Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz

Bishounenized desecration of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: The "I swear this isn't an initial stage of a furry fetish" boogaloo Let me start with saying that I expected worse. Maybe I got worn down by the continuous one-shot spin-offs that don't even really try, but just the fact that there is something resembling a storyline in the Cheshire spin-off alone is already an improvement. Well, it's most likely mainly because of the larger volume count, but it's certainly something. What's more, the mafia setting that's usually only used to excuse the violent nature of the cast is even being used as part of the plot,which is also nice. The cast is pretty much the same as with the other manga entries, except for one difference - the main love interest - Boris. This time said main is written better than just 1) being bishounen 2) being Wonderland-tier trigger happy. The character could almost be said to be an actual person instead of just an automated dakimakura. Alice also focuses on that one character the spin-off is about instead of generally flirting around in one for all style like in the previous spin-offs. Still, I keep hearing that she's supposed to be something else than just a typical otoge protagonist. I haven't played the games and I don't plan to, so I can only confirm that her manga counterpart certainly isn't norm-breaking. The potential of the Wonderland setting is still criminally underused, with the craziest event in the whole manga being a flying whale (if we don't count the concept of "moving" that is used to explain the change of the setting) and that is some weak sauce. The "wackiness" of the characters also amounts pretty much to just pulling out weapons as their primary response to problems. "Wonderland" is just a label used to catch an attention, not really as an actual concept. Still, Cheshire Cat Waltz is somehow more enjoyable read then most of the manga parts of the franchise, especially considering the average quality of works of this genre.