I have always enjoyed reading fairy tales. Like many people, I was first introduced to them through Disney and their many animated adaptations. When I was a bit older, I learned that they sanded off the edges of the original fairy tales a fair bit, and so I went and read the originals. And I enjoyed those quite a bit as well. Even though they are noticeably darker than their Disney counterparts, they still have a charm and whimsy that makes them enjoyable to read. This very charm and whimsy is very present throughout the subject of today's review, Alice in Kyoto Forest.

Alice Shirakawa is a 15-year-old girl who has lived in an abusive home since the death of her parents. Her one solace in life is books, especially her beloved fairy tales, with Alice in Wonderland being her favorite. One day, she sees a newspaper article about a girl who became a miko at the age of 15, which inspires her to leave her abuser to return to her hometown of Kyoto so that she to can become a miko. When she arrives there however, Kyoto seems very different from how she remembers it. Almost as if it's an entirely different world.....

As that last sentence implies, this is indeed an isekai story, albeit one where our main character simply travels to another world as opposed to dying and being reincarnated into it. Isekai isn't a genre I flock to super often, and the ones that interest me the most are older shojo isekais, which unfortunately aren't super common right now. Alice in Kyoto Forest draws from this type of isekai the most, and I wan initially made aware of it through someone recommending it to me as an example of a newer series that felt more like older shojo isekai (Although I'm unsure if Alice in Kyoto Forest really has a demographic-it's listed as a seinen here on Anilist but the magazine it's from doesn't have a demographic on MAL and the series that run in it look like they could appeal to anyone).

The world of Alice in Kyoto Forest is very fascinating. The area Alice visits is patterned after Kyoto from the 1800s (Which could be considered a reference to the time period of the original Alice), and everything is arranged like how it was back then as opposed to how Alice remembers it. The world operates on a very specific set of rules. You have to be needed by someone and know what you want to do, or else you will grow old and disappear (A pretty scary concept, but the way the series portrays it makes it not quite as harrowing as it sounds). Many of the residents of Kyoto Forest look young despite being much older, this age-appearance is the result of them having people who need them or them genuinely doing what they love. Instead of currency, people purchase things using "Karma"-basically good feelings from doing good things for other people. There are also rules about leaving the world, and quite a few people who can turn into animals/have animal parts, but going deeper into those might veer too close to spoiler territory for some people's comfort. There are aspects of the world that aren't explained in too much depth, but that is likely for reasons I will get to later in this review.

Alice herself is a very sweet main character. Her arc centers around finding what she wants to do, as while she left to become a miko, she was never actually interested in being a miko herself, only viewing it as an escape from her horrible home life. Kyoto Forest itself does not look too kindly on this, and she is made to search for what she truly wants to do. I really like this, as I have also struggled with deciding what I want to do in the more recent years of my life (Although I'm a fair bit older than Alice herself). The conclusion we came to ended up being quite similar as well; we turned to our personal passions to decide what we wanted to do and found happiness there. She is escorted through this by two small animals-Natsume the rabbit and Hachisu the frog. They're good beans and I love them, although they're hard to talk about without spoilers, but let it be known that there's more to them than meets the eye.

The main plot of these two volumes involves Alice trying to find her childhood friend Ren, who she suspects is in this new version of Kyoto. Without spoilers, I can say that this plot is more or less resolved within this manga's two volumes. I came into this series unaware that it was an adaptation of a novel, only learning that it was when I was in the middle of volume 2 and the author had a bonus section talking about how it was an adaptation. The manga adapts the first novel, with there being at least two other novels. This makes a lot of sense because while the Alice and Ren stuff was mostly resolved there are still many aspects of the world that could be explored in further depth. Especially since there's other worlds out there around Kyoto Forest, some of which are barely even touched upon.

The art in this series is beautiful. The character designs are absolutely adorable, especially Alice herself. The way the eyes are drawn remind me of the shojo series I've been reading recently. They have a dimension and sparkle to them. The art is also where much of the fairy tales vibes in this series come from, especially in the drawings of the world of Kyoto Forest itself. The fact that this beautiful art is only adapting one of three novels kind of saddens me, as I would have loved to see the characters in this specific art style again.

Alice in Kyoto Forest is a cute, short series that brings the feeling of a fairy tale into manga form. I do recommend it to those who are fans of both fairy tales and shojo isekai, I'm sure they will love it. Go into it know that it's an incomplete adaptation of a series. I think it provides a good enough conclusion to the story it's trying to tell, although I haven't read the original novel so I can't speak on the quality of the adaptation for certain. I can only hope that we'll get more isekais like this one in the future.