Life is not going as expected for Oz Vessalius. On the day of his aristocratic swearing-in ceremony, everything seemed fine. He planned to have his best friend stand up with him, his uncle planned to stand in for his long-absent father, and all-in-all, the days seemed normal, with the single exeption of finding a hidden chamber and a musical pocketwatch on the grounds for the Coming of Age Ceremony. However, before the ceremony can be completed, his entire world is shattered. A friend takes a mortal wound, a mysterious trio of hooded figures condemns him into the Abyss for as in he is unaware of, and once he finds himself in that ever-changing world of toylike beings and darkened space, a mysterious and imperious girl begins ordering him around.
After a quick-and-dirty education in the nature of the Abyss, and Chains, the cursed creatures that occupy the place, he is offered a single chance to get his life back: become a contractor and form a pact with B-Rabbit, this strange, haughty girl with no memory of her past and a solid determination to get it back. Oh, and she also has the ability to fight in either a human form, or transform into a TRULY HUGE well-dressed black rabbit with a scythe the size of a city bus. That, too. Once back in the human realm, Oz is drafted by a society known as Pandora, familiar faces from his past who went to great lengths to find him, and who primarily seek out and destroy “illegal contractors”, humans who form bonds with Chains with the acceptance of a time-limit on their lives (symoblized by an awesome and intricate-looking tattoo roughly in the form of a clock with many hands. When the clock face is complete, the human life is forfeit).
The Carolinian influence on the series is vague, or at least too vague for my taste. There are the obvious uses of known character names and concepts, like B-Rabbit/Alice and a Chain based on the Mad Hatter. There’s even a Cheshire Cat, but honestly, I couldn’t tell what we were going for here. He/it came off as disappointingly crazy as opposed to reasonably mad. Still, if you’re not hung up on accuracy, the series is pretty inspired, and it can occasionally bring a flicker of recognition to anyone who has experienced any incarnation of ‘Alice’ in the past.
This Premium Edition boxed set does provide an exclusive hardcover art/info book in addition to the two basic slim disc cases with episodes 1-12. The display box is of a nice quality (not a flimsy slipcover), but the art book is the piece de resistance. The first half contains character profiles in a “who’s who” format, and some of the uniqe concepts of the series are explained (with relevant screenshots) in a “vocabulary list”, while the entire last half of the book is comprised of full-color art pages and a few black-and-white comic one-shots. Truly worth the price of this set, and while it is in no way a substitute for the series, it’s a fantastic bonus for fans of the series.