Ok, i liked the series it was really good but there's just something missing.
I know there's a manga about it but i never read it and i don't plan to honestly.

I came in here with really high expectations because people in my entourage and people on the internet said that Squid Game was over hyped and that Alice in borderland was in fact better. I watched SG when it came out and really, no death game, no series of that genre was better than this... STILL.

Maybe if SG never came out AIB would've been the best series of that genre out there no discussion, but SG ate AIB up sorry not sorry.

First off, how the story takes off makes no sense. Literally no sense. Arisu doesn't even really go at it with his brother or father to leave, he just finds an excuse to get off the game and leave. And then he says that he got "kicked out"... What ? No, your spoiled ass didn't get kicked out, you ran away like an ungrateful kid.
Then you got Karube kissing his boss wife, seems like it's not the first time but oh my oh my, he suddenly gets beat up and fired THAT day. At least with Arisu we somehow got a hint of his background but with Karube it was like "ok, he has a job but we need to make him leave the job and show that the 3 bestfriends are all losers in some way"???? A whole bunch of nonsense put together.

Talking about their friendship, it was boring. Really boring. None of them are funny or interesting. The only one that was at the very least charismatic was Karube and I think he made the whole friendship.

It took half of the first episode to really get into it and i don't mind taking time to really set the story up. But now stories were boring, briefly cut to let place to 3 boring guys struggling to find something to do (pretty sure the director did that just so he can gain more minutes because he didn't know what to do). Then the story starts with electrical power just cutting off, phones too, people disappearing. To me that was really unrealistic and it's an overused method to start a death game story. It's always either you see people but they don't see you or people disappear. Always that "isolating" start.

Arisu is the character that pissed me the most off, especially during the 7 Hearts game in the botanical garden. He ran away with the wolf "mask/title" and then hid and acted like he was sorry and then when only 3 minutes were remaining, he suddenly "changed" his mind. But at the same time i was glad he was there during certain games. And also can we talk about Shibuki? She was so useless omg. Can somebody just tell me what did she do for the story? Except explaining some of the rules they could've figured out themselves ? If the story went without her, it would've made absolutely no difference.

In my opinion, the series got interesting only from episode 7... meaning the end since there's 8 episodes. I just feel like the rest was so passive, nothing was really happening. Chota was a really passive character, if the friendship was just Arisu and Karube, it would've made no difference as well.

Japan really has a thing for sects. Chota's story was about that, and "The Beach" was definitely a sect or just had a sect-ish vibe.
The way you would see every other girl in bikinis, being victims of attempted rape really made me uncomfortable.

This series felt like there was no story whatsoever, especially for the main characters. I don't even like any of them. Like i said it got interesting from episode 7 to 8 and the male lead wasn't there for most of it. That tells a lot.

The set up was good, i can't really say anything on that. It's just Tokyo streets, they are really cool. Fortunately we got to see other players because if it was the 3 guys from the beginning all along... i don't know.

The actors did really bad acting in my opinion. They succeeded to carry the show but I wasn't really sold about it.

I'm definitely going to compare this with Squid Game because almost every AIB fans i talked to literally DRAGGED it.
I think Squid Game was better. First of all, in AIB, Arisu is from a rich family, he can stay home and not do anything, it won't affect anything, so i don't feel bad or any type of way for him. In SG, the game was made for the players to naturally reveal their true self, while in AIB it felt like they had no choice but act evil. The story of each character in SG was meaningful and left a memory on you, while in AIB you could get stories about a girl that loves her father??? Ok? Or a bullied boy that grew into a villain... Ok?? Still want you dead tho. Unnecessary moments like that made me mad. Or you could get sex/nudity scenes that absolutely nobody needed to see. Like wtf does it add to the story? I'm talking about you Shibuki.
The series (AIB) lacked action and suspense in my opinion. During most of the games i wasn't really impressed. I had a little tension because the games were difficult to clear but that's it. I didn't sweat, I wasn't stressed out, I didn't feel any pressure. It was just like watching white wall, not impressed. And it's really sad because i LOVE feeling stressed out and pressured because this indicates that the show is really good to me.

On the overall, I'll leave a 7.5/10. The show is definitely good but if I recommend this to someone that seen Squid Game first, they're definitely going to be disappointed. So i suggest watching this first and then SG.

Oh and if in season 2 it happens to be all a virtual game imagined or being played by Arisu or anothe person it would be the most boring series i've ever seen hands down.