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What do you live for?

Neither the question nor the answer to it might particularly interest you, yet reading this manga's attempts at trying to give you answers to this very question can still be a great investment of your time.
The name might strike you as very odd, "Alice" from Disney and in"the borderlands"? Will there be over-the-top humor and a little girl protagonist or what?

Audiences:
Borderlands primarily targets 2 kinds of audiences.
The first one being people who enjoy to read manga with games of life and death and an abundance of characters that make these sort of games interesting to spectate.
The second one are people ... with a very reflective or depressed personality. The manga manages to find a good balance between keeping dark/serious topics with drama and feels at the core and still keeping a very shounen-esque positive, friendly atmosphere that manages to turn heart-tearing stories into heart-warming experiences.

Don't mistaken this with material like One Piece or Naruto, just because it wears the shounen tag. This manga is rich with consequences. You'll see people die for taking wrong steps at every turn.
However, this isn't a Tokyo Ghoul or Re:Zero either. The characters have heart and are relatable to a certain extend. The writer did a good job trying to portray people that you could possibly meet anywhere.

The weakness in the writing for this work shows when characters start to act overly corny or when characters start to emotionally overreact at times. It makes you question whether the story even knows where it wants to go or if it doesn't know which audience it wants to target.
The truth of the matter is that Alice in Borderlands knows exactly where it wants to head with it's story and that it is doing what it is doing almost too well for it's own good, because what it is doing is neither popular nor wanted in most of the anime sub-communities. Alice in Borderlands applies a concept that is alien to most anime watchers and resented amongst many manga readers: The attempt to tell a story with a clear message through a storytelling that let's you look from different camera angles and let's you see the stories of different characters, distancing itself from being too judgemental or imposing and instead allowing readers with a free mind to think for themselves.

MC:
The main character, Arisu, is the person you'll be following throughout most of the story. He's not shounen-MC-level of stupid, but he's not a Yagami Light either. If you're into badass main characters, this manga will probably not do for you. The main character's attitude throughout the story fits the atmosphere of the manga very well, which is melancholic. So don't expect some ruthless guy finishing off adversaries in cold blood.

Plot:
Ever read one of those Battle Royale kind of manga, where a bunch of people are thrown somewhere and expected to kill each other off with certain rules in place? This is basically one of those.
The setting is some unknown, wide open area with certain places marked for games of life and death to be held there. None of the people there are forced to participate in these games. But finishing a game and surviving it extends the time on the victors visas, which will otherwise eventually expire, resulting in certain death.
To make the games more interesting, the manga introduces different game categories and difficulty levels represented through playing card symbols and it attributes characters that are especially suited to a certain kind of game with that category.
There are, for example, games that require intellect to survive or games that require physical fitness.

But it's more than just a myriad of death games following each other. The manga forces characters to face questions that you would typically try to avoid having to deal with. In that sense, you are being shown not only the ugly sides of the reality of the story and those questions, but also the brilliance that lies with all the different possible answers.
That's why the stories of these dozens of characters you'll be following are not just some decentralized, loosely tied one-shot stories to their own, but branches that come together at the end to form a whole tree.

Characters:
While there are a lot of great characters, there are also some very annoying ones. On top of that, the story burdens you with some very ugly, dislikable character designs for some characters. In the end, nothing I describe about the characters here will be on-point, because it's just too dependant on taste.
However, one thing that can be said about many of the characters is that they act very appropriate considering the circumstances they find themselves in and considering their states of minds.
And, I just have to say it, as if the constant whining of the MC wasn't enough during some chapters, they just had to add the probably most annoying side-character to tag along with him and become his mental and physical support.
At least in that regard this manga is very alike to almost every other manga you might've already read, with it pandering to self-absorbed hikikomori due to the relationship going on between that self-insert of a MC and his on-command make-up doll and inofficial girlfriend.

Conclusion:
I enjoyed this a lot, despite not being overly comfortable with many of the early cast and despite the manga sometimes giving you the feeling that it's trying to let the world revolve around that self-centered MC at times, with entire chapters contributed to nothing but whining from Arisu that I gladly skimmed through with a good fast-forward reading technique, called the autopilot. I wanted to read some manga with survival games going on, where there are stakes for the characters and not some illogical happy ends for the sake of letting friendship win. Alice in Borderlands delivered.
And it also made for a story with some depth to it, which I gladly took as the icing on the cake. It's far from perfect. There are just too many annoying and unnecessary scenes in this manga for a 10/10 and there are in fact so many of those that if you are either just enjoying to read for the brutality going on or just enjoy the story, but don't get enough enjoyment out of the action that a 7 or 8 out of 10 would be a fair rating. For me it's a 9/10.

Straightforward to what this manga offers/doesn't offer:

- MC: The main character is your stereotypical whiny girl that can't do anything by herself and cries instead of taking action. She can't stand seeing others get hurt or hurt anyone herself.

- Story: Similar to the author's other work, it's about Mahou Shoujos, also known as Magical Girls, once again. This time, however, from the viewpoint of the Mahou Shoujos.
Similar to their other work, the story of this one also moves at a fast pace. It doesn't overwhelm with a too complex story and instead focuses on creating opportunities for the characters to shine with what they're ... good at, showing tits, ass, making facial expressions and dying. The last of which is often replaced by bleeding out or being heavily wounded in general, since each character's death also means one cute loli less for the audience to anatomically inspect with utmost thoroughness.
And, well, it just so happens that giving mentally unstable, mistreated girls super powers creates these wanted opportunities.

- Comedy: As is typical for mangas with strongly over-the-top drama and brutality, a lot of scenes tend to take on a comedic nature, whether it be intended or not. Mahou Shoujo Site has this peculiar characteristic as well and it executes these specific scenes mostly with the help of characters whose sole purpose it is to deliver these scenes by being extraordinarily cruel. The protagonist's brother is one of these chosen characters and he does a quite good job at being an evil sadist that constantly tries to make others suffer. To see "Onii-chan" make many of the annoying characters within the story (including the MC) have a hard time is pretty much the highlight of this manga.

To summarize: The manga offers lolis getting slaughtered and getting drenched, it also offers 1 likeable yet completely sadistic character and although it tries it's best to create a story and doesn't do completely horrible at it, the plot still turns out completely negligible and is overshadowed by several better reasons to either enjoy this work or to throw it into the trash can depending on your taste.

The Wizard of Oz, The Neverending Story, Peter Pan or The Little Mermaid.
All these tales share the same mix of fantasy and romance with Kiss Wood.


Story:


-Teaser-
What starts out as some sort of a family drama in a rather modern world, soon shifts our main character to a colorful world within a giant forest where he is soon to find out that things work a little different from where he came from.

...
The hero in our story is an old man who happens to be obsessed with plants in all forms and shapes. Sadly for our hero not everyone knows to appreciate his interests and even his niece which lives with him is getting sick of his unnatural love for mother nature, which occupies his entire time.

And so one unfortunate event after the next occurs for our old man.
First his niece leaves him, then his house gets burned and unfortunately our hero was inside the house during the fire which left him in a state of coma in the next best hospital.

But as if things weren't bad enough, our hero wakes up inside the hospital ruins surrounded not by the city he used to live in, but a giant forest. In this forest our hero meets all sorts of surreal plants and just as surreal people with his only goal in mind to survive and get out of this dangerous forest.

-Summary-
Although Kiss Wood is strongly riding along the green trails with such a title, a plant-loving protagonist and a giant forest which seems to punish those who've treated nature wrong, the story is just as rich in details as the world it is set in and goes therefore beyond a story with a green moral of "Let's be more aware of nature". It's not a full-fledged, serious Seinen with gore and survival of the fittest either however. Instead what we get is a beautiful fairy tail with a wonderful world and a terrible fate that climaxes into both tears of joy and sadness as the story unfolds.


Art and Characters

The characters in Kiss Wood all seem really surreal but eye-friendly. The colorful pages and the smooth drawings are to be thanked.

The characters personalities seem all very strict in their roles and there seems to be all sorts of crazy types.

A little girl is a sadistic tyrant who seems to rule over the entire forest.
A lama which runs faster than any vehicle could ever move.
An old, bearded man who loves plants.
A cursed traveller.
And a mysterious woman that seems to take a liking to our old man.


Last Words:
If you are still unsure wether to read Kiss Wood or not, I can suggest it to anyone that enjoys a good, serious story, fairy tails, fantasy or a good, worthwhile ending.

However it's not an easy going happy-go-lucky adventure in a slice of life manner and neither is it pure mature content with all sorts of violence or nudity.

For me Kiss Wood was a very good read with an exponentially increasing enjoyment factor.

To be completely honest, there is no reason to watch this anime if not for the incredible visuals.

Each episode is a few minutes long and aside from the nice drawing style there's only few that keeps your attention. It's a poorly made excuse for a toyota commercial that at first still tries to teach driving lessons at the end of each episode and a bit of slice of life enjoyment in each episode. But from "useful driving lessons" they slowly start to hover over to even more toyota advertising by listing the advantages by driving exclusively toyota cars instead of actually useful driving tips.

The positive ... side to the anime is that it's so short, which means that even though it's so poorly designed you'll still be able to enjoy the few minutes of entertainment without feeling like you wasted too much time on the anime.

I'm not gonna make a big review, so anyone that wants to just read what the anime is about and if it's worth watching in a short summary, keep reading.

Genre:
The Genre Horror listed for this Anime is not justified at all in my opinion.
This Anime has no Horror in it at all. You won't get scared.
And even though they list the Anime as "supernatural and drama" this Anime is more of a psychological seinen and a mystery show more than anything.

Sound:
The soundtrack is incredibly well fitting so if you search for new OSTs to listen to this Anime might be for you.

... Story:
Very few action, some naked girls but no tits, a bit of romance and some drama stories surrounding the girls in this Anime. It feels like the Aliens/Monsters/Dragons in this Anime exist for the purpose of giving the Anime some fake soul and make people interested to watch the Anime in order to see the whole story. That's because the story itself doesn't cover any topic about the Dragons and instead just uses them to keep your interest while leaving you with unleft answers about them.
Instead it covers the girls lives and their problems which by itself fits into a Shoujo Manga best.


Art:
The art is very old. You shouldn't bother watching this if you can't stand looking at bad animations or old Anime drawing styles.

Characters:
Visually almost all characters in this Anime look the same. You look at 5 different female girls and they all look like they are the same person just with a different haircut. The same applies to the males of the same age.

The characters development is only on a psychological base and includes many breakdowns of the main chars. The character personalities in this anime are all in some sense mentally disturbed.

Overall: Watch this Anime if you want a dramatic Shoujo, like psychological character development or are looking for some neat soundtracks.
Else this Anime is gonna leave you disappointed and bored since it doesn't execute anything else well enough.

This Manga tells the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, very similarly like the Manga Ravages of time in its very own interpreted way.

Story:
The whole story is from the original RotTK, while at some points the story takes turns and twists which you would NEVER expect as a fan of the Three Kingdoms story. It will serve you what you expect and want from a Three Kingdoms tale while still keep you interested with its very own "what if...?" kind of turns.
It starts out with the meeting of the three brothers and their pledge in the peach tree garden and sadly stops ... at the start of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which should actually just be the beginning.

The manga wasn't continued from this point on, which is a real pity, since it has qualities very similar to Ravages of time and is overall just a brilliant manga and a joy to read.

Art:
Character design is unique and the drawings are well made, very detailed to be as realistic as possible for a historical manga.

Characters:
You will see all your beloved heroes like Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun and others. The story sadly doesn't go on long enough to see the heroes of the kingdoms of Wu nor Wei but this manga offers you a chance to see your heroes in a way you never did before, I am sure.
The manga shows them in their usual heroic way while still maintaining the human side of them. And so you get to see the bad side of the usually honorable Guan Yu for example and so on.

Beforehand I want to say, Gantz is my absolute favourite Manga, but the Anime is certainly not.

Story:
Gantz has a really interesting story, the first episode of Gantz is likely the most interesting thing you will see in the whole Anime.
A everyday guy goes his usual way while you as viewer can listen to all of the peoples thoughts of what they are currently thinking. This is certainly something you will not find in any other anime, definitely worth the watch because it's such a different experience and very interesting from a psychological point of view.

What happens then is, the main character gets hit by a ... train(in it's actual meaning) and wakes up in a room with other people who seem to have died and the weird black ball called "Gantz" sends all of them on missions for their survival to fight aliens which inhabit earth. The whole idea seems like a very morbide, crotesque way of looking at what might happen after death or a weird way of a sci-fi story to tell a very disturbing, scary tale.

From there on however, the story gets dull. The "dead" people keep getting sent on their missions of survival, fighting off aliens while fanservice scenes keep showing up and while the anime similarly like the manga tries to show the cruelty of humanity and some really deep philosophical meanings and tries to make you think, the anime version of Gantz sadly fails at this miserably and even the ending makes you want not to ever have watched the anime because it won't make any sense and you get the feeling something is missing.

You get the feeling you are in a anime that was made for little boys in their puberty. Nudescenes everywhere, videogame-style missions and 3D-monsters which seem totally unfitting in the anime background and act like a bot out of a game.
It's like the author thought "let's make a anime which offers action, sex and all covered within a videogame sheme to make it look cool for young boys".

Art & Sound:
Gantz offers standard animations and drawings, nothing too interesting but also nothing that would disappoint overly. most of the Monsters which show up in almost every episode of Gantz are not drawn but are 3D Models and don't seem to have any sort of movement animation and instead just "float" without any sort of movement, really dull, from one point to another.
The drawing style itself reminds of typical Hentai drawings, which makes the anime seem even more like a mindless trash-story.

The sounds are alright, very nice Intro and Ending songs, the background music is not exaggerated and resembles the current mood well, the soundeffects however don't always fit in.

Characters:
Kurono, the main character is the perfect main character for a story in my opinion. He is just everything that is real. He is no superman who does what he wants and beats everyone and he also isn't a idiot, who just searches for fights and is not able to count to 3.
He is your typical guy that you could identify yourself with. He seems educated, slightly arrogant, perverted and overall just everything that identifies what a human is. Unpure, with his mistakes and yet looking out for the best he can be. However, he doesn't develop throughout the story much, unlike in the manga. So he stays the egoistic human he is from beginning till the end. He does have some sort of change of minds within the story nevertheless.

Then there are the Sub-Main characters like Kato, who seems to represent the good side of what a human should be. And while the anime doesn't offer much in comparison to the manga, it shows with Kato at least something important of a character for a story. Somebody who looks at Kato might think "oh he's a good guy. He has his heart at the right place" while someone else might think "man is that guy an idiot". And this is where this character makes you start to think. If you think being the good guy is good, looking at this guys actions might make you reconsider, while his noble actions might also touch you if you are the person to say "what he does is just dumb".

The female main characters are not really of any importance in this anime. They seem more like a bunch of puppets without real personalities.
Most of the time they are busy giving fan-service and if they are not, they need to be rescued by the main chars of the story.

There are also tons of different characters which keep coming and dying throughout the story and these characters are all made exceptionally brilliant.
They act mostly dumb, egoistic or just very cliche-like in such a critically exaggerated way that you just have to dislike most of them and are glad they are dead once they die.
They show perfectly just how humans in general are, what their priorities are in a dire situation and how their daily life makes them ignorant, not even trying to see something extraordinary like aliens a possibility.


Gantz as anime offers overall not much except for some fan-service and action in videogame-style. The ending is not even the real ending of the actual story, but just a filler ending which makes you more confused than that it explains anything.
As Gantz fan I will still honestly admit that this anime will most likely disappoint you and be nice at most.
The concept of life and death, the crotesque and rude way of showing humans and the brave choice of showing balantly gore and nudescenes sure makes you want more and is a very good fundamental idea, which was just not executed correctly.

If you find the idea of Gantz from the first episode on onward is totally uninteresting, then this anime is not worth watching on in any way, it won't get anymore interesting than it was before.

If you find the first episode or at least the fundamental idea of Gantz interesting, you may watch the whole series, it's not completely bad but might disappoint you from your expectations.
I can strongly suggest in this case however to read the Manga of Gantz, because it executes the fundamental idea of this really well, which the anime just does not.

~Flevalt

When I started to watch this anime I expected from its title a typical zombie story. A zombievirus gets spread, some people manage to survive it and fight together for their lives.

I got exactly what I expected.


The Story - begins quite interesting somehow because it starts out in the action and afterwards shows kinda how the virus actually started to spread out and then it continues in the normal zombiestory manner.

Mindless gore, people try not to get bitten and stuff. It's nothing special but if you are a fan of zombies then I'm sure the story won't disappoint.


The Characters - are the biggest critique ... point and the worst part of the whole Anime. You have this typical school theme which just won't allow anything non-stereotypical and cliche character-wise. The main characters only purpose seems to look badass while giving fan-service and bathing in blood. None of the characters develop in any sort of way throughout the story, nor do they give you surprises. All of their actions seem predictable and dull, yet something a very young audiance might enjoy if they like these "don't think, just shoot"-kind of cool people.


The Sound - is one of the best things about the whole anime, it's representing the mood of the current situations overall mostly well.


The Art - never is to everyones taste, but it sure looks well drawn, detailed as much as smoothly moving. Moving animations and the whole action scenes make the anime look very alive and this is certainly the strength of the anime, because the art gets you in the mood to watch on and makes kinda up for the unbelievably monotone choice of characters and the repetetive scenes of boring fanservice.


I didn't really enjoy watching this anime. I can't say that it's a bad anime however. It does offer the typical things you would expect from a title that has "school" in its name and zombies as its theme. But if you are expecting some really good story plot, interesting characters or some sort of deeper philosophical meanings built into the story or even variety, this anime won't give you any of these. So my final result is, I go re-watching Higurashi or Death Note or some other anime that makes sense if I find nothing new and you should do the same.
If you are a Haruhi fan or just like zombies, then give this anime a try, it will most likely fulfill all of your cliches that you want to see.

~Flevalt