zetta.mclaughlin - 2014-10-26 18:11:59

You may have heard of the stories of Alice before, in film, books, cartoons, and many other things. You might have even heard that some anime have made spin-offs, specials, and even an episode probably centered on the story of Alice (whether its actually good or bad may vary)... but have you ever seen or heard of an entire show based on it? Well ok maybe you have (I heard Pandora Hearts is like that in some retrospect's though I never saw it) but that is not what we'll be covering, we're going to talk about this anime.

Story: The story revolves around the male lead of the story, Kirihara Aruto. The story begins one night when Aruto is up at night writing his own copy of The Endless Alice. Suddenly he sees a girl leaping through the night sky. Believing her to be the Alice he writes about so often, he leaves his house and follows her to a library. He then sees her fighting with another girl, who then was defeated. The former then steals the latter's story and disappears. The next day, she reveals herself as Arisugawa Arisu, the female lead of the story. She then explains that she is an Alice User, capable of transforming into a kemonomimi bunnygirl that uses a key in fights against other Alice Users. The keys are used to unlock the stories in other Alice Users's hearts. She explains that if a girl loses her story that she can no longer maintain her identity as an Alice User, and the overall goal of all Alice User is to defeat all others and finish the Endless Alice, as the one who does so will be granted a wish.

Now that is a very interesting idea, and it can lead to some creative possibilities, and for the most part they kind of do. There are a ton of Alice references in here and none of them feel tacked on or forced as they are all relevant and important to the story. The pacing in the first episode is pretty bad with forced exposition and dialogue and rushing things to no humanity, but it does get better later on in the series.

When the show focuses on the adventure and fantasy aspects, it works pretty well and gets you hooked with what is going to happen next, though you might not like the ending (episode 12) that it gives you, its not a bad ending, but isn't a very good one either... the special (AKA episode 13) made up for it, at least to me it did, mainly cause of how laughably bad it was making fun of there story and clichéd fantasy shows and is easily the best part of the whole show. Sadly, when the show focuses on other things like character development, it falls apart pretty quickly. For the most part its pretty bad, distracts from the actual story, and is for the most part boring filler. Sometimes they'll even switch out from serious to silly which can get especially distracting and is hard to take either scene serious or silly cause of it :s

Animation: Look, I know the show was made in 2006, but that doesn't change the fact that the animation is terrible. There are choppy moments, odd facial expressions, and awkward movements everywhere in the show. The character designs are bland and boring looking, sure its colorful and stuff (especially there eyes), but its just uninspired and dull looking (except for when the girls take the stories away, it looks pretty flashy). Even the transformations are bad, it only shows the girls naked once, and then has them in clothes a second later... what? The background designs though are actually mixed. The town is just like every other town in anime, but the fantasy worlds the characters go to are very interesting and cool to look at, what with the different art styles and sceneries that they [kind of] take from the books and all, its a nice touch... too bad it doesn't last and there isn't much of it here :c

Sound: The OP has a nice verse and bridge which make it sound very mysterious and cool topped off with the best animation in the show, though the chorus does not really live up to the build up that it was getting, the same goes for the ED except the chorus is catchier and the background in that is dull. All it shows are magical girls in some sort of slide show. The first few episodes at least had a background but for some reason they changed it. Kind of sad when the best music is in the background but even then it overstays its welcome and repeats itself a bunch of times. Also not much to say about the voices except they range from bland to annoying, only a few characters have and show emotion and they only show up for 1 or 2 episodes.

Characters: Oh... boy. I wouldn't mind about the animation and sound if the characters make up for it... that is not the case. The characters are not bad for the most part, but man are they boring and forgettable.

Aruto is just a generic main character with no back bone or personality whatsoever. Aside from liking Alice novels, there's nothing that stands out about him from all the rest. He only becomes important at the end and rarely does anything in the show, even when he got built up over the course of the show, he's like Flash Sentry except... the main character.

Arisu (or Alice) is one of the key seekers of Alice with no memory or past. Besides her kind nature and actually doing some fighting and work, she's just as bland and boring as Aruto. I thought they would end up together but... that didn't seem to be the case.

Kiraha is also a key seeker and is Aruto's brother. She loves her brother deeply and gets jealous when he and Arisu are together. A third of the show is centered on her internal conflict which is not interesting in the slightest and is more annoying than thought provoking.

Honestly the only character that's actually not bad is Kiraka, a researcher who's dream is to be the youngest person to achieve a Nobel Prize. When Kirika enters the Wonderland Space, she reverts to her younger self due to a tragic mishap she experienced while at that age (her backstory is pretty depressing, though I wish it was not explained through inner monologue). Her upbringing was solely focused on research and academic performance.

The rest of the characters are annoying to a degree from the bland side characters and the horrible villains (they have motives but there personality and motive is still weak).

Enjoyment: So there are mixed feelings all over the place, there are some parts I liked, some I didn't like, some that made me laugh at how stupid it was (especially episode 13), and some that pissed me off. I'm not sure if I should recommend this or not honestly. It is pretty creative for there on Alice, but everything they try to do is only average at best and awful at worst.

Pros: Kiraka, decent music, pretty artwork, creative idea for an Alice story, episode 13.

Cons: Bland/Annoying characters, bad animation, okay music, ending is not very good.

Overall: I believe this is recommended to only those who have nothing else to watch, are interested in the story and idea, and Alice in general. There isn't much fantasy in there like Hummingbird said and the romance and drama is pretty pathetic. You might also like it if you're into adventure... also the last episode is a parody so if ya want some laughs, you can watch that also.

Thanks for reading my 68th review~