Alice in the Country of Hearts: The Clockmaker’s Story

4 Replies

By Quin Rose and Mamenosuke Fujimaru, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Anniversary no Kuni no Alice – Tokeiya” by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

You would think that I would have run out of things to say about these volumes. Sometimes I have, when they’re particularly pointless – see last month’s batch of Bookshelf Briefs for my opinion of the Ace spinoff – but there always seem to be a few nuggets of interest to keep me going. It also helps that this volume focuses on one of my favorite of Alice’s romantic choices, Julius Monrey, the clockmaker. (In case you’re wondering about the ‘Anniversary’ thing in the Japanese title, it’s what they called the updated PS3 version of Alice in the Country of Hearts.)

clockmaker

The basic premise won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s read the previous spinoffs of this endless otome game series. Alice is trying to get away from an oppressive Peter White at Heart Castle, so she asks Julius if she can stay at the clocktower for a while. He agrees, and they gradually begin to open up to each other. As their relationship deepens, however, Alice has to not only deal with her own feelings, and the fact that her beloved is not the type to take the initiative, but also realize that Julius is hated by a large number of folks throughout Wonderland. Can she come to terms with what his job really entails? And what of her ever-present need to return to her sister?

Julius is a rarity in the set of Wonderland males that Alice runs into. He’s passive, introverted, and taciturn. He will happily stay in his tower for weeks, just working on clocks and sleeping when he remembers to. After several stories with Blood, or Ace, or the twins, or Eliot, or Boris, he feels like a breath of fresh air. He also causes Alice to need to be more proactive, rather than simply have the love interest be aggressive consistently until she gives in. There’s lots of adorable scenes here.

Also, he’s a mortician. Who can resurrect the dead. Only not really. Wonderland’s weird world, where everyone has clocks instead of hearts, and people can be ‘resurrected’ but aren’t quite the same people they were before, makes almost everyone uncomfortable, and that gets taken out on Julius. He’s clearly not doing this for fun, but it’s his role, and he regards it as necessary. But in a way, hanging out with him is keeping Alice in a constant shadow of death – something that I imagine makes Peter quite nervous, given what they’re all trying to make Alice not remember.

This one-shot also has an unusual ending in that, when Alice confesses her love, she chooses to remain in Wonderland and stop trying to return to her own world. Which she’s done before, but in this case the vial filled with people’s feelings that she carries around throughout the game is seen in the final shot to be shattered at her feet. It’s a striking image, showing that there’s no going back. I will admit I’m not entirely happy with the basic premise of the series being ‘if she remembers her traumatic past that makes it a bad end’, which seems to romanticize denial more than I’d like. Still, it does make for a good capper on what has been a fairly enjoyable, if slight, story.

There are also two Crimson Empire stories at the end. Luckily, they are shorter in length than they were in the Ace book. I say luckily as they were incredibly boring and tedious. Alas, you’re better off with Alice than Sheila.

Magi, Vol. 1

2 Replies

By Shinobu Ohtaka. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

I like Shonen Sunday series a lot, and I wish they sold better over here, as I’ve noted before. Therefore, when a really good Sunday series debuts, I get a bit excited. Of course, like most really good shonen series, you read the first volume and realize ther4e’s going to be several volumes of setup before we get to the really good stuff. This one is clearly in for the long haul. That said, the worldbuilding is fun, particularly if you are a fan (as I am) of the Arabian Nights stories, which are used as the basis for this series.

magi1

The boy on the cover is Aladdin, one of the two main heroes we meet in this volume (we also meet a third major character, but spoilers). Aladdin is very much cut from Luffy stock (the author notes she grew up in high school reading Jump, which sounds like it was right about when One Piece hit it big, so this isn’t surprising), being naive, upbeat, and generally happy-go-lucky. Unlike Luffy, he also seems to have a thing for busty women, though he’s young enough that no one really minds all that much. He carries a flute with a genie inside, which is generally weak/strong depending on how much food he’s eaten, and gives him most of his cool powers.

The other main lead is Alibaba, who is also another common shonen hero. He’s been slightly trampled down by life, and is trying to make it through this world by being a cynical money-grubber. Sadly, he has a good heart and can’t stand injustice, so that doesn’t work out very well for him. It’s not helping that he runs into Aladdin, who frequently serves as his conscience when Alibaba is trying to drown out its loud voice. Alibaba does NOT have a genie who can grant his every wish, so has to get by on street smarts and some basic fighting skills. He makes an excellent contrast with Aladdin.

After the two of them team up, we hit what seems to be the other main feature of this world, at least in this early part of the series: dungeon crawling. Yes, gamers will feel sympathetic here. There’s a twisty maze of passages (all alike) that have to be marked as ‘bad’ by previous dead explorers. There’s hideous creatures, and deadly traps. And there’s also, allegedly, buttloads of treasure. Treasure that everyone seems to have been waiting for a kid like Aladdin and his genie to show up so they can use him to acquire it. As such, we meet, right near the end, the lord of the territory Jamil and his faithful slave (so faithful she returns to him even after getting freed by Aladdin) Morgiana. It’s not entirely clear if this will be our first bad guy or if his ways will be changed by our heroes’ goodness and niceness. I suppose we must wait till Vol. 2 to find out.

Again, there’s not much that’s original here. But it’s fun! Likeable characters, a lot of fascinating Arabian tropes, some cool fights, and a quest that can go anywhere. Magi is a big hit in Japan, with an anime under its belt already, so I’m very pleased that Viz is taking a chance on it. If you like One Piece or Toriko, give Magi a try.

Bunny Drop, Vol. 9

6 Replies

By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

You may finally discuss Bunny Drop in the comments. But be polite.

And so here we are. I’d mentioned when reviewing the previous volume of Bunny Drop that there was a certain discomfort with where it was going, even if there wasn’t really anything objectionable besides the basic concept. That feeling continues and is magnified in this volume, which could almost be described as “Yeah, it went there.” It does its best to try to show the thought patterns of the people this decision impacts – though Rin, as always, is harder to read and understand than the others. But in the end, was this trip really necessary? Let’s find out.

bunnydrop9

For most of the volume, the basic conflict is not so much “Rin is in love with Daikichi” – that was dealt with by Vol. 8, mostly. The conflict is that Rin seems to be perfectly content to never deal with this and live in her happy family cocoon forever, denying her own feelings so that things can be the same. And big props to Kouki for pointing out how selfish this is. Honestly, Kouki’s development has probably been written better than Rin’s as this series has gone along – he’s still very much in love with her, and knows that love can’t happen, but is determined to be sure that Rin is happy. What she’s doing now isn’t getting her that way. So, because he’s that sort of person, he simply tells Daikichi everything.

Yumi Unita’s art has always been best when showing feelings of awkward discomfort, and really excels here in the middle part of the book, as Daikichi has to deal with Rin’s feelings, and Rin has to deal with Daikichi knowing about it, and – inevitably – the destruction of their cozy parent-child relationship. I liked that she ended up going to her mother – whose character development has also been good but is mostly off-screen. The mother, of course, is there to provide the “”out” the story needs – Rin isn’t really Soichiro’s daughter, she’s an adopted daughter. Meaning she and Daikichi aren’t related by blood. Which is fine, except, y’know, he’s still raised her as a parent since she was six. Sigh.

Daikichi says to Rin he’s going to wait two years, possibly thinking that Rin might get over this. But of course she does not. Through most of the post-timeskip series we’ve had trouble reading Rin, but right at the end it’s Daikichi who becomes difficult, as his acceptance of Rin’s love and agreement to marry her seems to come less from romantic feelings and more “well, a father can’t say no to his daughter”. Which provides all sorts of deeply wrong reactions. Particularly when Rin brings up children right at the end.

There is a certain odd dilemma with this series. When it began, everyone was enchanted by its warm and loving take on parenting and adopted families, and recommending it to libraries and such. Then the spoiler hit, and suddenly the entire fandom took a darker turn. The anime solved this problem by simply ignoring the timeskip altogether. The difficulty is that if readers had known the manga was going to go down this direction, I don’t think any of them would have bought the series. Most people still reading have a sense of “Well, better see this through to the end, since I’ve invested so much time in it.” Which is not what one really wants from a heartwarming manga series. Bunny Drop could be very well-written, and thoughtful, and have nice art, and I’ve analyzed it more than most other series. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as uncomfortable with an ending as I am with this one.

Of course, there’s Vol. 10 in April of next year. But I hear that’s mostly side-stories from when Rin was a kid. We shall see. (What, drop the series? Nah.)