“Haven’t you ever wanted to be swept away somewhere – anywhere – as long as it’s someplace else?” – 4/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: ruins, killing sprees, cleared games, mysterious creators, dealers, questions without answers and a lot of sadistic games.

Eighteen-year-old Ryohei Arisu is sick of his life. School sucks, his love life is a joke, and his future feels like impending doom. As he struggles to exist in a world that can’t be bothered with him, Ryohei feels like everything would be better if he were anywhere else. When a strange fireworks show transports him and his friends to a parallel world, Ryohei thinks all his wishes have come true. But this new world isn’t an empty paradise, it’s a vicious game. And the only way to survive is to play.

The first game starts with a bang, but Ryohei manages to beat the clock and save his friends. It’s a short-lived victory, however, as they discover that winning only earns them a few days’ grace period. If they want to get home, they’re going to have to start playing a lot harder.

*Review of the original 18 volumes*

Oh how excited I was to read this one! I first fell in love with this series when I first watched the live action on Netflix… so I thought I’d give the manga a try!

I’m very surprised to say that the Netflix show is mostly true to the original story – that almost never happens! They did a great job with the adaptation because even though it was true to the original work by Haro Aso, they added a lot of action and cut out the slower scenes!

If you don’t know, this series is an “Alice in Wonderland” retelling! Well, of course you probably saw that coming when you read the name, but the actual retelling is very subtle. Our main character, Arisu (Alice), enters a new world called “the Borderlands” with his friends and quickly discovers his life is at risk. He needs to play deadly games to keep himself alive! At some point he meets a girl named Usagi (white rabbit in Japanese), and together they explore the Borderlands and try to find a meaning for what is happening and who created this reality. 

This manga series consists of 18 volumes, so I’m going to give you my thoughts on the series as a whole! I personally am a little conflicted about the way I feel about the manga. I’m a huge fan of the story like I mentioned before, so I expected a lot from this series. And the truth is that I was loving it until the last few volumes. The pacing slows down considerably and (without wanting to give you information on what happens) Arisu’s attitude changes a little. I had some trouble finding motivation to read the last volumes for this reason!

Still, I had fun reading this series for the most part. The games are perverse and deadly, but they have to keep fighting to try to uncover what is going on and who created the games! I liked the characters and the thought put behind the games. Also the art was very good and easy to follow. It was all nicely put together!

So, would I recommend this one? I personally liked both the manga and the Netflix show, but if I were to recommend a friend to one of them, I would definitely recommend the Netflix version. It’s very well made, true to the original work, and they slightly changed the last volumes to add more action and a faster pace!

At the end of the day it’s a very exciting and engaging series, and I highly recommend it if you like horror/mystery manga! Also… I recently found out there’s an anime version as well. I’m curious about it, should I give it a go?