Heart no Kuni no Alice: Koisuru Ibara no Meikyuu

Bishounenized desecration of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: The Sleeping Beauty rip-off boogaloo

Alice in the Country of Hearts: Love Labyrinth of Thorns can be perfectly fine described with only one word. "Bland". But since I doubt that would be enough of an explanation for a review, I'll try to expand on that a little more.

First, the art. It's different than most of Alice manga adaptation. It has an updated, even more cliché look. It's simple, uninteresting and meh. Some character designs also underwent a bit of change, mainly Alice who now looks like she's 14 years old. Which changes the context of the story by a considerable amount. Well, not like's she's canonically younger in this particular spin-off, but she certainly looks like it and age isn't stated anywhere in this book. The rest of the cast also looks like their "softer" versions.

As with the art, the characters also step out of their regular versions and act out of character, even for a manga version. Especially Nightmare, usually portrayed as a goofy and especially lazy person now takes the role of a shadow master that sets everything in motion. I don't really see why the regular Nightmare would ever bother with that.

The story itself is shallow, cliché and all around uninteresting, and you're better off reading the Alice in the Country of Hearts: The Clockmaker's Story manga instead.

In one sentence: What is with this OOC-ness?

Story and Characters: 2 (Dreadful)

I'm seriously not trying to be mean, but I feel like I just read an average fanfiction with characters that just resemble the Heart no kuni no Alice ones. Yes, Julius is stubborn and pessimistic but he would never push his reponsabilities regarding Alice onto somebody else or even less try to make her be overly-depedant of him, Ace usually tends to either make me daw or creep the hell out of me, but in this case he did none, he was just used as plot device to be there at the right time at the right moment and that was his whole point and then Nightmare, don't get me started on Nightmare, he can often be a deus ex machina but he'd never meddle to this point, it's not his issue to solve, he's supposed to just be there to clear Alice's thoughts when she's confused and yet he became this Jigsaw-like "let's play a game" type of mastermind. Just whut? lol Alice on the other hand, while she did keep her energy, she threw her whole doubts and guilt over the life she left behind out the window because Julius somehow became her Prince Charming. Yes, that Alice, that Alice that stated would have liked to push Prince Charming off his horse, that Alice; her whole issues got solved because lovuh! All hail, lovuh! That was never the case with Alice in other volumes that I read, of course, which is why I'm particularly salty.

Art: 7

It's the best part of the whole volume. They are pretty cute, at times they look weird in certain angles, but it's ok.

Overall: 3

I was horrified by it. I felt the story and the characters horribly butchered into a shallow fairytale fantasy. I really have no issue with different interpretations, I don't expect them to be all the same or religiously follow the game, but it was even more shocking when I learnt that the author actually played and loves the game and I felt like she just brought the resemblance of the characters out and made a fanfiction. It's disappointing...

At this point, in regards to Julius, i won't tell you to not read this, but I really recommend you the Anniversary no Kuni no Alice- The Clockmaker volume by Mamenosuke Fujimaru instead which felt the closest to the Julius that I know and loved from the game. I am really not biased towards this author, but it seems to me that she does better to bring out the story and the characters and she does it good, not always, but most of the time she does.