Alice in Bishounen-Land is the tale of a hapless teen ager who gets sucked into an idol game with ambiguous rules and a team of comically quirky misfits. It seems unlikely she's going to reach the number one spot, but she plugs away just trying to stay in the game.

Okay, here's the thing: if you look at the bulk of my reviews, I'm usually a 5 star person, I don't believe in reserving 5 stars for some mythical book that is too good to be of this world or whatever. I'm a generous reviewer and rarely go lower than 4 stars. Why? Because I'm good at picking books I'll like, and I don't read every book that comes my way. Well, I screwed up on this one and its predecessor. It sounded like a cute premise, but it's a mess. I didn't care about any of the flat, wooden characters, especially not our heroine Alice - I just couldn't root for her, she had no personality, she felt like the NPC that keeps repeating the same thing every time you see them. The first volume made some sort of sense, but this one just kept throwing in more and more weird stuff, trying to be quirky, and it was too much in too little time. It didn't help that a little over halfway through, there was a sudden announcement that this would be a two volume story (which I don't think was the original plan), and the already confusing pace became a frantic race to wrap things up. The really annoying thing about the ending being so rushed is that after the story ends, there's about 18 pages of the author talking about designing a model for a different series, plus a chapter of another series, so THERE WAS ROOM TO DO A BETTER ENDING BUT THEY JUST DIDN'T DO IT!!! There was at least 50 pages that could've been used to make some sort of sense, but no. Can you tell I'm salty about this?
The art was nice, though, I'll give it that.

#AliceinBishounenLandVolume2 #NetGalley

This volume was hard for me to just sit down and read, one that would need to be in a mood for this type of manga. Feels rushed and wasn't a huge fan of the robot boy character.

Alice in Bishounen-Land is a story about a girl stuck in a simulation game, and in order to get back to the real world she must manage an idol group and make them popular.

In this volume they welcomed a new member to their group and slowly redeemed their self from the previous battle with Tamami. Kagami continues to build affinity levels with the members; she gets a glimpse of their backstory. They also have scenes where they do the events and have time to bond as a group, but as they continue to win the battles they are again faced with Tamami.

Will they continue their streak or lose again? Read the whole volume to find out!!


I love how funny and cute the characters are. Each one of them has a uniqueness to them. This volume is such a fun read and the drawings have been improved; they are more detailed now than in the last volume. I loved the plot twist, but it felt rushed because after the plot twist the story ended. I need more of this story.

Thank you for the advanced copy NetGalley and IPG!

So, the first half was fine. It had the same stupid humor as the first volume, and I appreciated how silly it was. But then the ending happened. I get that sometimes you have to end a series way earlier than planned, and there's no time for things to play out naturally, but this was a literal dumpster fire. Things were rushed and chaotic and very unsatisfying (to the author as well I'm sure).

I received a copy of this manga through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed volume 1 a lot because it had unexpectedly witty and bizarre main characters, loads of hilarious situations and it was overall an interesting concept. The 2nd volume started off nice enough, getting a few new quirky characters and funny moments…And then the vibe changed, the story became rushed and confusing. I guess the manga series got cancelled or something? It got a rushed and unsatisfactory ending to the whole thing. I would have liked more insight to new characters, better solution to Tamami problem and perhaps even a bit of romance….It had potential to be so much more and it failed in the end…I am disappointed.🥺

So cute and funny just like the first! Looking forward to the rest of the series. Wonder where it goes from here

Do you like to play gotcha games? Do you like in-jokes about said games, such as pull rarity, and character design? Then you might like this, It's a light, silly title!

Story felt very rushed. Kept wanting to get resolution for all the the different plots that were introduced. I wanted more of the main male leads and didn't like it when the robot one was introduced. Would still be interested in exploring more of the world that was shown in maybe another volume.

I enjoy the first volume but i think this got a bit weird in the end i was hopping to have a few more volumes into the story and then to have the rescue and still the way it was done sounded a bit weird. not a bad story i was just hopping for something different

This definitely read like a story that got canceled and wrapped up quickly. The end was abrupt and unsatisfying. Even in a comedic story, you expect some things to be resolved, but we were left with a lot of unknowns about one of the key characters.

The best thing I can say is this manga didn't delve into bad fan-service and stuck with the comedic theme. That was appreciated.

I won't be recommending this to my store. It isn't one I can see selling more than a couple of copies, and our shelves are already full of better stories.

3.5 Stars!

I wanted to give this a fair chance after not having read Vol.1

The whole ideal feels like a comedy on the Idol-Boy trope with a sort of gacha game style mixed in. I think RoboCop/IronCop was a funny character and the general story seems pretty fun. Overall I was a little confused at what was going on but I can definitely see people who like this type of plot enjoying this book.

Thank you to Tokyopop and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Alice in Bishounen-Land, Volume 2 by Yushi Kawata and Yukito is a manga inspired by dating-simulation games. The story revolves around Alice, who is supposed to be a producer in the game. In the game is a group of boys who Alice has to try to "level up" so that they can win the game. As someone who has never played a dating sim before, I did have some trouble understanding the story.

Overall, Alice in Bishounen-Land is a decent manga with nice artwork but not much of a plot. One highlight was the artwork, which was good for a shojo manga. I did take off 2 stars, because I wasn't sure what was going on for most of the story. I was expecting something similar to Alice in the Country of Hearts or Alice in Kyoto Forest, but it turned out to be nothing like that. The manga seemed to be more visual-focused than story-centric. If you're intrigued by the description, you can check out this book when it comes out in April.

Maybe it's because I didn't read the first book, but I was totally at a loss with this one. The only sort of catch up that it offers is that rarity is the only thing that matters in the world, but of what? I'm still not sure, beyond that they're bishounen things that are pitted against each other in competitions.

I can confidentially say I am just as confused in this book as I was the first one. I still enjoyed reading it mainly for the characters.
(arc from netgalley)