Alice in Borderland - Episode 3

 

Episode 3 is the most shocking and heartbreaking episode so far. In the previous episode we saw Arisu and Karube survive their games and get more time to live. However, because Shibuki and Chota stayed behind (owing to Chota’s injury) they missed that opportunity. Now they have to play in the next game and Arisu and Karube decide to join them. 

The group gathers at a botanical garden and learn that they will be the only players. No other people will be joining them. That’s because they will be playing a “Seven of Hearts”-style game, meaning that this game is supposed to involve betrayal. The rules were quite complicated, and I did not understand all of the intricacies, but the upshot was that only one player could be the “Wolf” and the others would automatically be the “Sheep” and they had to play the game of hide-and-seek. The player who was the wolf would be the one who got to live in the end. 

Arisu’s friend wanted him to live so they hid from him so that he could not give them the designation of “Wolf”. They preferred to sacrifice themselves so that he could live. While I appreciated that, I hated that Chota prevented Shibuki from running to Arisu to potentially become the Wolf herself. I understand that he wanted to save his friend, but it was not his right to sacrifice Shibuki so that Arisu could live. He should have allowed her to make her own choice. The episode was tense and exciting, but also sad and frustrating.

Words I recognized: Karube says ありがとう when Shibuki patches up his injury. He also talks about a mystery “beach” mentioned in the prior episode by using the demonstrative pronoun sayingそのビーチ. The mysterious voice that counts down how much time is left in the game used time counters e.g., 時間10分