#Spade no Kuni no Alice

[wildflower-otome]

2023 Otome game progress

100% completed:

Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:Salvation-

Shuuen no Virche -EpiC:lycoris-

Bustafellows

Nil Admirari no Tenbin: Teito Genwaku Kitan

70-80% completed:

Cupid Parasite (only Allan and secret route to go)

Spade no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful White World~ (only Lewis route left to go)

Taisho x Alice (half of Snow White/Wizard/Epilogue route still to do)

Collar x Malice: Unlimited (half of Yanagi's route and Adonis route to finish)

One to two routes completed:

Bustafellows Seasons 2 (finished my faves Crow and Helvetica but got stuck on Mozu's route which I was really not feeling...I'll get back to it...eventually...)

Kamigami no Asobi (Baldr's route completed, would love to do Hades' next when I get back to this one)

Cendrillon palikA (finished blonde Sasazuka Klone Spinel's route, would like to do Ela's route next)

Clock Zero (finished Riichirou and Shuuya, Toranosuke up next)

9R.I.P. (finished Hibiki's route, Kureha's up next)

Piofiore (only finished Nicola's route, might do Dante or Orlok's next)

Nil Admirari no Tenbin: Kuroyuri Enyoutan (finished Hisui's route only, haven't really decided who to do after yet but following my original order, Shizuru I guess?)

Started:

Steam Prison (did the common route and fell in love with Fin only to read spoilers about what happens with him later and yeah...I would like to finish eventually though, especially with the news about there being a sequel)

Birushana (started Shungen's route bc Souma Saitou and did like it although ended up getting distracted, will definitely finish when I have the time)

[jokobub]

The Great Thing About HNKNA Being An Otome Game

I had an epiphany a few months ago. I’ve talked before about how many pitfalls HNKNA experiences by nature of it being a dating simulator, and how a lot of the cooler parts of the story and lore are overshadowed by the core romance mechanic and how I’m not a big fan of it, blah blah. But I’ve also seen way too many modern Alice in Wonderland adaptations as a result of my ridiculously long-term Kuni no Alice hyperfixation, and allow me to say that there is one thing that it nails that nothing else can even come close to touching— Alice herself!

The Kuni no Alice series brings about what I think is the best modern interpretation of Alice I’ve yet to see in any media I’ve consumed. She’s quick-witted and brings the attitude, but she cares. Her reactions are realistically absurd and there are few moments throughout everything where she feels out of character or unrelatable. And I think the otome genre is crucial to why that is.

By nature, dating simulators don’t have strong protagonists. They’re supposed to be a blank canvas for the player to project onto to achieve their goals. Am I calling Alice flat? No, quite the opposite. Her story is set in a Victorian-inspired fantasy land with lots of guns and danger and a strict social structure, but it’s intended for a modern audience, and when connection with your protagonist is the key to connection with your story, a modern audience means a modern Alice.

The modern Alice is one of the hardest characters to write.

In most instances of an adapted, cool, edgy Alice in Wonderland, the most insufferable character on screen is, in fact, Alice. This is true of the Disney films, SyFy’s Alice special, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, etc. More often than not, Alice Kingsleigh, Hamilton, whatever you want to call her, is a young adult frustrated by life in an oppressive society who will only accept her if she acts in a hyper-specific way, usually at the risk of being institutionalized should she fail to comply. She argues with her parents, who want her to get married, and all of this turns her into a spiteful girl who is always on the defensive.

It’s insufferable to watch.

The character of Alice is too often portrayed as relentlessly mean, but under the guise of empowerment. The audience is tired of weak-willed women, so the director hunches Alice’s dress up passed her ankles and gives her a sword, an attitude, and an ugly man to kiss without her parents’ involvement. Biologically engineered to shatter every well-known gender role established in Victorian England and basically nothing else, movies and TV deliver their “strong female protagonists” in the form of a curt, unchangingly rude version of Alice whose words and actions are supposed to be justified by her circumstances. And god, does it fucking suck!

You can't connect to this Alice, this armed and ready, sharp-tongued, "curiouser and curiouser" Alice who lives in a world that practically clears a narratively untouchable path to every foot she plans to step on. Personally, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The misunderstood to confused, to disgruntled, to aggressive pipeline is overplayed to the point where the Alice of any and all modern interpretations has become, essentially, the same character, forced to loop the same 6 emotional plot points from now into eternity, no matter how many coats of science fiction you put over it.

(Yes, there is a part of me that understands this comes from the fact that Alice is most often written by money-hungry, corporate studios, led primarily by men, who do not understand feminine audiences, or how they want to see themselves represented in media. I get that. And Alice Liddell is not safe from that. But consider: she's my babygirl.)

Am I saying the character of Alice can't be mean, can't say fuck, can't have a sword? Of course not!!!! Give women swords!!! But I am saying that every time a director phones it in with that "Oh, I know that book" budget and gives a British blondie trust issues, a prophecy, and a quirked up, top hat-wearing sidekick to have unfulfilling sexual tension with, i lose my wings AND my marbles.

Enter: our Alice Liddell.

What do we have with her, really? Well, the protagonist of a mid-shelf otome game, which has sequels out the wazoo, a movie and 2 stage play runs, but still somehow only enough translated media to fill a single Barnes and Noble shopping basket about halfway. Thanks QuinRose.

But for real.

Alice Liddell is written, from the ground up, as an otome protagonist. As such, there are narrative must-haves that she can't shake. She needs to be relatable to the modern young adult, even if she's supposed to reflect the Victorian female experience. This would usually be the Achilles Heel of an adapted protagonist: you, the player, get to watch in horror as your favorite whimsical Main Girl is watered down into a bowl of nothing soup for the sake of projection and selling more copies of a game with eye candy catboys and toxicity glorification.

HOWEVER,

(stay seated girlies don't go yet)

This necessary mundanity that is baked into Alice's character, inseparable from her very being as the taste of weed in a brownie, is what singlehandedly saves this adaptation and makes her objectively the best. Unlike in a lot of cinematic adaptations, she's not meant to be the (failed) vehicle of a "deeper narrative" about the strength and roles of women in society. She doesn't exist for any higher purpose, she isn't the chosen one who will declare "Damn The Man" and force the world to listen.

Alice is a girl doing everything she can. She's experienced profound loss. She's self-deprecating. Snarky. She's been through break ups, gotten even with bullies, cuddled with her cat on a Sunday, everything that doesn't matter. The crux of her character is that she's been burned by life and love, yet she can't truly give up on them. Hers is a story of healing, of adaptation and getting back up when life kicks the shit out of you. No matter how sharply she speaks, Kuni no Alice's Alice almost always acts from a place of concern and love for others. She crucially never wields a weapon, reacting to the violence of Wonderland with that extremely jaded "holy fucking shit, what the fuck?" energy that I think any of us would bring to the table, given the circumstances. She's not her community's """lunatic,""" she's not sailing the high seas sideways, she's not on drugs, or destiny's favorite, or anything like that. She's new in town! She's sick of these people! She just wants to go home and read!

She's you. She's me. She's a clusterfuck of a damaged girl, trying to sort out what matters, find her passion and move forward without letting her past stray too far from memory. She's someone whose self-importance and perception by others is foreign to her. She wants to matter, wants not to be left alone by the people she loves, but god forbid she ever admit it.

QuinRose gives us Alice Liddell, suffering failgirl, not Alice Liddell, conceptual landmark, and that was the best possible route anyone could have taken with this character. Alice is the main character, but she is not a hero, and that's a fucking genius move.

thanks for coming to my ted talk. i love u alice.

[banderskrad]

[arnethmyndraavn]

[Spade no Kuni no Alice] Machine Translation Patches (White & Black) Download

White World Screenshots

Black World Screenshots

This is a machine translation patch which was created by running the dialog files for both games through Google translate. The game should be mostly understandable but there will occasional nonsense translations or cut off lines. very basic JP knowledge makes some of the translation oddities easier to understand.

Patch should work on emulator and modded Switch

Patch Downloads: White: DL Black: DL Please note that the patch for White World is much larger since the game has one large asset bundle that contains all the code/levels rather than multiple smaller ones like Black World.

100% Save Data Downloads: White: DL Black: DL

Installation instructions are included in the patch README file

Some mistranslation/oddity examples, some are kinda funny. (These are old screenshots from before I fixed the color of character dialog boxes and backlog portraits, they are fixed in the actual patch)

[zerofoursix]

(spade white prologue spoilers)

FINALLY finished going through the prologue last week (gotta love alice prologue lengths), and i decided to go through my thread of notes so far. i want to put all of these characters under a microscope.

[thesparkthatlightsthemoe]

THAT’S RIGHT GIRL! DEFEND YOUR PIECE OF CLOWN MEAT!!!

[nocturne-of-illusions]

Happy Spade Black Release Day!!!

For those who missed the release countdown voices and illustrations, here's a zip containing all of them. Enjoy!!

[fragileblackrose]

This new outfit is growing on me but I cannot get over the glove that only covers his fingers and knuckles 

[saydoubleu]

(Same as previous game of the series) Participated as main UI designer in game development and it is my last work for Alice series

[zinesnokuninoalice]

♠️ Spade no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Black World~ Opening ♠️

Set to release in Japan August 3, 2023

[cocotome]

Otomate revealed the cast and titles for Otomate Party 2023, taking place 9/9/23-9/10/23! I'm excited but laughing at the same time since OtoPa 2022 hasn't even been released yet and they're already announcing the cast for OtoPa 2023! Cast up ahead!

Saturday, Sept 9, 2023 Night

Hakuouki Morikubou Shoutarou Toriumi Kousuke Yoshino Hiroyuki Yusa Kouji

Collar X Malice Morita Masakazu Namikawa Daisuke Kimura Ryouhei

Nor9 Yusa Kouji Sugiyama Noriaki Yoshino Hiroyuki

Cupid Parasite Kimura Ryouhei Kenn Uemura Yuto

Sunday, Sept 10 Day

Charade Maniacs Furukawa Makoto Maeno Tomoaki Okamoto Nobuhiko

Radiant Tale Enoki Junya Azakami Youhei Okamoto Nobuhiko

Shuuen no Virche Hirakawa Daisuke Yashiro Taku Okitsu Kazuyuki

Sympathy Kiss Kajiwara Gakuto Okitsu Kazuyuki Yamashita Seichirou Kenn Toriumi Kousuke

Sunday, Sept 10 Night

Code Realize Maeno Tomoaki Suwabe Junichi Kakihara Tetsuya Morikubou Shoutarou Hirakawa Daisuke

Tengoku Struggle -strayside- Yashiro Taku Suzuki Ryouta Ishikawa Kaito Furukawa Makoto

Spade no Kuni no Alice Yashiro Taku Hirakawa Daisuke Sugiyama Noriaki Okitsu Kazuyuki Ishikawa Kaito

9 R.I.P. Suzuki Ryouta Kakihara Tetsuya Okamoto Nobuhiko Kenn Azakami Youhei

[wildflower-otome]

Spade no Kuni no Alice | Elliot March Route CG's

[jokobub]

Somebody made this joke with Peter and now it’s my turn

[banderskrad]

ALICE, WHERE IS HE?

awawawaa I was two steps away from not catching him because live on my computer froze and I realised that at the last minute

[arnethmyndraavn]

Some select screenshots from my ongoing playthrough of Gray's Route in Spade Black World (common event stuff too). Just some small things I liked. Translation is from my machine translation patch.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Boris and Gray fighting over who gets to take Alice's luggage to her room. The mental image of Boris absolutely destroying passenger luggage in a cat like manner is great. Just tossing it around, clawing at it, then promptly losing interest in it.

Gray's room is pretty bare so Alice asks what kind of stuff he likes.

I'm really enjoying the new outfits. They just look so good I had to include them.

Gray's cooking makes a reappearance and Nightmare's suffering is so great it breaks the textbox.

[memenokuninoalice]

Due to technical difficulties, missing mods, being unable to get into accounts, and a multitude of other issues, I am proud to present “A Fool’s Wonderland,” volume 2 of the no Kuni no Alice zine series. 

When I can get the mods back, find new mods, or figure out the money and merch myself, there will be a physical run and physical merch. It has just been too long to keep holding it back. Due to this, I am also making the digital bundle free. It was originally going to be paid, but the payment account is also not really handled by me, so ٭(•﹏•)٭

~DOWNLOAD THE DIGITAL BUNDLE HERE~

Call for help:

Those technical difficulties include not being able to get into the zine tumblr account ◉‿◉ , so it is being posted on the meme account. It wants phone verification, but it’s set to another mod’s phone apparently. Please reblog and like to spread the word to those not subscribed to this account but are subscribed to the zine account.