Season one of Alice in Borderland is set in Tokyo and introduces a trio of down on their
luck friends, Arisu, Chota, and Karube. After making a scene in Shibuya Crossing,
the friends run from the cops and hide in a bathroom stall. Upon their exit,
they discover that the entire city was now empty and they were now forced to compete in a series of
life or death games, with the winners receiving a playing card. Refusing to play meant certain
death. Their first game, which they play with two strangers, is called “Dead or Alive” and
requires them to choose between two doors. One leads to death, the other to safety. After one
of the strangers is killed for choosing the wrong door, Arisu utilizes his knowledge of games and
puzzles and his expertise in geometry to navigate his allies through the series of doors to safety,
although Chota is badly burned in the process. Upon their completion of the game, Arisu, Chota,
and Karube are given game visas. The surviving stranger, Shibuki, explains that when your visa
expires, you are killed. The only way to add time to your visa is to play more of the deadly games.
As Shibuki tends to the injured Chota, Arisu and Karube head to a nearby apartment building
to play another game to extend their visas. Working alongside new allies Usagi, Aguni,
and Chishiya, the group must play a deadly game of “Tag”, where two armed murderers attempted
to chase them down as the team tried to find a hidden button that would stop the building
from exploding. Upon winning the game, Arisu is shocked to see that the murderers are executed.
Karube then finds a radio telling him to go to the beach. Before he and his friends can obey
this command, they need to extend the visas of Chota and Shibuki. And so Arisu, Karube,
Chota and Shibuki enter a game of hide and seek. Unfortunately, after starting the game
they discover that there could only be one winner. Knowing Arisu had the best chance of
them all to survive the games, Chota, Karube, and Shibuki sacrifice themselves to allow him to win.
Following his victory in hide and seek, Arisu is found by Usagi who agrees to help him find
the beach. The two then discover that the Beach is actually a group of fellow players led by a
man named Hatter. Hatter believed that the key to escaping the city was to collect all of the cards
that the games were named after. Currently, there was only one card left for Hatter to collect,
the Ten of Hearts. When Hatter goes to play a game to extend his visa,
he is brought back dead by his men, who claim he was killed during the game. Aguni is named
the new leader of the Beach and given the Hatter’s nearly complete deck of cards.
Chishiya convinces Arisu to try to steal the deck, but he is double-crossed, caught,
and tied up, forced to wait for his visa to expire. Luckily for Arisu, the Beach is then
turned into the arena for a game called the Witch Hunt, with the Ten of Hearts card as the prize.
To win the game, the players must figure out who amongst them was the killer,
and throw that person into a bonfire before time runs out. The militant Aguni leads a
team to throw everyone into the fire to ensure their victory. Usagi helps free Arisu from his
binds and the two work together with a team of other players to evade Aguni’s
men and find the real witch. Arisu and a fellow player named Ann discover that the
witch was actually the game’s first victim, Momoka, who had killed herself. Arisu pleads
with Aguni to stop the senseless killing and to throw Momoka’s body into the fire. When
Aguni’s ally Niragi continues slaughtering the other players, Aguni sacrifices himself to kill
them both. Arisu and his allies then throw Momoka’s body in the fire to win the game.
Following the witch hunt game, Chishiya takes the Ten of Hearts card, completing
his deck. Arisu and Usagi then find Momoka’s phone and discover that she was a “dealer”,
a player who helps organize the games to extend their own visas. Videos on
the phone also reveal an underground lair filled with “gamemasters” who orchestrated
the games and watched as the players fought for their survival. Arisu, Usagi, Chishiya,
and Chishiya’s friend Kuina then head to the underground lair, where they discover that all
of the gamemasters have been killed. As the season comes to a close, the group receive
a video message from a mysterious woman named Mira, who informs them that they still needed
to collect face cards to complete their deck, and that a new set of games was about to begin.