Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

QuinRose (Adapter), Hoshino Soumei (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2010

"Alice in the Country of Hearts Volume 1".

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: TokyoPop (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1427817693
• ISBN-13: 978-1427817693
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All the cute boys love Alice, February 18, 2010

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

Alice Liddell (the fictional one) is a more popular character in Japan than in the United States. Sure, everyone knows Alice in Wonderland in both countries but some how the frilly dress and blonde hair seems to appeal to the Japanese sensibilities a bit more. Japan has produced many of their own adaptations of the famous character, including a 1983-84 anime TV series and numerous manga interpretations like "Alice 19th," "Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo" and the adult-orientated Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland.

This adaptation, "Alice in the Country of Hearts" (a direct translation of the Japanese title "Hato no kuni no Alisu") began life as an otome "dating sim" game which is a gender-reversal of the popular harem-manga featuring one female protagonist with a host of male suitors. As you can guess, Alice is the girl-in-question here and all of the characters of Wonderland have been transformed into beautiful men to fawn over her.

The story begins in the typical way, with Alice Liddell meeting a white rabbit on the banks of a river. There the similarities end, however, as the white rabbit transforms into the man Peter White, who throws Alice over his shoulder and jumps down the rabbit hole, then forces a magic potion into her mouth in the form of a stolen kiss. Peter lets Alice know that the game has thus begun, a game with certain rules that she must follow if she ever wants to get home again. She takes the empty vial that contained the potion, and is told that it will slowly fill up again as she meets people in Wonderland, and when the bottle has been refilled she can go home. From there, her adventures truly begin.

Wonderland, in this case, is split into three kingdoms all of which are at war with each other. Blood Dupre (the Mad Hatter) is a dashing leader of the Mafia who controls one third of Wonderland. Vivaldi, The Queen of Hearts, controls another third, and the final third is an amusement park ruled by a man named Mary Gowland. In the middle of the three territories is a neutral zone in the form of a watchtower guarded by the clockmaker Julius Monrey, and another random player enters Alice's dreams at night and calls himself Nightmare. Each of the familiar Wonderland characters fall into one of these camps, such as Boris (The Cheshire Cat), Elliot March (the March Hare) and the Gatekeepers for the Hatter (Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum). Most of these characters have been recast as handsome young men who vie for Alice's affection.

In true Wonderland fashion, many elements of the story do not make much sense, although I suspect that future volumes will make them clear. The characters seem to be excessively violent, and they themselves do not feel that life has much value. All the characters are split into either "those with duties" who have names and faces, and the remainder of the cast who lack those attributes and fade into clocks after they have been killed. There are definitely darker elements here at play that are only hinted at.

One of the elements I really liked about "Alice in the Country of Hearts" was the suggestion that Alice is creating the fantasy world from her subconscious, and that the rules set are her own. She is forced to confront the idea that secretly she WANTS to wear frilly, girly clothes and to be admired by a horde of beautiful men, even if that goes against her conscious thoughts. Not too much is revealed in this first volume, but enough of the idea is presented to bring interest to the characters.

Hoshino Soumei has done a good job adapting QuinRose's original dating sim story, and the art looks lovely as well. I am usually not too much of a fan of the "bishonen" beautiful boy character, but Hoshino has given all of her guys an element of danger. They fall in love with Alice because they are compelled to do so by the rules of the game, but some resent the attraction they feel to her.

There have been some complaints about the translation for "Alice in the Country of Hearts," and they are valid. Peter White was given an odd rhyming scheme for some of this dialog that doesn't exist in the original, perhaps to give the character a more "Wonderland feel." Tweedle Dee and Teedle Dum refer to Alice as "lady" in an attempt to get across the general feel of the Japanese word "onee san" but it comes across as awkward. Probably the biggest problem is the character Mary Gowland, who in Japanese has a name that is a pun for Merry-go-Round. I would have made the pun more obvious, calling him "Mary Goround" or something like that, but "Gowland" just doesn't cut it.

All in all "Alice in the Country of Hearts" was not amazing, but an enjoyable interpretation fo Alice and the Wonderland world, and I am looking forward to volume two.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Down the hole, February 14, 2010

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

Imagine Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"... except that Wonderland is a big game, it's filled with beautiful young men, and Alice is quite a bit smarter. "Alice in the Country of Hearts Volume 1" has some amusing twists on the usual "Alice" story, but it's also rather sparse on characterization and the plot is totally jumbled. It has promise, but the first volume is underwhelming.

While napping in the garden, Alice Liddell is kidnapped by a white-haired man with bunny ears, who then leaps down a giant gaping hole with her.

When she wakes up, she's in a bizarre land filled with behatted Mafia dons, bloodthirsty twins and a power struggle between the Mafia, the Queen of Hearts, and a guy called Gowland. And even worse, because of the bunny-eared Peter White, she is now enmeshed in an game -- and unless she plays through it, she can't possibly go home.

As she tries to find a way to handle her predicament, Alice stumbles across an entire troop of bishies -- unpredictable rabbit-eared men, eye-patched incubi, cat-eared punks, suave Mafia dons, and a cute knight with no sense of direction. Her only chance of getting back is to encounter as many people as possible.... but Wonderland has its own dangers along the way, such as strange shadows and secrets.

I love twisted retellings of classic stories, and frankly "Alice in Wonderland" with blood and bishies sounds like a pretty cool idea. The artwork is absolutely lovely (particularly the haunting, hallucinatory first glimpses of Wonderland and it has plenty of humorous pokes at the naivete of the original Alice (such as "Country of Heart's" Alice questioning why she should drink a weird potion given to her by a strange man).

Unfortunately, it's also completely fragmented -- we have long periods of infodumping about Wonderland, sprinkled with out-of-the-blue character introductions and the occasional shooting. It's all rather confusing and difficult to follow at times -- and frankly the whole idea of everyone falling in love with Alice just because she's from another world is pretty contrived.

Fortunately, Alice is also a fairly likable little heroine -- she's fairly sensible and pleasant, and you can see why she'd be worried about whether this entire world reflects her. However, almost everyone else isn't too fleshed out -- the amoral and mysterious Peter White and the oblique Julius are interesting, but most of the other bishies are kind of interchangeable. And the Queen of Hearts... well, she could be replaced by a tape recorder.

It's a fascinating concept with some lovely art, but "Alice in the Country of Hearts" feels like a puzzle that hasn't been solved yet -- you're just left staring at a tangled, incomprehensible story.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Come on. Impress me., February 5, 2010

By 

F. Caldwell "mixedpaint" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

It doesn't say anywhere on the book but apparently this manga is based off of a game. News to me. Not being familiar with the game I can't comment on that. I am, however a big fan of Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass which is why I picked this up in the first place. And being a big fan, anything Alice related gets at least 2 stars on principle alone.

Volume 1 of Alice in the Country of Hearts starts very much like any other Alice story. She's in the garden with her elder sister, falls asleep, and spots a white rabbit. This is where it veers off from tradition. She doesn't follow the rabbit so he loses his patience, picks her up, and jumps down the rabbit hole with her. When they land, the White Rabbit tells Alice he loves her and forces her to drink a special "medicine." He then walks out leaving her on her own. From there Alice wanders out into Wonderland. Along the way she meets the rest of the cast of characters and is introduced to the war going on in Wonderland. There are plenty of strange goings on, not the least of which is the fact that everyone in Wonderland is (or will be) in love with Alice apparently.

The book quickly turns into a game of "guess the original character." Peter White (the White Rabbit) is obvious as is the Queen of Hearts, who also goes by the name Vivaldi. Alice also meets Blood Dupre (the Mad Hatter), the gatekeepers of the Hatter estate (Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum), Elliot March (the March Hare), Ace (a card from Heart Castle), and Boris (the Cheshire Cat unless I'm very much mistaken). New characters are Julius Monrey, the owner of the clock tower; Nightmare, a dream demon; and Mary Gowland, who has issues with his name because it sounds like Merry-Go-Round. Unfortunately the joke works better in Japanese than English. Oh well. For the record, he's the manager of the amusement park which is at war with the Hatters.

By the end of volume 1, I can't say if I was pleased or not. I'm fine with changing up the Alice story but so far there just aren't enough pieces in the plot to really grab me. It's a reverse harem scenario which is fun. The almost completely male cast is certainly nice to look at and the art overall is wonderful. Plot-wise though the story just doesn't make much sense yet. Everything is too disconnected. That was fine for the original Alice (since that was largely the point) but this manga is obviously aiming for something else entirely. I couldn't help wondering why everyone seemed so friendly if they were supposedly at war. Sure they're all supposed to be insane but, honestly, they didn't seem like it. They were quite logical otherwise. Peter White (Rabbit) also had the annoying tendency to speak in rhyme for a few lines and then stop. The rhyming would have been alright if it had just been consistent. I also noticed a few bits of dialogue that were either poorly written or poorly translated. They suddenly started talking in the most awkward way.

I'll stick around for Volume 2 but mostly for the art and the fact that it's Alice. So far there's not enough in the story to keep me hooked. I hope that the plot has more going for it than just a reverse harem because that gets old pretty fast. I also hope that the Dormouse and the Caterpillar will show. The Duchess would be excellent but I doubt she'll make it in, what with being a woman and all. The character list seems a little sparse without them all. So here's hoping that Alice in the Country of Hearts has a few tricks up its sleeve. It seems like it might and I really want to like this manga. I don't expect it to be as witty as the original Alice but I do expect it to be a little clever and entertaining. For now I'll give it 3.5 stars (rounded down) and cross my fingers.