‘Terrace House’ Does Everything ‘The Circle’ and ‘Love Is Blind’ Does, but Better

The return of Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 made me emotional. My heart swelled. I felt pride. I felt joy. Tears were involved. I forget just how good Terrace House is because the show’s Netflix release schedule takes three month breaks between binges. And in the time between Part 3 and Part 4, I got obsessed with two other reality shows that—unintentionally but perhaps subconsciously—borrowed a lot of their vibe from Japan’s mega-hit franchise: The Circle and Love is Blind.

Now, neither new series is a rip-off, not in the slightest. Both stand on their own and apart from Terrace House, but they have enough in common that they all warrant comparison. For those that haven’t gotten obsessed with Terrace House, it’s essentially Japanese Real World (pre-hot-tub-hookups Real World) with a heavy focus on romance and a leisurely pace that really makes it seem like all the housemates are living in total isolation in their hip new pad. Like The Circle, Terrace House is all about interpersonal relationships and regularly turns the mundane into major moments. Like Love is Blind, Terrace House is very much about dating and romance as people try to find their soulmate on TV. They all scratch the same, voyeuristic itch. But as similar as they all are, it’s their differences that allow Terrace House to continually stand out in Netflix’s increasingly crowded reality TV lineup.

The biggest difference is structure: Terrace House doesn’t have one. As the Terrace House hosts say at the top of every episode: “Terrace House is a show about six strangers living together, and we observe how they interact. All that we’ve prepared is a beautiful home and automobiles. There is no script at all.” That’s it, that’s the show. Granted, you can say that about parts of The Circle and Love is Blind; the most fun parts of both of those shows was seeing how virtual strangers interact, sometimes virtually. The most shocking moments from those shows didn’t stem from the rules; they came from watching people be surprisingly kind to each other and, like, giving their dog wine (don’t do that). But still, both of those 2020 phenomenons were bound by very rigid rules that guided them from WTF moment to OMG moment. In the case of Love is Blind, there were so many rules in place that the show didn’t even have time to run through them all!

Terrace House makes you realize that all those rules—sudden eliminations and arbitrary wedding dates—aren’t so much in place to make a show entertaining, but they might just be in place to prevent you from getting scarily attached to reality TV personalities. With seemingly no restrictions on what they can do, where they can go, and what they can watch, Terrace House often takes unpredictable turns that would be completely stalled if the show was kept on track by a formula.

Just look at how Terrace House depicts romance as compared to Love is Blind. For one thing, Love is Blind’s scope and ultimate goal is way too ambitious. Following two dozen hot singles as they try to forge real connections in time for a predetermined wedding date led to an experience that was binge-y and cringe-y AF, but it was more rushed than romantic. Terrace House house’s cast is a fourth as big and just as single and the free-range production lets them all find love at their own pace. Instead of relationships being presented in heavily-edited chunks of exposition (Lauren and Cameron were really soulmates after a 30-second exchange?!), we see them unfold in as close to real time as you can get on reality TV.

And Japanese dating practices, which are heavily formalized and chaste compared to America, only ramps up the tension even more. Suddenly a guy resting their arm on a girl’s knee carries a world-shattering amount of significance. These romances never go smoothly, either, as love triangles (sometimes rectangles) often form and are complicated by natural factors, like the arrival of new roommates. Despite not going for hot and heavy hookups (but there are some, don’t worry!!), Terrace House still features romances that will make you sob uncontrollably (Tsubasa and Shion) and make you scream at your TV (the slow-motion disaster of Shohei’s crush on Seina).

Terrace House also does a much more compelling job of depicting friendship than The Circle, and The Circle already did a good job of that! We were all delighted by Joey and Shubham’s surprise bromance, not to mention the well-intentioned catfish game Seaburn/Rebecca played on Shooby. The Circle, at least the American version, fostered growth that was way, way better than anything else we see online. But, I counter with this: nothing on Netflix is as emotionally satisfying as Tokyo 2019-2020 young’un Ruka’s journey from a deeply sheltered boy with dreams of literally being Spider-Man to a young adult ready to take on life. Over the course of 25 episodes, we watched this kid go from being a kitchen nightmare (the broccoli carbonara pasta incident) to a budding chef (chef is too kind a word, but Ruka is learning and succeeding!).

His goodbye speech—delivered in English, the result of a course he decided to take all on his own!—made me weep. I was so proud of him. And that’s how relationships regularly shake out on this show; they go from being total strangers to best friends for life, and the show actually lets you follow that growth. One of the best parts of the show is watching all the men cry over their friends.

The Circle really thrived in moments when those disparate people made real connections and learned from each other. Terrace House, however, takes it a step further by allowing the cast members to be active participants in each other’s lives outside of the house. Yeah, Terrace House casts almost exclusively models and actors, but they also cast athletes, musicians, and aspiring artists. The cast gets to watch wrestling matches, attend art shows, and read published manga partially influenced by life in the house—and we get to do all that too!

You know what else the Terrace House cast gets to watch? Terrace House. Yeah. They get to watch their own show while they are on the show, and the show shows that. Unlike The Circle and Love is Blind, which wrapped months to a year before they aired, Terrace House runs on roughly a month delay. That means the cast is still filming while the show airs, and that means that the edited show often has a drastic impact on the emotions of the people on the show (see: Yui last season and Emika this season).

Just imagine if the Love is Blind cast got to actually watch footage from the pods while they were out and about in Atlanta trying to make a hasty wedding happen! All the sparks from Amber to Jessica could have flown during the show!

That brings me to a big point: Terrace House is definitely a serene viewing experience, but do not for a second believe that it is not messy. The conflict on Terrace House, conflict that tends to simmer for episodes before boiling over, is just as nerve-wracking as Carlton and Diamond’s poolside blowup. It works like this: because Terrace House is so kind, the smallest slight feels like a knife in the back. And when outright gaslighting and betrayal happens, it’s like the Death Star exploding. Two words: Minions socks.

As if all that ain’t enough, Terrace House even outdoes The Circle and Love is Blind in the host department—although that ain’t hard to do. The Circle relegated the hilarious Michelle Buteau to voiceover work and didn’t use her charisma until the finale. Love is Blind had Nick and Vanessa Lachey, but just barely. The hosts on Terrace House exist on a show within a show, essentially, popping in a handful of times to provide act breaks and comment on what they’ve watched. They’re actually hilarious and insightful (and also surprisingly filthy this season).

They’re necessary to the show, unlike the Lacheys, and it never feels like Terrace House is squandering their talent (like The Circle kinda did with Buteau).

Don’t get me wrong: The Circle and Love is Blind are engrossing watches for sure. But the return of Terrace House just reminded me how much better reality TV is when it feels real, when you’re actually watching a show for the people and relationships and not for the rules. I love having all these options to binge on Netflix, and they’re all great in their very distinct ways, and there’s more than enough room in our lives for all three… but Terrace House remains my main event.

Stream Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 on Netflix