Alice 19th

  Title: Alice 19th
  Creator(s): Yuu Watase
  Publisher(s): Shogakukan Inc., VIZ Media
  Year: 2001
  Genre(s): Shoujo, fantasy, romance
  Length: 7 volumes
  Reviewed by: Yukari on July 21, 2006

Synopsis

Alice Seno is a meek girl who has lived her life under the shadow of her beautiful and popular sister, Mayura. Her life changed drastically when she encountered a magical rabbit called Nyozeka. Alice discovered that words have power and that she has the potential to become a Lotis Master. A Lotis Master is someone who has mastered all twenty four Lotis words - words that hold the power of life. One day, after throwing a few harsh words toward Mayura during a fight, her sister disappeared into the darkness. That became the start of Alice's journey with Kyo Wakamiya (Mayura's then boyfriend) to save Mayura from evil.

Review

[Warning! The following review may contain spoilers.]

Wanting to change her, "Watase creates Chinese/Asian influenced manga" image, Watase decided to draw a more "Western-style" manga. Thus, "Alice 19th" was born! Before reading the series, I thought it was going to be a manga based on, "Alice in Wonderland." I was wrong. Watase only borrowed a few things from the classic, such as the name of the heroine and the fact that there was a talking rabbit in the story. The theme of this series focuses on communication and how powerful words can be.

Although I found it very predictable when Kyo started to develop feelings for Alice, my favorite scene is at the end of the third volume - when Kyo finally kisses Alice. It broke my heart when Alice couldn't tell him how she felt. My favorite character is Frey, who made his first appearance at the end of volume 1. Sadly, Watase seems to use him only for comedic effect. As the series progressed, I grew very frustrated as Mayura succumbed to the darkness and had her soul taken over by Darva. She became more and more distant until it came to the point where it seemed impossible to get her back. However, no matter how much her characters suffer throughout the story, there is always the predictable happy ending in Watase's manga. All Alice has to do is find the lost Lotis word and she would be able to save her sister. For the longest time, I wondered what the "lost word" could possibly be. To my dismay, the ending was not what I expected. I thought the lost word would hold some kind of meaning to it, something deep. But it was just some more gibberish. What made it even more disappointing was that Alice didn't discover the lost word by herself - Lotsuan had to tell her.

The series started off great...but the ending was carelessly thrown together. Many new characters are introduced late in the series but because of the rushed ending, those characters aren't given the opportunity to develop. It was as though Watase wanted to end the series quickly and not have to deal with it anymore. If it weren't for the very disappointing ending, I would have enjoyed the series a lot more. The art is nice, but I miss the old style Watase used back in the "Fushigi Yugi."

Overall Rating: 3/5