Manga
OVA
Netflix
Saori Shibuki (紫吹 小織, Shibuki Saori) is a supporting character in Alice in Borderland. She is portrayed by Ayame Misaki.
Appearance[]
Shibuki is a short young woman with a curvaceous figure and long, straight hair. She wears a classic white jacket with a white T-shirt underneath, a black skirt, tights, and high heels. She always carries a handbag.
Personality[]
Shibuki is shown to be cynical, manipulative, and cold, which she uses to her advantage in order to get ahead in life and in the game. She first demonstrates her nature using a high school girl as a guinea pig to open a potentially deadly door and see what happens. In the real world, she was ready to sleep with her boss in order to get a promotion at her company. Later, she also seduced Chota to gain his trust and make him doubt his friends, only to eventually betray them all in order to survive.
History[]
Shibuki was a businesswoman working for a major firm in Tokyo, Japan. At one point, she had sex with her superior in order to secure a promotion. However, while she was showering, her superior and the people around her disappeared.
Story[]
Season 1[]
Shibuki and others during the Three of Clubs
Shibuki joins Arisu, Chota, and Karube in the GM building for the Three of Clubs "Dead or Alive" game. She 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. As another female player joins, the registration closes, and they find out that the game is called "Dead or Alive". To win, they need to choose the correct door within the stipulated time limit and exit the building.
Shibuki gets irritated by Chota and others making jokes and filming, so she urges someone to choose the "live" door, but, when the female player does so, the laser shoots through her head, causing instant death. The others run through the "die" door and immediately confront Shibuki, with Karube getting aggressive with her. Eventually, Arisu figures out the design of the building and clears the game, so all four escape together. 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 with the amount of time they are allowed to stay alive, and that they must continue playing to survive.
Shibuki describing her first game
The next day, Shibuki and Arisu's group team up and 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. Shibuki lies about working before getting transported to the Borderland, but her flashback shows that she was having sexual intercourse with her boss and taking a shower afterwards. When asked to describe what happened to her on the day of her arrival, Shibuki mentions that it happened three days earlier, and she joined a game like everyone else but was the sole survivor.
"The game was on the subway, there was poison gas and everyone was coughing up blood. Blood was flowing from their eyes..."
— Shibuki's description of the game she played
Karube suggests participating in another game the next day in order to understand how this unknown parallel world works. Since Chota's leg is injured, he and Shibuki stay behind, while Arisu and Karube go to the next game venue.
Shibuki having a heart-to-heart with Chota
While alone, Shibuki decides to have a conversation with Chota. He admits feeling inferior in comparison to his friends, and Shibuki uses his weakness to manipulate him into thinking that his friends only keep him around because they like having someone weaker. She then starts gently touching his thigh, reminding him of his injury, and attempting to gain his trust by comforting him. 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 insists that Arisu and Karube are not her friends, which is why she never told them, but she is telling Chota now, since they are alike. She kisses him again, laying him on the bed, removing her clothes, and making him touch her breasts. Chota seems paralyzed with confusion, so he does not stop her.
Shibuki's visa day count
While Arisu and Karube are away, Shibuki looks in the mirror and draws lines that indicate her visa day count, realizing that it is her last day. Since her previous game was 3
, and there are five lines on the mirror, it hints at her first game having a difficulty of two, even though the details are never revealed in the live-action adaptation, which, however, correlates with the manga, where her first game was clearly stated as 2♥️. She talks to herself and promises to return to the real world, where she was supposed to be promoted after having sex with her superior.
After Karube and Arisu return, Shibuki treats Karube's wound, and he reveals that he heard someone talking through the walkie-talkie during the game, ordering people to return to "the Beach", which is where all the answers might be. Shibuki points out that Chota cannot walk due to his injury, which makes everyone feel uneasy.
When Karube is late to return in the evening, Shibuki complains about Arisu not willing to go without him, and confidently picks up Chota to help him walk to the next game venue, convincing him that they will die otherwise. After Karube finally comes back, Chota snaps at him due to Shibuki's influence, but the quartet eventually starts moving to find the next game arena.
Shibuki 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.
Shibuki repeats the rules and finds it strange that the wolf is the one who is supposed to hide, while normally it should be vice versa. Chota is selected to be the first wolf, but then his eyes meet Arisu's, and the wolf role gets transferred. Then the same happens between Arisu and Karube, and the players 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, chased by infuriated Karube.
She first hides in the bushes, so he cannot see her in the dark, but then decides to keep moving, which proves difficult because she is wearing high heels, so she trips and falls over. Karube finds and attacks her, demanding the wolf role back, but she refuses to look him in the eye, so he attempts to hit her with an axe in his hands. She dodges, grabs a stone and hits his injured side. Accidentally looking at Karube, Shibuki transfers the wolf role to him and decides to keep attacking him in order to retrieve it. Arisu catches up with them and gets the wolf role from Karube and is forced to hide from Shibuki, who takes Karube's hatchet and chases after Arisu.
Chota and Shibuki's last moments
She eventually finds him, accusing him of wanting to be the only survivor and claiming that he does not deserve it. As she is about to attack him, Chota jumps at her and pins her down, holding her in place and telling his friends to run away. Shibuki tries to break free and manipulate Chota's feelings by reminding him that they had sex and claiming that she is on his side, but Chota keeps holding her in place to make sure she does not go after his friends.
As the time runs out, Chota talks to Arisu for the last time, asking him to keep living, and Shibuki realizes what they are all planning to do. She and Chota both cry and hug, with Chota apologizing to her. Their collars blow up off-screen, and her work badge is shown to have blood on it, indicating her death.
Season 2[]
Shibuki briefly appears in Arisu's flashback of the Three of Clubs game. Later, her name is mentioned among the victims of the Tokyo Meteorite Disaster.
Games Played[]
Trivia[]
- The forename Saori consists of the kanji "小" (sa) (small) and "織" (ori) (weave, weaving).
- The surname Shibuki is a combination of the kanji "紫" (shi) (purple, violet) and "屋" (fuki/buki) (blow, breathe, puff, emit, smoke).
- Shibuki's ID number is 1000139, as shown in Episode 3. Therefore, Shibuki is the 1000139th player to arrive in Borderland.