Alice in Borderland TV Show Review: All the great things about a psychotic anime, but live action!
Alice in Borderland is a Japanese TV Show on Netflix about an alternate universe where the entire population of the world has disappeared and the few remaining humans are required to win death-defying games in order to stay alive. It’s an action-packed thriller where life has turned into a game show and death/murder has become a sport. These themes are pretty reminiscent of horror anime tropes and remind me of shows like Mirai Nikki or Sword Art Online. Interestingly enough, I believe this is the first Japanese live action TV show that I have watched and loved. Alice in Borderland is bloody, violent, and a bit uncomfortable at times, but overall, I really enjoyed the thrill of watching the main characters overcome obstacles.
I usually try to avoid live action shows that are too bloody or gory, but if the story is interesting enough, I can be convinced to keep watching. From the first episode, Alice in Borderland sucked me in to the story. There’s a lot of intrigue to the whole set-up, from the entire population of Tokyo disappearing to the chaos of trying to beat the first challenge. They don’t beat around the bush too much with exposition and get you right into the action, which I really liked. I enjoyed the mysterious apocalyptic setting as well as the anticipation of how each game was going to play out. Around midway through the season, the story gets even more crazy. I felt like women were being objectified and put into positions just by virtue of satisfying kinky fantasies. For instance, for reasons that I won’t dive into, all characters had to wear bathing suits…which meant for about half the season, everyone was basically half naked. There was also a really uncomfortable “almost-rape” scene that I felt was frankly unnecessary for the plot. So those were definitely questionable moments for me…but hopefully season 2 will move on a bit from that.
A lot of the characters in this show have really exaggerated personalities and our two main characters are fairly normal by comparison. Arisu is a young adult whose knack for gaming and thinking outside of the box saves his life and makes him stand out from the crowd. While he comes off as pretty soft-spoken and physically weak, episode 3 was a major turning point for his character. It was maybe my favorite episode, because I was completely floored by the ending! The second main character, Usagi, is agile both physically and mentally, and ends up becoming a really important part of the plot. I really liked the friendship and camaraderie that forms between Arisu and Usagi, and it definitely makes you want to root for them until the end. This series is also fun because it introduces a slew of characters that are some parts interesting and some parts awful. Some of the characters are so ridiculous that I almost feel uncomfortable watching how exaggerated the actors have to act. I thought to myself, “is this bad acting or is this character just unfathomably crazy?” Some of my favorite characters from season 1 are Kuina (karate girl), Chishiya (short guy with shoulder length blonde hair), and Rizuna (the woman who was a forensic investigator in the real world).
In conclusion…
I’m a big fan of this show and I’m really looking forward to Season 2! If you like thrillers, games, or post-apocalyptic worlds, I think you’ll also love watching it :).