Heart no Kuni no Alice: Wonderful Wonder World

Heart no Kuni no Alice... Where do I start. So, techniquely we have.. Alice, this Kingdom of hearts (whatever it's called –her dream world), absurdity (a lot of it) and yes a bunch of handsome men and rabbits surrounding the girl. Pretty funny for start. Funny and crazy.. There is, I think, ONE phrase in the film that probably describes it perfectly. "This is a circus", a faceless says. A circus indeed. If you are already familiar with the concept of Alice in Wonderland, then you already know that the story Lewis Carol fantasized, is quite ABSURD. Having read the original script and seen theanimated and live-action films featuring his story I have to admit there was not even one as close to craziness as this one.. And I thought I've seen quite a few in the anime world already.. I was probably wrong. :P As soon as the film started I found myself wondering what the hell was going on and at the same time laughing my ass off. I was lost. xD Admittedly, the story is a lot different from the original Alice in Wonderland, staying close only to the visual novel and manga (as I learned after some research), creating a whole new story and maintaining only the Therefore, we have: Alice who seems to be perfectly sane (in comparison to the original Alice whose imagination runs wilder that it should xD), the Hatter named Bloody Dupre who is more mysterious than mad (and very hot I have to confess), the Chesire cat Boris Airey who is like a visual kei singer, quite absurd (as he has to be) and quite fond of guns. On his first appearance we see him shine and admire his Kalashnikov automatic AK- 47. Oookay.. Imagine a little girl having to deal with that. Thank God, our Alice is not a little girl. She is old enough to deal with him. She is actually old enough to have an impact on men. What can I say... White Rabbit, Peter White, is to blame for everything. She didn't actually follow him into a hole and fell. He is the one that dragged her in?! He has an obvious likeness towards her. The moment she enters this crazy world he confesses his love for her and kisses her. (Go Usagi-san) Following them, a bunch of other characters appear. Nightmare Gottshalk who is based on the Caterpillar and is quite the devil's advocate, the Queen of this world named Vivaldi, a beautiful woman that also has a habit of ordering the beheading of others for ridiculous reasons and Julius Monrey a clockmaker and a very charming but cynical man who is supposed to represent Time. We also have the March Hare on the game, Elliot March, the Knave of Hearts, Ace as well as Tweedle Dee and Dum who suddenly grow up at some point and then return to being youngsters. (WTF xD :P) In general the film is pretty interesting. It gradually builds up the story and the background while the biggest question one may have is not why everything is so absurd, but who the bad guy is. Vivaldi seems to be kind deep inside since she cares for her little brother. Ace drops out of the game when he realizes he plays the ‘bad guy’ act. So.. who is the bad guy? This answer was given to me quite unexpectedly. Who would have imagined? And what exactly does it mean? It’s probably up to us to interpret it. Following the heart. Following the mind. What path should one choose? Decide between dream and reality. A huge decision. Gottshalk sarcastically says that it’s only a choice that will determine whether Alice lives or dies. Monrey, on the other hand, advises her not to rush it, because even if she doesn’t decide on her own, life will. No matter what the real answer is, Alice is attached to a vial… Her vial. Throughout the film this seems to be an important item. An item that will help her decide if she stays or not. In the end she loses it… Or not? What path should one choose? What does your heart say?

We all know the original story: Alice falls into a bunny hole and finds herself in Wonderland... There are hundreds of stories based on 'Alice in Wonderland', but from what I've seen, Heart no Kuni no Alice (together with Pandora Hearts) is one of the better ones. That was what I thought while reading the manga. I was pretty exited when I found out that they're making an movie. But perhaps my enthusiasm caused my disappointment. Let me say this: if you didn't read the manga or didn't play the game you're not going to understand the movie. There's almost no story at all in it.You don't get to see how Alice got to Wonderland and her relationships with other characters isn't shown. And if you didn't read the manga it is hard to get where this movie is going That is really a shame.... Because the characters are actually pretty awesome! But most of them hardly have any lines! For example Boris, Elliot and the Bloody Twins. In the manga they make me laugh all the time, but in the anime you're lucky if you see them just twice. This is really a shame. I really missed a plot in this movie. Then why is my rating still 7? Well...I loved to see these characters animated, especially Blood Dupre. The art was just beautiful! The music was also pretty nice. And actually I did enjoy this anime (even thought it was pretty chaotic). But don't expect too much from it and please read the manga before you watch the anime.

I feel like Heart no Kuni no Alice is the epitome of what being on drugs feels like. I've never read the manga (though I am curious to check it out), so I can only speak for this movie, but good god, what a mess. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of different parts of this, but the general feeling you get is that you find yourself constantly murmuring "what the fuck" under your breath as time passes and you feel like you've made no progress, nor have you learned anything. The beginning itself messes up your concept of time altogether, because itfeels like nothing ever really connects. I do have to give credit where it's due. The characters themselves aren't bad, I actually enjoyed how they were all quite darker than I initially expected. I can even say I enjoy the world that was created. I just feel like this should have been a series, not a movie, maybe then they would have had more time to explain things. But then again, if the goal was to make you feel as lost as Alice in Wonderland must have felt (not this Alice though), then they did an amazing job. At the end, I couldn't help but laugh at the whole experience. And I mean really giggle my heart out. I think this is the type of thing you need to watch with friends so you can poke fun at the whole experience (and some alcohol to make things even funnier will also do the trick). It's not bad, but it's not good either. I guess you could call it just another weird dream you had that you laugh about when you wake up.

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Студия

Продюсеры

Темы