J-Drama Review and Reaction: Alice in Borderland on Netflix was INSANE!(check TW in Description box)
Hey, what’s up everyone. It’s Nicolynn from Fruity Gum Syrup.
So today, I’m here to talk about a show that my brother recommended to me and I loved.
It’s called “Alice in Borderland” from Netflix.
So Alice in Borderland is a J-Drama that’s on Netflix based off of the manga written by Haro Aso.
It’s a great, great, great show.
So the story focuses around Arisu who is a jobless gamer, and he lives with his dad and his brother.
One day, he somehow ends up in an empty Tokyo with his friends. There they have to compete in life or death games for survival.
Here he meets another character, Usagi. And they work together and try to survive.
The difficulties of the game are based off of playing cards, and this is really, really important because the playing card determines
what kind of game they will be playing and how hard it is.
The suit of the card determines what type of game it is.
A spade will be a physical game, clubs are team battles, diamonds are witty, intellectual mind games. Like you have to use your smarts.
And hearts, the more annoying one out of the four, is a game of betrayal.
So if you watched
so I had to mentally give people nicknames until I remembered their names.
So quick recap of the nicknames I gave the characters.
So Arisu, Karube, and Chota… since they were the three first characters that you meet, I was able to remember their names quickly. So I didn’t have to give them a nick name.
Saori: The Bitch
Usagi: Short Hair
Chishiya: Bleached hair hood guy
Aguni: Muscles
Ann: Sunglasses
Niragi: Psycho
Kuina: Cigarettes
Last Boss: Tattoo
and Hatter: Hat guy
So I wanna try something new, I wanna show you parts of the show that made me go, “Damn!” or gave me some sort of reaction.
and for those of you who haven’t watched it, that should give you an idea of what happens in the story.
Here’s a list of 36 things in the show that made me feel some type of way.
1. First time seeing Shibuya empty.
(What the hell.)
2. When they walk into the borderline for the first time.
(Girl, that don’t look good.)
3. When Shibuki threw the ID out of the borderline and it got shot by a laser.
(Damn, yep that didn’t look good.)
4. When we saw our first death with the high school girl.
(Ooh they’re all thinking they glad that wasn’t them.)
5. When someone with an expired visa conveniently walks by.
(Really bitch!? you just happen to be there?)
6. When we learned Saori was fucking her boss.
(You know what? Get it girl. Get that promotion.)
7. When we learn Chota’s mom was super religious.
(I don’t know about all this.)
8. When we saw Chota’s mom strip for her religion.
(OH, I don’t know about ALLLL this.)
9. When the tagger was chasing players down with an SMG.
(Girl, I wouldn’t make it.)
10. When Saori fucked Chota while Arisu and Karube were playing a game.
(Damn they out there working hard, and he over here gettin’ it.)
11. When Arisu found the safe room but there was a secret tagger.
(Ohhhh, thought they won but… mmmm…)
12. When Arisu and Usagi pushed the button and the tagger blew up.
(Whew chile…)
13. In episode 3 when we find out that they’re gonna play a heart game.
(oooh that don’t look goooood)
14. When we learn that only one will survive.
(*gasp* WTF)
15. When Arisu’s best friends blow up.
(oooooooooh shit.)
16. In episode 4 when they’re playing the distance game and one off the guy has a sprained ankle.
(oooh, sucks to suck.)
17. When the starting point was the goal all along.
(Damn, so they just had to sit there…)
18. When Arisu and Usagi finds the Beach, but they get captured.
(Why they gotta get so rough, though…)
19. When you learn the third rule, “Death to traitors.”
(Oh they weren’t joking.)
20. When the Beach is partying way too much.
(That’s a little too much for me. Aren’t y’all gonna be tired for the games?)
21. When the Beach seemed very culty.
(Damn)
22. When Chishiya teamed up with Arisu, but it was a trap.
(This mother fucker…)
23. When the hotel became a game arena.
(*gasp* ohhhhh ho ho)
24. When the game was the 10 of hearts.
(ooooh, are you fo’real tho?)
25. When the militant members resort to violence when they’re trying to find the witch.
(Damn, they all gon’ die.)
26. When you learn Ann used to be in forensics, and she’s going to powder for prints on the knife.
(ooooh okay girl!)
27. When you find out Kuina is trans.
(*gasp* Are you for real?! oop. Are you for real?!)
28. When Kuina does a super kick to Last Boss’s neck.
(eyyyyyy, let’s go!)
29. When Ann found out who did it but she got knocked out.
(eyyy….. oh shit.)
30. When Aguni admits to being the witch, but Arisu is like no.
(Then who is it?!)
31. When Arisu suggests that Momoka killed herself and the witch has been dead all along.
(*gasp* Nooooooo.)
32. When Asahi confessed to being the dealer and dies.
(Girl, what the fuck you doing?!)
33. When Aguni shot Hatter because the Hatter pointed a gun at him, but turns out the gun wasn’t loaded in the first place.
(Aha, I guess that’s what you get!)
34. When we learn that Momoka and Asahi were helpers to facilitate the game.
(ohhhhh. mmmm…)
35. When we see that Mira from the executives was actually a game master.
(Girl, what the hell?!)
36. When the face card levels appear in the city.
(Eyyy, level up! Get more cards! Eyyy, what’s good?)
So that was 36 things in the show that me me like “oop” or gave me some sort of reaction.
There was a lot going on all the time, and that was only 8 episodes.
I really like these kind of stories, it’s similar to some of the anime and shows that I really like.
It was definitely fun to watch. Some of the games that they play are very simple, like tag, hide-and-seek…
but the fact that there were little twists to them was really fun
My expectations for this show was pretty high but they completely caught me off guard, and gave me way more than I expected early on.
There were moments that I was overwhelmed with what was going on, and I had to take a break ’cause I had to really take in what happened.
For example, Arisu goes in to this world with two of his best friends.So the three of them are there and play a game.
They find out that they have to play a game but it’s dangerous. It’s life or death. Right?
And Chota gets hurt. I’m thinking he’s not gonna make it. But he (Arisu) literally lost both of his best friends on episode 3.
I’m like, “You’re gonna take both?!”
It just caught me off guard.
I liked all the flashbacks that they put in for each character where they were having flashbacks to the life that they had in the real world… I guess. Or their previous world.
And that’s how you get to know the characters. That’s how you got to know Saori was fucking her boss, how Chota’s mom was super religious, and the strong bond that Aguni and the Hatter had.
That’s also how we found out that Kuina was trans. When I met Kuina, I didn’t think that she was going to have a big role like she ended up having in the story.
I was genuinely surprised, and then finding out she was trans…. love her.
Hiring cis actors to play trans characters is a whole other debate. But at least there were some trans representation which I thought was really cool.
If you didn’t watch the show, I definitely recommend that you do. I feel liek you should’ve turned off this video real quick, hop on Netflix, watch it real quick, and then come back to this video.
You have to had watched it in order to understand how good this show was!
So before I go, let me give you my prediction. I didn’t read the manga, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But here are my predictions.
At the end, you’ll see Arisu, Usagi, Chishiya, and Kuina make it to the end kinda thing. They’re basically welcomed to play the face card games.
I have two thoughts. One, if you weren’t able to collect all the cards, you’re eliminated.
And two, if you collect all of the cards, they shift you to a new reality again.
And this is the version of Tokyo where you compete with people that’s already collected all the cards from the previous one (world).
If they wipe out all the other players every time someone completes their set (of cards), I feel like they’re not gonna have people to compete for the face cards
and it’s gonna take forever to get enough people to compete
In the story, the four of them moved on together. But what if one player collected all 40 cards by themselves and move on.
Who they gonna compete against, right? So I think my second theory is a lot stronger where they’re shifted in to a new reality where they can play for face cards.
Why would it appear only when Arisu and his group collected all 40 cards?
For the balloons to appear out of nowhere… where were the balloons when Arisu and all the other people were playing the regular games?
So I think it’s more reasonable to think that the people that collect the 40 cards move on to a different reality of Tokyo where they compete for face cards.
And because those are the people that completed the previous place and collected all cards, the competition is a lot more fierce. It’s harder. And trying to earn face cards is…. it’s gonna be hard.
That is also the reason why I think Arisu…because he’s the main character so he’s gonna survive, right?
But the three other people that he’s with… I don’t think that they’re going to survive.
‘Cause Chota and Karube went out so quick. And you know what? out of the three, I think Kuina would be the most likely to (die) first.
Which kinda makes me sad, ’cause I wanna see Kuina a lot more.
But that’s my prediction. We’re just gonna have to find out next year… hopefully next year, whenever they decide to make season 2.
So that brings me to the end, but I can’t go without giving you a rating.
My personal rating for this show is…..
9 out of 10.
It is pretty good, you guys need to check it out if you haven’t already.
IF you did, leave a comment what you thought about this show. It is so good!
If you made it this far in the video, make sure to give my video a like, and leave a comment down below. Let me know what you think about this video or just the show in general.
If you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to my channel. I do a lot of anime stuff, and this was my first time talking about J-Dramas, but it’s Japanese. It’s close enough.
But yea, make sure you subscribe and I’ll see you next time.
