#gotta love that post production grind
It doesn’t get talked about a lot but I really enjoy the lighting of Alice in Borderland. The show opens bright, happy, cheerful, but then as soon as Arisu and the gang get into the Borderlands, the lighting becomes so much colder. As soon they complete their first game, it’s all darkness and cold blues from there on out. We never really see the daylight again after that point for the next couple of episodes. The botanical garden episode, my behated, has some of the most gorgeous lighting of the entire show.
Then, after Usagi rescues Arisu, the lighting begins to warm up. After she tells Arisu to eat and to keep going, there’s a shot of her opening the entrance to wherever tf she’s been hiding, it’s all silhouette - its quite literally her opening the door and letting the sunlight in. After that, the lighting gets so much warmer. You never see a scene in the same cold blues as before. Even at night during the game, it’s all warm yellow and brown shades.
Then, they get to the Beach, and BOOM its punch you in the face different. Unlike the opening, it looks so incredibly fake happy. It’s all bright, neon, party, woo!! Even at night when Kuina is chatting with Arisu and Usagi, it’s still so bright you can see everything clearly. And, it still has those warm overtones all the way til the end. Idk I just think its so neat
More fun stuff:
The light in Arisu’s home is gray and cold.
The light during the meal with Arisu, Karube, Chouta and Shibuki is slightly warmer.
The light in the flashbacks is warm, buttery yellow.
The light duting The 4 of clubs, where Arisu basically decides to move on and fight for life is the warmest one so far.
The light and color we see at the beach is even more saturated during Hatter’s speech to Arisu, but gone in the scene where he dies.
The flashbacks with Aguni and Hatter all have the same cool gray light. Even the ones in the normal world.
The only scene with pure white light and neutral color correction is the one in the dealers room where Mira is revealed as a game master. The white light is also associated with the GAME screens.
The final scene has one of the most natural color corrections in the show, not as blue and cold as the previous episodes but not as overly sarurated as thr beach.
