Terrace House: Alte und neue Türen

Looking at shion & tsubasa, gave me hope in chivalry 💛

This series is what started my TH obsession. I'm glad this was the first one I watched. I just finished watching Aloha State and half of the housemates annoyed me to no end.

This was a large series to start with but I think I binged the first 36 or 37 episodes and then was able to catch the rest as they came out. If you haven't watched TH before, I think this is a great place to start. So start here and come join us over at the Tokyo series after you're finished.

This series also brought one of my favorite house mates... Tsubasa... You're the best! I'd rewatch the series just for her.

After my 5 weeks visit to Japan I started watching Terrace House to understand the Japananse culture even better. Terrace House gives some more insight in the "daily life", conversations and behavior. However, it's turns out to be very on the surface when it comes to conversations and panel analysis. Most discussions are on very pubertal level, about who do you like or going to love. It has a strong dating show character instead of real life. Most of the members join to find a new love, yeah right just a choice out of 3 candidates, I can imagine better ways to meet new people. I'm sure many parts are scripted or strongly suggested at least. There are never discussion on topics as world politics, economy, poverty, sustainability, or whatever. Intellectually very disappointing. Further, there is a fair amount of age discrimination by the members and panel. People older than 30 years are considered to be old. Though, they should wish they were there, to represent a broader part of the society and nevertheless bring more intellectual weight to this show. I know Japan is suffering from suicidal behavior merely because of the high pressure of society. Terrace House increases the pressure by inviting merely models, athletes, talented musicians etc. Conversations lead to comparison behavior and probably influence spectator's confidence and life expectations if you personally can't meet these pretentious glamorous goals. Life is way more than looks and gifted skills, this is so one-sided.

This season is the second best in the entire series so far. (The best is Tokyo 2019 - 2020 while Aloha State is arguably the worst.)

Is it scripted? They say it isn't but sometimes the conversations sure seem that way. Is it superficial? Sure, but that's real life - young adults are still trying to figure out themselves and tend to behave selfishly and immaturely.

Still, there are some sweet and honest moments, and the commentator are simply hilarious.

At the very least, there *seemed* to be less people there just for exposure & more for the reasons that are actually given -- took me a while to get to this one after the disappointment that was the 'Aloha State' (season 2 on Netflix).

I haven't watched the most recent Terrace House, "Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020", but out of the three available on Netflix, this one is by far the best. I'd give it a 7.5 if I could.

If someone is considering watching this for the first time, should just go ahead and begin with this. If you like it, watch the original Netflix "Terrace House" (2015) before trying Aloha State.

Also should note that on relative niche shows like this, there tend to be a lot of positive reviews that are 'helpful' and anything that is even slightly critical gets a 'non-helpful' rating -- can observe some similar effect on, say, anime shows on Amazon, where even the worst is 4 stars.