Alice in Borderland follows the story of the main protagonist, Arisu, and his friends, Karube and Shota, as they find themselves mysteriously transported to an alternate universe named Borderland. While at first, Borderland seems like the ideal world of freedom for the trio; they soon learn that in order to survive, they must participate in sickening, mind-bending games where a loss results in death. After two complete seasons of horrific Borderland events, you may wonder if the story will progress further. Here’s everything you need to know about if there will be a Season 3 of Alice in Borderland.
Is Alice in Borderland Getting a Season 3?
The show is unlikely to progress further, as there is no source material left from the Alice in Borderland manga to work with. Because of this, it’s presumable that there will not be a Season 3 of Alice in Borderland involving Arisu and the plotline that everyone is familiar with. This is because the plot was concluded in the Season 2 finale, tying up Arisu’s adventure and closing off the chapter of Borderland for good. This is also where the show’s original Manga series is based on wraps up, so it makes sense to end the TV show at this point too.
Before the Season 2 finale, Arisu’s group finally managed to take down the King of Spades, whose horrific game involved him shooting to kill as many players as possible in a maddening frenzy. Thankfully, Arisu and Aguni teamed up and wiped out the King of Spades with explosives, while Chishiya managed to complete two other Face Card games (the King of Diamonds and the Jack of Hearts) all on his own, leaving just two games to complete to reach the chance of freedom.
However, after a significant confrontation with Niragi and the aftermath of the King of Spades game, almost all of the characters we’ve come to meet in Borderland are too severely injured to progress any further, leaving the dreaded final game against Mira, the Queen of Hearts, up to Arisu and Usagi.
In a brilliant parallel to Alice in Wonderland, Mira’s Face Card game as the Queen of Hearts involves a highly manipulative variant of an average game of croquet. Mira almost succeeds in convincing Arisu that Borderland is nothing more than an illusion in his mind. Still, thanks to Usagi, Arisu manages to snap out of this delusion and complete the game, claiming final victory over Borderland.
Now that all of the Face Cards have been defeated, Mira offers all players the choice of becoming a permanent resident of Borderland or returning to their own universe. All but one or two of the crazier individuals opt to return home and are transported back to Tokyo as strangers. Here Arisu learns that a meteor wiped out a significant portion of Tokyo, and those who survived were transported to Borderland.
None of the players remember spending time together at Borderland. However, they seem to have some special connection to one another, as Usagi and Arisu find their way back to one another as strangers. As the camera pans out for the final time, a deck of cards can be seen blowing away, leaving just one in place: the Joker card.
While this may seem like a cliffhanger for another Season, nothing has been confirmed thus far, so it can be presumed that this was an easter egg reference to the Joker character from the manga. This entity appears when Alice and Usagi clear the Queen of Hearts game, with Arisu presuming Joker to be the ruler of Borderlands and an intermediator between life and death.
Will There Be Alice In Borderland Spin-Offs? Explained
While a continuation of the show involving Arisu, Usagi, Chishiya, Kuina, and the rest of the group as we know them seems highly unlikely, Alice in Borderland does have two spin-off manga series that could inspire spin-off shows or further seasons of the Alice in Borderland show with brand new characters, or familiar faces, years down the line.
The first of these spin-off mangas is titled Alice on Border Road and tells the story of a high school girl, Ariju Kojima, who wakes up one morning in Kyoto to discover it seems decades have passed. Ariju meets 10 other individuals who all share the same circumstances as her, and tying everything together seems to be a mystery regarding playing cards. This series takes place in Borderlands at the same timeline as Alice in Borderland, showing the journey of a completely different set of characters within the dystopian, horrific gambling world.
The second spin-off manga is Alice in Borderland: Retry, featuring our familiar protagonist, Arisu, years later as an adult. Arisu has grown into a school counselor and is working hard in his career. However, one morning he wakes up in Shibuya, a place filled with non-human life. Lights lure him to a location where he meets five strangers and the corpse of a mysterious man. Memories of Borderland come flooding back to Arisu right before the first game starts, kicking off things again. Once again, this series takes place in Borderlands, with Arisu being transported back for the second time. The poor guy can’t seem to catch a break!
Both sound like exciting stories, and I would love to see them have a television adaptation. If this occurs, it would probably be best done as individual spin-off shows within the Alice in Borderland franchise to avoid confusion with different locations, timelines, and characters. For this reason, Alice in Borderland Season 3 remains unlikely to occur. However, the world of Borderland is undoubtedly fascinating, so who knows what’s in store for the future?
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