ABETTERTOMORROW

It is fairly obvious that Netflix is the one that have the final say, because all the actors and director want a second season. Unlike for example with Stranger, Kingdom or Signal, where the actors were conflicted by their schedules.

As it now looks, I think Netflix has put this season on hold such as with Extracurricular. Regarding the success, it is all about relative performance. The truth is that its impact is definitely not bigger than Crash Landing On You, The King or It's Okay Not To be Okay. I think Itaewon Class or Start-Up are also more popular. Yes, Sweet Home managed to trend for a couple of days in the US, but Crash Landing On You managed to stay relevant throughout 2020 in the rest of the world. I can imagine with the budget that Netflix invested in Sweet Home, their expectations must be huge... Crash Landing On You-huge... But that is simply not realistic, because Sweet Home is too mature to pull in the same crowd. But let's hope for the best...

To all the Sweet Home-fans, sorry for mentioning Alice in Borderland again... But Alice in Borderland had sick vfx execution haha... They rebuild Shibuya with CGI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xit-ScWgtOs

The right answer is actually “not yet”. There is also a very big chance it never will. Netflix recently announced that they will invest 700 million dollars on k-entertainment, so it would be the right opportunity to announce a second season. Especially after all the actors of Sweet Home were actively lobbying for S2. Netflix is very quiet regarding Sweet Home...

We are getting into the semantics here and it is really not worth our effort to fight each other. But if you read my comment, you will see that my words are chosen carefully. I used the words "impression", "sort of" and "MIGHT", which means I am insinuating. It is my opinion, I am not accusing you. If I were, I would use stronger words that are more black-and-white.

Again let us not sweat over it. I felt MinM's comment was not classy, but you responded in my opinion a bit too snarky to her strong, but valid point. This triggered my pettiness.

I am not exactly trying to convince you that AiB is the best show ever. I am only trying to convince you that "overbearing" is a word that is simply wrong. Instead, what MinM is merely doing is showing her discontent regarding a certain type of injustice she feels regarding AiB. There is some truth to her rant. RT, IMDB and the fact that Netflix renewed AiB are very strong arguments in favour of MinM's point.

The reason why I reacted to you, but not to umasou007 (who basically also told MinM to shut up) is because your comment gave me the impression of the pot calling the kettle black, whilst umasou007's point was justified. Pardon my rudeness, but by stating random scenes from AiB to sort of prove why Sweet Home MIGHT be better is actually a form of overbearance. The problem is that you never watched AiB to make a fair comparison. You defend your favourite show at all cost and even go so far by using hearsay to make your point clear. Although you might not call it a "comparison", you are actually comparing.

Anyways, it is a new year after a shitty one. We should both just relax and enjoy our shows and let others fight these fanwars.

As a person that liked both, I felt that AiB was also quite a bit better than Sweet Home. Apparently, I am not the only one. Because on websites with a less big bias towards kdramas such as Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, AiB scores significantly higher than SH. 95% (4.62/5) vs 85% (4.2/5) audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.8 vs 7.4 on IMDB. With more than 10,000 votes, AiB also has more votes than Sweet Home on IMDB.

So "overbearing" is not the right word to call the rant of MinM. She makes a valid point why the ratings differ so much on this website, because it is not consistent with other websites. It is also a red flag to me that Netflix has not announced a second season for Sweet Home yet.

Although I must say that it is a futile exercise to post her thoughts on Sweet Home's comment section, because it is the wrong crowd. However, the kdrama circlejerk/inflation is absolutely real on this website.

I mean... try flagging it again with MDL, because the drama contains Kubozuka Yosuke and Masahiro Motoki - two well-known Japanese actors - having all their dialogues in Japanese... It is also recorded 50/50 in Japan and the UK. The conversations are almost exclusively in Japanese as well. To me it is as much Japanese as Letters from Iwo Jima.

Yes, they should list "Giri/Haji". I mean... they listed "Letters from Iwo Jima"... A movie by Clint Eastwood. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is as Asian as "Crazy Rich Asians", because it is a Hollywood production...

Has Netflix announced a season 2 yet? I have been tracking the rankings for the past weeks and it quickly dropped out from the top ten in the big Netflix countries. The amount of streams is almost singlehandedly driven by the popularity in South-East Asian countries. I wonder whether Netflix is satisfied, because with that budget they could produce a drama with a big actor such as Lee Jong-suk, Kim Soo-hyun, Hyun Bin, Park Seo-joon or Lee Min-ho and it would do even better in South-East Asia. I hope that Netflix will surprise me, but the prospects of a second season looks rather bleak in my opinion.

I think the only way to "survive" is by not entering the games together. Chisiya and Kuina seem to understand this principle... They never join the same games, because they have a partnership. The last game (10 Hearts) was the exception, but that was only because they were trapped by the game master and not a deliberate decision.

Absolutely, it deserves a second season.

Let me extend on my point earlier. The thing with the USA is that it is a market that Netflix already conquered. It could be the case that they rather save the money on Sweet Home and invest more in US/UK shows such as The Crown and Queen's Gambit. They did it with Giri/Haji and cancelled it. I am also sure that they canned Extracurricular. Kingdom will get a movie, but has not been renewed for a third season yet.

If I work at Netflix, I would look at Sweet Home like this: the show is doing well in the US, UK and Australia... Other shows that have done well in those countries are: The Queen's Gambit and The Crown. The latter shows performed better by a significant margin. Perhaps I shall use the resources of Sweet Home for the other two shows and make them even better. I would only renew Sweet Home, if it is able to attract new subscribers in those three countries. But I think that the viewers of Sweet Home were already Netflix subscribers.

How would I look at Alice in Borderland if I work at Netflix? It did well in Japan, Continental-Europe, East-Asia and Eastern-Europe. Markets that are not covered by The Queen's Gambit and The Crown. This makes Alice in Borderland more complementary to Netflix than Sweet Home, because Sweet Home is competing with the former two shows, whilst Alice in Borderland is filling up the gap of those two shows.

But I do think that they will give Sweet Home a second season, but I do not think that they pit it next to The Queen's Gambit and The Crown anymore, but rather during periods when Netflix does not have a big show. But again my analysis can be wrong, because it is oversimplified. The truth is that Sweet Home is gaining traction in Continental-Europe and strong in Mexico and Brazil (two of the biggest markets for Netflix). It is also strong in South-East Asia, but kdramas always have done well there, so this market is less relevant for the renewal decision. But my thinking experiment is a futile exercise, because I do not work at Netflix. But I am really salty that they cancelled Giri/Haji unexpectedly and since then I have tried to crack the Netflix renewal code haha

I think this site is still quite reliable when you compare apples to apples. So a kdrama that is highly ranked is still better than a kdrama that is lowly ranked in most cases. Similarly, a higher ranked jdorama is mostly better than a lower ranked one. There are exceptions of course, but this rule is mostly valid.

However, the comparison becomes blurry when you compare kdramas and jdoramas with each other. Kdramas have a rating inflation due to their fandoms, whilst jdorama do not. Just correct the kdrama ratings by subtracting 0.5 point and the comparison is fairer.

I hope it is a good enough reason to renew, but it can be the case that it is not. This series is hella expensive, but it is not performing any different than other cheaper kdramas such as CLOY or IONTBO. What I am saying is that a kdrama should be able to attract new subscribers or new markets, which I am not sure Sweet Home did much better than the aforementioned two.

Alice in Borderland on the other hand might have not trended in USA, UK and Australia (the traditional markets), but it managed to do very well in upcoming markets such as Japan and continental-Europe (France and Germany). Hopefully Sweet Home is starting to do well in those markets (it has been on the upward trend in Germany and France), because it can be the case that Netflix would rather invest their money in kdramas that are cheaper, but have at least equal reach such as CLOY, IONTBO, Start-Up or Itaewon Class. There is also a specific reason why the cast members of Sweet Home are actively lobbying for a second season, whilst the cast members of Alice in Borderland hardly did.

An example of a show that was expensive, critically-acclaimed and only popular in the traditional markets, but was still cancelled by Netflix, is a show such as Giri/Haji. They cited that they could spend their resources on other productions more effectively.

That said, Sweet Home absolutely deserves a second season, but it is definitely not set in stone. A show such as Extracurricular has also not been renewed yet (as far as I know). My two cents.

Yes, I think you are right. I also think that those three countries have a bigger Asian diaspora (Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino etc.) as well, who tend to watch more kdramas. It can also be the case of marketing. Netflix US and UK really like to push kdramas.

Anyways, it does not matter, because Netflix announced a second season, so they were satisfied with the ratings. Quite honestly, I think being number 1 in the Japanese market due to its size is already enough for Netflix. Good performance in other countries is only an added benefit, but not of utmost importance

I have seen so many professional reviewers compare both shows and mostly Alice has been considered better, citing that the execution of Sweet Home is sloppy. The rankings on Western-reviewing websites such as IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes also rank this show higher in popularity and quality.

But on MDL, there is a difference of 0.3 between both shows in favor of Sweet Home. If you go to the comment section of Sweet Home, you see also much more negative comments. One way or another, the new algorithms of MDL is heavily favoring kdramas. Because I think this website is visited a lot by South/South-East Asians and kdramas normally do very well in those markets. In reality both shows should be much closer in ratings.

It is performing really solid across Western non-English speaking viewers. It has mostly hoovered around place 2-4 in Germany and France for weeks. Also strong in Italy, Spain and other Western- and Eastern-European countries. Also solid in East-Asia. It held the number 1 position for a long time in Taiwan, HK and Japan.

I must say that I do not know how to interpret the results though, because I have not seen it pop up in the rankings in the US, UK or Australia. Whilst for example Sweet Home has. Sweet Home, on the other hand, is not that solid in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. But they compensate it with being very popular in smaller markets in South/South-East Asia (top 1). Although I think Alice is viewed by more and more diverse countries in total, albeit mostly not number 1.

I am really curious why there is such a discrepancy between both shows' viewer markets. Why is Alice able to break into non-English speaking Western countries, whilst Sweet Home is less effective and vice versa. I think the dubs for Alice must be horrible in English in comparison to Sweet Home.

It has appeared on the 10th place on Netflix in Norway today for the first time. It is slightly more popular in other Scandinavian countries such as Sweden (8th) and Denmark (8th/9th) though.

I am surprised to see it in second place in countries such as Germany and France. It is also the most popular show on Rotten Tomatoes, besting series such as The Queen's Gambit, and listed among the fan favorites on IMDB.

I noticed that its reach is also much wider than for example Korean dramas (who have a strong and loyal following in specific regions such as South-East Asia, but are definitely still niche in the West etc.). This show is even popular in Eastern-Europe.

It is so sad that Japan closes off its drama, movie and music market from the rest of the world, because apparently they are able to appeal to the mainstream market. Giri/Haji and The Naked Director were also viewed a lot in the West.

I am still a newbie, so I still do not know who the big actors are in Japan. I basically watch all the big jdramas of the past few years. Hanzawa Naoki, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, Karei-naru Ichizoku, Shitamachi Rocket, Ouroboros etc. etc. They are all very entertaining.

I also recommend Giri/Haji. It is not a jdrama, but a British production (produced by BBC and Netflix), but it is almost entirely in Japanese and the actors are quite famous in Japan such as Yosuke Kubozuka and Masahiro Motoki. The Naked Director, although very explicit (contains a lot of nudity), was also interesting.

What I like about jdrama/ Japanese series is that they are a bit wacky. They do not care about popular opinion, so that is why some of the shows contain overacting (kabuki-style acting) or are very graphic. But I really enjoy their uniqueness. Something I miss about kdrama, which almost feel robotic due to all the tropes.

I have been watching kdrama for more than a decade, but lately I have branched out to jdrama (as kdrama has become so fucking repetitive). I have noticed that almost every recent popular kdrama is ripped off from jdrama. Although the kdrama-version is slightly more sleek and polished.

However, if you throw a Netflix-budget and allow the Japanese to do their thing, you will get Alice in Borderland. It is definitely one of the most interesting and best drama I have seen.