Forum - View topicAlice in Anime Wonderland
Goto page 1, 2 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
View previous topic :: View next topic | ||||
Author | Message | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Sahmbahdeh
Posts: 348 |
|
|||
Man, there's a lot of Alice. Japan's relationship with Alice in Wonderland approaches their level of obsession with Oda Nobunaga, it seems. Anyway, in addition to a lot of the ones mentioned here, I tend to think of the Code Geass OVA Nunnally in Wonderland, when I think of shoehorned-in Alice tropes. | ||||
Back to top |
|
|||
SaharaFrost
Posts: 85 |
|
|||
Here's a few more:
Serial Experiments Lain Deadman Wonderland Kyousogiga I think both Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro could also be said to have underlying themes inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Also, back in the 90s, it seemed that every anime had at least one Wonderland-inspired episode. Anything by CLAMP especially. But even shows like Slayers would have a random Alice in Wonderland "filler" episode. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
CorneredAngel
Posts: 759 Location: New York, NY |
|
|||
Amanda Kennell (University of Southern California) is actually working on her dissertation on basically this specific topic - how Japan has been adapting the Alice novels from the 1980's to now. Hopefully, she'll have it done next year, and published as a book soon after! | ||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Suena
Posts: 191 |
|
|||
I became a big "Alice" nerd as a kid after someone gave me a huge footnoted edition. So of course I love anything with references!
I think Pandora Hearts is my favorite, just for the sheer number of references (even though the plot has nothing to do with it). It also slips in little quotes that you'd probably only recognize if you were fairly familiar with the original books (especially as they weren't translated exactly the same into English; I don't know if it's because they were re-worded in Japanese, or the translator didn't know the reference). |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9180 |
|
|||
I liked the recent Alice adaptation for Queen's Blade Grimoire. | ||||
Back to top |
|
|||
EricJ2
Posts: 2346 |
|
|||
Reading Alice from the original Carroll is like the way we just didn't get Monty Python when it first hit the US in the early British-Comedy-Invasion 70's--It was funny, but the English social satire of why they were talking about dead birds or Parliament ministers were walking funny just flew miles over our heads, and we thought, "huhuh, wonder what those guys are on". Later, we realized there was a sarcastic point to all the jokes, and it was funnier. After the recent spawn of the '10 Tim Burton movie, it reminds us what can happen when a screenwriter Doesn't Get the Jokes in the Alice books--Either he tries to make up his own and makes an obnoxious fool of himself (or herself, in the case of Linda Woolverton), or play it straight, don't quite understand it themselves, and shrug "Hey, she's dreaming or crazy, it's SUPPOSED to be weird!" In the Caterpillar scene, people who don't get the reason why Alice recites a very wrong version of "You are old, Father William" (Carroll didn't have any other place to put pointedly silly Victorian-poetry parodies), just look at the setting and say "Huhuh, shroooooms...Hey, how's that pipe-smoke, Caterpillar?.... (And while Disney's '51 animated version, despite all their liberties, at least got many of the jokes as they were intended, I just now on Amazon found a gray-market color-restored widescreen disk of that gorgeous-looking 1971 British version that was 99% text-faithful to the book: https://www.amazon.com/ The other versions of the '71 movie, including the ones streaming on Amazon Prime, tend to be very, very, very public-domain.)
That seems to be the two main misinterpretations Japanese have: A), they see a girl having civilized English tea in a ploofy Victorian dress and hair-ribbon, and it either represents the Foreign Western Elegance they model their Victorian coffeehouses around, or it's the "good little girl" model for Loli-Goth fashion to deconstruct, or B ), they think she has some power to do all the magical things herself, which makes it an easy trope for the Magical Girl, while still keeping the myth of Western fashion. Basically, Alice isn't doing all the magic things "herself"--She's running into all the magically-booby-trapped aspects of Wonderland, and a constant confusion of magical things are happening TO her. She's supposed to be the normal one. Oh, and Burton generation aside, the ahem, Queen of Hearts (the "Red Queen" was in Looking Glass) wasn't a "wicked queen" for Alice to "defeat"--to bring peace to the kingdom, you were about to say? The Queen is frustrating, tyrannical and silly, but basically ignored. As the Griffin says, "It's all her fancy that, they never executes nobody." Unlike the Disney animated, Alice wasn't even the one on trial, although she does get into trouble for being too precocious with her sensible little-Victorian-girl mouth. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
nobahn
Posts: 3791 |
|
|||
I really must read those Annotated Alice books!
So many books, so little time..... |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Tenchi
Posts: 3961 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
|
|||
It's only an ending animation, but Dagashi Kashi's Alice-in-Wonderland-themed ED, "Hey Calorie Queen!" with Saya Endo as Alice lost in Hotaru Shidare's candy Wonderland was superb. | ||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 4539 |
|
|||
There were some subtle Alice references in episode 10 of Joker Game.
Also a 3 episode OVA of Alice in Borderland, which would probably be in the violent-Alice category. I don't recall many overt references beyond the title and trapped in an alternate world setting though. I suppose my favorite would have to be the Wonderland OVAs in Black Butler. The characters are really perfect for it. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Jedi Master Kirito
Posts: 22 |
|
|||
This is a timely article, for I had been wondering why it is that Japan seems so fascinated by Alice. Cardcaptor Sakura, Black Butler, and Code Geass are just a few of the anime I have seen which adapt Alice.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/ [Edit]: changed your large image to a link. If you can use a smaller image, by all means change it back. Errinundra. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
enurtsol
Posts: 13430 |
|
|||
I swear, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the only Western book Japan has ever known.
(They probably have already forgotten even Shakespeare.) It's like what's Voltron to the West. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
EricJ2
Posts: 2346 |
|
|||
Oh no, Peter Pan and Cinderella are heavily flogged, too--Yeah, maybe a FEW Cinderella refs in anime. Basically, "Any Western story Disney did a movie of." |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Roger Pepitone
Posts: 3 |
|
|||
I thought it was Anne of Green Gables. | ||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Princess_Irene
Posts: 1219 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
|
|||
This is probably the misconception that annoys me the most, although I restrained myself from putting it in the article, hoping it would come up in the forum. (Thanks, EricJ2!) As far as I can tell, the "wicked queen" issue dates to the Disney film while the tendency to turn the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen into a single person is more of an "American McGee's Alice"-spawned problem. There may be an earlier instance of this happening, but that's the one that seems to have popularized the misconception. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
WingKing
Posts: 272 |
|
|||
That's another one that turns up in anime sometimes too (as in the World Masterpiece Theater adaptation of the novel, or the recent character of "Lucy" in Bungo Stray Dogs), but it's much less prevalent than Alice references. Other ones I thought of the Alice in Borderland OVA and Manga, as Gina mentioned Shugo Chara (another Peach Pit series) has a splash panel in the manga where Amu's holding an "eat me" cake and a "drink me" bottle while Ikuto's up in a tree Kiddy Grade (has several characters named after people from literature and mythology, including a pair of twins named Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and they fly a spaceship named the Cheshire Cat) Love Live (for the performance of Korekara no Someday in S1E6, the girls are wearing costumes inspired by Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse) More broadly, I wonder sometimes whether the entire "transported to an alternate world" genre itself owes some small debt to Alice, since it was one of (if not the) first examples of such a story in literature and remains arguably the most famous worldwide. |
||||
Back to top |
|
|||
Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page 1, 2 Next |
|
Page 1 of 2 |
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
⬈
⬋
-
+
Forum
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
The Summer 2016 Anime Preview Guide
anime
The Summer 2016 anime preview guide has begun! Check back daily for reviews of all of this season's biggest new shows.
Available Now: Ange Vierge - Qualidea Code - hitorinoshita The Outcast - Handa-kun - Time Travel Girl - Thunderbolt Fantasy - 91 Days - Amanchu! - This Art Club Has a Problem! - Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! LOVE! - Planetarian - Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars - and much more!
Available Now: Ange Vierge - Qualidea Code - hitorinoshita The Outcast - Handa-kun - Time Travel Girl - Thunderbolt Fantasy - 91 Days - Amanchu! - This Art Club Has a Problem! - Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! LOVE! - Planetarian - Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars - and much more!
The List - Anime's 8 Deadliest Children
anime
The kids are not alright in this Classic edition of The List. You definitely wouldn't want to get stuck babysitting this batch of anime's creepiest kiddos!
― Your list-maker extraordinaire is on maternity leave this week, so it's time for another Classic installment of The List! It seems only fitting that this throwback countdown be child-themed, and it also happens to be the first edition of The Li...
Psycome Novel 1
novels
Mizuki Mizushiro's parody of the "special school" and harem genres can be kind of gruesome, but it succeeds more than it fails as a twisted satire. Rebecca Silverman digs in.
― Psycome is not a novel for the faint of heart. Featuring a hero framed for the brutal murders of twelve people and set in a school/penitentiary, there are plenty of moments of physical violence and references to rape. If you c...
ANNCast - Cruel for the Summer
anime
Zac and Jacob wrap up Anime Expo 2016 and dive right in to the brand-new summer season - Berserk, Orange, Love Live! Sunshine!! and much much more!
― ANNCast Episode 265: Cruel for the Summer Zac and Jacob wrap up Anime Expo 2016 and dive right in to the brand-new summer season - Berserk, Orange, Love Live Sunshine and much much more! You can listen to the show on our player here, direct-download th...
Alice in Anime Wonderland
anime
Follow the white rabbit on a journey through the world of cool, exciting, adorable, often scary and sometimes violent anime and manga adaptations of Alice in Wonderland!
― Few children's novels have achieved the level of notoriety that Lewis Carroll's Alice duology has – 1864's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 follow up, Through the Looking Glass have been the inspiration for more spin-o...
School-Live! GN 3
manga
This volume of the manga approaches the end of School-Live's anime-adapted material, but also gets the opportunity to flesh out the world of this zombie apocalypse in greater detail.
― How does the world end? For the four heroines of School-Live's zombie/moe mashup, it ends not with the zombie apocalypse, but with the threat of a simple mistake and a few secrets that perhaps should never have been ke...
Anime Spotlight - ReLIFE
anime
Have you ever thought, "I want to live my life over again"?
The #1 popular comic running in the web comic site "comico" is finally turning into anime! ― ReLIFE Visit the Official Site Story Characters Trailer Cast & Staff Gallery On air starting July 2016 Key Staff Director: Tomochi Kosaka ("Yowamushi Pedal" as Unit Director for eps 29) Series Composition: Kazuho Hyodo ("Big Windup" (episodes 6, 11...
The #1 popular comic running in the web comic site "comico" is finally turning into anime! ― ReLIFE Visit the Official Site Story Characters Trailer Cast & Staff Gallery On air starting July 2016 Key Staff Director: Tomochi Kosaka ("Yowamushi Pedal" as Unit Director for eps 29) Series Composition: Kazuho Hyodo ("Big Windup" (episodes 6, 11...
The X Button - Import Roundup with Super Robot Wars
games
This week is an import-fest with Super Robot Wars, My Hero Academia, and dungeon-exploring drums! Plus Adventures of Mana, Metal Slug, and a deadly game of idol singers!
― Anime Expo saw Aksys Games announce Steam versions of several titles, including XBlaze Lost: Memories, Tokyo Xanadu, and Aegis of Earth. By itself that isn't major news. Plenty of games head to Steam these days. Yet this small dev...
Battle Rabbits GN 1
manga
Not-so-ordinary high school boy Kaguya is about to have his world changed when he learns that he's actually a Battle Rabbit, a race of rabbit people from the moon charged with protecting the Earth in this bizarre but fun new series from the creators of 07-Ghost.
― Seven Seas has made a practice of licensing monster girl manga series, so now it's time for something a little different – a monster boy. ...
Is The Lost Village Actually A Comedy?
anime
Love it or hate it, the supernatural thriller The Lost Village held fans captive with a shocking (and often shockingly goofy) twist each week. But was it really a comedy all along? Nick Creamer makes the case.
― At last, The Lost Village has rambled to an end. Ostensibly a psychological horror piece about getting in touch with past trauma, the show ended up being a lot more and a lot less than that -...
Complex Age GN 1
manga
Complex Age presents a thoughtful look at how hobbies, such as the heroine's cosplay, can affect the so-called real world in a first volume that promises an interesting series to come.
― Most of us maintain a separation between our work lives and our home lives. Many times that's because we simply need the emotional rest, but sometimes it's because our home lives involve hobbies that we'd just as soo...