Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, and her heart’s desire while doing so, resume in English as Seven Seas‘ newest batch of licenses – which they announced via Twitter –  are more series set in the Alice in the Country of… franchise.

Alice in the Country of Clover: Knight’s Knowledge – QuinRose / Asai Sai
Alice in the Country of Clover: March’s Hare – QuinRose / Iwaki Soyogo
Alice in the Country of Clover: Nightmare – QuinRose / Job
Alice in the Country of Hearts: Love Labyrinth of Thorns – QuinRose / Kurihara Aoi

Every story is an alternate telling, or a continuation, of the same general story – Alice is a young girl spirited away to the world of Wonderland where she traverses its strange countries, meets an assortment of people, learns the weird ways of their culture, and inevitably falls in love with one of the many individuals already immediately in love with her. The different series or one-shots each tend to follow one of these individuals and focus on a budding romantic relationship between them and Alice.

I’m still a little Alice-shy after my most recent experience with Yen Press’s Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit, and the last Seven Seas’ instalment I read – Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz (Vol. 01) –  failed to move me. None the less, I’m still on a bit of a high from how much I enjoyed the original story arc.

March’s Hare is the one book in this new batch that I will actively make a point to avoid. Sorry Seven Seas, but after My Fanatic Rabbit, I’ll be leaving the March Hare character, Elliot, on the sidelines. This book is scheduled for March 2014.

I’m at least curious about In Knight’s Knowledge – due out in July 2014 – which follows another really scary split-personality character, Ace, who bounces between being either being hopelessly lost or viciously homicidal. He hasn’t yet given me a reason to cringe at the thought of being with Alice romantically, in the context of the story anyway (killing people is a debatable offence there. Sort of.). In Knight’s Knowledge is the only multi-volume series in today’s licenses.

Nightmare is the book I’m most curious about however. This book follows Alice’s relationship with the mysterious figure, Nightmare. In previous books, he’s only appeared briefly and is the only character who is fully aware of what’s going on in regards to Alice’s appearance in Wonderland and what it means. This book could finally explain some of the plot points we’ve been left pondering since the original story. Fingers crossed! This one shot is due out in April 2014.

And as for Love Labyrinth of Thorns, I’m looking forward to reading this one almost as much since it stars the clockmaker, who was my favourite character in previous books. This one is due out in May 2014. Seven Seas is releasing another book starring him and Alice this coming week with The Clockmaker’s Story, which I plan on checking out for the same reason.

Follow

Share on Tumblr

Alice in the the Country of Hearts was a really pleasant surprise to me when I reviewed Yen Press’s omnibus edition last year. Since then, there’s been several spin-offs of the series released and there seems to be no sign of them stopping now. It’s great to see a series doing well, and even more interesting that two publishers are able to work to bring it out to fans.

AnimeNewsNetwork confirmed two new Alice licenses from Seven Seas that originally popped up on Amazon early December:

Alice in the Country of Clover: Ace of Hearts
Amazon US|CAN – July 2013, ($13.99/US, $15.99/CAN)

“Ace, the Knight of Heart Castle, is known throughout Wonderland not only for his master swordsmanship, but for his tendency towards cruelty. Can the charming Alice Lidell mellow Ace and his violent ways? Perhaps Ace will even fall in love with Alice…if he doesn’t kill her first.”

Alice in the Country of Hearts: Clockmaker’s Story
Amazon US|CAN – August 2013, ($13.99/US, $15.99/CAN)

“Julius Monrey is the grim Clockmaker of Wonderland, responsible for controlling the world’s time from his lonely Clock Tower, not to mention fixing the stopped clocks of the dead. When the beautiful Alice Liddell comes to live with and rely upon him, will her warm personality melt through his cool, apathetic heart, and bring about romantic feelings he never knew he had?”

Both these relases are written by the story’s original creator Quinrose, and drawn by Mamenosuke Fujimaru who is the artist for most of the Alice spin-off stories.

Of the two one-shots, I’m looking forward to the Clockmaker’s Story in particular. While reading the original multi-volume series, my favourite character was Julius and he was also one of the characters with some of the most unique responsibilities in the strange world of Wonderland. Granted, Ace was interesting though albeit prone to being pretty scary sometimes. I’m not sure how much I want to read about either of them getting romantically involved with Alice, but that is the purpose of these books so we’ll see who I end up preferring! It’s a really interesting opportunity for fans to get to pick and choose which books they want to read based on what couples they’re most interested in seeing played out.

Seven Seas has previously released two other series under the Alice in the Country of Clover arc of stories – Bloody Twins (starring the story’s Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum equivalents) and Cheshire Cat Waltz (starring the Cheshire Cat, Boris). They also have the first volume of their upcoming series Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar’s Game due out this February. Yen Press released the first volume of Alice in the Country of Hearts: Fanatic Rabbit (starring the March Hare) this past December.

Follow

Share on Tumblr