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2013 Psychological Manga to Watch - “Are You Alice?”

Volume 1 cover to "Are You Alice?"

“We live on scraps of paper that failed to becomes stories”.

2013 is here and with it comes a new variety of eccentric English-licensed manga titles to hit the shelves. One of the more alluring and psychologically intense titles to come out this summer will be “Are You Alice?” by Ikumi Katagiri and Ai Ninomiya. This is another manga that’s heavily based on the fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland”. It’s a very complex manga that will leave readers in suspense and wonder as they discover a world where life is just a game and its participants are nothing but pawns.

“Are You Alice?” covers a young man who gets thrown into the dark world of Wonderland and is chosen to be “Alice”. He is instructed by the Queen of Hearts to kill the White Rabbit to become THE Alice in Wonderland. What starts off as a simple task becomes extremely complicated as many characters question their roles in Wonderland and there is an outside presence who “authors” them. The series originally started off as a series of drama CDs and was also an otome game on the Sony PSP as well. “Are You Alice?” is a trip where questions are just answered with even more questions.

A few of the cast members of "Are You Alice?"

The biggest theme that the manga focuses on is the idea that we’re all just players in the game that is life. After all, we have roles to fulfill. We act accordingly to a certain set of standards to achieve success. Though sometimes we need to treat life as a game to motivate ourselves. What readers will see with “Are You Alice?” is the temptation to continue playing the game of life in the world of Wonderland. After all, wouldn’t life be so boring if there were no ups and downs? If you love Pandora Hearts, this is a worthy manga with a lot of character depth to take a look at. If there’s another notable character to watch for besides Alice, it’s definitely the Queen of Hearts.

Promotional artwork for "Are You Alice?"