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Ever wonder what it takes to build a show so gripping that it empties out Tokyo’s busiest streets—well, at least on screen? Shinsuke Sato, the cinematic wizard behind Netflix Japan’s sci-fi juggernaut Alice in Borderland, has been weaving this high-stakes dystopian tapestry for years, juggling up to two films a year like some kind of superhero director. And talk about timing—while Mercury’s doing that infamous retrograde tango, Sato’s third season has blasted into the global Top 10, snagging over 20 million viewing hours in just a month. It’s a cosmic collision of hard work and audience obsession, raising the question: can anyone really escape the game of fate when the entire world is watching? If you’ve ever been curious about the behind-the-scenes magic—like how they shot that eerily empty Tokyo that feels more “post-apocalyptic chic” than your average cityscape—you’re in for a wild ride. Dive into the labyrinth where dystopia meets dazzling storytelling, and find out what’s next for this maestro who’s not just stopping at Alice. LEARN MORE
Shinsuke Sato has given a significant portion of his professional career to the Netflix Japan sci-fi series Alice in Borderland, a situation that is no mean feat given how prolific the Japanese filmmaker has been in recent years, regularly releasing one or perhaps two feature films a year. Now running for three seasons after the launch of the third chapter of Alice in Borderland in late September, Sato’s passion project has garnered him international notoriety, with the series by far and away the most successful Japanese original project from Netflix.
Season three of Alice in Borderland has continued the franchise’s hot streak, and since launch, it spent three weeks in Netflix’s coveted Global Top 10 and hit No.5 in the global Non-English Shows list. One month after launch it had garnered over 20.5 million viewing hours and hit the Top 10 in 30 countries including Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, France, and Türkiye.
Sato began production on Alice in Borderland in 2019, with the first season debuting the following year. The series almost immediately found a global audience, tapping into the demand for “death game” dystopian dramas, that also drove the success of Netflix’s Squid Games. The second season came along 2022 and the show truly went global in its popularity.
A scene from season two of ‘Alice in Borderland.’
Netflix
As well as the live action adaptation of Haro Aso’s Alice in Borderland, Sato has become something of an expert when it comes to translating manga to the big or small screen. Previously, he adapted into features Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note: Light Up the New World, Tite Kubo’s Bleach and Yasuhisa Hara’s Kingdom, the latter of which has spawned four films all directed by Sato. Another Kingdom film from Sato is due next year, and the filmmaker confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he will indeed direct the live-action adaptation of the phenomenally popular manga My Hero Academia for Netflix and Legendary Entertainment. In September, THR reported that Wonder Woman and Argylle writer and It: Welcome to Derry co-creator, co-showrunner and exec producer Jason Fuchs has been tapped to write the My Hero Academia adaptation.
Ahead of the launch of season three of Alice in Borderland in September, THR spoke to Sato in Tokyo about working on the project for so many years, the global success of the show, and what the future holds.
Firstly, congratulations on the third season of Alice in Borderland, how do you feel about coming back for a project that’s been such a big part of your life?
So thinking back to all the way in the beginning where we started with the development of season one and indeed has been a very long path, but it doesn’t really seem like a long and winding road. Rather I am filled with a sense of time went by so fast, and now it’s been 5 years since we started this whole thing, but it felt like such a short amount of time.
And it was quite challenging because with each season we kept expanding the scope and the scale of the storytelling. So now that season three has kindly come to completion, I’m actually relieved.
A scene from season two of ‘Alice in Borderland.’
Netflix
Alice in Bordeland has become a global phenomenon. For a lot of people who are new coming to the show, I think the first thing that strikes them is how you shot it, how you created a Tokyo that was empty. Anyone who has been to Tokyo will know it’s always busy with people. Could you talk a little bit about how you did that? Were there any particular inspirations? I know for me, it reminded me of 28 Days Later a little bit.
I would say so in terms of inspiration, it doesn’t necessarily draw upon like a specific film or anything because there are a lot of films or visual works that portray totally unpopulated and deserted cities, but these are all not Tokyo. And there’s something about Tokyo that I envisioned to have a different impact in comparison with other cities, going back to when we were doing season one, this was, when we were making season one, it was before the pandemic, and we were getting ready to host the Olympics. I had up until then, I had lived in Shibuya for about 10 years and when you count back 10 years from when we hosted the Olympics, it wasn’t such a crowded or international tourist spot back then. But then every year, for example, with the countdown events in the years, the crowd that gathered in Shibuya, the percentage of non-Japanese citizens gathered there, the international crowd became more and more and more until maybe half of the people were international. Residents or visitors that were gathered in that area and I saw this change happening in Tokyo which made me imagine what if all of these people disappeared from here?
I wonder how impactful that would be because it’s just swarms and swarms of people, especially in 2021 when the Olympics happened. And you see this scene in season one where Arisu and his friends, they all go out and no one’s there, and they’re like, yeah, which is a strange reaction, but I wanted to bring that strange kind of feeling.
And actually delivering that in the visual medium was quite a challenge, of course. First of all, we built this massive set which took a lot of our budget, and then another set, we built a massive set of Shibuya, which also cost us a lot of money. Sometimes we would shoot on location where we had our crew just managing the people and preventing them from coming into our shoot.
So wait, so you did actually shoot in Shibuya as well?
So the famous scramble crossing is impossible. But then some surrounding areas we did shoot and there were early morning shoots as well, but yes, we had to build a set with certain sequences we had to figure out, ‘OK, how do we erase all of these elements with CGI?’ It was like a different approach with each cut, there was very meticulous planning.
Let’s talk about the tone of Alice in Borderland. There are elements of quite graphic violence, then there’s also quite melodramatic moments, and then there’s also quite funny moments, and then there’s obviously the games themselves. So much to say, there are a lot of tones within the show. Was it a challenge to keep it cohesive?
Well, there’s this overall tone that we deliberately kept in terms of the visual tone and the tone of this world that they inhabit, but I think it seems to have a lot of variety because of the different characters that we portray. We have the very cool characters and the complete opposite of that as well. A character who brings a lot of levity and makes us laugh. The game play or the drama unfolds in a way that really matches that character’s atmosphere or that character’s aura. That’s where I think you feel the variety. We didn’t want to make everything cool because we think this is a cool drama, we had various tones of characters and various situations which matched those tones of characters, each character being very interesting and alluring for the audience, which is why you see what you see.
The cast of season three of ‘Alice in Borderland.’
Netflix
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