Alice in Borderland: Shibuya, Empty and Overgrown

This is where the series begins. Arisu, Karube and Chōta come to Shibuya, fool around in the middle of the scramble crossing and cause a traffic accident involving several cars. Then they run for the station. The real crossing opened in 1973 and is often called the world's busiest, with 1,000–2,000 people crossing on a single green light. It is still the place to start: stand at the edge and watch the crowd surge.

Visitor guidance: A public crossing; foot traffic barely drops even at midnight.

Arisu and his friends flee the accident into a toilet stall inside the Hachikō gate at Shibuya Station. The lights go out; when they open the door, Tokyo is empty. The whole move — into the bathroom and out into the deserted city — was shot as a four-minute continuous take. The Hachikō Exit is still the station's popular meeting point, named for the dog statue outside. The public toilet from the scene no longer exists; the production designer called the series a record of a Shibuya that keeps disappearing.

Visitor guidance: The Hachikō Exit is on the north-west side of Shibuya Station, beside the statue and the crossing.

To film the empty crossing, the crew built a full-size Shibuya in Ashikaga, Tochigi. The open set covered 1.5 hectares, with a 6,585-square-metre replica of the crossing: road, crosswalk, subway entrance, police box and the Hachikō exit ticket gate. The buildings around it were green screen, filled in later by computer graphics. It was finished in September 2019 for three productions, then kept running for films, dramas and music videos. It closed on 31 December 2025, so the empty Shibuya now exists only on screen.

Season two opens with the King of Spades hunting players across the city. Arisu and Usagi run from his attack through Shibuya Stream, the complex beside the station. In the story it is a corridor of escape; in reality it is a 2018 retail and hotel building on the land freed when the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line terminal moved underground in 2013. Google's Japan head office is here, along with the Excel Tokyu Shibuya Stream hotel. It remains a working retail and hotel complex.

Visitor guidance: The address is 3-21-3 Shibuya, on the old Tōkyū Tōyoko Line terminal site.

For the ruined Shibuya of season two, the crew built another open set in Yokohama. It recreated the devastated Shibuya 109 intersection and the back alleys of Shinjuku for episodes four to eight. The alley where Heiya and Aguni fight is invented: designers scouted Shibuya and Shinjuku, then built a plausible lane beside a Yoshinoya and connected it to a Sundrug. The production lists it only as the Yokohama Open Set.

Location precision: The production names only a 'Yokohama Open Set' with no address, so the stop is not pinned.

The season's last big fight happens around Shibuya 109. Arisu, Kuina, Usagi and Ann face the King of Spades, Shirabi, who keeps getting up; Heiya and Aguni fight him in a narrow alley nearby. The real 109 opened in April 1979, designed by Minoru Takeyama, directly across the street from Shibuya Station. It became a sanctuary for gyaru fashion and remains a working department store. In the ruined Borderland it stands as a landmark for the endgame.

Visitor guidance: Shibuya 109 is a working department store directly across from Shibuya Station.

The last game takes Arisu and Usagi to the roof of Shibuya Scramble Square. There they face Mira, the Queen of Hearts, in the final game: croquet. The tower opened on 1 November 2019 and stands 229.71 metres; its rooftop observation deck is SHIBUYA SKY, directly above Shibuya Station. Visitors can ride up for the same view of the crossing. The game is fiction; the view is not.

Visitor guidance: SHIBUYA SKY is the rooftop observation deck of Shibuya Scramble Square, directly above Shibuya Station.