Netflix’s Alice In Borderland stars tease Season 3 twists, mind games and what it means to survive

None of us, I hope, will ever find ourselves deciding between saving ourselves and yanking someone away from execution by laser. 

But I suspect it’s precisely such no-win dilemmas that propelled the Japanese dystopian survival thriller Alice In Borderland into a global Netflix sensation.

With Season 3 landing on Sep 25, I binged the first two instalments before watching a media preview of the new episodes – and quickly remembered why this gory, violent and surprisingly contemplative series had me hooked in the first place.

For the uninitiated, the show follows a disaffected gamer Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), who’s thrown into a deadly parallel version of Tokyo. He’s forced to survive by competing with strangers in brutal games that test intelligence, agility, psychology and teamwork. 

Spoiler alert: Not everyone makes it out alive.

If you're new to Alice In Borderland, you may read the show’s overarching warning – that every choice could be your last – as a reflection of society's growing flirtation with nihilism, the belief that life is inherently devoid of meaning, purpose or value. 

After all, there is little point in fighting to live when death is inevitable. 

And at first glance, Season 3 only seems to expand on this premise. 

A MENTAL LANDSCAPE

With Borderland now a psychological rather than physical realm, the season turns its focus to what comes next after surviving a traumatic event.

For Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) – now married to Arisu – healing is long, lonely and less than linear. Haunted by dreams of her dead father and an unshakeable desire to mend her wounds, she’s pulled back into Borderland’s purgatory with the help of a man who studies the afterlife.

Arisu, meanwhile, is thrust into Borderland by his own desperate quest to find his wife, even though the couple don’t reunite on screen until halfway through the season.

Director Shinsuke Sato told CNA Lifestyle in Tokyo, through a Japanese interpreter, that the decision to keep the couple apart came from veering away from the original manga series to craft a fresh storyline.

To remain true to its essence, the team returned to the source: Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland.

In the 1865 classic, Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole, leading her to “Wonderland” – where, just like in Borderland, the rules of shared reality don’t apply. 

Carroll's text became their “bible”, said Sato. 

“We had to really contemplate why the original author of Alice In Borderland (Haro Aso) had his work echo Alice In Wonderland – and that took us back to Lewis Carroll’s story and the idea of retrieving the lost rabbit, which is Usagi.”

Though Arisu and Usagi spend most of Season 3 apart, the emotional groundwork laid in the first two seasons kept their bond palpable on screen.

“Having done Season 1 and 2, my character’s emotions for Arisu are very solid. They never wavered, even if we were shooting separately, and I think that’s something you can see come across,” added Tao Tsuchiya in Japanese via an interpreter.

MAKING DELIBERATE PRODUCTION CHOICES

Like Alice down the rabbit hole, those who go back to Borderland this season aren’t driven by “rash acts of despair, but of purpose”, noted producers Akira Morii and Tomoki Takase in Netflix’s press kit. 

Returning to Borderland may suggest they’re not exactly clinging to life, but each character must live with intention in the parallel dystopia to outwit its merciless games. 

The logline about episode 5’s maze game, for example, states that each room reveals possible futures and only those “brave enough to face their own pain can advance”. No surprises here, not all do.

“Arisu has grown from the past seasons and he tries to do his best to save as many people – or not lose as many people – as possible. The story cuts into these inner human struggles, especially with the psychological battles,” shared lead actor Kento Yamazaki of his character, via a Japanese interpreter.

“We see the darker side of humanity that we probably don’t witness in real life. And to be able to see that is one of the fascinating things about the show.”

Similarly, director Sato was “very deliberate” about keeping Borderland anchored in everyday Tokyo, where familiar architecture and geography make the show’s upended reality hit harder.

Season 3 opens in Shibuya – one of the busiest districts in the Asian metropolis – and (mini spoilers ahead) ends in its “utter destruction”. That visual juxtaposition isn’t necessarily philosophical, Sato said, but it’s central to the series' themes.

These include existence versus mortality, merit versus luck and pointlessness versus purpose – ideas that we confront in real life. 

“Arisu is a stand-in for all of us (and) our very real quotidian existence,” Sato explained. A “regular man” whose life turns “topsy-turvy” the moment he crosses into Borderland, Arisu’s story could exist only in a Tokyo “turned upside down”. 

And in that inverted city, every crossroad forces him – and us – to confront what choice really means.

Some people are propelled by choice, others paralysed. But the point isn’t to obsess over searching for a single “right” answer, even if we're doing it mentally, as Alice In Borderland reminds us.

It is perhaps to grasp that every decision carries consequences and that agency never disappears. Even in our heads – perhaps especially there – we’re all one choice away from a different life. 

CNA Lifestyle was in Tokyo at the invitation of Netflix.

Alice In Borderland Season 3 will have its global release on Netflix on Sep 25.