While many viewers may point to Squid Game as the definitive peak pandemic death match show, Alice in Borderland is technically the one that came first. In December 2020, the first season of the Japanese series premiered on Netflix, adapted from a manga of the same name by Haro Aso. Season 1 introduced protagonist Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), a twentysomething gamer who is mysteriously transported to a mostly empty, alternate universe Tokyo, known as Borderland. Once in Borderland, Arisu must compete alongside other people in a series of deadly games. If a player wins a game, they earn an extension of their visa to stay in Borderland. If they lose, they are killed by a laser to the head, shot mercilessly from the sky. In the midst of the life-or-death chaos, Arisu grows closer to Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), an athletic loner mourning the death of her mountain climber father.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
A lot has happened since Alice in Borderland Season 1, in both the real world and in Borderland. When the second season of the series was released in 2022, it became the most-popular Japanese show on the streamer, with about 61 million viewing hours in its first four days. Though the end of the second season sees Arisu and Usagi return to the real world, as they do at the end of the manga, Netflix greenlit a third season.
At the end of Season 2, the Borderland is revealed to be a liminal space between life and death. Arisu, Usagi, and many of the people they met in Borderland were transported there following a freak meteorite strike at Tokyo’s busy Shibuya Scramble Crossing. When they fought for their survival in Borderland, they were also fighting for their survival in the real world.
For director and co-writer Shinsuke Sato, a third season that moved beyond the main action of the manga allowed for greater freedom to explore the questions provoked by this Borderland reveal. “There are so many directions we could have gone in Season 3, many stories we could have told,” Sato, who is known for his live-action adaptations of manga and anime (he is attached to Hollywood’s planned My Hero Academia adaptation), tells TIME. “But the main story that we told in, in order to deliver to you the essence of what the after world is, I think we arrived at the appropriate, correct answer.”
Return to Borderland in Season 3
When Arisu and Usagi wake up in the hospital at the end of Season 2, they have no memories of their time in Borderland, but they still are drawn to one another. When Season 3 picks up, roughly three years later, they are happily married and living in Tokyo. Arisu is working at a counseling clinic, and Usagi is using her knowledge of mountain climbing and other athletic pursuits to work at a sports apparel store.
But Usagi still struggles to move on from the death of her father, who seemingly died by suicide after the legitimacy of one of his no-oxygen solo hikes was called into question. When Usagi is approached by Ryuji (Kento Kaku), an academic obsessed with discovering the secrets of the afterlife, she is lured back into Borderland by the chance to see her father one more time.
“In Season 3, you might feel like [Usagi] is more emotionally vulnerable,” Tsuchiya says of her character’s mindset. “But when you’re really trying to capture that happiness as a human being, you really have to confront yourself. For her, what she did in Season 3 was a necessary step. Because she has this resolve to build a family with Arisu, and she wants to be someone who can protect that family. That propelled her to confront her own trauma and vulnerabilities.”
Ryuji has developed a drug that can temporarily stop a person’s heart and send them into Borderland, and the two travel to the purgatory together. A desperate Arisu visits Usagi in the hospital, where he learns she is pregnant. Confused about what led to Usagi’s drug-induced coma alongside Ryuji, Arisu is offered answers by Ann (Ayaka Miyoshi), a forensic scientist from the first two seasons whom Arisu first met at the Beach.
Though Arisu can’t remember Ann, she explains to him where Usagi has gone, and how he can follow her. She gives him the cocktail that will allow Arisu to travel to Borderland, and watches over him in the real world. Once in Borderland, Arisu and Usagi regain their memories of their first visit.
The games of Season 3
As with any death match story, the success of Alice in Borderland is at least partially dependent on the construction of its in-universe gameplay. Season 3 includes a combination of original games and ones brought over from the manga, such as the flaming arrow fortune game that serves as Arisu’s reintroduction to Borderland.
“[Alice in Borderland] is a drama series, but I want the audience to feel like they’re playing a game, like they don’t know if they’re watching a drama or if they’re playing a game,” says Sato. “I wanted you to be concentrated to that degree, just playing. Season three is the pinnacle of that gameplay feel.”
While the first two seasons saw the people of Borderland competing in games tied to the standard playing card deck—e.g. a game for each card—the third season belongs to the unpredictability of the Joker. Before, players could at least guess at the nature of a game, as each suit represented a different kind of competition. However, there are no such hints for players in Season 3, who are sorted into teams at the beginning of their time in Borderland and told where to go for the next match.
But Arisu and Usagi are not the same people they were in the first two seasons. “They have that fortitude of having won and overcome the games,” says Yamazaki. “In terms of Arisu, he willingly, to find Usagi, goes to Borderland, so there’s a clear, strong objective. I played him with a lot of confidence.”
Arisu quickly becomes the leader of his team, earning their trust after he finds an underground passageway away from the shrine that is about to be engulfed by literally hundreds of millions of flaming arrows. In the zombie virus game that follows, he leads his team to victory once again by hiding his infected status. It’s Yamazaki’s favorite game of the season. “Arisu is good at cerebral games, and I think his intelligence really shines in that game,” he tells TIME.
Usagi and Ryuji become allies
Meanwhile, Usagi and Ryuji grow closer as they depend on one another to survive in Borderland. When Ryuji, who is a wheelchair user following a car accident in the real world, is pulled to safety by Usagi in the poison train game, he begins to develop feelings for her. For her part, Usagi seems to begin to see Ryuji as a friend. “She never gives up,” says Tsuchiya, of what she likes about her character. “To protect somebody, she acts. For her, it’s more about somebody else, not just her own gain. I like that about her. There’s a lot of power, I think, in Usagi.”
Of course, unbeknownst to Usagi, Ryuji made a deal with Banda (Hayato Isomura), a cold and manipulative killer who played alongside Chishiya (Nijiro Murakami) in the “Jack of Hearts” game in Season 2. After surviving the games of Borderland, Banda chose to stay in the purgatory as a “citizen.” Now, he is looking to lure Arisu, whom he considers to be an interesting player, back into the game.
Banda offers Ryuji the secrets of the world of death beyond Borderland in exchange for bringing Usagi and Arisu to the purgatory. As the final game approaches, he gives Ryuji a gun and tells him to kill Usagi before she can return to the real world. Banda believes that, with Usagi dead, Arisu will choose to stay in Borderland.
Arisu sacrifices himself in the final game
Arisu and Usagi are reunited for the final game, along with the surviving members of both of their teams (including Ryuji). The remaining contestants are placed in the center of a grid of 16 rooms, and asked to find the exit within 15 rounds. They each have a wristband with 15 points on it. One point is needed to open each door between rooms, and some rooms have multi-point penalties just for entering. If a player’s points run out, they will be killed.
Usagi is given a second wristband, for the unborn child she discovers is growing inside of her. (The inclusion of a baby—or, in this case, a fetus—as a player is reminiscent of the final season of Squid Game.) In each room, players must roll a die for each door that will dictate how many players are allowed to move through it to the next room. Because of her pregnancy, Usagi counts as two people, and cannot go through any door that is allocated for only one person. If a player is left in a room, they will be stuck there, losing a point each round, until another player returns to the room to release them.
The players initially stick together, following Arisu’s strategy. The wristbands also act as a communication device between players, allowing coordination across the grid. However, the game has an added psychological component: each door comes with a possible future for each player, previewed on the wall around the door. If they choose that door, it is implied they will live that future, for better or worse.
Tetsu (Koji Ohkura), whose drug dependence has led to the dissolution of his relationship, is the first to go astray, as he tries to choose a future that doesn’t end in his premature death. Ironically, it leads him to a room with a high point deduction, and he dies in Borderland. Next, brother and sister duo Itsuki (Joey Iwanaga) and Yuna (Akana Ikeda) are lured on a path that sees Yuna happily married with a child. They lost their parents in a car accident, and a guilty Itsuki wants to ensure his sister’s familial happiness. His desperation to protect his sister leads to his death, as he uses too many of his own points to navigate the rooms.
Eventually, the surviving contestants come back together, realizing that they have no chance of winning on their own. Arisu, Usagi (and her unborn child), Ryuji, Yuna, aspiring anime illustrator Rei (Tina Tamashiro), unemployed twentysomething Nobu (Kotaro Daigo), and middle-aged housewife Sachiko (Risa Sudou) make it to the final room. But they must roll to determine how many people can walk through the exit door.
Arisu accepts responsibility, and rolls a seven. This means someone must stay, and Arisu volunteers. A bereft Usagi refuses to leave him, but Arisu forces her through the door. He makes Ryuji promise to get Usagi back to the real world.
Shibuya is swallowed by the sea
As Arisu waits for the death he has chosen, the screens around him come alive to reveal that he has won the game. His sacrifice for others was deemed worthy of recognition. Before he can discover what that means, the screens change to show Usagi and his friends on the other side. Arisu watches in horror as Ryuji takes a gun out of his pocket and points it at Usagi, who has crumbled to the ground in devastation. He pounds his fists against the screen and yells at Ryuji to stop, but he is not there. At the last second, Ryuji chooses to lower the weapon. He cannot bring himself to shoot Usagi.
But the relief is short-lived, as the structures around Shibuya Crossing begin to implode. A biblical amount of water rushes into the square, devastating everything in its path. Usagi is swept away in it and Ryuji follows, as the others hold onto a ledge in desperation.
Never one to give up, Arisu rips a piece of the grid room’s floor from its moorings and uses it to smash into the screen wall separating him from the outside. He manages to make a hole, reaching into the hardware guts of the wall and forcing the door open enough to squeeze through. He helps the others back into the relative safety of the room, and then dives into the rushing waters after Usagi.
The death of Banda
Amidst the torrents, Arisu follows the sound of Usagi’s voice, as they are both swept towards a watery vortex that leads to the world of the dead. Arisu crawls onto a mound of rubble for momentary relief, and is met with an angry Banda. He pulls out a gun and offers Arisu one last chance: become a citizen, or die. “Ask all you want, but I’ll never become a citizen,” Arisu says, definitively.
Before Banda can shoot Arisu, the villain is taken out by a laser from the sky. Borderland has revoked his citizenship. A mysterious figure, played by Japanese film legend Ken Watanabe, appears in front of Arisu. “It seems he wasn’t quite ready for this role,” he says to Arisu.
Ken Watanabe’s Watchman cameo and the Joker identity
Time freezes, and the figure offers Arisu a chair and one last game. Arisu must pick between two cards: if he chooses a Joker, the Watchman will win and Arisu’s fate will be in his hand. The card Arisu selects is revealed to be a Joker, but Arisu correctly guesses that both cards were a Joker.
Arisu assumes the Watchman is the Joker, but he reveals himself to be “no more than a watchman, watching over the rift between life and death.” He tells Arisu that the Joker is not a figure. “[Jokers] are indispensable cards tied to the nature of time in the mortal realm,” he reveals. “They’re jesters that fill the gaps between cards, the gaps in time, and the gap between life and death. The Joker isn’t a person. It’s neither the ruler of this world, nor the master of these games. It’s simply a card.”
Arisu accuses the Watchman of cheating, but it’s not clear that he has. The other cards in his hand are all numbered. “You’re an intriguing character. I imagine it was no coincidence that the two cards that could seal your fate were Jokers,” he tells Arisu. Because of the quirk of fate, he agrees to let Arisu choose between returning to the world of the living, where pain and uncertainty and eventual death are inevitable, or to theworld of death, which represents a kind of peace.
Arisu chooses the world of the living. He chooses Usagi. But he has to save her first. Time starts back up again, and he dives once again into the waters. Ryuji is pulling Usagi towards the whirlpool, hoping to head to the world of death alongside her. But he has seen the love Arisu and Usagi have for one another, and he decides to let her go.
Before Arisu and Usagi leave Borderland, Usagi sees her father one last time. He tells her that he was happy, and he wants her to be happy too. Ryuji dies in the Season 3 finale, choosing to head into the world of death rather than fight for life.
Arisu and Usagi survive Borderland
Arisu and Usagi make it out of Borderland for a second time. We see them happy together in the real world, discussing baby names. “It feels like our names shape our destiny, so it is hard to choose,” Arisu tells Usagi. The line is a nod to the importance of Arisu and Usagi’s names. Alice in Borderland is loosely inspired by Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, with Arisu as a Japanese version of “Alice” and “Usagi” being a Japanese word for “rabbit.” In Season 3, Arisu follows Usagi into Borderland, just like Alice does the white rabbit to Wonderland.
Nobu, Rei, Yuna, and Sachiko also make it back safely. Nobu has graduated from college and is celebrating with his mom. Rei is talking with her mom on the phone about her burgeoning anime illustrator career. Yuna is making plans to visit her brother’s grave with her boyfriend. And Sachiko, whose worst fear was not the continued physical abuse by her husband but a future in which her son inherits that willingness to inflict violence, is seen happily walking with her kid. He notes that he takes after her, and she smiles.
Returning characters in Alice in Borderland Season 3
In addition to the aforementioned Arisu, Usagi, Ann, and Banda, characters who return for brief cameos in Season 3 include: trans martial artist Kuina (Asahina Aya), fan-favorite Chishiya, amputee archer Heiya (Yuri Tsunematsu), military man Aguni (Sho Aoyagi), and the morally grey Niragi (Dori Sakurada)
In one of the season’s final scenes, the five returning characters have individual counseling sessions with Arisu giving brief updates on their lives. Kuina is teaching karate at her father’s dojo, Heiya is an influencer, Aguni is running the Hatter’s hat shop, and Niragi is trying to be better for his kid. While the mysterious Chishiya doesn’t have a specific life update, his answer to Arisu’s question about what makes life worth living sums up one of the season’s main themes: “Even if you don’t know the answer, it’s not so bad, is it? Life, I mean.”
The Alice in Borderland American ending, explained
The series seems ready to fade into a happy ending, and then an earthquake shakes Arisu’s office building. While it is not a major event, the Japanese news informs us that it is one in an escalating series of quakes around the globe. Coupled with the Watchman’s musing to Arisu that “countless others will be arriving [in Borderland] soon,” some kind of apocalyptic event seems likely.
Like Squid Game, the final scene brings us to Los Angeles, where two bros discuss sports at a bar, as a story about the earthquakes plays on the news. A waitress takes their order. We don’t see her face, but we see her nametag: Alice. Could Alice in Borderland continue its story in the United States, this time, with a different Alice at its center? It’s a definite possibility, given the success of the show so far.
Whatever happens next for the Netflix franchise, Sato hopes to leave viewers of the third season with the same feeling he had when completing the manga.
“We have to grapple with all these questions that have to do with life and death, and yet we still choose life, and still choose to march forward, no matter how challenging that might be, and that brings us a sense of happiness. I want you not to think about it intellectually or cerebrally, but be able to really feel that sense of happiness in that choice.”