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.

(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.

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.

If you like Pretty little liars, you'll love this. This basically involves the typical teenage drama mystery surrounded by secrets. Re:Mind is pretty good in the beginning then falls flat during the middle, and then it finally gets better. There isn't many clues for the viewer to figure out themselves and some important questions never answered, so the viewer is kinda there for the ride.The culprit remains anonymous just long enough to keep you interested. The camera work is really good, there are many beautiful shoots. Even though the story only takes three physical places, it doesn't take away from the story nor does it become boring. Overall, the acting is decent, in the beginning it's not great but it seems improves in each episode. As an american watching this, you can just tell If there ever is a American Version the acting would be would be too cheesy and terrible to watch. Personally, kyoko's behavior cracked me up too much for me to ever take her seriously.

Whenever I see a movie which wastes a couple of hours of my time, I feel that 2 hours of my life is not enough of a waste to warrant a feeling of being cheated of a substantial portion of my life. But when an episodic piece of crap wastes about 6 hours, I feel at the end of that monumental waste of time that it is my duty to warn others not to make the same mistake I made, and start this completely nonsensical, 12 episodic, snail crawling, hodgepodge of going nowhere dialogue, that only left me feeling angry at the end for putting me through the worst viewing experience I've ever had watching anything. The main sin of this show is the first four episodes are actually fairly good, but at about the 7th episode you're wondering why you started this garbage in the first place. In case I haven't made it clear, this is about the worst tv series I've ever been unfortunate to watch. Skip at all costs.