Disney Twisted-Wonderland The Animation

Episode 3

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the enchanted mine we go! This week on Disney Twisted-Wonderland The Animation, we got the answer to the question nobody asked, namely, “What would happen if Snow White's seven dwarves turned up in the form of a freaky magical homunculus?” Since Yu's meeting with the ghosts took an unexpected right turn into pacifism, this is the first time one of the game's combat instances has been adapted into passive viewing. The classic Disney references flew fast and loose, but the characterization left much to be desired.

To avoid expulsion on the first day of school, Ace and Deuce (and a reluctant Yu and a surprise fourth addition, Grim) have to secure a magestone from an enchanted mine. No biggie, right? At least not until the monster, which looks like Dopey's coat (or perhaps the larger coat that all of the dwarves pile into when they dance with Snow White), has something to say about it. In the parlance of the game, this monster is an Overblot, a form in which characters are overcome by negativity while overusing their magical powers run amok. In the game, it's treated as a combat tutorial. But in the anime, the battle is a chance for Yu to show his skills as a former kendo club president by getting everyone to stop bickering and team up.

This means we are still covering the prologue of the Twisted Wonderland game, and there are only five episodes left. I originally wrote a portion of this review about how concerned I was about the pacing, which would be fine for a standard-length show, but is dancing on the razor's edge in this case. However, salvation came for Twisted Wonderland fans early Wednesday morning, when the franchise's official YouTube announced a second season is already in the works. That confirms my theory that this season will cover everything from the prologue to the end of Riddle's arc. It's certainly building up Riddle as an impressive, if slightly mad, figure at large.

In this episode, Riddle proves that he has more magical prowess than Ace, Deuce, and Grim combined! I'd say Yu shouldn't get on Riddle's bad side, but it's hard to know if he even has a good side when he's this harsh with his subordinates. The way he holds up the “hedgehog sneeze” rule of Heartslabyul house suggests that he and the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland share twin personalities. Paul Castro Jr.'s dub performance stands out here not just for its sharpness, but because he is the only actor in the cast doing a British accent. (In the post-credit scene, we learn that Rook has a French accent, so there's more vocal variety than I first expected.)

This episode neatly resolved the expulsion plot in the time allotted while putting Yu's future in place, but I wanted more characterization. Deuce repeatedly panicked about getting expelled and what he would tell his mother. Why is Deuce so concerned, to the point that he, as Ace observes, becomes practically a different person? Why doesn't Ace seem to care? Did Ace and Deuce know each other before the first day of school? The post credits scene, which featured the boys of House Octavinelle skirting the line between hospitality and decided inhospitality with increasing gregariousness, told me a great deal more about those characters than I feel like I know about Ace or Deuce thus far. But now that I understand that the anime isn't trying to pack everything into just eight episodes, I'm far less worried about the pacing.

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Disney Twisted-Wonderland The Animation is currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

Lauren is a freelance journalist with a focus on anime fandom. Both of her kids are named after Gundam characters.