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A review by nmcannon
Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 01 by QuinRose
3.0
Back when I was, oh, eighteen or so, I embarked on an Alice in Wonderland kick. I read the original books, thumbed through a few retelling novels, and then systematically went through almost every single manga or comic with the word "Alice" in the title. Are You Alice?, Gakuen Alice, Alice of Human Sacrifice; the fanwork When Curiosity Met Insanity: I devoured those. Gakuen Alice came close, but by far the most engrossing Alice title was Heart no Kuni no Alice, or Alice in the Country of Hearts in English. A few weeks ago, I fell ill and was in need of a comfort read. I don't know what brain glitch reminded me of this series, but the old websites are still there and they distracted me from the pain almost too well.
Fair warning that I'm going to talk about the whole series in this review because (a)I read these so fast it's all a blur, (b)manga volumes are so bite-sized that reviewing each one is a pain, and (c)I like it when other manga reviewers do the whole series in one go, so I know more what I'm getting into from the start.
In 2007, Japanese game developer Quin Rose released Heart no Kuni no Alice as a visual novel game for the PC. Classified as an otome or "maiden" game with a reverse-harem (the woman player character is surrounded by men who compete for her affection), the story is not a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I honest-to-god do not know why the marketing would use the word "retelling" at all. It's false advertisement. The Alice in the Country of... series is more an AU fanfiction where characters and motifs from Lewis Carroll's works have been put in a very violent blender.
Anyway, the manga is an adaptation of the game, which is why it may seem a little screwy and bizarrely translated. The plot is the White Rabbit aka Peter White, has kidnapped an adult Alice and taken her to Wonderland. That's right: she didn't want to go in the first place. The adult Alice is a lovely, drawn out extrapolation of Carroll's original child. She is a smart, snarky explorer, driven by curiosity. A general cynicism about romantic love hides a big empathetic heart and a woman who wants to do good by her family. When Peter kidnaps her, he proclaims his love and forces her (via gross kiss) to drink the Medicine of Heart. Drinking this vial of unknown liquid enters Alice into a "game" of Wonderland. Her game seems simple enough. As she interacts and bonds with the residents of Wonderland, the vial will refill. When the vial is full, she can choose to either return home or stay in Wonderland. Easy peasy, right?
Wellllll, it's not, because this Wonderland is a Game of Thrones-esque warzone, except nobody ever wins and when someone dies, they're instantly reincarnated (think how the Doctor regenerates). The Hatter Mafia, the Castle of Hearts, and the Amusement Park are at constant war, and only the foreboding Clocktower remains neutral. "Role-holder" characters have faces; everyone else does not. Ghostly afterimages haunt the forest between territories. It's a fun, terrifying world out there, and it's full of hot hot tatter tot people who will literally fight to the death for Alice's smile.
All that might sound extreme because it is. What engrossed me about the series is not the romance. No one in their right mind should date a majority of these characters. No, no, I love the meta about otome games. Tropes of these games are played out to the extreme. Men don't just argue over Alice: they shoot, maim, and murder each other over her. The non-love interest characters don't just fade into the background: they literally have no faces and aren't treated like people. The tsundere (cold outside hides warm inside) is hated by everyone and deals with the dead. The stalker loves Alice to the exclusion of everyone else. You want to date a monarch? You can date the Queen of Hearts, the most bloodthirsty queen in fiction. There's animal ears and smiles hiding men who routinely execute citizens. There's no sugar-coating regarding the mafia. There's twins, and Alice is most likely to die if she dates them.
"Wow, Natalie," you're probably thinking, "that's effed up. How could you enjoy that?" Well, I get to critique tropes and I love doing that. As Alice finds out about the world, there's even more meta about games and how we use them. Games provide great escapism, but are we using that to heal our traumas, or avoid them? Games aren't living stories, per se. They're frozen in one time. Can that truly allow for personal growth? Should it? How do the characters feel, when the player comes and interrupts routines they've relied on since they popped into existence? What value does life have in a video game, when characters can re-spawn? Alice in the Country of Hearts asks these questions and there's no clear answers.
That's good, gooey story stuff that I adore as a writer and reader. The reason for only 3 stars is I wanted the series to go farther and full-on condemn the toxicity of the tropes. They play it too straight. If we're naming wishes, I would love more female characters. Right now there's only Queen Vivaldi and Alice. If you want more thinky thoughts about the series, figure out reading order, or revel in any number of other goodies, I heartily recommend Vocaotome's Alice Resources: https://vocaotome.tumblr.com/alice-resources.
And since no review of Alice in the Country of Hearts is complete without proclaiming favs, my favorite is Julius Monrey, the workaholic clockmaker. I also like Gray, Nightmare, Elliot, and Boris. I really can't stand the twins, Peter, or Ace. Blood is on thin ice. Just as a reminder to myself, for Julius shenanigans, the reading order is: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Clockmaker's Story (multi) or Labyrinth of Thorns in Love (multi), and finishing with Wonderful Twin World: Love, Storms, and Flower Clocks. Besides the Theatrical Anthology one-shot, there's no more Julius romance because fans don't like beautiful, long-haired grumps for some reason.
Fair warning that I'm going to talk about the whole series in this review because (a)I read these so fast it's all a blur, (b)manga volumes are so bite-sized that reviewing each one is a pain, and (c)I like it when other manga reviewers do the whole series in one go, so I know more what I'm getting into from the start.
In 2007, Japanese game developer Quin Rose released Heart no Kuni no Alice as a visual novel game for the PC. Classified as an otome or "maiden" game with a reverse-harem (the woman player character is surrounded by men who compete for her affection), the story is not a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I honest-to-god do not know why the marketing would use the word "retelling" at all. It's false advertisement. The Alice in the Country of... series is more an AU fanfiction where characters and motifs from Lewis Carroll's works have been put in a very violent blender.
Anyway, the manga is an adaptation of the game, which is why it may seem a little screwy and bizarrely translated. The plot is the White Rabbit aka Peter White, has kidnapped an adult Alice and taken her to Wonderland. That's right: she didn't want to go in the first place. The adult Alice is a lovely, drawn out extrapolation of Carroll's original child. She is a smart, snarky explorer, driven by curiosity. A general cynicism about romantic love hides a big empathetic heart and a woman who wants to do good by her family. When Peter kidnaps her, he proclaims his love and forces her (via gross kiss) to drink the Medicine of Heart. Drinking this vial of unknown liquid enters Alice into a "game" of Wonderland. Her game seems simple enough. As she interacts and bonds with the residents of Wonderland, the vial will refill. When the vial is full, she can choose to either return home or stay in Wonderland. Easy peasy, right?
Wellllll, it's not, because this Wonderland is a Game of Thrones-esque warzone, except nobody ever wins and when someone dies, they're instantly reincarnated (think how the Doctor regenerates). The Hatter Mafia, the Castle of Hearts, and the Amusement Park are at constant war, and only the foreboding Clocktower remains neutral. "Role-holder" characters have faces; everyone else does not. Ghostly afterimages haunt the forest between territories. It's a fun, terrifying world out there, and it's full of hot hot tatter tot people who will literally fight to the death for Alice's smile.
All that might sound extreme because it is. What engrossed me about the series is not the romance. No one in their right mind should date a majority of these characters. No, no, I love the meta about otome games. Tropes of these games are played out to the extreme. Men don't just argue over Alice: they shoot, maim, and murder each other over her. The non-love interest characters don't just fade into the background: they literally have no faces and aren't treated like people. The tsundere (cold outside hides warm inside) is hated by everyone and deals with the dead. The stalker loves Alice to the exclusion of everyone else. You want to date a monarch? You can date the Queen of Hearts, the most bloodthirsty queen in fiction. There's animal ears and smiles hiding men who routinely execute citizens. There's no sugar-coating regarding the mafia. There's twins, and Alice is most likely to die if she dates them.
"Wow, Natalie," you're probably thinking, "that's effed up. How could you enjoy that?" Well, I get to critique tropes and I love doing that. As Alice finds out about the world, there's even more meta about games and how we use them. Games provide great escapism, but are we using that to heal our traumas, or avoid them? Games aren't living stories, per se. They're frozen in one time. Can that truly allow for personal growth? Should it? How do the characters feel, when the player comes and interrupts routines they've relied on since they popped into existence? What value does life have in a video game, when characters can re-spawn? Alice in the Country of Hearts asks these questions and there's no clear answers.
That's good, gooey story stuff that I adore as a writer and reader. The reason for only 3 stars is I wanted the series to go farther and full-on condemn the toxicity of the tropes. They play it too straight. If we're naming wishes, I would love more female characters. Right now there's only Queen Vivaldi and Alice. If you want more thinky thoughts about the series, figure out reading order, or revel in any number of other goodies, I heartily recommend Vocaotome's Alice Resources: https://vocaotome.tumblr.com/alice-resources.
And since no review of Alice in the Country of Hearts is complete without proclaiming favs, my favorite is Julius Monrey, the workaholic clockmaker. I also like Gray, Nightmare, Elliot, and Boris. I really can't stand the twins, Peter, or Ace. Blood is on thin ice. Just as a reminder to myself, for Julius shenanigans, the reading order is: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Clockmaker's Story (multi) or Labyrinth of Thorns in Love (multi), and finishing with Wonderful Twin World: Love, Storms, and Flower Clocks. Besides the Theatrical Anthology one-shot, there's no more Julius romance because fans don't like beautiful, long-haired grumps for some reason.