Ask John: Why Is There No Alice in Wonderland Anime?
Question:
Why are there no solid adaptions of Alice in Wonderland in anime? I noticed that there are several parodies, but most of them contain a cat girl or boy doing the cheshire cat or a bunny girl or boy doing the white rabbit and/or march hare. Would a serious attempt not be considered anime? It seems like the only reason the two cross paths is for the sake of fan service (I.E. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland).
Answer:
Actually, literal adaptations of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories do exist in anime form. Nippon Animation, the studio best known for its anime TV series adaptations of classic children’s literature including Anne of Green Gables, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and Tom Sawyer, partnered with German producer Apollo Films to animate the 1983 TV series Fushigi no Kuni no Alice, or “Alice of the Mysterious Country,” as the novel is titled in Japanese. The show’s first 25 episodes adapt the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland novel. Episode 26 begins the adaptation of Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass. Oddly, if I’m not mistaken, only the first 24 episodes were reportedly scheduled to air on Japanese television – from October 10, 1983 until March 26, 1984. However, episodes 25 & 26 were broadcast as well, on April 3 and 10, 1984. Episodes 27-52 enjoyed successful broadcast in numerous countries outside of Japan, including France, Italy, Germany, the Middle East, and Latin America. As far as I’m aware, the series has not been released on Japanese DVD.
The 14th episode of Toei Animation’s lesser known 1995 television series Sekai Meisaku Douwa Series – Wow! Meruhen Okoku (World Masterpiece Fairy Tale Series – Wow! Fairy Tale Kingdom) is another anime literal adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
Not quite a literal adaptation yet still more than a passing reference, Sanrio produced a Hello Kitty no Fushigi no Kuni no Alice OVA in 1993. And the semi-educational 1998 anime television series Alice SOS spun-off from the Alice in Wonderland story by introducing four Japanese school kids tasked with traveling through a variety of worlds and alternate dimensions in an effort to rescue the kidnapped Alice. I won’t go into too much detail about the 1997 Alice in Cyberland OVA series because it’s pretty bad and despite its title, it doesn’t even recognizably borrow the concept of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
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Alice in wonderland is the most over rated fairytale ever written. Goths and Darkies have been trying to find deep and meaning far beyond of what that text ever had and my best guess is that they won’t be happy with the anime adaptations that make look the tale like the mediocre child’s entertainment it actually is. If they want a “twisted” version, they can keep with Tim Burton’s garbage…
In response to kyouki:
Lewis Carroll did bring up an interesting point about the chirality of matter in Adventures Through the Looking Glass. Alice ponders whether or not the milk she sees the mirror would be safe to drink as it could somehow be bad for anyone from the opposite side of the glass. This is uncharacteristic of Carroll since scientists didn’t discover the dramatically different chemical properties of enantiomers, pairs of chiral molecules, until many years later.
For those who aren’t chemists, chirality refers to the property of an object or molecule which there exists a mirror image of that object that is not super-imposable over the original, such as your right and left hands or feet.
And in terms of anime, I really enjoyed Clamp’s Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. Lesbian fanfiction of English literature FTW!
It’s not a fairytale, it’s a novel, God, I don’t like when people mistake it as a fairytale, do your own research next time, buddy, But, yes, the novel is overrated, so it’s intensely popular.