Soraho Ina

I am writing this review after reading four volumes. There does not appear to be more volumes after the fourth, at least not in English. This review covers all four volumes.

Spoiler alerts!

There is no ending to this story.

Despite the title with the word “battle”, this book series is decidedly shoujo style, i.e., targeted to girls – both plot and art style. What initially caught my attention is the potential of depth in its plot. There are lots and lots of details.

A bullied girl receives a mysterious contract that grants her a wish, in exchange for Alice in Wonderland. Hmm, what does that mean? She crumbles it up and tosses it in the trash, but it reappears on her desk anyway. After being bullied again, she signs the contract wishing to be liked. She is transported into the story world, where she is Alice in the Alice in Wonderland story. It was later identified that those who have signed contracts are called “Protagonists”. They are given a blank book, and their actions in story world will result in lines magically appearing in their blank book. Their goal is to complete the book. Other characters within the book are mummies. There’s a catch-22 that these mummies can’t all die, because what happens to the protagonists are unknown. The protagonists have a means of going home via the book mark. In the real world, there is an online forum that talks about the story world as folks are trying to figure it out as though it’s a game. The protagonists have vines growing in their hands. The story books in real life are crumbling. And on and on and on…

Authors of manga books commonly address their readers via side bars. This author, at some point, does say she is still working out what happens next. No wonder!! If all those elements were making sense, great. The problem is that they weren’t making sense. The first volume was promising. The second volume was still ok. The third and fourth volume were starting to lose me. Elements of real world are expanding - some protagonists seem to live indefinitely only in real world and the story books in the library are showing cracks visible only to protagonists. Meanwhile in the storybook world, protagonists can live unaged for extended durations. It was becoming clear that the author has lost control of how the story will develop. I wasn’t entirely disappointed that I couldn’t find more volumes.

If you are reading this and you haven’t started reading yet, don’t bother. Put it down and read something else. On the plus side, the art is quite pretty and thorough.

Volume 1 – 3 Stars
Volume 2 – 2.5 Stars
Volume 3 – 2 Stars
Volume 4 – 2 Stars… (más)