Gakuen Alice

Mikan Sakura is a normal 10-year-old girl. Optimistic, energetic, and overall a very sweet child, Mikan is the complete opposite of the aloof, intelligent, and somewhat cold-hearted, Hotaru Imai. Despite their glaring differences, the two girls have been best friends for a very long time. So when Hotaru suddenly transfers to Alice Academy, a prestigious school in the city, her best friend is devastated—especially when she hears of the horrible rumors regarding the academy's harsh treatment of students. Beset with worry, Mikan runs away to see her best friend!

Upon her arrival, Mikan learns of "Alices," individuals gifted with various supernatural abilities, and that the school is an institution built by the government to train and protect them. Discovering that she has her own unique powers, Mikan enrolls in the academy, and, after a lot of trouble, finally reunites with Hotaru.

Gakuen Alice is a heartwarming comedy that follows Mikan and her friends' adventures in the academy, as well as their attempt to uncover the mysteries surrounding the problematic, fire-wielding student Natsume Hyuuga.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Miki, Shinichiro
Japanese

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Iwakami, Atsuhiro

Producer

Sakuma, Takashi

Producer

Oomori, Takahiro

Director, Storyboard

Iwanami, Yoshikazu

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Opening Theme

"Pikapika no Taiyou" by Ueda, Kana

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Ending Theme

"Shiawase no Niji" by Ueda Kana & Kugimiya Rie

Reviews

Apr 25, 2015

B3astpwn

Recommended

I Laughed, Cried, Wanted something (or someone) to Hug, And episode after episode, i could not wait until i saw the next.
Gakuen Alice is true-ly a masterpiece.
Some people drop the anime because of it's childish element. But let me say this once, IT. IS. NOT. CHILDISH. There are so many dark moments in this anime, that will honestly tear you to pieces and make you cry. If you have a heart that is, and I am pretty strong when it comes to that stuff, but this anime broke that barrier. On-wards to the Review!
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Story: 10/10

Honestly, what goes on in the first TWO episodes ...

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Sep 18, 2009

Skadi

Mixed Feelings

Gakuen Alice has an interesting premise and a charming first episode which lulls you into the belief that you are in for a special treat. Cute characters, slapstick comedy, magic, and elementary kids give you a distinct Harry Potterish feel. However in the end though that special treat ends up tasting like it was dropped in the mud.

As I mentioned the premise is interesting though quite farfetched. There are plenty of familiar themes and if you have watched school comedies (really who hasn’t practically all of them take place in school) there won’t be anything all that groundbreaking. The story overall ... has some inconsistencies and major annoyances and flaws that make it when taken in its entirety not very good. Despite its cutesy look and comedy, Gakuen Alice does deal with some serious themes. One of these is bullying. Mikan is treated pretty horribly much throughout the series but more so in the beginning episodes. While if done properly these situations can be funny, for me they just weren’t. In some ways I liken the humor to something like Inukami!, though Gakuen Alice is not perverted the way that series is but it has the same overuse of cruel humor that just outstays its welcome.

Alice Academy seems like a hell on earth. The setting and the overwhelming number of the characters are completely unlikable and despicable. The way these kids are treated, forcibly taken from their homes, not allowed to see their families, and the fact that the great majority of the students and teachers come across as horrible people. They are spoiled, mean, emotionally scarred; all the things you would expect from kids who had been traumatized this way. Yet I am supposed to feel sympathetic towards the school or that I am supposed to find the cruel bullying hilarious. I didn’t. The very fact that it was even played for laughs was offensive to me.

Despite my almost total non-enjoyment of the first third of the series eventually things start getting on track. There is a tremendous amount of plot buildup from the beginning until about the last few episodes. We get a lot of what I found very interesting romance between the main character Mikan and the dangerous Natsume. The subplot about how Natsume is being used by the very shady and seemingly cruel Alice Academy is very compelling. Throw in Mikan's mysterious mother who was an infamous student in the school and the drama with Mikan learning to use her "Alice" and be accepted by everyone gives the plot depth. However, all of this is wasted by the most glaring story problem; the lack of a satisfactory ending to the series. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those endings but the series probably needed another 12-15 episodes to get everything wrapped up. The end feels rushed, overly simplistic, and ultimately a bit of a slap in the face to my intelligence. Other subplots are basically just ignored or poorly explained. Even though the series could have benefited by being longer, there were a lot of episodes wasted on pointless fluff storylines that did nothing to advance the story.

The lone shining light of Gakuen Alice is Mikan. She is a wonderful character full of optimism, cheerfulness, and love for everyone no matter how horribly they treat her. I really wanted to just cry for her. She is used as the butt of every joke while almost without exception she is tormented and bullied by everyone, including her own "best friend". While this could have made for some good comedy, and don’t get me wrong there are some funny moments, the jokes are overused and often just in bad taste. Because of this I felt more anger and annoyance than I did smiles and laughter. Though most of the bullying and tasteless cruel humor against Mikan goes away eventually, it definitely outlived it's usefulness. However just seeing Mikan and her personality and sure brushes off all this adversity and soldiers on is kind of inspiring.

Mikan's "friend" Hotaru was someone if I could have physically gotten my hands on I would have drowned her in the bathtub. Sure she’s the emotionless robot type personality and how she behaves often fits this archetype. You do get flashes of the deep affection and feelings she has for Mikan both as a friend and perhaps something more. However most of the time this is ruined by a subsequent act of cold blooded cruelty. Though she makes some strides towards the middle-end of the show they managed to ruin all this in the last episode. She is voiced by Rie Kugimiya who is my favorite seiyuu in a rare non-tsundere role. Though even she couldn’t make me like Hotaru.

Of the remaining cast, Natsume stands out as the most interesting. He is a scary kid for sure but despite initially disliking him he does come to grow on you and at least you feel made some growth as a person. Most of Mikan's classmates and teachers start out being horribly cruel and come across as assholes and bitches. I felt my hatred of some of them wane as the series progressed but many of them were unforgivable. The best characters next to Mikan were without a doubt her friends Tsubasa and Misaki in the Special Abilities class she joins. Since many of the people in that class were bullied as well you feel that they have a breakable bond and lasting friendship. They were the only people in the story I felt really cared for Mikan at all and showed her any kindness.

There isn’t anything amazing about the art and animation. I did like Mikan's character design but a lot of the art was pretty bland. Shaft did do a great job in animating Mikan's emotions though. I just love the silly facial expressions, crying rivers of tears, and other silliness. The OP/EN animations and songs are pretty cute as well. I think they matched the personality of the lead perfectly though the EN didn’t match the tone of the show. It was too sweet and cute when contrasted to how unfunny and depressing much of the series was to me.

Despite not really enjoying most of the series if the story had been concluded better I probably would have rated a point or two higher. If you like slapstick and physical comedy you might like this or you might not. It has moments of brilliance and a spectacular leading character but otherwise it is a very flawed and average program.

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Apr 1, 2016

aiYuki

Not Recommended

*NO SPOILERS*

Gakuen Alice, or Alice Academy is an anime that was adapted from the same name manga. But in this review I will only concentrate on the anime with just a few digressions on the manga that will help me complete my review.

1.) STORY (6/10)
I don't want to include the story summarie here because there is already a synopisi written up there. But all in all, if you watch this anime, the story is going to be interesting and easy to follow. It's a typical "going to a school were everybody has magic powers" story and "being the special girl in school, that is somehow ... connect to everything" story. The only problem here is that it was poorly done and badly brought to us. The real and whole story of this anime that was adapted from the manga is actually great, but the anime had to little episodes to even get to the interesting parts and sadly, no season two. There was no plot twist or any actually good plot development. The story was going to nowhere and also, I kinda got the feelings that the last episode wasn't planed and thought through. It seemed to me like it was put there just so they could finish the anime, so they came up with something in a minute.

2.) ART (4/10)
This anime was made in 2004 so it's not like they could make anything special with the art, but at that time, there where many others animes that had better art and animations. The characters where badly drawn and had wierd facial features and the animation was kinda slow and "not realistic" if when can say it like that in the anime world. Somtimes it seemd like they were to lazy to add more animations.

3.) SOUND (7/10)
The music and the soundtracks were good and they fit to the anime and the situations in which were they played. The opening song was cute and catchy. But when it comes to sound, I also like to talk about the voice actors which have an important roles in animes. In Gakuen Alice the voice actors were good and they were in good sync with the characters making the whole image of them seem more real. Their acting was good and they've done a good job.

4.) CHARACTERS
Even though they are a lot of animes that have around 30 episode and succede in making us love the characters in so little time, Gakuen Alice just didn't do that for me. I think this anime was to short to represent the whole story and make us familiar with them by showing us their good and bad sides, making us feel something for them. We have the main character that's a typical cute and silliy girl that has strong feelings for her friends. By her side is a typical girl with a cold expresion and a high intelligence, but who has a warm heart. And then we have a typical bad boy and a good boy as his best friend. Every type of character like this is alreday known to the anime world, but still, other animes take this kind of characters, develop them and give them a good background story and more features to make them seem like real persons. Now, Gakuen Alice was on a good way. The story slowly continuted to grow and went on, and I got to know more about the characters, but then the anime stopped. So, none of the characters actually grew up or changed something about them.

5.) ENJOYMENT (3/10)
For me, I didn't enjoy the anime. Now, there are a few reasons why is that so. First of all, I read the manga and Gakuen Alice is my favorite manga so far. I just love it and it means a lot to me. So probably, I expected a lot from the anime and I didn't get what I wanted. Secondly, when the art is not good, I just can't enjoy an anime, unless the story is REALLY good. Now, because here, the story wasn't brought out well to us, I just couldn't enjoy this anime. And also, knowing that there is no season 2 and that there are only 26 episode to this great story, I felt depressed and disappointed, so even if there was a part that I like, I just didn't feel it.

6.) OVERALL (+MANGA) (4/10)
If you read the manga and you like it, don't watch this anime. But if you didn't read the manga, you could enjoy this anime. All in all, it kinda was cute and interesting to watch. Still, I can't give it a bigger grade. It isn't an anime for me and my taste even though I loved the manga.

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