I was a huge fan of All Of Us Are Dead and that's why I jumped at the chance to watch this; despite that, I went into it with middle-of-the-road expectations, and was actually really surprised by how much I ended up loving it!

I think the biggest hurdle for me was just the sheer load of characters there were. In other ensemble dramas like AOUAD, Alice In Borderland, or Squid Game, characters are either split into different groups with different subplots, or the big group is very quickly whittled down to about five, and then new characters are introduced gradually. Here, we're following the entire class, and even though there are some losses along the way and the occasional split-up, the cast is gigantic and there's about 20 characters you need to pay attention to. A few stand-outs are easy to remember but the rest blur together for a few episodes. Even as I got to learn everyone, I don't think I found a "favorite" the way I did in other shows and that's just mostly because our knowledge of backstories are still pretty thin.

As a result, the drama is more plot-driven, as opposed to character-driven — and whether or not you enjoy that will just be up to personal preference.

After a while, however, I really grew to appreciate that it was a big group because the dynamic of everyone sticking together and growing up in unison was so interesting. You see common classroom dynamics come out in a high-stakes situation and it exemplifies everything I love about the high school survival genre.

For this genre, the show is surprisingly heartfelt. I didn't expect this show to make me emotional but it definitely did by the end. Anxiously awaiting part 2!