Bibliomania

Bibliomania is a weird yet well written short story about Escapism which intrigues through it´s horror-esque art.
Bibliomania dives into topics such as:
-The Fear of Change
-Escapism
-Desire and Greed

Disclaimer:This is my first Review and english is not my first language, so please excuse any mistakes ,bad formating or structural problems.
Probably a lot of uppercase and lowercase Problems too and punctuation.Sorry!

The following Review contains Spoilers.

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Alice had woken up in Room 431 of a mysterious manor. "You must not leave this room," warned the Serpent, but she paid it no heed and her body began to rot... Will she be able to escape the cursed manor?

Note: Nominated for the 2019 Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in the Manga category.`

Chapter Count:12
Obaru (story) and Macchiro (art)
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Art

i would like to talk about the Art first, because it was the initial reason why i was drawn to this manga.
The Cover was really intriguing.
After all im a sucker for reimagining of fairy tails and books , in this case Alice in Wonderland although it only takes the premise, to a more horror genre.
Bibliomania has a unique Art which can be beautiful and yet grotesque at other times.
Every Room offers a new experience and is well designed and the occupants differ drastly and fits nicely with the story it wishes to convey.
It also contains a lot of Body Horror, because of the rot, which i find to be amazingly executed but probably not for everybody, as Alice progresses through the Rooms.

Story

While there are a lot of fantasy elements revolving around Alice ,the book and the Serpent the rest of the World remains similar to ours.
In the first panels we are met with some kind of Snake entity that broke free from a weird huge eggshell.

After that we meet Alice who wakes up in a white void inside of a book which is later on revealed. Here she meets a weird looking Serpent which tells her that all her desires can come true as long as she stays in her Room.This Mansion is in reality a book which we find out in the course of the story. Alice finds herself in the room 431 and the Serpent mentions that when all Rooms are occupied ,666 in total, the "party" starts.Alice however is not interested in staying and ask to go home. However for all those who try to leave from their room the rot awaits. It gets worse the further you are from your room and the closer you get to Room 000.Alice decides to leave. We follow Alice through a lot of rooms with occupants ,each with their own storys and desires.This desire is their poison yet in some cruel way their blessing .

Characters and Inhabitants:

Bibliomanias Alice and Alice in Wonderland

She is obviously ment to be a parrallel from the book Alice in Wonderland by Charles Dodgson.The core premise is the same:
Alice falls down Wonderland ,in Bibliomania beeing the book. She has to find a way to escape while meeting the inhabitants of this fantasy World.This is however where the comparising stops and Bibliomania writes its own Story.

The Serpent
There is obviously the biblically reference of the Serpent. A Snake convincing a girl to do something, in this case stay in her room.
666 Guest ist also another Indicator that the Serpent may not be as friendly as he appears to be.That is further enhanced by his suspicious looking Appearance. He resembles a Serpent yet has Teeth and almost has Eyes on the side.
He has no facial Expressions at all so you can´t read any emotions.
In the Story he acts as a weird,creepy yet comedious Guide.

The Judge
The First Guest we meet is the Judge .He almost looks like a godlike being judging over Sinners.

However he only punishes oney Person repeatedly in this fantasy Room from his past. We learn that he only punishes , this one person who used to bully him and used him as a chair even shouting at him at anger even if it´s only a illusion. We also only meet mannequin Dolls who carry out his Instruction showing his inability to trust humans.He himself also barely resembles a Human anymore. > "First we think them the Ruler then the victim then a sad petulant child controlled by desire with oneself entirely obscurred" -Hiding in public(source at the end)

This Person probably has been repeating the same "punishment" for years. In a world where everything can come true , where the future is filled with endless possibllity, it is tragic that he is hung up on the past , refusing to move on and spending the rest of his existence on his same sad meaningless fantasy of revenge over and over and over again.

The Bird

In a flipped World this occupant has transformed into a bird.The Guest only wants to be free from the pain of War and Conflict and to soar above these Problems ,viewing them as nothing more but meaningless and unsightly. We can see a clear border between the beautiful star filled sky and a city beeing bombed.Tired of the Borders between people seperated only by the need for more space and ownership of such compared to the free sky the Bird happily escapes in this fantasy world while slowly forgetting that she once was human.Alice however doesn´t like fake Worlds ,thus crossing the Border.

The Hero
A lot of people probably pictured themselves atleast once as Superheros similar to Superman.
In this Room we can meet someone who indulges in this fantasy because he roleplays as the hero in his galaxy calling himself "Space mobile prince Eraqra", in the world of Bibliomania a popular comic series. We see the Guest saving Alice from a Monster, beeing swarmed by Women and facing off against a huge monster with no fear.Yet when Alice sees him and calls him "not exactly young", aswell as when she didnt know of the comic series,we can see him beeing insecure .We further get a glimpse of his past life resembling the typical stereotype of Hikikomoris( Social Isolation a common problem in japan, once again a sign of escapism) and otakus. He is overweight,locked up in his rooms, with his Computer and his figurine collections in the background,all while the manga draws a parallel between his parents and the monsters ,who push him to get married and work.

It is obvious that he only wants to be in his idealized form withouth any responsibilities, yet it shatters when he screams "not to look at him" and to "accept him" which were probably his past lifes thoughts, when he shortly remembers his past life. His desire to reject reality and just immersif yourself in a Video Game World is a common Problem, which I ,to a degree ,experienced.

Collection of Inhabitants
We further meet a Guest who turned himself into an Instrument,one who indulges in Drugs and Gambling,on who has become a Tree to get closer to Nature ,and a lot more .All with their own Desires to escape from their past Reality.

The perfect Family
The first seemingly normal Room, where we simply meet a family of three sitting together at the table for dinner.
While the guest is confused at first when confronted if he wants to leave he visibly turns angry and shouts at alice to leave.
We get an Explanation that he was a Teacher and wanted everybody to strive according to his doctrine and Ideal.
When his family didn´t meet this idealconflict grew between them.
As a result his family left them and he suffered. We see pictures of Alcohol and a broken man.
He lost his family to time, thus escaping inside this mansion by creating a fake perfect family. Between his harsh Doctrines and the inescapable Death he forged himself a fantasy where he can life his ideal life.

The Beautiful Girl
The next Guest is a naked Girl surrounded by flowers who hates her past life and describes it as such:

She was an ill ugly girl only knowing the hospital and her family which only looked at her with contempt.She hated her own life. We see her attempting suicide but finding this Book world before that. Here she can escape from her former self remaining a beatiful girl for a long time.The beatiful flower bed turns into blood and Roses with thorns and when she says she will live forever, we can see her face turning into a skull. Ironic and foreshadowing for whats to come.

The Scientist
Here we meet a Scientist and a lot of Clones of himself all working to find out about the book they´re trapped in .
They tell Alice that if all 666 Guest arrive ,the serpent will consume all Guests and turn into an powerful entity.Thats why there is the rot to prevent the Residents from escaping which gets increasingly worse the closer you get to Room 000.While the Scientist primarily plays a Role to give us more informations, he still serves for a short question about identity and problems of greed for Knowledge.The second point especially will be very important later on ,but in this case because there was so much data, the scientist cloned himself and now nobody knows who the original is. This Conflicts probably draws a parallel and "This Is Why You´ll Never Be Acknowledged By The Scientific Community" is probably one hint to the explanation to his problem.He may have forgotten to write his name on his research paper and it got plagiarized and stolen, thus he never had the proof of his work in the very same way he has forgotten to write a paper or proof who the original one is. Plagiruizing or Stealing work in Science is famiously a conflict claim between Tesla and Thomas Edison for example.

Alice
Alice was a princess of an Island who was very ill but had something similar to a Photographic memory. Due to these aspects she lived secluded and learning about the outside World. Day in day out she was only consuming Information through writing, which can be heavily biased and edited.Because of a lack of interaction and only learning about humans through books, which is obviously inferior to actually experiencing it, she suffered.She shows similarity to people in real life who lack the ability to attain something and/ or are able to express their desires thus they suffer. Therefore they consume media as a substitute to connect with the real World. It is however only a secondary way of obtaining these experience, which can also falsely affect your view on certain things as they´re often not the whole truth.In our World, for example ,Social Media and the news often created a wrong picture of things or exaggerate , such as Beauty standards,the Pandemic and a lot of other things.
While the consumation of such Media might satisfy at first, it leds to greed for more but it never creates a lasting happiness because it will only be a secondary experience compared to the real World.
However due to anxiety low self esteem and lack of interaction ,due to the isolation and exaggerated view of the World , it leads to two options.
Live in your old self without lasting happiness, to continue to consume media or muster up enough courage to take the first steps.For some there is only one Option.
Bibliomania beeing a fantasy story after all takes the first route to the extreme and magnifies this concept to unrealistic proportions to enhance the narrative experience.
Due to events which are not properly explained , i would assume some failed experiment, she is able to turn Humans into more media to consume.Following the trend she still consumes and consumes without actually interacting with the People or forming bonds with them ,instead just destroying it and turning it into more media or rather Words.Thus she too is affected by escapism by turning the entire world into a void existence except for herself. Never beeing able to properly interact or really experience the Outside World.
She cannot however stop consuming:

Alice and The Serpent
Alice only "hatched" her little brother due to curiosity and once more to consume .
The twist that Alice is the real Serpent and The Serpent is only a copy is in not actually coming out of nowhere .There were a lot of hints that something is wrong with Alice ,why she was going alone through the ruins,why she was immune to the rot and why the book was beeing filled so fast when alice left. It was however also well teased as if the Serpent is the snake that is mentioned at the beginging even looking quite similar. I also assumed on my first read through that the people who were tied down were maybe people who tried to escape before or sacrifices to fill the room later on by the Serpent.That beeing said i liked the Twist, especially the concept that for the Serpent his whole existence revolved around beeing finally free and basically becoming the god of the world only to find a desolated space and a much much stronger existence, was fun. Especially how how the confrentation is depiccted is amazing. Just look at the difference in size

The Rot
While in the book the rot acts more as a anti escape mechanism in the real world it very much exist as the fear of Change.
The more you indulge in your escape in the real life the more you fall down that "Rabbit hole".
Consider it similar to drugs and alcohol.The more you use it the more you get addicted ,the more dependent you get to it. Sometimes drugs and alcohol also serve as a tool to escape from reality ,from the problem that plagues us everyday.The longer it goes on ther harder it is to get out of this hole and take the first step to return to proper Life in Society.This Body rotting represents the anxiety and getting worn out when trying to return. And similar the closer you get to Room 000, the longer you go without alcohol or drugs ,the more setbacks and failures you receive when you try to get back into society, the worse the Desire to return to your old life of indulgent it gets.

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Escapism__ > “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”-George Bernard Shaw

All Human desire something they cannot obtain and are as result unhappy with their life.Escapism plays a major part in this story as all the inhabitants are driven by desire to escape their old life.Inside of the Room all of their Regrets, Desires and Boredom can be changed.It is ,however only a fantasy created by the book. Besides Alice we only fine one other personr who tried to leave. Of course there is also the rot to consider, once again however there is little mention of any desire to escaoe from the inhabitants.On the Contrary many express their wish to stay and questions Alice. They fear to change their curent life they grown used to.They fear to lose their comfort and return to the old one they hated.Why run away if your current life is so much better than your old one, even if it is fake?
Afterall Ignorance is Bliss.

Conclusion:
With a good Story and plot twist and one of the best artworks i have seen it captured my heart as one of my favorite mangas to this day.
While i wasn´t too impressed, altough entertained, in my first read you notice a lot more details and foreshadowing on your second one.
I´m not even sure where i found this manga as there is very little information where it was released and from who.
(Apparently by Obaru (story) and Macchiro (art))
It however is certainly the best hidden gem i have found yet with a lot of different topic where i´m sure that i missed a lot.
Thank you for your patience and i hope you enjoyed my review on Bibliomania.
Here is my favorite Art page from the manga

Also alice step on m..

Some Inspiration/Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je7R17ojKqw&ab_channel=HidinginPublic https://anilist.co/review/13056 Review byZazinuz https://anilist.co/review/13056 Review by TheGruesomeGoblin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miQXuOgu4xo&t=603s&ab_channel=Keysmash ~~~~~~