Alice in Borderland Season 3 Episode 1 opens up with Arisu being interviewed by three men about his experience following the Shibuya meteorite tragedy. This is when we first meet Ryuji Matsuyama. He is one of the three men interviewing Arisu and is later revealed to be one of the professors at Shushikam University, from the Department of Psychopathology.
They are all revealed to be conducting some kind of study on the meteorite survivors, but Matsuyama has other interests: the afterlife. Pretty talented, he is revealed to be a cripple, possibly because of the meteorite incident.
He looks too interested in Arisu and Usagi and urges them to tell him if they remember anything. Throughout the first episode, we see him interested in the Borderlands. While Arisu and Usagi remain central to the survival narrative, Matsuyama’s role has added a new philosophical dimension.
Ryuji Matsuyama is Tied to Usagi’s Return to Borderland
Matsuyama emerges as a fascinating figure in Season 3 of the Netflix show because of his afterlife interpretation of the Borderland. He believes the Borderland is like a purgatory, a state between life and death where players are tested by their will to survive.
His research into the theory eventually leads him to Usagi, as we saw in Episode 1 of Alice in Borderland Season 3. When he meets Arisu’s wife, he gets a flashback of a woman lying on a lab table. He then tells Usagi that he will be interested in interviewing her.
The episode later reveals that before Usagi disappears, she had given an interview to him. She talked about seeing her father committing sui*ide over and over in her dreams and that she would like to be physically present there even if it meant she had to see her father die again and again.
After Arisu filed a missing person complaint, the police showed him CCTV footage of Matsuyama with Usagi at a resort hotel. Earlier in the episode, Usagi had started getting flashbacks of the time in Borderland during the Ten of Hearts game (Witch Hunt) after being drawn to a resort hotel. It is here that Matsuyama catches Usagi, and they both disappear.
Later, the police discovered that Usagi was with Matsuyama, and both are now in a coma after they took some drugs. While the police attribute their near-death state to some kind of mass su*cide, Arisu knows the truth. Both also had Joker cards with them, revealing that Matsuyama isn’t unfamiliar with Borderland and has been there before. He possibly had his memory wiped too.
How Does Ryuji Matsuyama Enter Borderland?
While Episode 1 of Alice in Borderland Season 3 does not reveal if Ryuji Matsuyama entered Borderland, the police finding him in a coma-like stage (just like Usagi) and having a Joker card hints that he did enter the wretched place.
As for how he entered the place, the first episode reveals that he gets an anonymous email about a ‘lead’ he might be interested in. The lead turns out to be a woman who tells him about a ‘seminar’ where they play deadly games. He asks her for an invite and eventually gets it in the mail a few days later.
When he goes to the place, he finds several others, and a man in a suit tells them to pick up a place. There are cards in front of them, and they are informed that they will be playing Old Maid, and only those who win will be able to enter the Borderlands.
They are informed that if a Joker is drawn from a player’s hand, the player will be eliminated. A man suddenly gets electrocuted when this happens. People who try to get up from their seats meet the same fate and die. Whoever loses all their cards dies too.
Eventually, Matsuyama wins, and it is revealed that the man in the suit is Banda, who then welcomes him to the borderlands.
Ryuji Matsuyama may be one of the most important characters introduced in Alice in Borderland Season 3. His afterlife theory reframes the Borderland as something larger than a cruel game. Well, what do you think about the season so far? Let us know in the comments below.
Alice in Borderland Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.
