Alice 19th

Alice 19th (ありす19th, Arisu Naintīnsu) is a Japanese shōjo manga written by Yuu Watase (creator of the popular manga series Ceres, Celestial Legend and Fushigi Yūgi). It appeared as a serial in the manga magazine Shōjo Comic.

As with many of her previous works, Watase wrote Alice 19th as a shōjo manga; but unlike her previous works, which showed a strong influence of Chinese culture and history, Alice 19th has a distinctly Western feel to it.

The heroine's name, "Alice", and her encounter with a white rabbit (Nyozeka) basically starts the storyline. Watase has written that she thought of Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, in drafting the characters of Alice Seno and Nyozeka. From there she drafted her own story.

From 2007 Viz Media released Alice 19th in English. The series, which is published in the traditional right-to-left format with foot-noted sound effects, spans a total of seven volumes

Plot
The story follows Alice Seno, a fifteen-year-old girl forever in the shadow of her older sister Mayura, who achieves in everything she undertakes. At her school Alice becomes known as "Mayura's little sister". Older girls, judging Alice too meek to retaliate, torment her relentlessly.

Alice harbors a deep affection for Kyô Wakamiya, a handsome upperclassman and a member – with Mayura – of the school archery team. On the way to school one day, Alice rescues a white rabbit from the road despite the danger to herself, but she is rescued by Kyô and receives from the rabbit a bracelet with a single red stone. The rabbit she saves, however, is no ordinary rabbit. The rabbit reveals her true form to Alice and introduces herself as Nyozeka. Alice is told that she is destined to become a Lotis Master. The Lotis Masters use the power of words and communication to enter the Inner Heart of others. It is a powerful ability to be used carefully as Alice soon finds out.

Using the power of the Lotis Words, which reveal themselves to be in the form of runes, Alice accidentally makes her older sister disappear during a dispute over Kyô, whom Mayura had begun dating. Alice then must use the Lotis Words to try to bring her sister back from the dark. She is joined by Kyô who proves to have the Lotis powers as well, and by Frey, another Lotis master who has trained with the masters and arrives with the intention to marry Alice. Unfortunately, Mayura has been taken by the power of the Maram Words, the dark reflection of the Lotus Words. Their only hope lies in Alice and Kyô becoming the legendary Neo-Masters to discover the lost word binding both Maram and Lotis.

Following the conclusion of the story in volume 7 Ms. Watase appended an extra chapter, 'Bunny Heart', set in China about 900 AD. A young Chinese girl, Rakuen, retrieving water during a time of drought, met Nyozeka, and learned the Lotis word "Dana", water. Ms. Watase concludes the chapter by writing that this girl was an ancestor of Pai Mei-Lin.