Manga
OVA
Netflix
Chōta Segawa (勢川 張太, Segawa Chouta) is a recurring character in Alice in Borderland. Chota's specialty is not defined on the show, but his promotional poster hints at Clubs (
). He is portrayed by Yuki Morinaga.
Appearance[]
Chota is a short young man with well-combed dark hair and a mole on his right cheek. He is initially dressed in formal clothes, which include a classic blue shirt and dark blue trousers. After being transported to the Borderland, he changes into a horizontally striped teal and dark blue T-shirt and beige capris.
Personality[]
Chota is an extremely smiley individual who prefers to laugh and have fun in any difficult situation. He does not take his work too seriously, despite having knowledge in the IT field, and opts to hang out with Arisu and Karube.
After arriving in the Borderland, Chota demonstrates unconditional loyalty to his friends, despite being unable to participate in the games on his own due to his injury, and showcases his technical knowledge by figuring out how and why certain devices do not work, which later helps Arisu save others during the "Distance" game.
Story[]
Season 1[]
Chota with Arisu and Karube in the real world
Chota is first introduced telling his mother to stop asking for money after withdrawing some cash for her. Arisu texts him and Karube to meet up. As the trio begin messaging each other, they decide to meet in front of the Shibuya Station. With the three together, they start brainstorming ideas to decide where to go next, and Chota jokes about a sudden zombie invasion. Suddenly, Karube hoists Arisu up onto his shoulders, running into a crowd of people in the middle of the road, and Chota decides to film them on his phone. By messing around, they cause a car accident and draw the attention of the police. The trio runs inside the metro station and hide in a bathroom stall; the lights go off along with their phones, and, when they open the door to take a peek at the surroundings, they find themselves in a completely empty Tokyo.
They explore the abandoned city but find no one, so they come back to the Shibuya Crossing to discuss their next steps. A building's screen flashes, informing them that a game will commence momentarily. An arrow directs them to the GM Building, which is where the game will supposedly take place.
Chota and others during the Three of Clubs
They follow the signs and end up at an elevator. Seeing a table with phones, they grab one per person, as the instructions say, and realize that these devices work, even though their own do not. Their confusion is interrupted by an unknown woman, who joins the game and reprimands them for not taking the games seriously, demonstrating that there is no way out through the lasers by throwing Chota's badge at them. Another female player then joins them, the registration closes, and Chota and the others find out that the game is called "Dead or Alive", Three of Clubs difficulty. To win, they need to choose the correct door within the stipulated time limit and exit the building.
Chota finds the game funny at first and starts filming everything on his phone. Shibuki gets annoyed and urges someone to choose the "live" door, but when Minami does so, the laser shoots through her head, demonstrating the seriousness of the predicament, which Chota and his friends did not realize prior to that. They run through the "die" door and immediately confront Shibuki, with Karube getting aggressive with her. In the third room, Karube loses his cool and punches Arisu in the face, which makes Chota worry and attempt to stop the fight; however, it actually works out in their favor, as it jogs Arisu's memory of the car accident earlier that day, and he is able to recall the rough shape and dimensions of the building, which allows him to draw a map and eventually find a way out through multiple rooms. Chota's video helps Arisu in the process, as the video shows no door inside the room that Minami entered, hinting at the overall structure of the building.
The four manage to escape the building in time, but in the last room, Chota's leg is injured by flames from the explosion. Once outside, they receive a three-day visa, just before a man stumbles into the alleyway, yelling that he is done with the games. He is immediately executed by the red laser through the head. Karube and his friends realize that their visas correlate to the amount of time they are allowed to stay alive and that they must continue playing to survive.
The next day, Chota points out that all IC chips in all electronic devices are broken, which is why anything that operates via an electronic circuit board does not function. However, he finds that older devices that are built differently, such as radios and walkie-talkies, still work. Chota seems to be the only one among his friends who remembers the fireworks clearly, so he assumes there might have been an electromagnetic pulse attack.
After the meal, Chota and his friends share their thoughts about what happened to all the people in Tokyo. They come up with various versions, but none seem to explain what is going on around them. Karube suggests participating in another game the next day in order to understand how this unknown parallel world works and be able to protect Chota in the future. Since Chota's leg is injured, he and Shibuki stay behind, while Karube and Arisu find the next game venue.
Chota praying
While alone, Chota prays for the well-being of his friends.
"O Holy Mother. Please save us from our tainted souls. Our smiles are the light of hope. The Holy Mother will appear when we smile."
Shibuki joins him, bringing him some water and starts a conversation. Chota claims that he does not believe in God, even though his mother is very religious, and tells how Arisu and Karube always defended him from being bullied over that. He keeps talking about his friends and admits that he is nothing in comparison, as he comes from a poor family and has no talents. Shibuki uses Chota's weakness to manipulate him into thinking that his friends only keep him around because they like having someone weaker, and then starts touching his thigh, reminding him of his injury. When she wonders if he is ready to die for them, he smiles and deduces that she has probably always been betrayed by other people and never met anyone decent, but she turns it against him and attempts to convince him that he is the same, and he starts crying. Using Chota's weak emotional state further, Shibuki kisses him on the lips and asks if she can trust him, admitting that she was having sex with her superior before getting transported to the Borderland. She pushes for the fact that Arisu and Karube are not her friends, which is why she never told them, but is telling Chota, since they are alike. She kisses him again, laying him on the bed and removing her clothes. Chota seems paralyzed with confusion, so he does not stop her, and starts praying again during their sexual intercourse.
A flashback follows, showing little Chota and his mother in a religious meeting with multiple people praying, while a respectable man sits in an armchair in the middle. Chota's mother approaches the man with an offering, and he then leads her away to a separate room, where she slowly removes her clothes. Chota briefly witnesses it before getting dragged away by other worshippers.
Chota hugs Arisu and Karube
Seeing his friends return, Chota happily walks to meet them. He hugs them and notices that Karube is injured, but Karube reassures him that it is nothing serious. After Shibuki treats his wound, Karube reveals that he heard someone talking through the walkie-talkie during the game, and they were ordering those with walkie-talkies to return to "the Beach", which is where all the answers might be. Chota's and Shibuki's visas are scheduled to expire that day, so Karube promises to clear the next game and search for the Beach later.
When Karube is late to return in the evening, Shibuki complains about Arisu not willing to go without him, and picks Chota up to help him walk to the next game venue. After Karube finally comes back, Chota snaps at him, convinced by Shibuki that they will die if they are late for the game. Karube helps him walk, and the quartet moves to find the next game venue.
Chota and others in the Seven of Hearts game
They arrive at the Shinjuku Natural Botanical Garden and find three white tables inside: one with four phones, one with four collar-like devices with goggles, and one big table with a variety of tools (from axes to scissors). After they are told to put on the devices, they notice that the visors follow their eye movements and identify other players by their ID. The difficulty of the game is announced to be Seven of Hearts.
"♥️ are games of betrayal where you play with people's hearts."
— Arisu remembers Nitobe's explanation
The game is called "Hide and Seek", where one person is a wolf and the other three are lambs, who need to find the wolf to become one themselves, as only one player, who is the wolf at the end, can clear the game.
Chota is selected to be the first wolf; he panics and tries to remove the collar, but Arisu stops him, worried that the collar might explode. As their eyes meet, the wolf role gets transferred to Arisu, and they realize that this is the purpose of the eye-tracking device. Shibuki grabs a tool, attracts everyone's attention to get the wolf role, and runs away, confusing Chota, who realizes the threat of impending death. Chota tries to follow his friends but finds it hard to walk with crutches, falls over, and starts crying. He guesses that the devices on their heads also allow them to communicate, so he begs Shibuki not to run away and try to solve the game together. Hearing Shibuki and Karube hitting each other, Chota keeps crying, unable to stop the madness around. Heartbroken and lost, Chota starts praying for his friends to regain their senses and remember that they are all on the same side.
Chota eventually catches up with Shibuki, Arisu, and Karube, who have been chasing after each other, and stops Shibuki from attacking Arisu. He pins her down and yells at his friends to run away. Shibuki tries to break free and manipulate Chota's feelings by reminding him of their sexual intercourse and claiming that she is on his side, but Chota keeps holding her in one place to make sure she does not go after his friends.
Hearing Karube berating Arisu, who keeps apologizing, Chota starts crying again and begging his friends to remember that they care about each other.
In Arisu's flashback, Karube and Chota came to his house to make him feel better and invited him out to eat and have fun, and Karube drove them both on a bicycle. While they were drinking in Karube's bar, Karube admitted to having a dream of buying a huge farm in Australia, and Chota promised to deliver beef steak there through drone delivery that he was going to build.
Chota and Shibuki's last moments
Memories make all three of them realize the importance of their friendship, and, when there are three minutes left until the end of the game, Arisu decides to give his wolf status to one of his friends instead. However, when he asks for their location, they keep silent and hide from him while he is running around and searching. Chota covers Shibuki's mouth and makes sure she does not reveal their position. When Karube eventually speaks up and reminds Arisu of how they made noodles with shaved ice, Chota adds that they laughed a lot that day, and Karube jokes about how Chota was laughing so hard that noodles started coming out of his nose. Realizing that there is no time left, Chota talks to Arisu for the last time, then smiles through tears and hugs Shibuki, apologizing to her.
"Arisu, live on for us!"
— Chota's last words
Chota and Karube briefly appear in Arisu's flashback. They are shown discussing an arcade called "Dream World", which they visited in high school, with Chota laughing that he would always skip classes to go there, and Arisu would be there as well, reading dirty articles out loud.
"Live your life for me, got it?"
— Chota to Arisu in the flashback
Season 2[]
Chota choosing a weird-flavored yakisoba
Chota appears in Arisu's flashback. He takes a box with "shortcake-flavored yakisoba" from a stall in the shop and exclaims that he saw a commercial of it on TV. Karube wonders if such a flavor can ever be good and jokes about Chota being a virgin due to his peculiar tastes. Chota promises to eat the whole yakisoba to prove that it is good.
As they start eating and reading manga, Karube calls Chota a creep for staring at a page, but Chota claims he cannot stop looking at the girl's breasts and starts showing the picture to his friends. Karube jokes that Chota's virginity will rub off on Arisu if he acts like him, and Chota jokingly touches Arisu's shoulder, "passing" the curse onto him.
In a flashback scene from Episode 1 (Season 1), Chota, Arisu, and Karube are standing at the Shibuya Crossing before their journey to the Borderland. Chota laughs that it would be fun if zombies appeared in Shibuya to bite everyone and turn them into more zombies.
Chota laughs at Karube's attempt to say something smart
In another flashback that follows, Chota and others are on a rooftop, and Karube asks why Arisu is depressed, wondering whether getting a job would really be the end of the world for him, to which Chota exclaims that Arisu can use his father's connections instead of worrying or having deep thoughts. After Karube's attempt to say something smart about life, Chota laughs at him and points out that his advice does not sound very convincing coming from a part-time bartender. When Karube challenges him to add something by himself, Chota pretends to be thinking hard but then bursts into laughter once again, claiming that it is too hard to come up with something on the spot.
Chota briefly appears in Arisu's flashback of the events during the King of Clubs game, when he was screaming in tears that he did not want everything to end "like this", referring to the situation where everyone was trying to kill each other in order to survive.
Chota teases Arisu for the last time
After all the games are cleared, Arisu ends up in Karube's bar. After Karube makes a joke about Arisu having a long hair in his nose, Chota asks if they know about wax hair removal, denying the notion that hair stops growing after that. Arisu states that using a trimmer is better but points out that it would hurt if something fell on you while you were using it. According to Chota, explosions hurt more, and Karube seriously wonders if it is true. Arisu realizes that it is not a flashback but a chance to talk to his late friends for the last time. He starts apologizing, and Chota laughs, teasing him in a harsh way for taking the blame in order to make him realize that they did not die for his sake. Chota's last advice to Arisu is to stop thanking everyone, since it would not be enough even if he did it for the rest of his life.
Later on, Chota's name is mentioned in a news broadcast as one of the victims of the Tokyo Meteorite Disaster.
Games Played[]
Trivia[]
- The forename Chouta consists of the kanji "張" (chou) (lengthen, counter for bows & stringed instruments, stretch, spread, put up (tent)) and "太" (ta) (thick, big, great).
- The surname Segawa is a combination of the kanji "勢" (se) (momentum, energy, impetus, military strength, spring, bound/rebound, inertia, stimulus, impulse, instant, chance) and "川" (kawa/gawa) (river, stream, brook).
- Chota's ID number is 1000247, as shown in Episode 3. Therefore, Chota is the 1000247th player to arrive in Borderland.
- Chota's age can be calculated by using his date of birth, revealed on his work badge in Episode 1, and the date the trio was transported to the Borderland (July 9, 2021).
