Archive for the “Gakuen Alice” Category
Gakuen Alice — Episodes 13-15
June 18, 2006, 11:54 amThese three episodes of Gakuen Alice are a miniarc, and actually reveal a lot of information about the Alice Academy as well as what exactly the deal was with Natsume and the Dangerous Alice class, at least to some extent. The fact that Alice Academy has a secret organization and all that isn’t too far-fetched, since it’s fairly standard stuff for this kind of anime, unfortunately. And of course, every organization with a secret organization must have a super evil bunch of guys who have turned against them and are now fighting for “good”! And naturally one of the members of the super evil organization must have some kind of tie to someone in the current organization! And the main female lead, as usual, is “special”.
Yeah, basically I feel like this show is pretty cliched, when you come right down to it. It’s enjoyable enough to watch, and Mikan is still really cute (it is pretty awesome to have a main female character who speaks in Kansai-ben), and Natsume is still pretty cool (even though he spent the majority of these episodes either in the hospital or tied up). Still, I can’t get over the fact that there’s just… not much substance there.
At least Narumi-sensei has stopped creeping me out. Well, he creeps me out less. In fact, in these episodes, he was actually pretty cool. And Hotaru is still one of the most nifty characters in the show.
—Erika | 2 comments
(posted in the Anime, Gakuen Alice category)
Gakuen Alice — Episodes 1-12
September 2, 2005, 10:50 pmI watched the first three episodes of this anime back in the spring and couldn’t really get into it; the similarities to Kodocha were entirely too rampant for me to keep watching at the time. I finally sat down and marathoned the first 12 episodes and found myself very pleasantly surprised.
The first and foremost thing that I like about this show is that it’s so cute. Mikan is so extremely earnest and thoughtful, and all of the supporting characters are quite good as well. Most of the elements of the show are on the fun, happy side, which is quite refreshing to me. I’m always a fan of happy shoujo, which is why I’m such a big lover of things like Pretear and Kaleido Star.
It kind of throws me off, therefore, when suddenly things seem to take a turn for the sketchy side. The whole ongoing mystery with the nature of Natsume’s Alice and everyone in the Dangerous Alice class is quite intriguing, but a lot of the time the revelations seem to come out of left field and don’t seem to fit in with the tone at all. Overall, the show is really a lot darker than it appears to be, but it doesn’t seem to be comfortable with being as dark as it wants to, so you’re stuck with this sort of jarring transition that doesn’t quite fit.
The other thing I can’t reconcile with this show is Narumi-sensei, who does seem to actually care about the kids, but does it in this weird child molestor way. Spoiler: The whole scene where Narumi-sensei lets Mikan sleep in his bed was a big sticking point with me; I know it was meant to be cute and innocent, and if it had been with any other teacher character it would have been okay, but Narumi just has this vibe, especially considering what his Alice is, that I just couldn’t set aside for what should have been a nice, heartwarming scene. In addition, while the show is generally pretty innocent, there are some weird yuri subtones that come across with Mikan and Hotaru that just seem to come entirely out of left field and then fade away into the background again. I know the characters are only 10, but Japan is weird, you know? After Uta~Kata’s overt sexualization of prepubescent girls, I suppose I’m just hyper-sensitive to the whole thing.
Excepting a few things, though, I really do enjoy this show, and am really looking forward to the manga when Viz releases it. I can’t say that I would buy the anime, though; the similarities in the art style to Kodocha will likely be much easier to manage in manga form than they are in anime form.
—Erika | 1 comment
(posted in the Anime, Gakuen Alice category)
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