Gakuen Alice
I seem to have a knack for reading manga that is still being published and trying to finish them quickly knowing full well that I can’t finish them anyways because new chapters are still being published. Thus, the only manga I’ve managed to finish reading is Death Note. This can also be explained by the fact that I haven’t read as much manga as I have watched anime, though I tend to like the mangas I read more so than the anime. You’d think I’d read more manga than I’d watch anime but nonetheless I do appreciate what anime offers that mangas do not (i.e. motion graphics in color, music, voices of characters etc). That’s the same way with books though even though manga is more similar to anime than books are to movies since books don’t have graphics and movies are short whereas animes at many times try to follow the graphics of the manga, and manga is already in script format.
I’m actually afraid to watch this anime though since the graphics are not as nice as that of the manga in my opinion. Also, since the manga is still ongoing and the anime ends at episode 26, I’m a bit skeptical about the conclusion of the anime. Who knows, maybe they’ll make another series like Fullmetal Alchemist what with Brotherhood following the manga. Though I can tell even with Brotherhood, there are some variations to how the story is presented.
Alright, enough rambling about manga in general. I was wanting to write about Gakuen Alice, the manga, after all. My friend G recommended it to me during finals week and I was dying to read it…well, not quite as I didn’t allow myself to even think about reading manga. But right after finals (around 9:30pm May 13th to be exact) I read the latest chapter of FMA and watched all six episodes of Brotherhood that had come out at the time and started reading Gakuen Alice the next day.
So far there are 111 chapters scantalated on Mangafox.com. It’s a pity that One Manga is behind on this manga and chapters 63, 64, and 76 are missing entirely, but applechips and mangahelpers are great places to go to for summaries of those chapters.
I really recommend this manga to people who like mystery, magic, romance, and comedy genres. It may be shoujo and I know some people are against reading shoujo manga, but it’s pretty different I think. The characters develop well in the manga such that you love them more as you learn more about them and watch them grow. Some characters may be disliked at first but loved later. Not only do you learn about the characters as they progress but you also learn about their pasts and how some characters are related to other characters. Learning about their pasts can be important to the storyline as well. Also, Higuchi (the manga artist and writer) does a wonderful job of adding suspense and mystery while at the same time revealing reasons and secrets later that enable you to understand why things happen. The reading is easy to follow and not confusing like some manga tend to be.
I think this series somewhat reminds me of Harry Potter in that students with magical abilities attend an academy and they live there. But unlike Harry Potter, every student has their own unique abilities called alices, and they don’t learn spells or own magic wands. In other words, they’re not witches or wizards, but people who are important to society as their alices are valued in certain jobs. There are many mysteries involved with the academy and the people who run the academy. You also learn reasons for why certain people choose to be teachers in the academy and how some students entered the academy as well as how their alices were discovered.
Also, two of the main characters remind me of Sakura and Shaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura slightly. The reason why I say slightly is because the girl doesn’t have a cool factor like Sakura, but she’s still lovable and courageous. Also the one who reminds me of Shaoran is…well, somewhat perverted and a lot meaner than Shaoran ever was, but he’s still an awesome character and you really see him change in the story.
The story is creatively written with interesting alices, events, and humorous parts. Each character has unique personalities and they really are lovable characters except for the few that are meant to be disliked.
I don’t think I should mention anything else for fear of giving the story away. I just wanted to write about it because I think it’s a great manga series. The excitement just makes me want to recommend it to other manga lovers.
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