Alice in the Country of Hearts

What many who read this may not know is that this is *not* based directly on Alice in Wonderland, but instead on the first entry in an Otome game series, titled 'Heart no Kuni no Alice: Wonderful Wonder World.' This manga is an abysmal adaptation of the game, as anyone who knows anything about said game probably realizes. It waters down the characters at best, and completely mis-characterizes them at worst. Blood Dupre is the most prominent and tragic example of this, but there are several others. Even worse, the poor characterization depicted has spread to the English translations of other manga based on the series,solidifying Dupre's warped persona as a violent, crass misogynist, rather than the classy troll he started as in the games. It is abundantly clear that the creator of this manga didn't bother to finish any of the characters' routes before writing this, and as such it reads more or less like a bad fanfiction. The only remotely good things I can say about this is that it stuck mostly true to the overall plot of the game and the mechanics of how Wonderland works (though even those should be taken with a grain of salt), and that the art style is visually pleasing. Apart from that, there really isn't anything good to say about this. I could go on, but as there's a rule against posting spoilers, I probably shouldn't. So, this is all I'll write in this review.

I'm a bit worried about reviewing this since it's the favorite manga of one of my best friends... Ah well, I finished it and now I'm reviewing it! I don't really know why the Japanese seem to have such an intense love of all things Alice (I swear, it must be customary to have an Alice reference in shoujo manga nowadays...) but here's yet another Alice manga! Heart no Kuni no Alice, or Alice in the Country of Hearts as it's known as under it's English publication, is a more romantic reversioning of the famous Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol and is based off anotome game of the same name. It features a girl named Alice, duh, who doesn't fall, but is instead forced down the rabbit hole to discover the Country of Hearts. She soon learns that the country is controlled by several warring gangs. The lives of the country's inhabitents are not given much value due to their hearts being watches that can once again be fixed, but once fixed the heart's owner will not be reborn as the same person. Due to these issues, almost everyone in the Country of Hearts carries a gun that they're not hesitant to use... This is a pretty good premise, I think. The series focuses a somewhat on Alice's morals compared to that of the country's citizens, but sadly this wonderful premise is only loosly touched upon whereas I think it should have been expanded upon much more. But no, this is based off an otome game remember, meaning that it's all about who Alice will end up falling in love with... Like a lot of reverse harem series, every reader typically finds some character who they grow to like more than the others, for me it's Nightmare for example. Most of the characters as well are heavily based off of characters from the original Alice in Wonderland: Boris is the Cheshire Cat (who has pink hair and wears a skirt, hee hee!), Vivaldi the Queen of Hearts, Blood the Mad Hatter, etc. Every character has a very distinct personality which is heavily based off of their Alice in Wonderland counterpart if they have one. All of them still have their own traits though the seperate them from these counterparts, the most noticable I think being Blood, who is based off the Mad Hatter. It almost seems sometimes like the only likeness Blood shares with the Hatter is the hat itself as well as being accompanied by the March Hare. Blood's character is very serious and cold, almost seeming like he's mocking the original Hatter. I also find it odd that, for a series where the characters are the main focus, all of the characters remain sadly one dimensional... Art wise, the series looks very pretty most of the time, but this is possibly due mainly to the characters' have very rounded, simplisticly drawn designs, likely due somewhat to the original game having similar art, but even so. This means that it would have been easier for the artist to not go off model as much. As well, it often seems that characters who aren't the focus in a panel get jipped a bit, not being as detailed as the one who is in the spotlight. Despite these flaws though, the series keeps up a surprisingly high level of enjoyability. If you like rom/com, this will probably keep you hooked most, if not all, the time, and if you're not, you'll still probably find something to enjoy in it. It should be stated though that this is definetely something that the ladies are going to enjoy much more than the men, sorry boys. I've heard that there is going to be more manga based of the sequels to the game, and considering the series had a more or less cliff hanger ending this may very well be true, so I hope that helps to clear up some of the flaws that this had. As well, Heart no Kuni no Alice is getting a movie based off it very soon, so hopefully that'll be good and I'm looking forward to it! Overall, I give this bloody look at a classic a 7 out of 10.

When I was young, I loved the story of Alice in wonderland because it was a strange storyline that grabbed my attention. Over the years, I loved almost every rendition of the story that came out. The darker the story, the better in my mind for instance, I liked American McGee’s Alice game where Alice was in asylum after her family was killed in a fire. I’m not sure why but when things are rather demented like that; it gives a really nice spin to an already overused story. This one, well, its what you would expect from a manga version of Alice with aReverse- harem element. All the guys are beautiful men and the girl believes she isn’t work anything. We start out with Alice waking up from her ‘dream’ and seeing her sister there, reading a book. Ironically, it’s the book Alice in wonderland and so of course Alice believed wonderland to be nothing more then a dream. Even though she only had a dream about a game, she seems to be bothered by a game of cards that her sister asks about. This is where the manga gets a little hairy in continuity or just plain explaining what the hell is going on. We wouldn’t know just why Alice is so jumpy since all we get is a very small bit of her dreaming about a game. Now even more problematic is that she also talks about how her sister was probably a girl all the men would love but when she thinks of an image, we have nothing that would tell us who it is. We can suspect though that it’s a guy she likes. I have a feeling that those that might of played the games this manga was based off of would understand but as of now, I do not believe they have actually come to America and are probably not in English. As her sister leaves, we get Alice drifting off again to sleep and then she sees a normal white rabbit with clothing on. The story of Alice in Wonderland almost always had her following the rabbit on her own accord, but this one, the rabbit tells her she needs to follow him, then when he picks her up to force her to come with, he turns into a really hot white haired man with glasses! And not only that, but he forces her to drink a strange liquid as well. He calls himself Peter White…. I believe it is a play off of Peter Rabbit and this is when I facepalm because in only about 35 pages, we have a rather ‘erotic’ scene with a name pulled as a spinoff of something else. And yet, this is what Alice in wonderland was made for. The story goes really fast and really doesn’t have much time to explain what exactly is going on. This is not for people who want things explained right off the back but then again, you wouldn’t like the normal Alice in Wonderland then. Now, there are a lot of things I like about this manga though, including the little touches that the ‘Hatters’ are a family of mafia with the main Hatter as our representative love interest. (Those that seem to ship Alice and Hatter will love this manga.) I have to say this story reminds me a lot of Kobato where the main character must collect something in a bottle to get back to where she wants to go, STOP THINKING IT PERVERTS! We also have a rather interesting staker who seems to have fallen for her and wants her to stay in the world of Wonderland with him. Of course, in a harem, all the men and some women it seems want to be with Alice including an incubus that creates nightmares. I get the feeling this manga should be a hentai but it never really comes to that. Instead, we have a rather fun and witty dialog between all of the characters. Seriously, a lot of the dialog actually made me laugh at times because it was stuff that I should of figured would happen but I was not expecting it. All the characters turned into loveable characters (Even Peter White in a way) in their childish nature and fun loving self. In the end, there really isn’t an end and so it keeps on going on about the same. This sometimes bothers me but there are luckily hints that something will be changing at some point in time. The artwork is actually rather good though pretty standard for the beautiful harem boy. If you consider it against all the other Reverse-harem mangas, then the artwork is just standard. Every once in a while, a character may stand out but it’s hard for them to stand out when they look like many other characters in other mangas. As for in the manga, you can tell the characters apart except for Dee and Dum at times but they are twins. The other characters around them don’t have faces and so it really helps the main characters stand out. It was a interesting way of playing it off.

So Heart no Kuni no Alice , or as some people call it , Alice in the country of hearts So personally , this is a probably over used idea for Alice in Wonderland but I believe Quinrose did a pretty good job with this one. This isn't really like all the other Alice in Wonderland mangas we've all seen I believe. Or well , what I've seen really ;; But this manga is pretty much overall enjoyable with all the funny characters , the plot line , the art , and it's just really fun to enjoy it. So for the story you basically got Alice talkingto her sister and her sister reads her a book about Alice in Wonderland , and we all know where that leads too. Alice sees the white rabbit , but Alice just thinks it's her imagination and goes back to sleep but then suddenly, the rabbit turns into a hot looking guy which makes everyone question the world including Alice. Then it doesn't help much when the guy just throws her down into the rabbit hole and falls down with her. And then they appear in wonderland but this sort of wonderland is very odd seeing how it's all a game and everyone has to play by certain rules. And of course , this game is never really explained so we all have to sit there and think what this game is. Of course though , along the way some parts of the rules are explained a little bit and why some people have faces and others don't but other than that , they still don't explain much of it. We just know that each of the characters that Alice meets that has faces each partake in some role of the game and are important people. The art of this manga was actually pretty good. Especially when we got to a weird dream world where a person named Nightmare exists at. Sure it was super creative but this is a dream world basically , not all of them are going to be super fancy , rainbow flowers stuff so I really liked how they made the dream world into. The characters were all very funny and enjoyable. I absolutely adored them all , except for one person. Which is the Mad Hatter Blood Dupre. Sure , people can get angry at me all they want for not like him , but I seriously do not care I did not like him at all. And it frustrates me more that people actually liked him with Alice , and it makes me wonder if people actually see that he is a jackwagon who wants to / kill / Alice when she begins to bore him. And he actually choked her one time too lets not forget that everyone. Even though I did actually like him a little bit in the beginning I still just grew to dislike him. There was just some things about him I really hated and which those who are new to reading this manga , will have to find out yourselves if you ever decide to read the manga. But other then him , all the characters are pretty unique and funny in their own way. Personally , I love how they made the Queen of Hearts. She is completely different from the original Queen of Hearts that we always see so it was a pretty nice change. Then you basically just have all the other characters from Alice in Wonderland in Heart no Kuni no Alice just in human forms. Cheshire the cat , the caterpillar , white rabbit , queen of hearts , etc etc etc. They are all there , and Quinrose did a good job mixing them all together getting a pretty good decent good story out of it. Basically though , through out the whole time I was a bit iffy on this manga. Reason being , before this came out to be a manga , it was a dating sims game that many people know of and thats basically how this manga got kind of popular because those who knew of the game , decided to go read the manga and I guess the word got spread around about the manga that way not too all sure about it all. But , you always have to be careful though when it comes to these things when you got a girl with a bunch of men she can be paired up with if you turn it into a manga. You might just piss off so many fans if you pair her up with any of the guys in the manga since in the game you pair her up with anyone and everyone always has the one person they always like that person with. Like with Alice for example , not everyone likes her with Blood , and like her with say , Julius. Quinrose can easily make so many of their fans get angry for pairing her up with Blood in the manga. Which they sort of did in the end of the manga , they paired her up with someone , which I will not say who , if you want to figure out you'll have to go read the manga. But overall , the whole story was pretty exciting and good. And I suggest that any lovers of Alice in Wonderland should read this manga , and expect to find a whole lot of fun and enjoyment with it. The whole manga basically doesn't get boring theres always something going on so I'm pretty sure everyone will enjoy it unless your just not a fan of Alice in Wonderland than yea aha ;; anyway , I hope you all find my review helpful and enjoying thank you for reading c :