I’ll consider this one-two live action adaptation gift as a present for those celebrating Hanukkah and one for those celebrating Christmas. I was primed for the Netflix premiere of the live action drama adaptation of Korean webtoon Sweet Home that I totally missed a week earlier Netflix dropped the live action adaptation of Japanese manga Alice in Borderland. Kyaaaaaaa, and with my boy Yamazaki Kento too! He’s so perfectly earnest and goofy, it’s like his Kingdom character transplanted from the Warring States period to this alternate universe Borderland where it’s a constant stream of live or die games. Those who love Sweet Home or Alice should watch the other because it’s like two sides o the same coin. Apocalyptic world building, real life or death stakes, and lots of psychological and physical feats.

Alice is based on the hit manga of the same name by Asa Haro and tells of people transported to this Borderland where they must fight in games to earn visa days to stay in the country otherwise be exterminated. It’s exhilarating, nihilistic, and totally dark and mature so be warned. Manga fans who have read both and watched both Netflix adaptations are near unanimously praising Alice in doing better by being faithful to its source material and doing the hard job of turning such wild fanciful world telling into a live action version with so many memorable characters. This weekend Casa Koala (minus Koala Teen Girl since both are rated M) watched 1 episode of Sweet Home and 2 episodes of Alice and we all found Alice grippier off the bat. Koala Teen Boy read the Sweet Home webtoon last year and loved it so we plan to keep both watches ongoing so take it from the crew and add both to your holiday watch list if you’re not too squeamish on gore.