As a Black man who grew up fantasizing on panels of manga and seasons of survival show episodes, I will only say this here: Netflix low-key chucked the gauntlet when they dropped the Alice in Borderland Season 3 trailer. Whereas Seasons 1 and 2 kept me walking back and forth in my living room like I was playing the Spades of the Ace of Swords game, Season 3 is coming to take my edges, my sanity, and my Netflix subscription from me again.
The Setup: Love, Separation, and Good Old Madness
September 25 is marked in red ink in my calendar, because Arisu and Usagi are together again at last, but only to pull each other out of the other’s hands like an anime tradition of ripping out hearts. Usagi’s kidnapped and dragged back to Borderland and left out in the cold by a creepy professor who’s obviously missed his therapy appointments, and Arisu’s doing what he does best: he’s going to risk everything to save her. But this time, here’s the thing: they’re not even playing together. Each of them is teamed up with new characters, new betrayals, and new carnage.
As Kento Yamazaki (Arisu) so eloquently expressed, the distance is “different atmospheres and character dynamics,” aka actor lingo for: do not distance yourselves from one another, someone’s gonna receive an L. Tao Tsuchiya (Usagi) meanwhile took out her trauma kit and re-watched Seasons 1 and 2. Sis essentially said, I’m gonna be suffering again so y’all can suffer along with me.
The Games: Flaming Arrows and Killer Dice Flaming
Let’s discuss these games because whew, they aren’t holding back anything this time. Yamazaki was losing his mind over an shrine clip of blazing arrows raining down like a lunatic on Apollo himself. If you’ve ever read Haro Aso’s manga, believe me when you say that moment is the stuff of legend. When they do it with the Japanese VFX team, it’s going to get crazy. “Rewind five times just to catch a breath” levels of crazy.
And then there’s that dice game that they’re causing such a ruckus over in the trailer. Tsuchiya hyped it up as that point of madness that pushes everyone crazy. Seeing grown-ups roll rainbow dice and running away from trouble? That’s the zany casino vibes for me.
The Joker card is looming on the horizon, and if you are a Borderland lore veteran, that is the ultimate proving grounds waiting. This ain’t kiddie play, this is mind games with glittering dice and flaming skies.
The Images: Painting of Pain Overall
They release the main promo and it’s stunning. Arisu and Usagi are hunched together in the middle, the Joker card grinning like the devil at their shoulders. There’s a swirling black hole whirlpool at their feet that’s hissing essentially “don’t get too comfy.” Casting an aura of apprehension around them, the rest of the cast is strained, panicky, or simply deadly. Banda’s dark energy alone could fuel an entire season.
This is no ordinary poster. This is an elegant invitation to trauma.
The Bigger Picture: Love, Death, and the Black Man Sitting on His Couch
Now, I’m a Survival Horror addict like everyone else, but Alice in Borderland never cut deeper for the sake of it. Those games were increasingly about stripping you down to yourself when the world ceases to make sense anymore. Arisu’s stubborn effort to save Usagi, Usagi’s strength and PTSD, every new character with issues of his own, that’s why the show works. It’s not who lives and who doesn’t, it’s why in the first place.
Season 3 will make that question harder than ever before. Can one remain human when death is just around every turn of a dice? Do you lose yourself completely?
