TV Recap: “Disney Twisted Wonderland: The Animation” Episode 4 — Yuken Steps Through the Looking Glass into Heartslabyul House

The fourth episode of Disney Twisted Wonderland: The Animation adapts the next three chapters of the manga (Chapter 6: “Late-Night Retribution!”, Chapter 7: “Garden Decoration!”, and Chapter 8: “Classroom Liberation!”), but the title comes directly from the game, “A Desperate Heart.” For fans of the mobile RPG, this episode begins what players are familiar with as Book 1: “The Rose-Red Tyrant.” With the premise now well-established, we begin to dive deeper into Heartslabyul Housewarden Riddle Roseharts through the way Ace Trappola handles living under his oppressive rules.

Episode 4: “A Desperate Heart” - Written by Yuka Yamada, English Adaptation by Madeleine Morris

Yuken Enma (Yōhei Azakami/Jonathon Ha) has a strange dream at night in Ramshackle Dorm. The mirror above the mantle glows as it presents him with a strange vignette. Card soldiers (Shō Nogami, Ryōto Hironiwa, Yū Yoshimura/Piotr Michael, Jim Meskimen) race to paint white rose blossoms red as a girl, Alice (Sumire Morohoshi/Hynden Walch), enters the garden, curious about why they’re doing it. They explain that if they don’t, it will be off with their heads!

Yuken and Grim (Noriaki Sugiyama/Ben Diskin) are awoken by someone banging on the front door. With a locked collar around his neck that binds his magic, Ace Trappola (Seiichirō Yamashita/Max Mittelman) vows to never return to Heartslabyul House, asking to live at Ramshackle Dorm. In the dusty lounge, Yuken asks Ace what happened. “I ate a piece of tart,” he explains.

In a flashback, we see Ace in Heartslabyul House’s kitchen at night, searching for something to eat. Opening the fridge, he finds three huge strawberry tarts and decides to help himself to a piece since there is more than enough to share. He’s overcome by how delicious the tart is, so when another voice compliments Trey’s skills at making them, it takes Ace a moment to realize it’s his housewarden. Turning around, he’s horrified to find Riddle Rosehearts (Natsuki Hanae/Paul Castro Jr.) informing him that he just broke rule #89. “Off with your head!”

As Ace finishes the story, he is surprised to find that Yuken takes Riddle’s side, saying it’s wrong to eat someone else’s food. Grim thinks the bounty of tarts was likely for someone’s birthday party. Yuken gets Ace to agree to apologize to Riddle, but on the condition that Yuken join him for moral support.

That night, Ace tries to sleep on the lounge sofa, which isn’t easy when Ramshackle House’s ghosts (Takuma Suzuki, Nobuaki Kanemitsu, Toshitaka Hirano/Danny Kramer, Jacob Carlson, Khoi Dao) try to haunt him. He’s crabby when he is woken up by a knock on the front door, finding his roommate, Deuce Spade (Chiaki Kobayashi/Hunter McCoy), looking for him. Deuce heard what happened and came to check on him. Ace asks if Riddle is still mad, and Deuce tells him he put locks on three other students for sleeping in, but he thinks Riddle would remove Ace’s lock if he asks nicely before class. Ace wants to wait until Riddle is calmer, but Yuken grabs his arm, dragging him out of the house to go apologize right now.

Deuce leads the way to the Hall of Mirrors, explaining to Yuken that Ramshackle is the only on-campus dorm. The rest are all far away, so they use mirror portals to travel back and forth. The mirror to Heartslabyul House is surrounded by playing cards. As they step through the looking glass, Yuken and Grim find themselves in awe at the palatial majesty of Heartslabyul House.

They see Cater Diamond (Tatsuyuki Kobayashi/Michael Sinterniklaas) in the rose garden, painting white roses red, which gives Yuken instant deja vu to last night’s mirror dream. Cater heard about Ace eating the tart and, having helped escort the two freshmen back from the mine last night, wants to take a selfie with bad boy Ace for Magicam, a villain’s world social media app. Cater is trend-obsessed and wants the freshman to call him by his nickname, Cay-Cay, forcing nicknames they didn’t want on them, like “Deucy.”

Cater recruits their help to paint the roses red. He has Deuce and Grim use their magic while giving Yuken and Ace a brush and a bucket of paint. He explains that this is all for a party, the same one the tarts were made for, but it’s not a birthday party — it’s an Un-Birthday Party! This is a rare day where none of the Heartslabyul House residents have a birthday, and there’s a rule that the roses must be red, but a different rule for the spring flower concert, where they must be white, hence they need their color changed. Deuce and Grim both struggle to do it right with magic, but Cater is happy to help fix their mistakes.

As Cater finishes his explanation, he mentions that Riddle is the most fanatical housewarden in Heartslabyul hitory. Ace seems ready to apologize, but a new obstacle gets in his way - Rule 53, which states that “any stolen item must be replaced.” In other words, without a replacement tart, none of the Heartslabyul House students can let Ace enter. To avoid getting in trouble himself, Cater uses his signature multiplication spell — “Split Card” — to send them all back to campus.

As luck would have it, Yuken/Grim, Ace, and Deuce have the same class schedule. They start their morning in Potionology with Divus Crewel (Kento Itō/Matthew Mercer), a fashionable no-nonsense professor in a fur coat and a riding crop. He calls the students “pups” as he instructs them to memorize more than a hundred herbs and poisons. 

In their second period, History of Magic, they meet professor Mozus Trein (Rikiya Koyama/Kellen Goff) and his familiar, a black cat named Lucius (Uncredited in Japanese/Nazeeh Tarsha), who wakes up Grim when he dozes off in class. 

The third period is Physical Education with the impossibly fit Ashton Vargas (Ryōta Takeuchi/Jonah Scott). He exhausts them all by making them run laps and do one hundred pushups and squats. When they get to lunch, which is served by ghosts, nobody is more famished than Grim. With trays full of food, they search the busy cafeteria for a place to sit. Despite their best efforts, Cater steers them to his table.

They formally meet Trey Clover (Ryōta Suzuki/Johnny Yong Bosch), the other Heartslabyul third year who helped escort Ace and Deuce back from the mine. Trey is curious to know more about Ramshackle Dorm, but Grim wants to know all about the other dorms, and Trey is a fountain of knowledge. He tells them about how each dorm is inspired by attributes from a different member of the Great Seven, and how the Dark Mirror places students in the dorm that best suits their character. The lengthy explanation concludes with Diasomnia House, famous for producing the most talented mages of all.

Three Diasomnia students sit at an elevated table, indicating that they are above their peers. Ace thinks one of them, Lilia Vanrouge, looks too young even to be a student at Night Raven College. Just then, Lilia (Hikaru Midorikawa/Crispin Freeman) appears between Ace and Deuce, telling them he’s in Trey and Cater’s class. “We of Diasomnia will always welcome your conversation,” he tells them, having heard them from so far away. But as they all look back up at the Diasomnia table, the other students exude a negative green aura that makes them seem unapproachable. Lilia gives Ace some licorice candy as a token of his friendship before disappearing back to his table.

Cater tells the boys that the Disaomnia Housewarden, Malleus Draconia, is one of the most powerful mages ever. Riddle Rosehearts, despite being exceptionally powerful, isn’t even on Malleus’ level. Yuken learns about signature spells, which are unique to each mage. Cater’s is “Split Card,” but Riddle’s, “Off With Your Head,” is particularly powerful with its ability to bind another mage’s magic temporarily. Trey advises them all to follow Riddle’s rules to avoid further issues.

Ace can’t help but grumble about Riddle and his strict adherence to the Queen of Hearts’ nonsensical rules. “The pettiness of it all is just psychotic!” he complains, unaware that Riddle Rosehearts just approached the table behind him, asking Ace to elaborate… 

Bonus Short: Twisted Wonderland Mini Theater

This episode's bonus short is set in Disamonia House. Lilia Vanrouge returns with lots of shopping bags, having gone outfit hunting for the Pop Music Club’s next concert. Silver (Nobunaga Shimazaki/Aleks Le) is disinterested, but Lilia insists that he help him choose the best outfit. He tries on a bunny costume, then a squirrel one, making Silver wear discarded pieces as he gets to his favorite, an owl, which resembles the one from Sleeping Beauty that wore Prince Phillip’s hat and cape. With the right costume chosen, Lilia forces Silver to dance with him.

To be continued in Episode 5, streaming November 26th on Disney+ and Hulu.