Alice in Borderland is one of Netflix’s newest productions that dropped its first episode this week. It is a live-action series based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso that was published beginning November 2010.

The story follows Arisu Ryohei, (Kento Yamazaki) a young man viewed as a failure by his family who finds himself in a strange alternate version of his home of Japan. Nearly every other person has vanished except for two of his friends and a number of strangers. A mysterious power is at work in this world, forcing Arisu and a number of other strangers who found themselves in this same place to compete in psychological death games. The reward for completing said games is a few more days that they are allowed to live in this new world.      

The Netflix version has impressive visuals and direction, as well as a great soundtrack. The switch of medium from manga to live-action is done well and takes a unique, immersive approach only TV can do right from the start. On the other hand, it’s harder to adapt some of the more exaggerated and fantastical scenes, which are altered in the Netflix series. Obviously, it is easier to draw a panel of something crazy than to film it in live-action, due to the massive amounts of special effects and animations needed.

In the series, the first game is completely different from the original version, but this does not mean a loss in quality, tension or the narrative relevance of what the first game is supposed to accomplish.     

This first season only contains eight 40-50 minute episodes, so they should be able to reach about the halfway point of the original story in this adaptation. A new episode will be released every week.

If it is successful enough that Netflix decides to grant it a second season, it could be possible that they finish the original story next season at the current pace they are going.

Fans of the manga may want them to adapt the number of side stories that the main story connects with, so maybe a season or half of one could be dedicated to these stories, almost like one-shots or an anthology series.      

Overall, this is a great adaptation, lots of great visuals and the designs of the strange new world are interesting. The characters are portrayed well by the cast with great acting. While some events aren’t entirely accurate to the original story, they don’t alter what the intention of those scenes that were changed. The story translates to the medium of TV well and this series works much better as a live-action story than other previously adapted anime/manga have been.