Tonight we’re watching the finale of season 1 of Alice in Borderland, a live-action Japanese show with high stakes, some bold decisions, and a potential overattachment to the manga it’s based on. I’m enjoying it, but my feelings are increasingly mixed the more I watch.
The premise is that some unknowable amount of people have been pulled into a deadly series of games in an nearly abandoned Tokyo. To their credit, they question what happened throughout the first season. Where did everyone go? Is it just Tokyo? Is any of this real? How do you win? Will the games ever end? There are no answers yet, just questions.
The games themselves are Hunger Games meets The Devil’s Plan. For example, make it out of a maze of rooms, never choosing the wrong door (if you do, you die). The show is very violent.
I didn’t know the show was based on a manga until around halfway through the season when the show started to feel like it was a panel-for-panel remake of a manga, especially in regards to characters doing things that make very little sense but probably look cool in static images. I don’t have a problem with cool imagery, but I’m struggling a little with how it’s impacting the characterizations. We just finished an episode in which a brooding character literally stands in front of a bonfire for the entire hour while a ton of stuff happens around him. Does it look cool? Yes. Does it make any sense at all? Nope!
I’m curious to hear your thoughts if you’ve watched the show. There are currently 3 seasons–do you recommend continuing?
Life is short. It should be spent on something that brings joy. If there are better things, might as well pass.
Well said! 🙂