Ups and downs

The story is really good. It's very articulated and it's very clever how they could give so much information and yet making things so unpredictable. Everytime a secret is uncovered, a new one is around the corner.

I don't know if it makes sense to judge the story though, since this is a remake. I didn't watch the original, but I've got the impression all the flaws are related to the Thai version.
The acting was stellar, the story excellent, but what I didn't like was the storytelling technique. One example is how the last part of an episode and the first part of the following episode are the same scene, except the one in the previous episode has been edited to include fewer details. This would be clever if done properly: it builds anticipation for the next episode and serves as an introduction to the following episode to remember what has happened so far. What they did was to edit the episode so much that in some instances they looked like different scenes. I don't remember when it happened, but at the end of an episode, Plaifon was at Boon's, but Tawan and Pibop (RIP?) suddenly broke in. It looked like Tawan had caught Plaifon in the house, but in the following episode, Plaifon actually managed to escape before Tawan could get in the room she was in.
Also can we talk about Plaifon's secret? We know since the second episode that Plaifon is actually Bua, she manages to keep it a secret and then at the end of episode 11, the only thing she can say is "I surrender, I'm actually Bua". Like, seriously? I was expecting an emotional speech where Plaifon confessed, explained everything she went through in those 10 years, then Tawan got a little bit angry and disappointed in her and then calmed down and realised he loved her too much to hate her. What happened was an edulcorated version of what I said. That part definitely let me down.

I also didn't understand Ploy's character. By the way they introduced her, it looked like she was there because she knew Petch had killed Thip's father. In reality she's there for no reason. She was in England and then got back to Thailand for fun. She messed a little bit with her brother and that's it. That's all she was useful for. It's a shame because I really liked her character, but it wasn't exploited as much as they could.

Anyway, I don't think the flaws outweigh too much the good things. I still enjoyed this and got pretty involved in it. I just expected more.
Btw, the opening OST is a nice tribute to the early 2000's rock.

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A decent sequel

In the first season everything was about Nanno, so the stories were all disconnected from each other. Here there are more elements that tie the stories together, including the Nanno vs Yuri subplot developed all throughout the season.

Chicha shared on social media that the episodes would be dealing with social issues in Thai society and to be honest I could see some social topics being briefly touched upon, such as the respect towards authorities in episodes 5 and 6 (which I interpreted as being related to the protests against Thai monarchy) and wealth inequality in episode 3. This is something I really appreciate, because it gives more depth to the whole show, since the first season also tried to teach some morals.

What I liked the most about this season compared to the first one is how much more horror it got. Right from the first episode, we see how sick things get. Nanno is way more severe in her punishments and I can't say I didn't enjoy this.
The Nanno vs Yuri subplot is a little unnecessary. It gave more flavour to the show, but I don't think much would have changed if it weren't there.

What disappointed me was the ending. Not because Nanno died or because Yuri won, but because Nanno was trying to make a difference in the world, while Yuri was motivated only by hate and anger. Nanno is a sadistic character, but at least her actions serve a purpose, i. e. make the culprit repent (at least in the first season, in this one we don't see this side of her too much). Yuri, on the other hand, is a very dark and negative character, that doesn't care about who is right and who is wrong, she just wants to see people destroyed by their own actions. The final episode was also a bit stupid. The whole thing about mum vs daughter in my eyes didn't justify Yuri's words, according to whom Nanno couldn't be the judge because it was unclear which character was at fault.

If I didn't count the last episode, I would rate this a 9.5, but that episode really let me down.

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Started bad, ended up decent

The start left me quite frustrated. The first episode in horribly confusing. The main characters don't get a proper introduction, they're just thrown there doing their things as if we already knew them. The fact that they're twins makes things even more confusing, because you also have to differentiate Meen's scenes and Mind's.
After a pitiful beginning, we get two or three episodes dedicated solely to explain what the heck happened in the first episode. This not only slowed down the pace, but left me horribly underwhelmed.
Also, can we please speak about the suicide scene? It was the worst I've probably ever seen. A broken person would never jump to a river with deep and calm waters. How could she even think she could die that way? I find it unrealistic that she even got amnesia from it, but I just pretended that never happened, since she quickly gets her memory back.

Luckily from this point on the actual story takes off and things get more interesting.
Speaking of the story, it's crazy how articulated it was. At the beginning everything revolves around Mind, but then different characters start taking the spotlight, revealing more sides to the story that we could ever think.

If I had to mention a character, I have to say I could kinda relate to Gun. He's a broken guy that puts up a childish façade to handle his pain. It's a good representation of a typical teenage boy and brought me back to my teenage years (in a good way).

Even though the story is excellent, I think the downsides were too big to be ignored. I say you could watch this if you're bored, but don't expect much.

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Captivating

Not only is the story interesting, but each element of it has been cleverly exploited. The time-travel adds more dimension to the mystery, which makes the whole story intriguing, filled with twist plots and unexpected turn of events.

After the first episodes, there are 3 or 4 filler episodes. I personally liked them, but I felt they slowed down the pace a little bit. Overall it didn't ruin the show, but as I was watching them, I was afraid the mystery would be solved in the very last episodes and all the middle episodes were fillers. Luckily that wasn't the case.

What surprised me the most is that in each episode they give you a lot of information (we even discover who is the culprit mid-show), yet no amount of information is ever enough to get to a full solution of the mystery. I think this clever management of the elements of the story and the information shared with the viewers is what made the show captivating.

I didn't watch the original version, so I don't know how much different this is, but it was still a good watch. Highly recommend it.

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Wholesome

It's a really nice story about friendship. I enjoyed this, although such sweet and nice stories aren't really my cup of tea.

I appreciated more the psychological side of the story: on the one hand, we've got a young boy full of energy and love for his life, although he can't accomplish anything; on the other hand, we've got an old man who's already lived a fulfilling life and can't see the purpose of keep living, especially now that his wife is gone. Their friendship is not just a dialogue between generations, it's also a complementary relationship where each one gives the other what they're missing the most.

If you like the genre, I definitely recommend it. Although it's short, it's extremely emotional.

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An intriguing mystery

The storyline is really articulated. From the beginning we understand this has no overly sweet and sappy moments, but it gets darker and darker with each episodes as Fame discovers more and more about the truth. The story is so intriguing that I got obsessed with this and finished it in like one day, plus the next morning. There are plot twists at every corner and those cliffhangers are just too hard to ignore. What starts out as a mystery to be solved ends up in complete tragedy when Fame understands that her sister's death was just the tip of the iceberg.

Minor and Kla definitely got the best character development stories. Minor is probably the most despicable character in the bunch, yet she goes completely unnoticed until the last episodes. Kla at first looks like the most harmless character, until we discover that he too has a scandalous secret and in the last scene where the Newtype members officially resign, he really showed how unstable he can be.

I think the best actors in their roles were Ploypailin (Fame) and Cherren (Smile). The others did a splendid job, but these two stood out in particular to me. Smile is such an ambivalent characters, because she behaves one way towards Farn, another way towards Yui and Fame and in a still different way with the core members of the group. That adds a lot of depth to her. Also the relationship with her mother is ambivalent: she is extremely submissive, but as soon as her secret gets exposed, she changes completely and she doesn't even want to talk to her anymore.
Fame is just the perfect character to lead you onto this mystery. She collects each and every evidence she can, she tries to balance her professional and personal lives, but she ends up realising that revenge is not the answer and that Farn killed herself because she too was becoming a monster. She got out of that mess before she could become a monster too.

What I love the most is on how many levels the story can be interpreted. On a more superficial level, it's an intriguing mystery where the innocent characters aren't actually that innocent and the evilest characters don't even realise the amount of suffering they have caused (to Farn in particular, they don't even know she committed suicide).
On a more philosophical level, we can analyse how celebrities are objectified by their fans to the point of being punished for tiny mistakes, like when Minnie got beaten up and raped by Kla. We see how the obsession over those we idolise can compromise our judgement and lead us to unspeakable deeds, but we also see how Minor exploited her fame and manipulated Tun to get what she wanted. I also appreciate how they touched upon the concept of revenge: is it really worth it? Fame realises Farn didn't need revenge, because the monsters she got bullied by also became the victims of Farn's actions, but at the same time revenge was Minor's biggest motivator, it was her only source of satisfaction. We could also analyse how the rules the idols have to follow are actually the source of all the suffering: the idols didn't break the rules for fun, they did it because they wanted to be free to be themselves. This is exemplified by Smile when she says that the ropes she gets tied with in her fetish shows are her source of freedom (or something of that sort). Those rules are so strict, that they prompt the idols to break them.

I think there are some points that could have been explained further. For instance, they didn't dig too much into Kirin's past before the plastic surgery. Also I got the impression Smile's mother used to be an actress, but she couldn't continue her career for whatever reason. I would have loved to know more about these two aspects, but to be honest it didn't ruin the experience for me.

I recommend this to everyone. This is a must-watch. Also the OST is a guilty pleasure.

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Wholesome

It's been such a joy to watch this. There is no unnecessary drama, no tragedy, nothing too scandalous. It's just the story of how two people fell in love with each other.
I appreciate that all the characters have some depth to them. The story is very simple, but still enjoyable.

What I think is the biggest flaw is that it's too short. I felt disappointed everytime an episode ended, because I fully immersed myself in the story. It's like when your parents bring you to an amusement park and you would stay there all day long, but time flies by and when you start having the most fun, you already need to go home.
On the other hand I understand that this wasn't meant to be longer than it already is. There are some things they could have explored further, but they don't add nothing to the main love story.

It would be a good watch for when you're spending a day out and you have two hours to waste. Also the OST is so cool.

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Pathetic

This is the worst in the "Sleepless Society" saga. I thought of dropping it halfway, but then I convinced myself that it wasn't that bad. I should have dropped it. After a certain point I started hating the two protagonists and the last episode was just a big disappointment. I swear to god, I just wanted to see them dead.

So the story doesn't offer anything interesting. It starts as a very strange mystery: the protagonist wakes up with a dead body besides her. The most obvious conclusion is that she is the killer, but we are led to believe that she is innocent. All the characters are trying to uncover the truth, by creating even more problems. People get killed and after everything that went on, the most obvious conclusion turned out to be the right one.
I really hated Kate. She starts acting victimistically, pretending to be helpless and fragile, but in the end we discover she had all planned out since the beginning. In the last episode she implies that the producers wanted us to hate her, but this actually made everything worse for me, because it means that the series is not only bad, but it's bad ON PURPOSE. I empathised more with Rat, who was supposed to be the bad guy, because at least he had a sensible reason to go about blackmailing and killing people, whereas Kate did everything out of sociopathic selfishness.

The main concept of the story was already mentioned in "Sleepless Society: Insomnia" and further developed here. It's really about what is more important between Love and Justice. Kate is a sociopathic character who is able to manipulate her victims by messing with their feelings and sense of empathy. I think the moral message in the last episode is really important, but they failed miserably at portraying it with this story.

Don't waste your time with this, it's not worth it.

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A moral story about how our own feelings can manipulate us

I think the concept is really interesting. At first I was expecting something supernatural where the boy is actually the ghost of her dead son, but the story heads in a completely different direction.
It's more of a mystery series, where the main protagonist, scarred by trauma, is absolutely clueless about everything that's going on. It really shows how much of a control our emotions can have on us. The ending may be a little bit disappointing, but I think it's actually really realistic. Meena's story could have had a better ending, but her trauma hurt her so much that her son is the only thing that keeps her going, no matter if said child is not truly hers.

The story is really articulated, although after a certain point it becomes predictable. Although I think the story is really good, I think they should have expanded it a little bit. For instance who's Tom's uncle? Why was Arm thinking of killing him? How did Arm and Tom meet? Is their striking resemblance just a coincindence or they may actually be related? Who was part of their sadistic game, besides the boy wearing glasses (can't remember his name)? When did Pete join the scam scheme and why did he hate her wife so much?
I think the fact we don't have an answer to these questions doesn't spoil the story, but it would have still added a little more flavour.

Maybe it's not the best series out there, but I think it's still enjoyable. Recommend it.

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A cleverly surprising story

The show is cleverly produced with plot twists at every corner. It starts out quite modestly with Iya who wants to understand what happened to her parents, but she ends up uncovering the secrets of everyone on the island. Although some details were predictable, the overall scheme was absolutely unimagineable.
While watching this, I had the impression some characters were really unnecessary, but at the end it turned out that each and every character had a reason and a purpose. This is really clever and helped tying everything together.

Besides the articulated story, I really appreciated how they tried to convey some moral messages and touch on delicate topics. On this last point, I loved Faye's subplot in particular.
The actors were all really good, especially the protagonist who portrayed flawlessly her experience with the trauma that led her to develop her insomnia.

I really don't have any kind of criticism, I think this was absolutely flawless.
Highly recommend it.

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Bad story development

This starts out promising and then quickly falls.
The first episodes are really interesting. They all end in a cliffhanger (something that, as a viewer, I don't appreciate, although it's really clever production-wise) and from the very start we understand that there are multiple mysteries. At the end of the series each and every character is, in some way, correlated to one another.

What started as a promising stories, quickly let down every expectation I had. The mysteries anticipated in a handful of episodes are quickly revealed in the span of two or three episodes. From there the story becomes a rivalry between two families and everyone wants to kill each other. Everything comes to an end when the inevitable happens: the mentally unstable character kills the ONLY TWO INNOCENT PEOPLE and everyone realises how much of a dick they had been.

The story shows how fragile human relationships are, but they do it in a very uninteresting way. The whole story ends up revolving around jealousy, desire of revenge and greed. It's just too toxic for me to like it. I even started hating the protagonist, I just couldn't stand her madness anymore.

Also the special effects are just poor. Luckily they haven't used them too often.

Watch it if you're bored, but don't expect anything.

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May be polarising

The concept is intriguing. Nanno is a very peculiar character, whose nature is a total mystery. I liked the fact that each story was made to convey a moral message to the viewer and I think some of those messages were really important.
Nanno is absolutely unpredictable. Her behaviour is so ambivalent, but at the end of the day the protagonist of each episode is the sole person responsible for their demise.

The show explores the human mind in a very deep, mysterious and horrific way. It shows how people are often manipulated by their impulsive emotions and a little trigger is all they need to become killers, monsters, deceiving liars or criminals.

The most important thing to remember is that each episode is a story in itself. As such some episode might be better than others. I particularly liked the second and eighth episodes. If you decide to watch this, just remember that you may hate some episodes. I think this aspect makes the show strangely polarising, depending on how many episodes you actually liked.

The music was so good and when they played the Danse Macabre in the third episode, I couldn't help it but feeling over the moon. It was a big surprise for me, I love that piece.

I recommend it to everyone who loves some scary mystery.

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Flawless

The story is really articulated. At any moment you have no idea on how the story might develop, which keeps the interest up. I also appreciated the fact the love story isn't too sappy or irrealistic. Actually they don't even show too much affection in an obvious way. They don't need to show anything to know that they're in love and this is really interesting and clever, because it makes their relationship look genuine, deep and intimate.

The actors were just perfect. Mix in particular was always able to efficiently portray the emotions of his character. There were a lot of sad and emotional scenes (like A LOT), but despite this I never felt like his acting was exaggerated.

What I didn't like was Sakda's subplot. It didn't add much to the story and they didn't even finish it. They just implied the police was tracking them down, but there was no actual development. I really don't understand the point of that subplot, but because it was so minor, I'm not going to complain too much either. At the end of the day the show isn't impacted by it.

Anyway, I recommend this 100%. According to my personal taste, there are better shows, but I can't deny this is absolutely top tier in its category. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it to anyone who loves the genre. Just beware: many people nicknamed this "A tale of thousand tears" and to be honest this is really accurate. The emotional involvement is extreme (this might be a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your personal taste).

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Don't do drugs, guys... "Daughters" tells you why

This is so good, I can't believe it. I enjoyed every single second of it.
The only thing I didn't like was the music. I understand the show is set in the 90's and they chose songs from the 90's to create the right atmosphere, but they could have chosen better songs.

Anyway, I loved how relatable the story is. Even if it's set in the 90's, it feels very contemporary, as the dynamics are the same. The protagonists are just a group of teenagers, with the dreams and desires every teenager has, that have to face harsh realities and resort to drugs to alleviate their pain. At first, I didn't even realise how big a role drugs played in the plot. The whole story is full of teachings and morals, I really appreciated it.

I loved every one of the main leads and their stories touched me. The only complaint I have is about Poy's background story: the other characters have such tragic background stories that hers looks like nothing serious in comparison. I just wish they gave her a more traumatic background story to match the horrible lives of her friends.
I also have to complain about Yok. His character is really ambiguous: at times he looks like one of the main characters, but then he looks more like a secondary one. This ambiguity made me feel like his role wasn't as important as it should have been. I really loved his suicide scene, though, it really hit me deep.

Everything is so real. No fairytales, no smiles: only the harshest and crudest reality without any filter. This made the moral message of the show more powerful.
The ending is also real. It's not a sad ending, but not a happy one either: it's just real and like all real things it's a compromise between the hopes each one of us has for a bright future and the harsh past we've been through.

Also I found it so funny when I found anachronisms. Like the story is set in the 90's and yet Ngoh wants a Peppa Pig plush toy and when they start selling t-shirts, one of the stand has a "The Fault in Our Stars" t-shirt.

If you can handle strong and traumatic scenes, I recommend this.

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The effect... of a trauma

At first I didn't want to watch it, because love stories aren't really a priority to me, but got convinced by the "self harm" tags (I like these controversial and impactful topics). Turns out this is not a BL and has nothing romantic in it.

The acting was strange. In the first episode I felt like the main leads were a little bit inexperienced, but in the other two episodes their perfomance was flawless. I don't know if it was just an impression or something.

So the plot is really interesting, because at first you have absolutely no idea how everything is going to develop. Starts out pretty normal with the two main leads slowly getting closer to each other. Then everything escalates quite rapidly. It really shows how people affect you in different ways: how the expectations of Keng's parents affect his behaviour, how the rape affects Shin's mental health and how everyone's perception of Keng changes because of his actions.

The show is extremely realistic. I really felt Shin's trauma and I loved how, towards the end, they showed how things developed for everyone, leaving Shin to meditate on how things could have been different if it hadn't been for his trauma.
The ending is also nice. It's an open ending that some might not like. I just wish it was less enigmatic, because I have so many interpretations for it and I don't know which one is correct.

I'd absolutely recommend it.

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