Re: Mind

I'll say this plainly, if you're an average American who watches mostly American/British television and movies don't watch this series. You won't like it, you won't get it. I'll quickly address the thing I've noticed several Americans complaining about. This show doesn't give a damn about the how any of this happened. How they disappear, how they were brought there. None of that matters, it's completely irrelevant in this kind of story. If you're expecting that kind of realism or explanation, you'll be disappointed. That's not what this show is about. The why is the only thing that matters.

For the actual show, it's surprisingly good for an idol work. The plot had substance, the acting wasn't utterly horrible, and the characters had some depth to them when you get to the later episodes. Since the culprit was rather obvious, I'm glad that they allowed the backstory to take precedence and hold the tension. It was definitely the right call and the story flowed properly without dragging at all. Even better, they kept the motive hidden for most of the show so I actually had something to try to figure out. That made it worth a rewatch. The ending also caught me by surprise, which is a nice change. The credits only made it more bittersweet and sad. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it does surprisingly well as a drama, despite its idol origins.

Honestly, main issue was the flashbacks. I really liked the idea of a show set in a single room and the flashbacks completely killed the effect and spoiled a lot of plot points early. If they were removed, I'd give this a 9 instead.

I'm a little surprised by all of the harsh reviews. When I saw it on Netflix, I kept thinking how dumb it sounded, but it kept pushing it and pushing it and finally I was hard up for something to watch and tried it and it wasn't bad. I watched it some more and it wound up really growing on me.

I thought that everyone gave a pretty solid performance and that the writing was solid. I was satisfied with the resolution of the mystery at the end (a few things are left unresolved, but most of it is fully explained) and liked the way the writing tied everything all together in the final two episodes.

If you want to see this show for the soap opera drama, go all in. If you like the people locked in a room genre, and considers understanding the mechanics of everything around as important as the drama, it will never happen.

I found it semi-interesting, not as enthralling as other Netflix shows like Dark and Stranger Things, but it was modest show, not amazing, but not bad also. The beginning takes a little while but it becomes more interesting, but some may find that the show tries to cram too much into the story. My interest was only moderately kept with the ever developing story, the mystery itself is intriguing in the first few episodes, but as I said before, I wasn't completely taken by the show. I don't know if I just wasn't the demographic, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

The acting is really hit and miss, the "bad girls" are portrayed kind of campy as they often are in Japanese TV. But most gave an average performance, nothing to be ashamed of. The writing I found to be very sporadic, one moment the pacing is wonderful and perfect, and the next minute its rushing through and over explaining things the next minute. In all, I think it was a very average series, nothing really took me by surprise or sucked me into the world, some might find it interesting, but I found it to only be moderately entertaining.

I wouldn't recommend it but its up to you.

(No spoilers for this paragraph)

12 high school girls are locked in a room and left to find out why and who locked them in. They decide to delve into their high school history and we learn about some dark secrets the students had which shed light into their capture.

My review in sum: this captured my attention enough to get me to finish it. But I regret that it did.

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(Mild spoilers ahead)

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I agree with some reviews that the pacing was sometimes good enough to keep me roped in. However, a lot of the time it was dragged out or very rushed. The plot had some very loose ends.

I won't nitpick at the "holes" some people have mentioned because that didn't bother me as much as the pacing and some of the writing - especially how the series ended. I was left disappointed and slightly empty by the ending. This point essentially means I wouldn't recommend this show to people.

I will nitpick something and say that I wish there wasn't as much screaming. Some of the girl's reactions to the horrors in the room were either over dramatic or very drawn out. It made for unnecessarily long and hard to watch scenes.

There were also a lot of padding. Some episodes could have been shorter. This damaged the quality of the narration in this story. We learn about the girl's live almost purely from dialogue as we don't get to actually watch how most stories played out with our eyes. This in itself isn't bad. It could have just been done better. The extended bickering and arguing made me zone out sometimes out of disinterest. And so, it was difficult for me to notice when the girl's went into the story again.

So yeah, this is essentially what I mean by good premise but bad execution. Wouldn't really recommend.