After the epic first two seasons, fans have been asking: what is in the cards for Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) in Alice in Borderland Season 3? The manga ends where Season 2 does, leaving the creators some room to explore and a whole lot of questions about where we go from here.
But if one thing is true about borderland: it’s always unhinged and never quite predictable. After the Season 2 finale, placing everyone back in the “real world,” we saw the joker card. Though Arisu and team had beaten every card game, one card still remained: the ever-chaotic joker.
Yours truly thought maybe they were never back in the real world, and it was just a fake scenario presented to them, but we find out in Season 3 that three years have indeed passed, and they did make it back to reality.
We find out that borderland is real, but it’s not really a place – it is the space between life and death. It takes place in the first two minutes of someone’s death. Either they come back or they don’t, and most of them don’t have vivid memories of that time. Many of those who participated in Arisu’s games were impacted by a meteor that struck Shibuya. These patients were in comas and returned, and they all repeat similar visions they’ve had or vague mentions of “games” they played.
This piques the interest of new character Ryuji (Kento Kaku), a professor who studies life and death, and who – we later discover – has had low moments such as helping a student of his experiment with the line of life and death itself by administering a drug. Ryuji is an interesting character; he is someone who we are with for a lot of the season and perhaps want to root for at the very start, but he quickly spirals due to his obsession with finding out about borderland and the space between a heart beating and stopping. It’s hard to find him trustworthy, as most of his decisions seem wishy-washy. He’s with Usagi for much of the season, after she enters borderland to find out more about her father and her own weird visions she’s having. Ryuji was told to bring Usagi into borderland, by the current citizens of the place, one of which is Bandha. Bandha’s real goal is to entice Arisu to enter borderland, because what is this world without good players?
Usagi and Ryuji have a strange vibe – mostly fueled by the fact that Ryuji starts to develop some form of feelings towards Usagi. But Usagi is happily married to Arisu in our real world, three years after the events of borderland. And – spoiler – they might even have a baby on the way.
We all know Arisu would rather eat rocks than enter borderland again, but Bandha uses the fact that Usagi is in borderland to get him interested in going back. He would do anything for his wife, of course, and who wouldn’t for Usagi? Really, it’s Ann – who this writer was extremely pleased to see return – who helps Arisu get back to borderland by saying she remembers him. She approaches him while he’s working his job helping patients who went through similar strange occurrences and may have also previously entered borderland. Ann recognizing Arisu is very rare, as most of the people and his patients who played together have no memory of one another, not even Arisu and Usagi at first.
But thankfully, Ann is there to save the day. She helps Arisu enter borderland to save Usagi, and he’s immediately thrust back into the world of chaos and dark games. Only two minutes would pass in the real world, but we join Arisu for multiple episodes as he tries to face a new game at every turn. This time, the games are all joker-themed and set up in a tournament style. All participants eventually have to go through the same games (even if at different points) and it dwindles down to a small group at the end. The whole time, Arisu is on a journey to find Usagi, but he meets others along the way that help bolster the cast and make the season feel fresh.
There are a lot of interesting characters right from the start, a game based on fortune telling that leads to fire arrows being shot at everyone. This is one of many grueling games, especially since this time it seems even harder to avoid death. Who can dodge millions of flaming hot arrows? Arisu does meet many of his companions during this game, for example, the seemingly drunk Tetsu, the hurt mother Sachiko, the yakuza Kazuya, and multiple others – Nobu, Shion, and Natsu – that join him on his journey.
Yours truly, too, would trust Arisu when lives are on the line, and the others quickly learn he’s both smart and lucky, making him an ideal player in this world. A highlight of the season would be the zombie game, which is very reminiscent of some other previous Alice in Borderland games – and it’s where he meets Rei, who has become a popular new character for her fun look and snarky attitude, kind of like Chisiya in the previous seasons.
Eventually, Arisu and Usagi’s paths collide, which will certainly warm your heart. In one of the other major games this season, where characters have to beat the poisonous gas on a subway train, and the pair catch a glimpse of one another from afar. But when they finally see one another up close, the final game they have to play is no joke. There are some aspects that will make you wonder – for example, the last game shows their possible futures and their choices can alter them. But how can the game really change their future in any way, when only two minutes would pass in the real world and this game has no control over the real future events?
As far as other things to improve in Season 3, it’s a bit disappointing to hardly see characters we know and love, such as Kuina (Aya Asahina) or Chishiya (Nijirō Murakami). We fell deep into their storylines in the earlier seasons, and we see them only for a fleeting moment. Besides, these characters all don’t remember one another from their first trip to borderland, which makes this sword to the heart that much more painful. It would have been nice to see more of them, or even see them play some games alongside our protagonists, but it might be more of a conflict with the actors than a gap in our story. If there is a season four on the horizon, perhaps we’ll focus more on these side characters.
It is saddening we only have six episodes this season, as opposed to previous ones. Season 4 might never come, so be prepared for that defeat, but the story we have so far has been true to the source material and it might be best left alone. However, if it did focus on some side characters – with cute cameos of Arisu, Usagi, and their child – can we really complain? One thing this writer is unsure about is an American spin-off just telling the same story, because is it really needed? It is teased at the end of Season 3, but we’ll have to wait and see.
We don’t want to give too much away. The series is best watched without spoilers and at the edge of your seat, which should be no problem. It’s still such a thrilling series that stays true to what fans love most about it. The show has got edge and heart, all wrapped up into one wild deck of cards. The ending of the third season will make you smile and cry at the same time, for it’s bittersweet in many ways and it holds the message the show promotes at its core: despite the obstacles you will have to overcome, there is a reason to live your own life.
