Life as a teenager is not that easy. You have to go to school, do your homework and look after your friends. After all, you want to belong! This is also the case for Akane, whose friends all want to wear the same hair clips to school. But this makes the shy Akane's stomach hurt, so she doesn't want to go to school. Instead, her mother sends her to the antique shop to her somewhat "special" Aunt Chi. She sells all kinds of "trinkets" that she has brought or made on her travels. Akane is supposed to pick up her birthday present there, but instead of a simple gift, the shop's trapdoor opens to a parallel world - Wonderland! The land is in distress and only Akane can save it, for she is supposed to be the "Goddess of the Green Wind". But the shy Akane has a hard time with this exciting adventure... Will she and her companions, the alchemist Hippocrates, the little fairy Pipo and her aunt Chi, manage to save the threatened land?
"Wonderland" was directed by Keiichi Hara at Studio Signal.MD and adapts the Japanese children's book "Strange Journey From The Basement" (jap.: "Chikashitru Kara no Fushigi na Tabi") from 1981 by Sachiko Kashiwaba. The "Ghibli"-like character of the story is due to Kashiwaba's source. Her earliest work "The Marvelous Village Veiled in Mist" (jap.: "Kiri no Mukō no Fushigi-na Machi") from 1975 is assumed to be the template for "Chihiro's Journey to Wonderland", but this was denied by Miyazaki, even though the parallels are very clear and the book appeared first.
The character designs of "Wonderland - The Kingdom in the Basement" are made by the well-known Russian artist Ilya Kuvshinov, who currently lives in Tokyo.