wanted to express the IMMENSE SADNESS, I felt when I watched episode 3 and saw my boys Karube and Chota died like that, I felt emptiness and legit looked like I just lost someone I actually knew lmao. I just couldn't handle it, it was straight-up PAIN. But anyways I can't recommend it enough to people just to watch them bawled their eyes out when they watch the episode, it's somehow entertaining.

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Heart-pounding, mind-blowing

Just to preface this, I started this without any background information whatsoever — I had never read the manga or watched the anime and didn't know what this was about aside from the gazillion (erroneous) comparisons to Squid Game.

I ended up loving this, especially the individual games; there's always a twist to them, and I was on the edge of my seat during all of them, no matter which category it was. The action scenes are just superb and the drama managed to do really successful and heart-wrenching character development in the little time they had, not for just our main leads but for all the side characters as well.

I have to admit that I don't love the later arc as much as the earlier ones; partly due to my preference for the "out-of-the-system" character and also because I managed to guess the game answers there, but overall the action sequences and fight scenes during these episodes were still great, and I love how the season ends and sets up the next stage of the story.

Cannot wait for season 2!

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A great adventure

Let me tell you something. This series is not for everyone and that's why it doesn't surprise me that many people didn't actually like it. It has blood, violence, murder and sex which I can understand that many will not enjoy. To me though, this is a Netflix gem and you should really watch it

The story is really interesting and cool and the acting was spot on. I was really hanging at the edge of my seat, feeling emotional, angry and satisfied all at the same time. Also another thing that really catches your eye is the cinematography and the production.

For me, it was a great adventure. It was different from what I've watched up until now and that's why I've binged to that series in one day. I have to admit, although I know that many will disagree, that I enjoyed this one more than the squid game and I really can't wait for season 2 to be out.

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..A CARD DECK OF LIFE AND DEATH..

..the players whose just got isolated that time and a power interruption happened. . .then *boom*..
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..a desert-like city welcome them..
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..well, as same as the game genre, it measures the body, mind, teamwork, heart - the trust..
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..a betrayal and friendship, to live and to die, the lose and win - that's how the life is for all the players..
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..almost the games ended just a second of time and nothing to expect, the longer the time to end the more extreme scenes can be added..
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..punch and kick, blood and sweat, bond and sex. . .nothing to be surprise yet a good scenes can be watch..
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..some of the games are well explained and easy to understand and follow, some are not - every minute is something to focus on and to go with the flow of the game..
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..in the end, only a few cards left and the second season is coming. . .are those the last games left?..
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..the casts are amazing, the acting are superb, the story is so cool, a mixed emotion, mind blowing - this is an art..
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..so better watch this guys and join the game..

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Probably the first Japanese series I've finished (or I just can't remember others). Anyway, I'm a huge KDrama fan and was just curious to this one as this was just recommended by someone. Honestly, I really enjoyed this. Every game was well thought. The writer/s were intellectual in choosing their games. It was crazy and blood thirsty (as far as I can describe). I was not a fan of gore and brutal killing in my years of watching dramas but this one made me want to watch more. Amidst the chaos this series has, I also enjoyed some emotional moments between and among the characters. I think the male and female lead did a good job in playing their roles. I also commend how strong they were, not just physically but mentally and intellectually, because it was justifiable that they were able to survive a lot of games. If one of them was just a bit negative or is rather weak in handling the situation, it would not be realistic for him/her to survive. Overall a good watch to me. Looking forward to some amazing, crazy, and mind blowing season 2 and I hope it would be better than this.

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Well, that was quite brutal. But it gave me a similar vibe to The Maze Runner which is always a plus, so there's that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My favorite games were those where Arisu got to show his smarts. Brutality doesn't really do it for me, I don't play any of those shooting games, whatever they might be called. But give me a game based on puzzle solving and I'm there with my bells on. So those games where the players had to actually use their heads as something more than a battering ram, those I loved.

But because of how brutal this drama was, I didn't actually feel sorry for any of the dead characters - besides Arisu's friends because that was at the beginning, when it was all fresh and new. But the longer it went, all the killing and murders, the more desensitized I was? Well, I mean, when there's too much of something - be it death or, I don't know, bad language - it stops hitting true. By the end, I was more shocked that any of them actually survived.

Overall, an interesting "dystopian" story. But I really had to be in the mood for it. The music, though, the music was absolutely amazing. I didn't skip the credits once!

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Overall, this was a pretty entertaining watch. I thought it would be just another Squid Game or Battle Royal knock off, but it wasn't. What I found interesting was that even if there were many similarities between these shows, Alice in Borderland was definitely its own thing.

I loved the puzzle games and the variety of challenges; I am not a gamer and I don’t play cards but they explained the rules in a way that could be understood by anyone. The show also used different areas of an abandoned cityscape very effectively for its background. It was refreshing how the game backgrounds would switch from an abandoned building to a hotel to even a beach resort.

The male lead was pretty smart and capable; it was a lot of fun watching him come up with last minute solutions when it seemed that he would lose. Despite being a very good and pure character, he also knew how to trick people, which came as a surprise but very handy for survival. At first, I didn’t like how he seemed to be the only smart character but it turned out that there were other characters (like the mysterious Chisaya) who were just as intelligent and could come up with their own ways to win.

I heard somewhere that the female characters were shallow in comparison but I didn’t think so. All FLs here were very strong, likable and had different capabilities. The parallels between the main FL Usagi and the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland was represented well, in that they made her a mountain climber who was very good at parkour; she also provided a very good motivation for the ML. Kuina, who gave the initial impression of being a beach bum, turned out to be a very capable fighter while Ann was not just the Mad Hatter's henchman but an intelligent forensic researcher.

One of the things I didn’t like is how the characters would sometimes have these overly long, philosophical discussions which really didn’t serve any purpose, It made some of the episodes (and the game that was ongoing) boring. I liked the challenge with the King of Clubs for example, but it could have been more exciting if they trimmed down these overly long conversations between ML Arisu and the king. I am not sure why they did it, it was as if they were trying to make the plot deeper than it had to be and I felt it was unnecessary.

Another thing is that, while I don’t mind the violence, the level of injuries the characters got (particularly in the last episode) was too much that I really could not understand how they survived. While I am happy that they did make it, it seemed impossible, given how brutal the fight scene was.

I am also not sure about the final challenge with the Queen of Hearts and how she was able to make the ML lose hope at first. Even at the very end, I wasn’t sure what the whole point of Borderland was…was it created to punish people who did wrong things in the real world? Two seasons have already passed but many important points weren't cleared yet. I heard there was going to be a third season but to be honest, I kind of worry that they will stretch the plot out too much and ruin it. It was exciting to see the joker card at the very end but there is a danger of ruining a good thing when it takes too long to come up with a proper conclusion.

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