Friday, June 14, 2013

Heart no Kumi no Alice



~Konnichiwa
Today on this wonderful Friday afternoon, I will be reviewing Alice in the Country of Hearts, also known as Heart no Kumi no Alice written by QuinRose and art by Hoshino Soumei. The manga is based on a girly, but surprisingly bloody otome game, which alludes to Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Hearts: Ace; Alice; Peter; Viva
Alice Liddell is a young maiden who is overshadowed by her older sister’s grace and beauty, her ex-boyfriend even dumped her because he fell in love with her. Despite this, she loves her sister very much. After her mother died, her father buried himself in work and her younger sister called her a monster for not crying at the funeral, but her older sister always loved and cared for her. Because of this, she is Alice’s most precious person. Then one day, while she’s trying to take a nice nap in her garden, she’s kidnapped unwillingly by a mysterious man with white hair, red eyes, and white rabbit ears and is taken to Wonderland. Once they arrive, he forces her to drink a medicine. He introduces himself as Peter White and  Castle of 
explains that whoever drinks this medicine, must participate in the game, therefore she can’t leave. After he leaves, she meets Julius, a clock repairer, who tells her the one and only way she might be able to return to her world; he gives her the empty vile the medicine had been in and tells her she needs to interact and spend time with the strange people in Wonderland, this will slowly refill the vile. Once it’s full, she needs to drinks it and should be able to return to her world. Thus Alice begins exploring this Wonderland and soon learns that the world is split into various countries and she is currently in the Country of Hearts. The country is divided into three main territories:

The Castles of Hearts: Ruled by the Queen of Hearts Vivaldi with the assistance of Prime Minister Peter White and Knight of Hearts Ace.


Amusement Park: Boris; Alice; Julius; Gowland

Then there is the Hatter Mansion, headquarters of Wonderland’s mafia dubbed “The Hatters”. The leader is Blood Dupre. There also lives his second-in-command Eliot March and the gatekeepers Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Lastly there is the Amusement Park, run by Duke Mary Gowland with the help from the energetic Cheshire Cat, also known as Boris.
All three territories are at war with each other, the only neutral area being the Clock Tower Plaza where Julius lives. Every character in these 3 regions have a role in the game. Everyone else in Wonderland is faceless, background characters in this game. If one of the role players die, Wonderland takes one of these faceless characters to replace them, so that the game can continue.
Overall I really enjoyed watching Alice interact with all these different characters and learning more and more about how Wonderland and this game works. The art is also quite nice, a lot of inking was done for thick black lines and details. I suppose its rather unique since its based off the art done for a otome game.
Hatter Mansion: Elliot; Alice; Blood; Dee and Dum

The characters are all interesting, Alice being very outspoken and sometimes rather cynical, and her interactions with the citizens of and her adventures in the Country of Hearts are really entertaining, especially seeing how Alice, as an outsider, affects them. There’s just one thing that bothers me: how Alice’s treats Peter. I understand that Peter made a horrible first impression on her, being the one that kidnapped her, but 2 other characters attempted to kill her and she forgave them! Peter is madly in love with Alice and brought her to Wonderland so that she could be happy; he didn’t care about her returning his feelings, he just wanted to protect Alice’s happiness. But he can’t help but feel hurt as he watches Alice get along with everyone else, expect him. It makes me so sad, he loves her so much and would do anything for her, but Alice doesn’t seem to understand how serious he is. I suppose you’re wondering how Peter even fell in love with Alice,

being from separate worlds. Well it’s implied that he’s somehow connected to Alice’s older sister and he once tells her that if she tried really hard, she’d remember him and how important he was to her. She almost remembers him, but the task cause her a great deal of pain so Peter tells her to stop, that it’s okay if she doesn’t remember. My guess is that after her mother’s death, Alice spent her days with her sister and Peter and they were both precious to her. But that’s just my guess, and I really don’t have a lot of evidence to back it up either. Well besides poor Peter, the manga is a great read and I recommend it. There’s also a movie out, which I’m hoping to watch and review soon. Bye-Bye


~Nadeshiko-chan

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