I admit that the first time I read this (a few years ago), I was horribly appalled by this manga that I rated it with a 3. But now that I've slightly matured, I read it again. This time, I gave it a 10.
Why?
Okay, let's start with its bad points.
1. No, they weren't in an elevator.
2. There's no dialogues.
3. It's just 14 pages.
4. It seemed pointless -as mentioned by another reviewer, it just showed Alice seeing the men ogling her mom, and all of a sudden, there's a woman doing something with herself.
Now, here, I'll turn those bad points upside down.
First and foremost, I don't care that the synopsis is wrong about the elevator. The point is: they're in a public place.
So, here's my own interpretation of the story: Alice notices that almost every men passing by are looking at her mom's breast, and then she imagines that maybe when she grows up, that will happen to her, too. ALICE IS NOT A STUPID KID. At that age, she knows what that ogling meant.
If you try to notice the details, you'll see that:
1) On her mom's necklace, near the boobs, olé is written -I think that represents how other people look at her mom, in a demeaning way "Wow (olé)! How sexy! Yum!"
2) The most important detail is that before the "nipple (mom's) scene" and before the "woman touching herself" scene, there is always the glasses reflecting them. And whose wearing those glasses? Not Alice, she has perfect eyesight (she can see what's happening around her). Not her mom, too. The people wearing the glasses are the men -okay, some of them, but it's really notable that the glasses shown are the glasses of the men shown before.
Now what do those details mean?
The manga shows how Alice felt -disgust. It showed what Alice thought that the men might be thinking -dirty thoughts: her mom's nipples (that aren't really seen, the time when the nipples showed was after the "glasses"), her as an adult touching herself and being erotic. But at the very end, she and her mom just continue walking through, "ignoring" everyone around them.
Think about it, Alice, a seemingly 10-year-old girl, already knows how lewd this world is. About how, when you're just walking WITH YOUR DAUGHTER, wearing what I believe isn't really obscene (on the 13th page, you'll see that it's a full length dress that only shows a bit of cleavage, she's even wearing boots/high socks), some men still lust for you. And how, no matter how young, the kids already feel that dirty look. That in the very end, women could only pass by, and ignore those looks, no matter how afraid/harassed they might feel.
You might say I'm reading into this manga a bit too much, but hey, that's reality. And I think that this manga is actually an act of protest against that kind of society.
Here's a breakdown of my rating:
Story - 10
Art - 10
The manga was able to convey those to me despite, or rather, taking full advantage of its shortness and lack of dialogues -it doesn't need to be long nor does it need to have a dialogue to convey its meaning.
And I really love how detailed it is and how those details actually reveal its meaning.
Character - 10
I love how realistically it conveyed the society (in a sense, the character -the men) and how Alice is just a kid yet she already knows so much.
Enjoyment - 10
Overall - 10
Well, contrary to my rating, my recommendation value for this one is rather with mixed feelings -seeing that many people, including me (before), have read this and missed its point (heck, its current average score is 4.84!). But please, if you ever want to read this, read it with an open-mind and read it with what I just written noted in your mind. :)
