If the name Mai Mochizuki sounds familiar, that's because this is her second English-language release: she's also the author of the Holmes of Kyoto light mysteries. But even if those books didn't work for you, Alice in Kyoto Forest is still worth giving a chance. This series' manga version sees her once more writing about Kyoto, but not the modern city, or even the past one. Kyoto Forest is a looking-glass version of the real-world Kyoto, one where the Imperial family still resides and is populated by kitsune, tanuki, and other transforming ayakashi. It's both strange and familiar at the same time, and it's where our heroine, fifteen-year-old Alice Shirakawa, ends up in a bid to start a new life.

And if anyone is in desperate need of a new, better life, it's definitely Alice. Originally from (real world) Kyoto, she was forced to move north to live with her maternal aunt after her parents died in a car accident, with the implication that Alice was in the car as well as the sole survivor. While her aunt welcomes her, her uncle actively resents having an interloper in the family, abusing Alice with his words in a way that clearly has escalated as the years have gone on. When he says that he won't allow her to go to high school (not compulsory education in Japan), Alice's desperation comes to a head, and she decides that going back to Kyoto is the only way forward. To that end she calls a phone number in a booklet about maiko, and immediately upon enquiring about a position, she's told that a car will be sent to pick her up.

You don't have to have seen Kiyo in Kyoto: From the Maiko House to know that this is more than a little fishy. Alice is vaguely aware that this isn't quite how it's supposed to work, but the relief at getting away from her uncle may have clouded her judgment. Even as she muses that the elderly gentleman in the fancy car who comes for her is awfully British for belonging to a traditional Japanese establishment, she's more interested in just getting out of the situation she's in, and so she doesn't question it when the man tells her that they're going to “Kyoto Forest.” Later, when he drops her at a strange, foggy bridge that she knows cars could go across when she lived in Kyoto, Alice begins deliberately pushing down her unease. In her mind, this is not the moment to suspect anything.

Suffice it to say that Alice perhaps ought to have paid a bit more attention to those quiet doubts. We can tell very quickly that she's no longer in our world, not just because most of the people are gadding about in kimono and hand-drawn carts, but because the tails that some people have are clearly not the fashion accessory that Alice convinces herself they are. And the thing about other worlds is that they have their own logic and rules – world mythology is full of tales of the person who stumbles into fairyland and joins a dance only to return to earth five centuries later. While there don't appear to be any rules about eating or any timeslips for Alice, there is a very important stricture about being honest and true to yourself, and Alice's assertion that she wants to be a maiko doesn't pass muster.

But what does Alice want most? There are a few hints scattered throughout the book that guide us in a few directions. Certainly she seems to want to reconnect with Ren, the mysterious boy she met as a little girl. She also may just want to read, to lose herself in a good story, which is how she coped at her aunt and uncle's house. But her favorite things to read are fairy tales and fantasy novels, and when we put all three of those wants together, we may arrive at the truth: Alice's greatest wish could easily be that she wants to live her own fairy tale story. And if she can realize and admit that, Kyoto Forest seems uniquely suited to allow her to do just that.

Some readers may question what this series has to do with Lewis Carroll's Alice duology (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass), because in anime and manga terms, “Alice” has basically become shorthand for “parallel world adventure.” Mochizuki seems to be working towards making this a much more Carroll-dependent Alice story; Alice is specifically named after the heroine of the books, and early on we see her reading a Tenniel-illustrated edition of the novel. The mysterious man who comes to pick her up gives her a stuffed white rabbit, and some of the rules of reality as we know them run in a very different way, just like in Wonderland or the world beyond the looking-glass. While many other elements are much more aligned with fairy tales (Cinderella gets a lot of mentions), which are literarily distinct from Carroll's books, the overall logic of Kyoto Forest is reminiscent of the original Alice's various experiences. Carroll's books are a blueprint Mochizuki seems to be following as she creates a combination fairy tale/fantasy novel, and it works quite well.

Alice in Kyoto Forest's first graphic novel is familiar in comforting ways while still telling its own story. We can see the references clearly, but they aren't overwhelming, and if Alice herself looks more like Anne Shirley, the rest of the art is delicate and beautiful enough that it doesn't really matter. Mochizuki's love for Kyoto takes on a different hue in this series than in Holmes of Kyoto, and if you, like me, have an Alice Problem or just appreciate a fantasy story that builds on its predecessors, this is worth picking up.