Alice to Taiyou

Alice to Taiyou is an axed Shonen Jump series that has not been fully translated in English, as such I cannot comment on the story as a whole just the first 8 chapters. With that out of the way let's begin my review of Alice to Taiyou!

Story: 1/10
In my mind it's weakest aspect is it's plot, there is a clear goal which is very shounen: They want to be the first Japanese people to win a Grammy, despite this the plot begins very slowly and doesn't really get to go anywhere grand in it's first volume. A big problem I found with this series is that despite it's goal the story itself and the characters potential arcs where very simple and boring which really kills the manga as a whole for me.

Art: 8/10
The art is perhaps the only main redeeming quality about this manga, it's very expressive, soft and cute, at least for shounen manga standards. The way characters are drawn are very appealing, Alice in particular is very cute especially with how well the author can draw various facial expressions, the way teeth and smiles are drawn are really well done, more realistic than most manga but it still works. There's barely any white panels from what I remember, making it detailed but not too cluttered. The use of shading and screen tones makes it so it's never boring to look at, especially the larger panels where bigger events are happening. I feel that it's a shame this author went to Jump and not to another magazine where they could use their talent better.

Character: 4/10
From what I read there were only about 3 fleshed out characters and all 3 where decent, none of them are amazing by any means but they're likable enough and suited the story well. I felt that Taiyou had issues that weren't entirely relatable for everyone and he also got through them very quickly leaving his character to be fairly bland by the end of the first volume like there wasn't anything left for the author to do to further his character. Alice on the other hand is a lot more likable, she's very cute and funny and much more suited to be a shounen protagonist than Taiyou, I wished she replaced him altogether to be honest. The art definitely works with the characters (Alice in particular) and makes them a lot more likable.

Conclusion:
I think Alice and Taiyou is proof that having an idea and good art does not make manga, there's definitely a story to be told but it's too slow in what it's trying to do with some aspects but then with others like Taiyou's character it seems to be going to fast which overall leads to it being a poor product.

Why it Failed:
There is a few clear reasons this failed in my opinion, firstly is that the art, characters and subject matter aren't very suited for Shonen Jump, that being said there are exceptions like the currently serializing Act-Age but having such a large competitor already there isn't room for Alice and Taiyou to exist in the same magazine. Second is that it was too slow in starting up it's story, and while it did have a goal in mind there were no real sub goals that where pushing the plot forward, not having any urgency and excitement can be a killer when running in Jump, if nobodies exited to read the next chapter then you won't survive and there was barely any excitement being built up. The final reason I will mention is a problem with a lot of new Jump series, that being the problem with the main character/s. I think usually main characters in Jump are relatable somewhat and have to have some core values that people like or respect, a lot of the time like with Alice and Taiyou the characters don't posses these traits that make them likable or aren't relatable for most people, I would go into detail on what I think these likable/ relatable characters are but this review is long enough already.

FINAL SCORE: 4/10 - Bad