Alice in the Country of Hearts

This manga is based on a popular Japanese dating sim game where, for once, the males were in love with the same female. Alice goes to sleep and the white rabbit appears, kidnaps her, and jumps down a rabbit hole, ending up in Wonderland.

It's not the same Wonderland as earlier, though. This one is in the midst of a war. The main characters include:

Blood Dupree, leader of the Hatters faction, and mafia boss.

Peter White, the rabbit, works for the Queen of Hearts. He's totally in love with Alice and will kill anyone who gets in his way.

Elliott March (the March Hare) is dedicated to working with Blood Dupree.

Tweedle Dum and Dee, work with Blood Dupree as guards at the gates of his mansion. Also called the Bloody Twins.

Vivaldi; the Queen of Hearts.

Ace, a totally new character, works for Vivaldi as a knight.

Julius Monrey: the keeper of time, lives in an area that is totally neutral in the on-going wars. It seems people in Wonderland die but can, sort of, resurrect.

Mary Gowland: loosely based on The Duchess, he's the owner of the Amusement Park. Sings and plays absolutely horribly.

Nightmare: another new character, seems to be quite sickly. Carries no weapons.

Boris; this is the manga's version of the Cheshire Cat. He lives in the Amusement Park area.

Other characters are introduced as the manga series continues.

As for the first novel, Alice is sure that everything that is happening to her in Wonderland is nothing but a dream. She has a vial that fills itself when she meets new people, and supposedly when the vile is full she can leave.

Alice sees beings die and then sees some black figures around them. She finds out they are called 'afterimages' and they clean up after someone dies and take the clock the leave behind so they can be reborn again.

Most of this first volume, naturally, is spent introducing the situation and the main characters. It's a very strange twist on the original story but so far is quite interesting.

Volume 2 starts off with Alice attending a tea party. She plays with Elliott's rabbit ears. She also likes books, and Blood supposedly has lots of them. The White Rabbit/Peter White says he brought Alice to Wonderland so she could be happy.

Peter White still seems totally obsessed with Alice. He also seems to love shooting off his gun. Ace and Peter get into a fight over Alice. Ace is jealous of Alice because she has a real heart, not a clock heart like those in Wonderland have.

Apparently in Wonderland when beings die they leave their clock-heart behind. This is taken by Ace and/or the afterimages who then deliver the clocks to Julius so he can fix them. The person is then reincarnated, basically, although it's like a clone and not a complete total duplicate (with memories) of the original.

This seems to have brought about a blaise attitude towards death in Wonderland since people are not that worried about killing or being killed, thus increasing the amount of violence there.

Boris (the Cheshire Cat, basically), gets injured and Alice is concerned about him.

Volume 3: Basically, not much happens in any of this volume. It's obvious that Peter has strong feelings for Alice (and he appears in his total rabbit form a lot in this volume), and it's quite obvious that Wonderland is a violent place with little concern for death. Beyond that, though, it's just more of the same of the first two volumes.

Volume 4: In this volume there is also an indication that there is something in Alice's past that ties in directly to something in this version of Wonderland.

Volume 5: Boris talks about going to a ball but Alice says she doesn't know how to dance. He teaches her (with various amounts of damage to his feet.) Alice doesn't really want to go. She's given a magical dress and ends up going after all.

She ends up dancing with the queen, The rabbit is in love with Alice but he may not be the only one. The story keeps its cuteness.

(There is a sixth volume but I don't have it yet.)

Main Index

Main Alice in Wonderland index page