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| “ | My mom is sick in the hospital. She can't even relieve herself without my help, and yet I had to be seperated from her. So I want to return alive. That's why I quit smoking. I haven't been able to quit before this. I'll need more stamina in order to survive, right? | „ |
| ~ Hikari Kuina. |
| “ | Kuina: I finally understand. I've always thought that you and I were similar. Samura: Me and you? Kuina: Both of us despise our past. I've finally decided because of you. You just keep turning your back on your past. But I... I will face my past once more in order to survive! |
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| ~ Kuina to Takatora Samura. |
Hikari Kuina is a main character of the Netflix show Alice in Borderland, based on the manga with the same name. Kuina is a strong-willed and resourceful woman as she seems to give everything her all, especially when it's necessary. In the TV series, she is best friends with Shuntarō Chishiya and later on also becomes close friends with Rizuna An.
She is a reference to the Blue Caterpillar from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
She is portrayed by Asahina Aya. In the English dub, she is voiced by Juliette Gosselin.
Personality[]
Kuina is relaxed and casual (similar to her friend Chishiya) despite her troubled past. She has strong compassion for others and is very caring. Her main goal is to return to the real world in order to continue to take care of her bedridden mother. Kuina is also protective over her friends, especially Chishiya and An.
She is strong-willed and determined, traits she uses to keep surviving in the Borderlands. Her desire to live made her stop smoking after arriving in the Borderlands, as she doesn't want to shorten her life and die before she can reunite with her mother again.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Kuina was assigned male at birth to her dojo master Father and was expected to be his successor. She wanted to relieve the tension between her father and mother by mastering the martial arts and really impressing her father, her effort was always scolded by her father. He wanted Kuina to deliver decisive blows to her opponents.
Around the same time she was trying to perfect the martial arts she was putting on makeup, her mother knew about it and encouraged it. Her father however was less than pleased by this. When her father discovers she had been putting on makeup he goes into a fit of rage, destroying the makeup and throwing it around. Telling Kuina that she was a boy.
Since Kuina left, she received gender reassignment surgery to become a woman and become an Apparel Clerk working at a clothes shop. Later on her mother had been hospitalized due to natural ageing, and after hearing about the divorce between her mother and father she rushed over to the hospital and swore to take care of her.
The Beach[]
At the Beach she befriends Chishiya and some time after seeing what Hatter's "Utopia" was starting to look like, she teams with Chishiya to steal the playing cards since they were told that only one person can leave the Borderlands with all the playing cards. Although how they were originally going to steal them isn't very apparent until Arisu and Usagi walk in as new members of the Beach.
Chishiya sees Arisu and Usagi as trustworthy and so he uses them both as pawns in his plan to steal the playing cards, so he convinces the two to help him and retrieve the playing cards. However in the end, he tricks them into trying to access a safe that didn't have the playing cards and he rats out Arisu and Usagi to the Militant core to throw Aguni and the Militant's off Chishiya and Kuina's scent.
However a minor altercation between Kuina and Chishiya occurs afterwards, with Kuina noting how she feels guilty for using Arisu and Usagi. Chishiya, however, doesn't feel particularly guilty about it as he claims they were just pawns in the plan.
Ten Of Hearts[]
When Kuina and Chishiya are getting ready to leave the Beach, they're the first ones to find out that the Beach is now a game venue and not too long after, the Ten of Hearts game occurs.
The players all rush down to the lobby and begin speculating on who is the witch and who killed Momoka. After the commotion, Aguni orders the witch steps out but since no one does he commands the militant core to kill everyone and throw them in the fire until the game is cleared.
For most of the game Kuina is trying to hide, and then suddenly she finds An trying to search for items that could help identify the fingerprints on the murder weapon.
When Kuina and An are trying to find more items to help clear the game, they come across Takatora Samura and Kuina tells An that she will deal with him. An walks off to find more items and Kuina fights Samura.
While Kuina and Samura are fighting they momentarily stop to discuss their pasts and what they've done before they were transported into the Borderlands, afterwards the fight resumes and Kuina uses the inspiration of her father and caring mother to defeat Samura and knock him out in fight.
After the fight is over, Kuina is seen with An near the end of the Ten of Hearts game with An explaining that Momoka is the witch with the fingerprints showing a reverse grip on the knife. With this discovery being made, after Niragi maniacally attacks the Beach members, Aguni tackles down Niragi giving them all time to throw Momoka into the fire of judgment.
Underground Discovery[]
After the Ten of Hearts is cleared, Arisu, Usagi, Chishiya and Kuina are using clues they found previously to find what appears to be an underground spectator room. All four of them find it together and with this Mira Kano appears on the screens to announce that there will be new games for the all of the face cards.
King of Clubs[]
After Kuina and her friends were ambushed by the King of Spades, they had to hide out for a while and plan on where to go next. Once it's figured out that they're going to the King of Clubs game they go there. However, it turns out that Niragi is an already registered player and so by force they had to temporarily work with Niragi which Kuina very reluctantly agrees to do and warns Arisu about how they shouldn't trust him.
Arisu paired up Niragi and Usagi together, Kuina questions this as she and Arisu both know what their past with each other is like. Kuina is concerned that something happened between Arisu and Usagi, but Arisu reassures her that this is not the case.
At first, the player team in the King of Clubs game is winning until the King's team gangs up on Tatta and attacks his base. The player team is now losing, with Niragi losing on Tatta and everyone now strategizing what to do to make a comeback.
Arisu, Kuina, Usagi and Niragi give it their all to bring the score up on their team and while they are mostly successful, it wasn't enough to get them in the lead.
This is until Tatta breaks his hand to take the bracelet off so Arisu can use it to win, Tatta tragically bleeds out and dies. After the game, they decide to bury his dead body and Arisu puts his hat on the grave with Kuina putting down flowers on it.
| “ | I can't. I can't let this go to waste. We need to keep going on for Tatta's sake. | „ |
| ~ Kuina lamenting Tatta. |
Her Quest[]
After much sitting around in a tent with Arisu and Usagi, Kuina decides to leave and find Chishiya and An and wishes them luck before leaving.
After playing quickly playing what seems to be a spades game, on the search, she goes into the hospital she last saw her mom resting, finds a picture of her and her mother and talks about how she wants to see her again and for she stays for a little while longer sitting in her mom's empty hospital bedroom until she picks up her bag and leaves for the Queen of Clubs game.
When she joined the Queen of Clubs game, she reunites with An and after they converse, they joint hands.
King of Spades[]
After clearing multiple games with An, they end up reuniting with Arisu and Usagi while in the crossfire of the King of Spades. As they're trying to escape the King of Spades, the King of Spades grabs An and seemingly taking her hostage and begins shooting at Arisu and Usagi. Until Kuina kicks off the a car mirror and it hits the King of Spades' head, making him drop An and start firing at Kuina instead. Giving An enough time to flee.
Suddenly, when the King of Spades is about to shoot someone he gets hit by a car, the guy driving tuck and rolls out of the car, causing the car to hit another car causing an explosion.
People begin cheering believing they've won against the King of Spades, until one of them gets shot by him, with him rising from the flames and then taking off his cloak. Revealing his appearance.
When the King of Spades is try to gun everyone down, Akane Heiya shows up and tries to shoot him down with her bow.
The group silently retreats to a building where Aguni appears and they begin planning how to take out the King of Spades for good.
Aguni, An, Usagi, Kuina, and Akane lure him into an alleyway for them to ambush him while Arisu fills up a drug store with gas so they can set off a big explosion to finish off the King of Spades.
Once they got him where they wanted him, they all tackle him and fight against him mercilessly with every one of them giving it their all. However they all falter, An is shot multiple times in the chest when she tries to shoot the King of Spades, in a rage, Kuina pins him down and starts beating him up until she is pinned down by him and stabbed multiple times in the side.
For the rest of the season we see Kuina on the verge of death, panting and bleeding out, while An is laying dead beside her.
Final Moment in the Borderlands[]
After Arisu and Usagi clear the Queen of Hearts game, the players are all provided with a choice of whether to accept or decline citizenship in the borderlands. What Kuina does is she holds An's hands and declines citizenship, hoping that when she returns to the real world she can bring An with her.
Return to the Real World[]
When Kuina returns, we see her bandaged up walking with a nurse to see her mother in a wheelchair and her father behind her as they welcome her back.
Trivia[]
- Though it isn't technically confirmed, Kuina taking An's hand to leave the Borderlands together is very likely the reason why An ultimately lived in the TV series.
- Kuina appears to be the least injured when returning from the Borderlands.
- The name Hikari means "light".
- The surname "Kuina" meaning "water rail" or "water fowl".
External Links[]
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 Heroes
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Ryōhei Arisu | Yuzuha Usagi | Daikichi Karube | Chōta Segawa | Saori Shibuki | Shuntarō Chishiya | Hikari Kuina | Rizuna An | Kodai Tatta | Asahi Kujo | Morizono Aguni | Akane Heiya | Hayato Dōdō | Yūji Mahiru | ||