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Alice in Borderland 2-in-1 Omnibus #1
Alice in Borderland, vol. 1
Edición argentina 2 en 1. Tomo 1 de 9.
Llega unos de los mangas survival que más ha dado que hablar este año gracias a su genial adaptación a live action emitida en Netflix. Una historia repleta de acción, suspense y macabros juegos, protagonizada por tres amigos que acaban teletransportados a un mundo paralelo aparentemente igual que el nuestro, pero sólo habitado por aquellos desafortunados que están obligados a participar en el juego de supervivencia. La crueldad y variedad de los puzzles y la naturaleza de las personas y sus instintos, marcan esta historia que nos sorprende una y otra vez con giros y situaciones extrañas e inesperadas. Su autor, Haro Aso, dota a la serie de un dibujo impactante que remarca las terribles situaciones que viven los protagonistas, manteniéndonos pegados al manga página tras página.
Llega unos de los mangas survival que más ha dado que hablar este año gracias a su genial adaptación a live action emitida en Netflix. Una historia repleta de acción, suspense y macabros juegos, protagonizada por tres amigos que acaban teletransportados a un mundo paralelo aparentemente igual que el nuestro, pero sólo habitado por aquellos desafortunados que están obligados a participar en el juego de supervivencia. La crueldad y variedad de los puzzles y la naturaleza de las personas y sus instintos, marcan esta historia que nos sorprende una y otra vez con giros y situaciones extrañas e inesperadas. Su autor, Haro Aso, dota a la serie de un dibujo impactante que remarca las terribles situaciones que viven los protagonistas, manteniéndonos pegados al manga página tras página.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
395 people are currently reading
13176 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 989 reviews
January 11, 2023
the feminine urge to consume every media related to this show and its fictional universe
November 20, 2025
You say you in that game, but I've yet to see you play / You say you going hard, but nobody feels the same (Canal St. – A$AP Rocky).
Ding ding ding , we’ve finally got a winner folks! Now whoever put that hex on me that makes it so every book I pick up will be a “3 star” read can pack it up, because I’ve broken the curse. Also like… leave me alone maybe? I added the "ding" sound because I thought it would be, like, a game show sound effects or something? Anyway, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of been going through all the acclaimed dystopian type manga over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve unfortunately been finding most of them to a bit on the lackluster side. Battle Royale was fine (and gets a pass because it was one of the first to do it), but me personally? I thought it wasn’t patient enough in its pacing to really hook me, too hectic and too wild too quick. And then on the flip side, while addictive, Gantz was too much of a shit show to make a lasting impression on me. And that’s not even mentioning all the offensive stuff in it that’s often glossed over by fans as “a product of the time,” to which I have to say, what exactly kind of product? Just straight up trash!? While I admit that DNF-ing books has never been my strong suit, I’ve come around to the prospect of leaving garbage manga behind the second they do one thing to annoy me. In fact, I’d say the medium has wandered into the “annoying YouTuber” territory now. Oh wait, I forgot that doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me. Basically, whenever I come across a Youtuber who yells just a little too loud or says an opinion I disagree with a little too proudly, then I dip immediately. That's why I've been only reading one volume of a lot of these manga! So yeah, the only thing left on my reading list is Akira, which is considered one of the greats, but now I’m scared to actually read it because don’t want to do that thing I do and find enough reasons to dislike it until it becomes yet another classic that I have to talk bad about! Hm, maybe I’ll just watch the movie? Anyway, I’ve always known Alice in Borderland as that one Netflix show (movie?) that I would scroll past in the horror section, and it was only recently that I learned that it was based off of a manga, and I thought… hey wait a minute, I read manga, so here I am. I don’t know why I felt the need to write out the entire process for getting here like this is a court hearing, but whatever. While I was bit worried going into this because it seemed like yet another one of those “evil dystopian game show shows that show how easy it is to dehumanize ‘the other’ for cheap entertainment value” type of stories like Squid Game, The Hunger Games, and… Big Brother, I nonetheless found Alice in Borderland to be really fun simply due to the fact that it focuses heavily on the actual “game” aspect of the story rather than the horror. Well I mean, the horror is in how mundane the games they’re forced to play juxtapose with deadly consequences like in Squid Game, and because of this similarity, it made this manga much more tonally consistent.
Okay then, if you’ve ever read anything from this genre, then the synopsis will always sound the same, but I guess I’ll talk about it anyway! A high school student named Ryohei Arisu (yes, I did have to look it up) and his two besties are all on the cusp of adulthood, and lamenting the crushing weight of responsibility looming over them, all in one way or another wish that there was some other path laid out for them. That’s an inciting incident if I’ve ever heard one! So yeah, as these things tend to happen, all three dudes are suddenly blinded by a flash of light and they find themselves in a desolate and abandoned Tokyo. What at first seems like exactly what Arisu had always wished for quickly turns into a nightmare as he’s then forced to participate in horribly unfair Mario Party mini games with his life on the line. You know, like the rest of these kinds of stories. I think one of the reasons why the idea of a “murder game show” is so enticing to a lot of writers is because it offers a continuous stream of possible story beats without the need for further context. Like, of course these guys now have to play a game of tag while being chased by a killer wearing a horse mask! There’s no such thing as batshit insane when that’s literally the point of the story, right? Now, I will say that whenever I read one of these, I always secretly tally how far I could get if I somehow randomly ended up in the middle of one of the nightmare games, and I’ve got to say… I might have the worst chance of surviving Alice in Borderland! If I were in a Hunger Game, I reckon I could at least survive for a couple days at the very least. You know, I could paint myself under a rock like Peeta! Why did he even paint half of his body anyway? Just hide completely under the rock dude, otherwise somebody could step on him and then his hiding spot would be a total bust. Which, mind you, is exactly what happens when Katniss accidentally stumbles on him! Anyway, I’m sure I would be immensely unpopular with audiences though, and in turn eventually get taken out because I couldn’t secure any care packages, but you know, those first couple of days I’d be getting along swimmingly. If I found myself in a Squid Game, I figure I would probably do the “Red Light, Green Light” game well enough, but the second I’m in a tug-of-war struggle… I’m out. But more importantly, I have absolutely no faith in getting by in a Alice in Borderland! Nah, the second they whip out the math problems, I’m dead. You don’t even need to add the urgency of getting shot at by hundreds of fire arrows, I’d just run out the timer because I’m not trying to do any of that. Anyway, I will say that at the start I wasn’t too sure about this manga because it seemed like the games were so sadistically hard and challenging that nobody could possibly get through this shit, and it took me out of the narrative because I couldn’t imagine what kind of audiences this sadistic game would even attract. Like, watching a bunch of people failing at math and then murked by arrows doesn’t really seem that entertaining, right?
It reminds me of the shows that Sims watch where it's just a bunch of incomprehensible images put together, so who knows? Maybe this manga takes place in The Sims universe! Which would explain the ever present sense of hopelessness and lack of control that the characters feel even in the normal world! Seriously though, while I don't think anyone would watch this show, when the story moved on to the next game, the evil game of tag, I finally got it. I will say that I usually don’t like the main characters in these types of stories simply because they’re too good. I don’t know, I just think that their kindness to other players makes for a bland contrast against the backdrop of the high octane gameplay. Like, I know a lot of these stories like to focus on trying to leave off on a good message to give us something to chew on, but in just one of these murder game show type stories I’d like to follow a protagonist that just keeps getting worse over time. But who knows, maybe that’s just indicative of how I would be acting in one of these things. There’s this game called Cyberpunk 2077 that came out the oven a buggy mess, and certain side missions had you Street Fighter brawling different citizens of Night City. Fun right? Well, because the game was a glitchy mess, the hand-to-hand combat was damn near impossible. Hits wouldn't register! There was a silver lining though; an exploit where you could drop a weapon in the middle of the arena before the match and it would still be there when the fight started proper. Long story short, that’s how I won several boxing matches with a baseball bat. Anyway, I think Alice in Borderland has a stronger sense of narrative weight than a lot of its contemporaries simply because of a slight shift in focus. Sure, the entertainment value is in the twisted games and them finding out-of-the-box solutions to the insurmountable odds placed in front of them, but what really fascinated me about this manga was the fact that, at its core, there’s a really powerful coming-of-age story here. Any narrative about escaping to a different land hits different when the main character is a bit of an outcast, and this manga actually sold me on Arisu's lethargy right out the gate. It's very Inside Llewyn Davis in how it gets its point across in an understated way. What most of these stories get wrong is that they often veer too closely on the “I hate my parents” kind of poser main character rather than somebody who would actually realistically and sympathetically prefer a deadly game show over their normal life. In my opinion, the best kind of protagonists for escapist fiction are people who have had no say in their standing within a society that looks to suppress imagination and free thought. I’m thinking Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, or even Alice in Wonderland, which this manga takes a lot of its iconography from. And in that sense, I’d say that Alice in Borderland has more than proved worthy of joining the pantheon! In other words, this definitely lived up to the hype.
Ding ding ding , we’ve finally got a winner folks! Now whoever put that hex on me that makes it so every book I pick up will be a “3 star” read can pack it up, because I’ve broken the curse. Also like… leave me alone maybe? I added the "ding" sound because I thought it would be, like, a game show sound effects or something? Anyway, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of been going through all the acclaimed dystopian type manga over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve unfortunately been finding most of them to a bit on the lackluster side. Battle Royale was fine (and gets a pass because it was one of the first to do it), but me personally? I thought it wasn’t patient enough in its pacing to really hook me, too hectic and too wild too quick. And then on the flip side, while addictive, Gantz was too much of a shit show to make a lasting impression on me. And that’s not even mentioning all the offensive stuff in it that’s often glossed over by fans as “a product of the time,” to which I have to say, what exactly kind of product? Just straight up trash!? While I admit that DNF-ing books has never been my strong suit, I’ve come around to the prospect of leaving garbage manga behind the second they do one thing to annoy me. In fact, I’d say the medium has wandered into the “annoying YouTuber” territory now. Oh wait, I forgot that doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me. Basically, whenever I come across a Youtuber who yells just a little too loud or says an opinion I disagree with a little too proudly, then I dip immediately. That's why I've been only reading one volume of a lot of these manga! So yeah, the only thing left on my reading list is Akira, which is considered one of the greats, but now I’m scared to actually read it because don’t want to do that thing I do and find enough reasons to dislike it until it becomes yet another classic that I have to talk bad about! Hm, maybe I’ll just watch the movie? Anyway, I’ve always known Alice in Borderland as that one Netflix show (movie?) that I would scroll past in the horror section, and it was only recently that I learned that it was based off of a manga, and I thought… hey wait a minute, I read manga, so here I am. I don’t know why I felt the need to write out the entire process for getting here like this is a court hearing, but whatever. While I was bit worried going into this because it seemed like yet another one of those “evil dystopian game show shows that show how easy it is to dehumanize ‘the other’ for cheap entertainment value” type of stories like Squid Game, The Hunger Games, and… Big Brother, I nonetheless found Alice in Borderland to be really fun simply due to the fact that it focuses heavily on the actual “game” aspect of the story rather than the horror. Well I mean, the horror is in how mundane the games they’re forced to play juxtapose with deadly consequences like in Squid Game, and because of this similarity, it made this manga much more tonally consistent.
Okay then, if you’ve ever read anything from this genre, then the synopsis will always sound the same, but I guess I’ll talk about it anyway! A high school student named Ryohei Arisu (yes, I did have to look it up) and his two besties are all on the cusp of adulthood, and lamenting the crushing weight of responsibility looming over them, all in one way or another wish that there was some other path laid out for them. That’s an inciting incident if I’ve ever heard one! So yeah, as these things tend to happen, all three dudes are suddenly blinded by a flash of light and they find themselves in a desolate and abandoned Tokyo. What at first seems like exactly what Arisu had always wished for quickly turns into a nightmare as he’s then forced to participate in horribly unfair Mario Party mini games with his life on the line. You know, like the rest of these kinds of stories. I think one of the reasons why the idea of a “murder game show” is so enticing to a lot of writers is because it offers a continuous stream of possible story beats without the need for further context. Like, of course these guys now have to play a game of tag while being chased by a killer wearing a horse mask! There’s no such thing as batshit insane when that’s literally the point of the story, right? Now, I will say that whenever I read one of these, I always secretly tally how far I could get if I somehow randomly ended up in the middle of one of the nightmare games, and I’ve got to say… I might have the worst chance of surviving Alice in Borderland! If I were in a Hunger Game, I reckon I could at least survive for a couple days at the very least. You know, I could paint myself under a rock like Peeta! Why did he even paint half of his body anyway? Just hide completely under the rock dude, otherwise somebody could step on him and then his hiding spot would be a total bust. Which, mind you, is exactly what happens when Katniss accidentally stumbles on him! Anyway, I’m sure I would be immensely unpopular with audiences though, and in turn eventually get taken out because I couldn’t secure any care packages, but you know, those first couple of days I’d be getting along swimmingly. If I found myself in a Squid Game, I figure I would probably do the “Red Light, Green Light” game well enough, but the second I’m in a tug-of-war struggle… I’m out. But more importantly, I have absolutely no faith in getting by in a Alice in Borderland! Nah, the second they whip out the math problems, I’m dead. You don’t even need to add the urgency of getting shot at by hundreds of fire arrows, I’d just run out the timer because I’m not trying to do any of that. Anyway, I will say that at the start I wasn’t too sure about this manga because it seemed like the games were so sadistically hard and challenging that nobody could possibly get through this shit, and it took me out of the narrative because I couldn’t imagine what kind of audiences this sadistic game would even attract. Like, watching a bunch of people failing at math and then murked by arrows doesn’t really seem that entertaining, right?
It reminds me of the shows that Sims watch where it's just a bunch of incomprehensible images put together, so who knows? Maybe this manga takes place in The Sims universe! Which would explain the ever present sense of hopelessness and lack of control that the characters feel even in the normal world! Seriously though, while I don't think anyone would watch this show, when the story moved on to the next game, the evil game of tag, I finally got it. I will say that I usually don’t like the main characters in these types of stories simply because they’re too good. I don’t know, I just think that their kindness to other players makes for a bland contrast against the backdrop of the high octane gameplay. Like, I know a lot of these stories like to focus on trying to leave off on a good message to give us something to chew on, but in just one of these murder game show type stories I’d like to follow a protagonist that just keeps getting worse over time. But who knows, maybe that’s just indicative of how I would be acting in one of these things. There’s this game called Cyberpunk 2077 that came out the oven a buggy mess, and certain side missions had you Street Fighter brawling different citizens of Night City. Fun right? Well, because the game was a glitchy mess, the hand-to-hand combat was damn near impossible. Hits wouldn't register! There was a silver lining though; an exploit where you could drop a weapon in the middle of the arena before the match and it would still be there when the fight started proper. Long story short, that’s how I won several boxing matches with a baseball bat. Anyway, I think Alice in Borderland has a stronger sense of narrative weight than a lot of its contemporaries simply because of a slight shift in focus. Sure, the entertainment value is in the twisted games and them finding out-of-the-box solutions to the insurmountable odds placed in front of them, but what really fascinated me about this manga was the fact that, at its core, there’s a really powerful coming-of-age story here. Any narrative about escaping to a different land hits different when the main character is a bit of an outcast, and this manga actually sold me on Arisu's lethargy right out the gate. It's very Inside Llewyn Davis in how it gets its point across in an understated way. What most of these stories get wrong is that they often veer too closely on the “I hate my parents” kind of poser main character rather than somebody who would actually realistically and sympathetically prefer a deadly game show over their normal life. In my opinion, the best kind of protagonists for escapist fiction are people who have had no say in their standing within a society that looks to suppress imagination and free thought. I’m thinking Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, or even Alice in Wonderland, which this manga takes a lot of its iconography from. And in that sense, I’d say that Alice in Borderland has more than proved worthy of joining the pantheon! In other words, this definitely lived up to the hype.
Want to read
December 28, 2022love the show with my entire heart so time to read the manga 3
April 15, 2022
Arisu is 18 years old and aimless, unhappy with his life and wishing he could just go away to another world… and then, one night, he and his two friends witness a massive fireworks display and wake up in the same city they used to live in but nobody else is there. Everything’s covered in dust and all the food is expired - it’s like they’ve been magically transported to the far future. Wandering the eerie city, they stumble across a brightly lit area with food and working toilets - and are trapped. They must play - and win - a seemingly simple game. If they win, they get to live. If they lose, they die a horrible death. Welcome to Borderland!
Alice in Borderland came out over a decade ago but I’m guessing it’s being reissued now in fancy new editions partly because of Haro Aso’s more recent hit manga, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, and partly because of the success of Squid Game, which this series is heavily reminiscent of even though it predates it by more than ten years and even the Netflix adaptation of this series came out the year before Squid Game. At any rate, this first book is really something!
The first fifty-ish pages are a bit of a slog mostly because the characters aren’t very interesting and we have to watch them putz around doing nothing until they make it to Borderland. Arisu (the “Alice” of the title - there’s no “L” in the Japanese alphabet so “Arisu” is the closest they can get to pronouncing “Alice”) is an unremarkable teenager, Chota is the annoying pervy mate and Karube is the strong silent type - all three are manga archetypes. It’s not a huge problem though because the strength of this manga is the story, not the characters.
It’s also not clear why Aso is making Lewis Carroll comparisons beyond having a punny title. A small rabbit appears in one panel when they first enter Borderland, the transition into Borderland is trippy, and one of the characters is called Usagi (“rabbit” in Japanese - ie. follow the white rabbit). Besides those small details, there’s really nothing else to connect this to the Wonderland books. Not that that really matters either - I wasn’t hoping to read a modern manga retelling of that story anyway, and there are other books to come so maybe it becomes clearer as the series progresses.
Where this book takes off is when the deadly games begin. Like Squid Game, benign and childish games are rendered extremely dark and bloody here. So the first game is the team having to read their fortunes at a shrine before the lanterns go out, and the second is a game of Tag - where the person who is “it” happens to be a serial killer wearing a horse mask and carrying a submachine gun! They must run around a large apartment complex, not getting killed, trying to find the one unlocked door before 30 minutes is up.
The games are really well-plotted, original, unpredictable and exciting. We find out details of what Borderland is at the same time as the characters - how the games are determined, how many others are involved, how the rewards work and what happens if you don’t participate - though, of course, this early on we don’t know who’s doing all of this or why. The Tag half of the book was my favourite - it was genuinely riveting and fun to watch, with different players attempting different strategies and Aso throwing in one twist after another right to the very end.
I had no idea Haro Aso was also a brilliant artist because he only writes Zom 100 so I thought he was just a writer but he writes and draws Alice in Borderland and he excels at both. He has a fantastic eye for action, knowing how to frame certain shots for best effect, like going to the character’s point of view when they’re hiding from the killer, or zooming out for set pieces so you can see characters doing daring things like jumping between floors. He really takes you there into the scene and makes you feel the tension. This creator is more and more impressive to me.
If you’re in the mood for a violently fun manga in the style of Squid Game, and/or you’re a fan of this creator, Alice in Borderland, Volume 1 is definitely worth checking out - a thrilling start to this promising series.
Alice in Borderland came out over a decade ago but I’m guessing it’s being reissued now in fancy new editions partly because of Haro Aso’s more recent hit manga, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, and partly because of the success of Squid Game, which this series is heavily reminiscent of even though it predates it by more than ten years and even the Netflix adaptation of this series came out the year before Squid Game. At any rate, this first book is really something!
The first fifty-ish pages are a bit of a slog mostly because the characters aren’t very interesting and we have to watch them putz around doing nothing until they make it to Borderland. Arisu (the “Alice” of the title - there’s no “L” in the Japanese alphabet so “Arisu” is the closest they can get to pronouncing “Alice”) is an unremarkable teenager, Chota is the annoying pervy mate and Karube is the strong silent type - all three are manga archetypes. It’s not a huge problem though because the strength of this manga is the story, not the characters.
It’s also not clear why Aso is making Lewis Carroll comparisons beyond having a punny title. A small rabbit appears in one panel when they first enter Borderland, the transition into Borderland is trippy, and one of the characters is called Usagi (“rabbit” in Japanese - ie. follow the white rabbit). Besides those small details, there’s really nothing else to connect this to the Wonderland books. Not that that really matters either - I wasn’t hoping to read a modern manga retelling of that story anyway, and there are other books to come so maybe it becomes clearer as the series progresses.
Where this book takes off is when the deadly games begin. Like Squid Game, benign and childish games are rendered extremely dark and bloody here. So the first game is the team having to read their fortunes at a shrine before the lanterns go out, and the second is a game of Tag - where the person who is “it” happens to be a serial killer wearing a horse mask and carrying a submachine gun! They must run around a large apartment complex, not getting killed, trying to find the one unlocked door before 30 minutes is up.
The games are really well-plotted, original, unpredictable and exciting. We find out details of what Borderland is at the same time as the characters - how the games are determined, how many others are involved, how the rewards work and what happens if you don’t participate - though, of course, this early on we don’t know who’s doing all of this or why. The Tag half of the book was my favourite - it was genuinely riveting and fun to watch, with different players attempting different strategies and Aso throwing in one twist after another right to the very end.
I had no idea Haro Aso was also a brilliant artist because he only writes Zom 100 so I thought he was just a writer but he writes and draws Alice in Borderland and he excels at both. He has a fantastic eye for action, knowing how to frame certain shots for best effect, like going to the character’s point of view when they’re hiding from the killer, or zooming out for set pieces so you can see characters doing daring things like jumping between floors. He really takes you there into the scene and makes you feel the tension. This creator is more and more impressive to me.
If you’re in the mood for a violently fun manga in the style of Squid Game, and/or you’re a fan of this creator, Alice in Borderland, Volume 1 is definitely worth checking out - a thrilling start to this promising series.
May 25, 2025
Just finished season 2 on Netflix. That ending makes me want to know more. Perfect timing to check out the manga too!
August 4, 2025
⭐️4.5
damn, what a ride.
damn, what a ride.
May 26, 2022
i just read the last panel of this manga, and my heart is still pounding.
last autumn, riding on the coattails of squid game, i watched the live netflix adaptation of alice in borderland on a whim - and was wholly riveted. when i saw that the english translation of the manga was available on netgalley, i immediately knew that i wanted to read it.
ryohei arisu is a listless high schooler in tokyo who "whimper[s] through life" without motivation or enjoyment or passion. the only bright spots in his life are his friendships with daikichi karube, a high school dropout who works at a bar and regularly gets into fistfights, and chota segawa, a classmate who is girl-obsessed and perpetually, excessively cheerful (or tearful). on the day that arisu wishes he could be anywhere but in his own life, where he is constantly compared - and found lesser - to his younger brother, the three friends witness strange fireworks in the sky. catching a glimpse of this strange phenomenon is all it takes to send arisu, karube, and chota careening into a world that resembles their own - but is eerily, dangerously, violently, different.
welcome to the borderland, where your lives are forfeit.
“In order to survive, we have to risk our lives in the games. A real catch-22.”
like with the show, i couldn't look away. alice in borderland, vol. 1 is a thrilling ride - a story of people trying to survive and make sense of horrific, senseless brutality and enigmatic, surreal circumstances. to live another day, arisu and his friends must be clever and quick and alive in a way they never were before the borderland.
i felt that arisu and his friends' ennui is better captured in the manga versus the tv show, because there's more space to flesh out the characters’ feelings prior to diving into the explosive alternate tokyo. the only part of the tv show that i preferred to this source material is chota's characterization - he's kind of a perv in the manga but more endearingly awkward and soft in the show?? LOL.
all of this to say: i can't wait to read the next installment, where we get to see more of usagi and the stakes will be ramped up ever higher!
many thanks to netgalley and viz media for this e-galley in exchange for an honest review.
last autumn, riding on the coattails of squid game, i watched the live netflix adaptation of alice in borderland on a whim - and was wholly riveted. when i saw that the english translation of the manga was available on netgalley, i immediately knew that i wanted to read it.
ryohei arisu is a listless high schooler in tokyo who "whimper[s] through life" without motivation or enjoyment or passion. the only bright spots in his life are his friendships with daikichi karube, a high school dropout who works at a bar and regularly gets into fistfights, and chota segawa, a classmate who is girl-obsessed and perpetually, excessively cheerful (or tearful). on the day that arisu wishes he could be anywhere but in his own life, where he is constantly compared - and found lesser - to his younger brother, the three friends witness strange fireworks in the sky. catching a glimpse of this strange phenomenon is all it takes to send arisu, karube, and chota careening into a world that resembles their own - but is eerily, dangerously, violently, different.
welcome to the borderland, where your lives are forfeit.
“In order to survive, we have to risk our lives in the games. A real catch-22.”
like with the show, i couldn't look away. alice in borderland, vol. 1 is a thrilling ride - a story of people trying to survive and make sense of horrific, senseless brutality and enigmatic, surreal circumstances. to live another day, arisu and his friends must be clever and quick and alive in a way they never were before the borderland.
i felt that arisu and his friends' ennui is better captured in the manga versus the tv show, because there's more space to flesh out the characters’ feelings prior to diving into the explosive alternate tokyo. the only part of the tv show that i preferred to this source material is chota's characterization - he's kind of a perv in the manga but more endearingly awkward and soft in the show?? LOL.
all of this to say: i can't wait to read the next installment, where we get to see more of usagi and the stakes will be ramped up ever higher!
many thanks to netgalley and viz media for this e-galley in exchange for an honest review.
June 21, 2024
If I were in a situation like this and had to solve an equation under life-threatening circumstances I would just die, I guess. Anyway, these first two volumes were quite awesome and I'm definitely going to continue in the series.
Read
December 11, 2023Written and drawn by Haro Aso (creator of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead), and translated spectacularly into English by Jonah Mayahara-Miller, Alice in Borderland is a shonen manga inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and reminiscent of Battle Royale and Squid Game. This is a manga about survival in a strange world, where our protagonists are forced to play “games” in order to go on living.
Our main protagonist, Arisu (whose name is a riff on “Alice”) is a hopeless high-schooler, exhausted by every aspect of life. He excels at nothing, is overshadowed by his brother, ignored by his family, hates school, performs poorly, and feels no excitement for the future. One night, he’s out in Tokyo with two friends, and shortly before sunrise the three of them witness a fireworks display. This somehow leads them to wake up in a strange version of our world.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-modern-s...
Our main protagonist, Arisu (whose name is a riff on “Alice”) is a hopeless high-schooler, exhausted by every aspect of life. He excels at nothing, is overshadowed by his brother, ignored by his family, hates school, performs poorly, and feels no excitement for the future. One night, he’s out in Tokyo with two friends, and shortly before sunrise the three of them witness a fireworks display. This somehow leads them to wake up in a strange version of our world.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-modern-s...
November 3, 2022
If you're interested in my thoughts be sure to check out my video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gw_9...
April 14, 2022
A fairly exciting exploration of the deadly games and closed circle tropes made popular in recent years by Hunger Games and Squid Games with a heavy escape room vibe to boot. A group of high school buddies see some unusual fireworks late one night, black out, and awaken in the Borderland, a ruined and nearly deserted version of the Tokyo they know. To stay alive, they need to compete regularly with and against the other unwilling inhabitants in games with life or death consequences. Characterization isn't real deep -- we have the street smart guy, the tough guy, and the goofball -- but things keep moving fast enough that that's not a problem.
I unknowingly read two books by the same guy, Haro Aso, back to back this week. His Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Vol. 1 is also fast-paced, gory, and good but with a darkly humorous bent that contrasts nicely with the grim seriousness of this series. I'm going to keep on with both and keep my eye out for anything else he does. And apparently, when I'm ready, there's also a Netflix series based on "Alice" that I can check out.
I unknowingly read two books by the same guy, Haro Aso, back to back this week. His Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Vol. 1 is also fast-paced, gory, and good but with a darkly humorous bent that contrasts nicely with the grim seriousness of this series. I'm going to keep on with both and keep my eye out for anything else he does. And apparently, when I'm ready, there's also a Netflix series based on "Alice" that I can check out.
June 12, 2024
omg I’m obsessed
Want to read
August 23, 2025GUYS IM USUALLY NOT A MANGA GIRL BUT IM OBSESSED WITH THE SHOW
December 10, 2021
Really good volume! I stumble on this manga by pure chance. I didn’t even know it existed, but I heard about the TV show, without knowing it was an adaptation. So when I found it, I decide to have a go to see what it was worth and before watching the show. Now I think I will read it all before going to the TV, because it was really good. The story is way more intriguing than I though and look solidly build, of course a series like that is, for me at least, in good part about the why, so the ending, when it will come, could play a major role in my final appreciation. But as a first volume, it was entertaining, intriguing, with good action, good characters as well and the art is also quite nice. Worth reading!
March 18, 2023
Woah! This was my first ever manga read and I love it. I read it after watching season 1 and 2 of the show on Netflix which I adore. It’s so cool seeing the small differences and I love how the characters looked so similar in the show to the book. The story is great! It’s such a cool and scary concept and very well paced.
March 24, 2022
Very good! Looking forward to continuing.
June 24, 2022
Life sucks.
Not doing much with it, our main lead Ryohei wants to be in a different world. Maybe one filled with zombies. To give him something new. Give him purpose after being in his little brother's shadow for so long.
But him and his two friends get teleported to a new world of hell. At first it seems it's just them but soon they find they have to play "games" to survive. If they fail the games they are viciously murdered by the rules.
A bit of squid game, a bit of battle royal, a bit of gantz, we get a lot of fun elements and stories placed into one. The first half is solid enough hook but it is really thanks to the second arc with the horse faced man with two machine guns chasing down everyone in a apartment complex in a brutal game of cat and mouse that elevates this series for me.
If you love a little spice with survival, this one should not be missed. The opening can be slow, and some of the faces are a little wonky, but once it gets going it's well worth the adventure.
Not doing much with it, our main lead Ryohei wants to be in a different world. Maybe one filled with zombies. To give him something new. Give him purpose after being in his little brother's shadow for so long.
But him and his two friends get teleported to a new world of hell. At first it seems it's just them but soon they find they have to play "games" to survive. If they fail the games they are viciously murdered by the rules.
A bit of squid game, a bit of battle royal, a bit of gantz, we get a lot of fun elements and stories placed into one. The first half is solid enough hook but it is really thanks to the second arc with the horse faced man with two machine guns chasing down everyone in a apartment complex in a brutal game of cat and mouse that elevates this series for me.
If you love a little spice with survival, this one should not be missed. The opening can be slow, and some of the faces are a little wonky, but once it gets going it's well worth the adventure.
April 10, 2023
Primo approccio ai manga, finalmente sono riuscita a superare questo mio personale scoglio.
Storia avvincente, ritmo incalzante e non mancano le riflessioni su cosa significhi vivere e morire.
Non vedo l’ora di iniziare gli altri volumi.
Storia avvincente, ritmo incalzante e non mancano le riflessioni su cosa significhi vivere e morire.
Non vedo l’ora di iniziare gli altri volumi.
December 6, 2023
I loved the art style, the storyline, and the concept of this series. However, I will recommend the show over the manga volumes simply because of the constant objectification of every one of the female characters.
January 20, 2025
Pažiūrėjusi NUOSTABŲ SERIALĄ, APIE KURĮ NEGALIU UŽSIČIAUPT, nusprendžiau perskaityti komiksą, nuo kurio viskas prasidėjo. Esu sužavėta, tai mano pirmoji perskaityta manga ir tikiuosi, kad ne paskutinė. Ar skaitysiu kitas dalis? Nežinau... tiesą sakant, jaučiuosi per sena, man sunku žiūrint į juodai baltus paveiksliukus, ant kurių parašyta "BOOM", įsivaizduoti sprogimą ar kitą veiksmo sceną. Neturiu tiek fantazijos, bet nepaisant to, turėjau gerą laiką su šia nuostabia knyga. Tiems, kuriems patiko squid games ir the 8th show serialai — ko jūs laukiat?! Alice in borderland savo istorija yra geriausias iš jų visų.
November 3, 2025
Big fan of the tv adaptation so I thought I'd give the manga a go, this first volume really didn't disappoint !! I often feel impartial towards mangas/graphic novels but I fear this may become my new obsession... stay tuned my loyal followers...
September 8, 2022
incel writing
September 20, 2025
ADORO.
ADORO.
ADORO.
♠️♦️♣️♥️
ADORO.
ADORO.
♠️♦️♣️♥️
March 11, 2022
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
what am i supposed to do now that i finished? Like sure watch the netflix show again but like how am i supposed to wait for vol 2 when i dont think it has a release date for the english translation :( :(
how fast do you think I can learn japanese🧐
for real though, this is a great manga. I saw the show first so I had an idea of what the story was and I was still racing through this like I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. If you like Battle Royale/Survivor stories, Squid Game etc I definitely recommend this
___
Lets all praise Barnes and Noble for having this on their shelves before its release date :)
what am i supposed to do now that i finished? Like sure watch the netflix show again but like how am i supposed to wait for vol 2 when i dont think it has a release date for the english translation :( :(
how fast do you think I can learn japanese🧐
for real though, this is a great manga. I saw the show first so I had an idea of what the story was and I was still racing through this like I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. If you like Battle Royale/Survivor stories, Squid Game etc I definitely recommend this
___
Lets all praise Barnes and Noble for having this on their shelves before its release date :)
December 23, 2021
Ya conocía la historia, por la serie, pero el manga me ha gustado mucho es muy bueno.
Sin duda, vale la pena leerlo.
Sin duda, vale la pena leerlo.
February 18, 2022
Diferente pero genial. Chishiya y Usagi maravillosos, como siempre
July 16, 2022
Picked this up since I saw it was adapted for live-action on Netflix. Pleasantly surprised! Eagerly anticipating the next volume to come in at my library.
October 30, 2023
they did chouta so dirty 😭😭😭😭
June 24, 2024
nobody can understand how much i love aib 🙏
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