Heart no Kuni no Alice: Wonderful Wonder World

I am a big fan of just about anything Alice in Wonderland related. I throughly enjoyed reading the Heart no Kuni no Alice magna, and was very excited to watch the movie adaptation. However, I was throughly disappointed.

There is essentially no plot whatsoever throughout the course of this film. The scenes jump quickly and offer little explanation to the events going on. There is also absolutely no character development, so if someone unfamiliar with the series were to watch, they would be utterly lost.

Also, the film wastes a lot of time on pointless scenes. For example, in the opening, they continually showed cards ... turning over on themselves, or in one particular scene, characters were in an elevator for ten minutes with little to no dialogue between them. Although these scenes may have been an attempt at artistic effect, they fell flat, particularly considering the rushed nature of the film (the pointless scenes easily could have been replaced with more plot-filled ones).

The art itself was quite nice, but cheesy music and cut scenes (such as the changing from day to night) ruined this for me slightly.

Overall, I did not find the Heart no Kuni no Alice film enjoyable to watch. Although it had a lot of potential, it did not deliver.

Heart no Kuni no Alice or Alice in the Country of Hearts originally began as a
series of Otomegames, a manga and most recently the movie this rewiew covers.

As you already might or might not have guessed, the source material of the story is Lewis Carroll´s famous novel Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland, a fact which is rather unimportant as the shared points can be counted with one hand.

But now to the actual movie and be warned [SPOILERS AHEAD].

It starts out with Alice (obviously) getting thrown into wonderland, but that´s
where the flick decides that a chronological approach of telling the story is way to simple ... and starts switching back and forth in the timeline via transitions that leave people who don´t know the general story already dumbfounded.

After this mess the viewer is finally given some exposition (15 MINUTES ALREADY WASTED!)Where we´re shown the most important fractions and the people behind it, well at least parts of it as THIS MOVIE DOESN´T EXPLAIN THAT 3 Of 4 FRACTIONS ARE SWORN ENEMIES AND THE 4. ( = the clocktower) IS NEUTRAL.
Furthermore manages to completely omit the relation between the cast which gets most obvious further into the flick as they then try to relate the Queen to the Hatter which is of course done badly which then RENDERS ANOTHER PART OF THE MOVIE MEANINGLESS.

But there are more issues:

As this originally was an otomegame, Alice could basically have a reversed harem, but in this movie some men outright tell her to get lost which makes her internal struggle of leaving Wonderland and staying there pointless.

At some points this flick actually manages to waste time!
The elevator sequences are way to long and, aside from some plot, just show how characters change the level they are currently on.

Somehow was the manga way better. It wasn´t that inconsistant.

[Funfact: This was supposed to be a OVA, which makes me wonder how messed up that would have been]

To sum it up:

- the visuals are okay but seem outdated
- the manga was way, way better and you should read it instead
- it is totally confusing for newcommers, (and everyone else)

+ all-star cast of Seiyuu, as you have probably heard all of them at some point

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.

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 the ... animated 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?

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 it ... feels 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.

I never read the manga and according to other reviews it was better, but I have to say I really liked it. It's a twist on the actual Alice in wonderland, they use guns here : ) and at the end make sure you watch after the credits there's an important scene after the end theme
The story moves really fast but as long as you're closely paying attention, it gets explained so you know what's going on but it's easy to miss something if you don't watch during the whole thing
Overall it was a great movie and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes Alice ... in wonderland, or even if you don't it's still a good action mystery brain twister

I adore the manga. But is it too much to ask for a basic plot and satisfying ending? For those of us who have read the manga, it's enjoyable to see it in action, but it's obviously confusing and jumps around the timeline constantly. If you want to watch it I suggest reading the manga first. It will still leave a lot of questions, but the character development is much better and the plot is a bit more clear. Watching the movie afterwards might even give the blurry parts of the manga more of an explanation.
Art: it was basic animation but well done. 6
Sound: ... no strong opinion. I'm indifferent about the sound 6
Character: it stuck to the manga for the most part when it came to how they acted. Each personality was pretty significant. They weren't as developed though.7
Enjoyment: 7 .I loved seeing the characters in the movie but I wasn't as satisfied with the overall movie plot. The ending was also not as clear. It barely followed the manga.

story: 3/10
Pathetic. there was literally no plot to it. it was girl gets thrown into a dream land (i think. i don't actually know cause it never made that very clear) with hot guys that either want to hurt her or want her.

Art: 10/10
to be honest its art was beautiful and the effects were done so well especially with a movie with lots of random transitioning. It was my favourite type of art style and the male characters were very well animated *cough cough.

Sound: 10/10 nice voice acting and sound effect. no complaints

Character: 3/10
Apart from the *cough cough well animated male characters, they had very ... bland personalities especially Alice, the main character... Almost as bland as the heroine from Amnesia. She literally had no personality except for being a wannabe tsundere.

Enjoyment: 5/10
Even though it was a plotless and bland movie it wasn't the worst I've ever seen yet it isn't very good either.

Overall: 5/10
Not horrible but not exactly good either. If you don't have an anime to watch cause you can't find one or just finished all of the ones you were planning on watching then this will probably be an okay fill in while you are looking for your next series.

I LOVED the Heart no Kuni no Alice manga and games. When I found this, I was super excited to see my favorite characters come to life. Well, it failed. For one thing, it had almost nothing to do with the manga or games. They don't even explain that THE TERRITORIES HATE EACH OTHER AND ARE AT WAR! Seriously, how could you leave that out? And anyway, there are a ton of pointless scenes that make no sense and the plot is non-existent. This movie had sooo much potential, but sadly failed at what it was trying to do. It's nearly impossible to follow this ... non-existent plot. I was very disappointed with this movie.

"Say, did you know... that every game has rules?'"
This is the main point of the movie, a constant game with rules that aren't even explained.
I've seen flashbacks, flash- forwards, dreams and hallucinations but there was one thing it didn't have: common sense.

When the producers made this I'm sure the whole way through they thought the same thing: "What just happened?" and honestly,... I'm still thinking that.

Story: 2
Like I said before, this story doesn't make any sense, there simply is no story, my advice is to read the manga first, because the base isn't even given in this movie.
(Although the manga and the movie ... are both different stories the base is the same so it should help you figure things out a bit more).

Art: 8
The art was the only thing that really urged me to watch further because even though it makes no sense everything is drawn so wonderfully and happy that you can't help but smile when seeing the surroundings of Heartland.

Sound: 5
I didn't hear anything extroadinary but the opening was intruiging, like the song says: "It's an enchanting trap with no escape in sight" the song says it all.

Character: 3
There is no backgroundstory of where she met them and barely what they are like, some even pop up in the middle of the story with no introduction while Alice seems to know them very well.
There are even characters who don't know what role they are playing (if you see Ace you'll know what I mean).

Enjoyment: 4
I have to give them some credit for the use of fitting seiyuu's and design but if you compare it to the story and character development itself I was more confused than awed.

Overall: 4
I've tried my best to keep up with this beautiful designed world but the plot simply wouldn't let me, maybe people who played the game will be the only ones who'll fully understand it,... on the other hand, I don't think anyone will understand this work of strange animation.

(may contain minor spoilers)
Oh well, I found this movie by chance and although the rating wasn't very high I decided to give it a shot so I came here with no idea what it would be about (excetp that, well, it had something to do with Alice in Wonderland).
To be fair it wasn't bad but could be much better if it was maybe a TV series?
Anyway, I'll explain in the topics so let's get started.

Story:
Hm... we start with a tough one for the movie. I found the story hard to follow because they didn't really set up a plot besides Alice trying to leave Heartland ... and then not? The beginning of the movie was specially hard to follow because the characters and scenes kept changing suddently so you have to watch a bit more to get explanation fro waht was going on. Moving on, I feel like the plot wasn't well written and the execution wasn't the best either. I might have missed something I don't know. 3 or 4/10

Art:
Now this is one of the strong points of the show. The character design is really nice and the colorfull atmosphere fits perfectly with the show. I specially enjoyed when the time of the day changed, the animation looked really good. The rest of the animation was OK, not bad but nothing special either. 8/10

Sound:
Another strong point of the show. I really like the opening and the ending of the movie. I'll be honest and say that I don't remember much of the rest of the OST but if I can't remember probably it's because it fit the scene although not memorable. The VA's fitted their characters well, nothing much to say about that. 8/10

Character:
Well, in an hour and half movie there isn't much time to character development but I'll say this: although the characters are the same from Alice in Wonderland, they are nothing alike xD There are guys belonging to a mafia group and Vivaldi is friendly with Alice... wtc.
For one thing I'm glad, Alice is inteligend and not helpless. Other than that, the rest of the characters aren't anything special. They have their moments alright but that along with the poor storytelling I couldn't care much for any of them. 5/10

Enjoyement:
Well, I guess all in all it was ok. I wasn't expecting much from the movie and at the beginning was a bit hard to concentrate in it but the rest of the movie was fine. 6/10

Overall, if the story and the characters themselves had been better explained I believe the story would be much better but I guess you can't do much if your're only makin an 1 hour 24 minutes movie. For all this I couldn't give it more than a 7 but it wasn't good enough so 6/10. Still, it's not bad so you may want to give it a try and take your own conclusions :)

I am a fan of Heart no Kuni no Alice: Wonderful Wonder World manga. I have been looking forward to the anime adaptation since I caught wind of its making....

....and I am thoroughly disappointed with the outcome.

The storyline and character/story development in the manga was solid and enjoyable. The anime is a total spastic, rushed mess of chaos. It starts off in the middle of a scene. Now, thats not a bad thing in itself, BUT in this case, it was. Even thought I have read the manga, I was totally confused. Where was it? What was happening? Why were Alice and the Twins being ... chased? It was never brought up again what was going on.

On top of this, we are introduced the characters in a list-like fashion, not as Alice meets them and learns about them.

Plot: nonexistant....wonderland is not supposed to make sense, yes, but its supposed to be rhyme with reason, ordered chaos, not just running around showing up here and there for no reason at all.

A few scenes ring true to what the manga storyline told, and had the rest of the manga been followed, this might have been more of a success.

Also, for some reason I do not understand, the makers decided to make this a movie, not an episodic show. An episodic show makes more sense for the storyline. Everything ended up being too rushed in the movie.

Overall, I don't recommend anyone watch this if they have NOT read the manga first. Absolutely nothing will make sense at all. For those that have read it, the movie still wont make that much sense, but it makes up a bit for the complete lack of character introductions and development.

I read the manga and loved it. When I saw that there was a movie adaptation, I was ecstatic. After reading some reviews, I figured it was a movie that fans would enjoy, but understand why people who haven't read the manga (or played the games maybe) wouldn't enjoy it. But, no. I was wrong. Horribly wrong.
*Note: I'm using 1 as the minimum.

Story: 1/10
The story was...non-existent. No, I take that back, it was just all over the place. I feel like, whoever made this film, tried to piece in a bit of all of the spin-off mangas to "Alice in the Country of Hearts".

Art: 4/10
I ... simply didn't like it. It looked similar to the art by the artist who did "Alice in the Country of Clover: The Cheshire Cat Waltz". It was different from the parent manga's art and it just looked weird and out-of-place.

Sound: 7/10
I liked the voice actors. The characters sounded like how I imagined. The sound effects were fitting (not like there's much to say about them). The music was okay. Some of it didn't fit in the situation the characters were in, but maybe that's just me. Overall, it was nothing special.

Character: 7/10
Well this is sad. The main thing I enjoyed about the manga was the characters. They were fun and likable. In this movie, they were dull. Heck, you don't even get to see most of them for a long time. The characters that were shown the most were Alice (of course), Blood, Vivaldi, and Joker and Peter for an even shorter time. You have the Bloody Twins in the beginning, but we only see them for one or two more short scenes later in the film. Julius was barely in the movie at all! Gowland and Cheshire had little appearance as well. Then, my biggest problem for characters, was Ace. Sure, he had a lot of screen time at the end and a bit at the ball, but his fun side wasn't shown at all! I mean it was shown a little at the ball, but that's it. A whole 1-2 minutes of it. That's not to say they shouldn't show his serious and psychotic sides, but COME ON! The first reason I came to love Ace was how fun he could be despite how depressed he is. They didn't even show how easily he gets lost. It was mentioned when Alice introduced the characters, but that's it. Another thing about her introduction about Ace: While she tells about him, he's seen cooking some meat over a fire he made in the castle, but it's not explained. Those who read the manga would know that he camps out if he doesn't make it to his destination before nightfall. Nope, all the viewers get is, "He gets lost easily. He even gets lost in the castle." (or something along the lines of that).

Enjoyment: 2/10
It was boring and bothersome. There's one more thing I haven't mentioned that is always talked about in reviews: the pointless scenes. There are so many pointless scenes. I'll start with the scene changes with cards. In the beginning, the something would become a card, cards would rain, shuffle, spread, a card would flip over, it will reveal a scene, and then zoom into it. It was really long for a scene change. Then there was a mini segment in the beginning that pretty much told the basis of the story with cut-outs of the characters. It was cute, but unneeded. Then we have the infamous elevator scenes. What happens is a long segment cutting to the number of floors and them changing and cutting back to the doors in which you could see what the floor looked like. Rinse and repeat. No dialogue throughout. This happens again, only with two characters in the elevator and very few words are mumbled. Then a shorter version of the second elevator scene. It's just...why?

Overall: 2/10
Pointless scenes, jumbled story, dull representations of characters, cheesy art, and no conclusion. I don't recommend this waste of time.

Like everyone else is saying this movie really has no plot at all, if anything Please read the Manga version of this before you even try to watch this movie. the story in the movie skips around way to much, and there is no character development. The manga is nothing like this it flows so much better.

Story gets a 3 because you can't understand what the heck is going on unless you have read the manga before

Art gets a 10 because the style actually is really good.

Sound 10 you can't complain about the sound it's good.

Characters 10 because they are all the same from the ... manga as well.

Enjoyment 4 because you really don't understand it, there are clear time waste scenes in it

overall 4 because of the story.

The overall storyline was good, but I believe that it could had more to it than it did. Even though it kept true, to the manga series, I feel like this could have done better as an anime. That way, it would provide more in depth story telling, and expand more on each of the characters, such as Blood and Boris. Overall, I enjoyed it but like already mentioned, it could have been much more. Unlike the manga, it skips too much in between each scene. One minute you find Alice with Peter Rabbit, the next minute she's with Blood or someone else. It has ... so much more of a potential, to do better, if it was split into series, like the manga did. None the less, if you're a fan of the Alice series, it's still worth watching.

I loved Alice and Wonderland since I was a kid, because getting lost in a world of fantasy is something I love to do. By chance I got hold of the manga when a library was giving away books. I fell in love with it right away. The personified characters were amazing, and the twists and changes and more realistic spin-off right away hooked me. When I found out there was a movie for this, I was really excited. However, the movie was rather dissapointing compared to the manga. Their is pretty much zero plot and it jumps scenes without any explanation and left me ... at many moments completely confused. The characters didn't really have much personality to them, they barely gave them anytime. Characters like Elliot March, Peter White, Boris (the Cheshire Cat) and even Alice herself don't get much characters explanation or background. Alice gets some time in the movie but the others really don't. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (who are not really main characters) get more screen time than Peter White, who plays an incredibly large role in the story. There was also one scene that focused on two other characters other than the main character, and nothing was explained. There was no backstory dialouge whatsoever, you were left to piece the story together yourself.
Overall, this movie had some major flaws, but since I'm a very easily entertained person I'd give it about a 5. I think I'm just biased because I love Alice in Wonderland and the personifcations just have me hooked.

Story Rating : 4/10

I'm sorry to say this but the story is pretty fucked up to be honest.. I mean what the hell is even the main conflict of this story?! That Alice doesn't know how to come back home?! Heck she didn't even do that much to find a way to go back home!! Plus it's not even stated who the hell is the main 'villain' in this fucked up story. They didn't even explain the first few minutes about how Alice is running from a random reason. The scenes keeps on freaking skipping scene per scene! Heck! I don't even know what's happening ... anymore. I know that this in fact is a movie so not all of it are going to be explain but why not just explain what the hell is going on instead of jumping from one scene to another. I know that this is based on Alice in Wonderland but I think they're just using those change of scenes as an excuse that this is based on Alice in Wonderland.

Art Rating : 4/10

Is it me or their body and head are not even proportioned with each other? It's pretty awkward watching it.. I mean like come on! Their body is way bigger than it's supposed to be.. And their hair!! Man their hair!! Some of the characters' hair volume are pretty big but some of them doesn't even have a volume in their hair. Apart from the body proportion their expression is pretty dull their saying some things that needs to be expressed a little bit more specially their eyes.. TIt's pretty dull in my opinion.. I think that the game's art style is way better than the anime's

Sound Rating 4/10

Yes the opening music and the ending music is pretty cool but again is it me or their some of their voices doesn't even suit the characters' appearance and emotions?? let's take tweed'e dum's voice. His voice doesn't even suit his appearance! He looks like a teenage boy but his voice is way squeaky it could even pass as a kid's voice! Their voices lacks emotions and feelings that's why it sounded way off.

Character Rating 2/10

Why 2/10?? Well it doesn't focus on the main character at all! Hell! The story doesn't even focus on anyone! Not a single flashback or explanation are shown in this movie! Plus why the hell is she explaining who's who and what's their personality and such?? Didn't the know the rule SHOW DON"T TELL? Instead of wasting their time explaining why can't the just show what kind of person they are??

Enjoyment rating: 2/10

2/10 because I was really confused on what was happening.. I didn't even enjoy it the tiniest bit it didn't answer my questions and stuff.. I was really bored and confused the entire time.. The words "What??" "How??" "What the hell is happening??" "What the hell just happened??" keeps on running through my head even after I finished the movie.


Overall Rating: 3.2

This movie is really a disappointment in my opinion.. I was really excited to watch this because of the game but it didn't even went up to my expectations..

This whole movie was confusing. if you want to watch the movie, at least read the manga frist, if i had not read the manga i would be lost. The movie overall is a 5 at best.

I love the Heart No Kuni No Alice games and the manga, so when I heard the movie was coming out, I was incredibly excited. However, I was incredibly disappointed. The movie jumps forwards and backwards a lot, so it is very confusing to follow. Also, there is basically no plot at all-I just watched the movie and I really can't tell you what the point of it all was.
Overall, the most disappointing thing about this movie was how it had so much potential and fell flat on its face. This movie wasted all of the amazing, funny, interesting characters from the manga and ... game. No one character is fleshed out, not even Alice. The plot of the manga is completely ignored, and the plot of the movie is just a jumbled mess. I spent the entire movie waiting for the story to begin or go somewhere recognizable, and it never did. There was so much material to work with, and yet this movie managed to discard all of that and be, honestly, terrible.
If you are a fan of Heart No Kuni No Alice manga or game, or even just good movies in general, do not watch this movie. Its a bad movie, boring, confusing, and a complete waste of time. The art was occasionally pretty, but that is really the only nice thing I can say about it.

I really enjoy a good romance and magical factors so when i read the Manga (Still searching for more) i'm really enjoyed it and then i came across this i got really exited.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING MANGA BEFORE GOING NEAR THIS FILM.
I find it's really well done but the plot isn't easy to follow for it like's skipping between time zones and also there are some scenes that tend to drag on for a long time but Overall i really enjoyed it