Episode 67: “Alice in Japanese Wonderlands” with Amanda Kennell
My guest for this episode is Amanda Kennell, author of Alice in Japanese Wonderlands. As a long time fan of Lewis Caroll’s Alice books, I was thrilled to get the opportunity to geek out with a fellow enthusiast. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the original novels, they are available for free from Project Gutenberg and I highly recommend reading them.
A list of the manga/anime that Amanda mentions are:
I refer to the Red King’s dream, which is a sequence from Chapter IV of Through the Looking Glass:
“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?”
Alice said “Nobody can guess that.”
“Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?”
“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice.
“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!”
“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go out—bang!—just like a candle!”
“I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. “Besides, if I’m only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?”
“Ditto” said Tweedledum.
“Ditto, ditto” cried Tweedledee.
He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying, “Hush! You’ll be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.”
“Well, it no use your talking about waking him,” said Tweedledum, “when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you’re not real.”
“I am real!” said Alice and began to cry.
“You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,” Tweedledee remarked: “there’s nothing to cry about.”
“If I wasn’t real,” Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous—“I shouldn’t be able to cry.”
“I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?” Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt.
Check out images from Kusama Yayoi, the “modern Alice,” and her 1960s happenings.
Some of the psychedelic flowers growing in Matsumoto. (Photos by me, 2019)
For some fun discussion of Disney princesses and the branding behind them, I recommend the Thirty20Eight podcast; they also have an episode on Duffy, the image character of Tokyo Disney. The cell phone game we discuss is Twisted Wonderland.
I restrained myself in adding too many Alice-themed songs to the episode but I uncovered quite a few.
Please enjoy some of the ones that didn’t make it into the episode including from Yonezu Kenshi and Ali Project. Then there are the videos:
“Bounce” by Boyfriend
“Cheshire” by Itzy
“Mad Hatter” by DUSTCELL
“First Rabbit” by AKB48 (note the floofy Lolita-adjacent costumes!)
“Bloomin’!” by tommy february6
The songs played are:
まきばアリス! by 坂本真綾 (Makiba Alice! by Sakamoto Maaya)
“Alice’s Theme” written by Danny Elfman, performed by the Moscow Boys Choir
“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
“Rehtorb Ym No Hcram” by Mark Fry (from Dreaming With Alice)
“Alice in Wonderland” written by Sammy Fain, performed by Oscar Peterson, The Way I Really Play
モノクロのキス by シド (Monokuro No Kiss by SID, theme to Black Butler, season one)
人柱アリス (Hitobashira Alice, Alice of Human Sacrifice)
意味なしアリス by 谷山浩子 (Imi nashi Alice by Taniyama Hiroko, Alice of No Meaning)
時間の国のアリス by 松田聖子 (Jikan no Kumi no Alice by Matsuda Seiko, Alice in the Land of Time)
“Alice in Wonder Underground” by BUCK-TICK