After three epic seasons, Alice in Borderland has come to an end, leaving audiences with a mix of powerful reactions. Some viewers enjoyed the ending of Arisu’s story, while others believe there’s more to come, and some think that it should have ended earlier with season 2. But wherever you fall on the liked/disliked-the-ending spectrum, you probably walked away with several lingering questions.
Starring Kento Yamazaki as Ryōhei Arisu, Alice in Borderland took place in the land between the living and the dead, aka the Borderlands. Here, survivors of near-death experiences were forced to compete in games in order to return to the world of the living. But dying in a game meant dying in real life—and as season 3 revealed, making it through one round of games didn’t prevent you from being brought back to compete again.
Now that the second round of games has ended, here are the 10 biggest questions we’re still thinking about.
How Did Arisu Beat the Train Game?
The games in Alice in Borderland required cunning, strength, and determination, but they always offered some clue about how to beat them. For example, in his first game of the new season, Sacred Fortunes, Arisu correctly deduced that the fortune slips hinted about where the flaming arrows were being shot from. However, these clues were far less straightforward when Yuzuha Usagi’s (Tao Tsuchiya) team played Runaway Train, a game which they thought they had solved, only to realize that they were dead wrong. And yet, Arisu’s team was shown to have beaten the game, raising the all-important question of how?
Possible Answers
The manga also featured a Runaway Train game, but here, the players traversed through four train cars instead of eight, aware that one would be toxic as opposed to four. In this case, the test was to face death head-on when the odds were most in their favor, which is why the final car was the toxic one. By this logic, the final four cars in the show should have all been toxic, but instead, the order was simply random, leaving us uncertain how Arisu was able to figure out when to wear his masks. Possibly, he noticed that the birds were acting more erratically in the poisoned cars, or maybe he saw something on the train walls that hinted at the true nature of each of them. However, this solution is never explicitly shared, which means we’ll just keep on questioning it.
How Did Banda Choose Who To Bring Back?
Sundato Banda (Hayato Isomura) was a clever, villainous character first introduced in season 2. When offered the chance to become a Citizen of the Borderlands, he eagerly accepted, only to grow bored when he realized that the new players failed to live up to his expectations. So, he decided to create a tournament of returning contestants, including Arisu, who he believed was the best player of them all. However, he didn’t really have much reason to believe this, and arguably, there were several better suited players he could have chosen instead.
Possible Answers
The obvious character Banda should have targeted was Shuntaro Chishiya (Nijiro Murakami), a player whom he had competed with during the Jack of Hearts Game. It’s rumored that Murakami was taking a hiatus from acting, which would explain why his character didn’t return as a player, but that still doesn’t give an in-world explanation. Plus, there’s the larger question of how Banda’s powers work and why he apparently chose to bring back other players with lower chances of surviving. At the same time, Banda is a sadist, and killing helpless players to get to Arisu was apparently part of the point.
Why Was Ryuji so Obsessed with the Land of the Dead?
Ryuji Matsuyama, played by Kento Kaku, was a new addition to Alice in Borderland’s season 3 cast. His obsession with the Land of the Dead drove him to enter the game, bringing Usagi with him. At first, it seemed like he wanted to experience the Land of the Dead in order to fuel his research, but in dying, he’d be unable to come back and share that research. It also seemed like he wanted to die out of guilt for what happened to his student, but if that were the case, there were plenty of less complicated ways to die. Basically, his motivation didn’t make much sense, as he spent the whole game trying to survive in order to learn about death, and then ultimately chose to die.
Possible Answers
It’s possible that part of Ryuji feared death, as much as he wanted to learn more about it. Plus, he just generally had a more obsessive personality, as seen in his behavior toward Usagi. After realizing he couldn’t come between her and Arisu, he might have decided that death was his best remaining choice, especially as it would return him to his student. If we accept this upsetting answer, one question still remains: how did he get away with accidentally murdering his student, anyway?
How Does Pregnancy Work in the Borderlands?
When Arisu learned that Usagi was in a coma, he was terrified. When he learned that she was also pregnant, the dire reality hit him even harder. And yet, Usagi wasn’t aware of the pregnancy, enduring traumatic injuries while playing in the games, many of which should have put her pregnancy in jeopardy. Additionally, it seems that the baby was only considered a player in the final round (at least, no one pointed out that the number of players seemed off earlier), which makes it unclear how pregnancy works in the Borderlands.
Possible Answers
Of course, it’s possible that no one was paying attention to the number of players earlier, especially since most of them were strangers. It’s also possible that the damage done to her pregnant body didn’t affect her body in the real world. However, Akane Heiya (Yuri Tsunematsu) lost a leg in the Borderlands and later discovered she didn’t have one in the real world, either. Plus, as already said, if you die in the games, you die in real life, and we have trouble believing the baby could have survived tumbles, nearly drowning, and just the generally huge amounts of stress.
What Happened to Usagi’s Father?
Usagi’s father was a mountain climber who allegedly lied about his last climb. He then (also allegedly) killed himself out of shame. During season 3 of Alice in Borderland, Usagi became obsessed with finding him and journeyed to the Borderlands, thinking he might be there. At the end of the season, she briefly reunited with him and got her chance to say goodbye, but whether this was really him or a hallucination remains uncertain, as do many other questions surrounding him.
Possible Answers
The most obvious answer is that Usagi’s father did lie about the climb and commit suicide. However, this feels like a strange payoff, as it’s never something Usagi explicitly accepts. Plus, the character was the sole reason why Usagi went to the Borderlands. With a setup like that, it feels like there should have been more payoff to her father’s story.
Who Is the Watchman?
In the final episode of season 3, Arisu met a mysterious figure called the Watchman (Ken Watanabe). This figure claimed that it was simply there to observe the world between life and death. Yet, it referred to Arisu as a human, implying that it wasn’t one. It also appeared to do more than watch, as shortly after Banda’s death, it stated that Banda wasn’t ready, implying that it had killed him. Besides wondering what it meant by “wasn’t ready,” we’re also wondering what its purpose actually was.
Possible Answers
Like much of the Borderlands, the Watchman appeared to be something mystical that humans perhaps aren’t fully supposed to comprehend. That’s all well and good, but as a viewer, we wanted to know more about it. Is it actually the figure pulling the strings? Why does it need to watch? And why did it consider Arisu to be something special?
What Is the Joker?
When talking to the Watchman, Arisu asked if it was the Joker. The Watchman denied the title, further asserting that the Joker wasn’t even a person. It was just a card. This back and forth wasn’t just mysterious, but also, pretty mind-boggling. All of the other cards were associated with humans, so what made the Joker unique, and what did it mean for it to just be a card?
Possible Answers
Similar to the Watchman’s identity, this is probably one of those things we’re not supposed to know. But it does put everything we thought we knew about the structure of the Borderlands into question. Who came up with this card-based game structure, and what is it they really want?
What Do the Others Remember?
At the end of season 3, several past characters appeared in counseling sessions with Arisu, including Chishiya and Akane. They didn’t seem to remember him or their experiences together in the Borderlands, though they were haunted by the near-death experiences themselves. However, Usagi and Arisu’s own memories were pretty blurry until they suddenly came back and hit them. Does this mean the others might start remembering, too? And if they do, what will happen next?
Possible Answers
As seen with Rizuna Ann (Ayaka Miyoshi), it was possible for a player to leave the games with their memories more or less intact. Though it’s not stated, this is likely because she essentially died in the Borderlands before the others were brought back. To be fair, this doesn’t explain why she could see Banda, nor why he was surprised that she was able to. But between this and the second round players getting back their memories, it does suggest that the previous players might also have the capability.
What Big Event Is Going To Bring People to the Borderlands?
Before Arisu returned home, the Watchman cryptically told him that many more people would soon be entering the Borderlands. Sometime later, Arisu watched on in fear as an earthquake hit Japan, the US, and multiple other regions. This suggests that something calamitous is close at hand, but what exactly it is, and why it’s happening, remains unknown.
Possible Answers
It’s possible the Watchman is psychic and that the earthquakes are the sole event it was referring to. It’s also possible that they’re part of some greater worldwide natural disaster. Regardless, this still doesn’t explain whether the Watchman is behind whatever disaster is brewing or if it simply knows one is coming. It also doesn’t tell us just how bad things are about to get.
Will There Be an American Spin-Off?
During the final scene of Alice in Borderland, an earthquake hit the US, and the camera panned to a restaurant filled with Americans. Here, a woman was serving a table, and the episode ended as her name badge revealed “Alice.” This scene certainly seemed to imply that a fourth season of Alice in Borderland is underway, one taking place in the US. But that in itself raises an important consideration: do we really want an American spin-off?
Possible Answers
Ok, this is technically an opinion as opposed to an answer, but it needs to be shared: an American spin-off is probably a bad idea. Yes, it would be great to see more games and better explore the Borderlands, but part of the appeal of Alice in Borderland was Arisu and his friends, not this random Alice and her own. Plus, it’s unlikely that an American in the Borderlands would face different hurdles or react drastically differently to a Japanese player. In short, there’s not much to gain from an American spin-off, but there’s plenty to lose, and sometimes, the best way to win a game (and win over audiences) is to stop playing.