🎬 Subtitles and Bad Decision Presents:
🫰 Because I have feelings, subtitles, and no self-control.
 |
Alice in Borderland — Season 1
📅 Japan • 2020
Format: Standard Series
Episodes: 8
Duration: ~45 min each
📺 Available on: Netflix (Sub)
✨ Synopsis
Arisu, a gamer obsessed with video games and wasting time with friends, suddenly finds himself in a parallel Tokyo called “Borderland.” Survival is brutal, the rules are sadistic, and every choice is life-or-death. With the help of Usagi and a ragtag team of other players, he must navigate deadly games, figure out who to trust, and somehow keep his humanity intact.
👥 Cast
💫 Kento Yamazaki — Ryōhei Arisu
“Gamer boy turned survival genius. Angst level: maximum. My brain hurt watching him strategize under stress.”
🔥 Tao Tsuchiya — Yuzuha Usagi
“Silent, smart, deadly. Basically a human cheat code. She’s both calming and terrifying.”
💎 Nijirō Murakami — Shuntaro Chishiya
“Mischievous chaos wrapped in a trench coat. Genius, annoying, infuriating, fascinating. You can’t decide if you want to hug him or throw him off a cliff.”
💎 Supporting cast highlights:
- Yūki Morinaga — Chōta Segawa: Loyal, goofy, and the heart of the group.
- Keita Machida — Daikichi Karube: Big guy energy + surprisingly strategic brain.
- Aya Asahina — Hikari Kuina: Clever, deadly, and way too cool for the group to handle.
💬 Ratings
🎭 Story: 💖 — 10/10 — “Absolutely gripping; a tense, chaotic ride from start to finish.”
💫 Acting/Cast: 🌟 — 10/10 — “Every actor sold the chaos beautifully; main duo slays.”
🎧 Music: 🎵 — 3.5/10 — “Tension vibes mostly hit, but some tracks are forgettable.”
🔁 Rewatch Value: 💖 — 10/10 — “Could binge it all over again without regret.”
🏆 Overall: 💖 — 8.5/10 — “High stakes, thrilling plot, chaos = delicious.”
📝 Review (WARNING: Potential Spoilers — I’m Not Saving You from Emotional Damage)
So… I pressed play on Alice in Borderland, thinking I’d watch “just one episode.” Classic mistake. Episode one hit me like a truck. One minute I’m sitting there with my snack bowl, the next I’m gripping the remote like it’s a lifeline. Arisu spiraling? Very relatable. Me spiraling with him? Even more relatable. I swear the show reached out of the screen, grabbed me by the hoodie, and said, “Welcome to your new obsession.”
Somewhere in this madness, I realized something weird: not a single character is conventionally hot, and somehow it makes the whole thing better. They’re chaotic, scrappy, terrifyingly clever, and weirdly endearing in their own unhinged ways. Usagi shows up looking like she could outrun gravity. Chishiya slinks around like he owns every room he walks into. I spent half the show trying to decide if I wanted to fight him, high-five him, or throw a shoe at him.
Arisu, though… watching him go from panic-gamer to “I can outsmart death itself” strategist had me grinning like an idiot. The show somehow gives you hope and anxiety at the same time. Every win feels like a tiny victory for my nervous system. Every loss? Immediate emotional damage. I could practically feel the sleep leaving my body.
By the halfway mark, I wasn’t even sitting properly. I had migrated to that awkward left-side-lean-slouch thing where your soul leaves your body every time a character breathes wrong. Usagi just kept silently being better than everyone else, and I accepted it. Chishiya gave me trust issues. Arisu made me want to hug my controller like a comfort object.
And then the finale happened.
Oh. My. God.
My brain? Gone. My heart? Pulverized. My snacks? Devoured in self-defense. I swear the cliffhanger physically lifted me off my couch. I had that hollow, echoing “WHAT?!” moment where you stare at the credits like they personally betrayed you. My adrenaline was doing cartwheels. My emotional state was basically a crumpled melon at that point.
I wasn’t ready. I will never be ready. And yet here I am, planning a rewatch like a clown who enjoys suffering.
💭 Final Mood
Emotionally shredded, mildly feral, high on adrenaline, and wondering why I didn’t pace myself. 10/10 would panic again.
🏷️ #Subtitles and Bad Decision #EmotionalDamageApproved #AliceInBorderland #StressEatingAndWatching #BingeableChaos #ArisuAndUsagi #SurvivalDrama
