Review: Gakuen Alice

Gakuen Alice

Ratings

Plot: 9/10

Art: 8/10

Characters: 9.5/10

Overall: 9/10

Recommend? Definitely

I'll admit from the start that I'm a little biased about this series. This is the first manga I ever read and I've been an avid fan ever since. Nonetheless, the ratings I gave here are not just based on bias: I compared it to all the other shojos I've read and I have to say this manga is a great find.

A bit of a summary: The story begins with our main female protagonist, Sakura Mikan (for the less Japanese-orientated people her name would be Mikan Sakura), in her rural hometown. Here, the school is being shut down due to insufficient funding and thus all the students must now migrate to a nearby city school. Yet, at the last second, the school is somehow saved by a mysterious donor. The donor is in fact Mikan's best friend, Imai Hotaru, who traded her freedom for the stability of the school. In exchange for the school's stability, Hotaru is sent to a special school known as Gakuen Alice (aka Alice Academy) for "gifted" students. Mikan, heart broken over the loss of her best friend, decides to run away from home and chase Hotaru down all the way to Tokyo and attempt to get into this prestigious school. It isn't until Mikan somehow makes her way in that she discovers the true meaning of "gifted" and the consequences that come with these gifts.

The first 8 or so volumes are very fluffy shojo stuff with foreshadowing hints. After that you start to get into the real deep dark storyline in this manga. Gakuen Alice only seems like your typical shojo: in reality it's a tragic story about love, life, friendship, sacrifice and hope. That's what makes it unlike many other typical shojo: it's not about just one theme (more specifically: it's not just about love), rather it's about the many different facets of life and relationships. The plot is nowhere near stupidly predictable or boring: it's well crafted and very intricate. It really entangles you into the enchanted world of Gakuen Alice.  The story touches your heart while also having its tear-jerking moments and dark storyline. 

The manga has a cast of amazing characters who you'll come to love and care for. After spending time with them, you get to see their flaws, their fears and their strengths. Plus, with a longer series like this you get to see something that a simple 5-10 volume manga doesn't have: a ton of character development. The characters in this manga truly do change both in their perception of the world and in their actions. Each must face his/her own set of worries and inhibitions and each must eventually confront them. The depth of character development and engagement the reader gets to see is quite an enjoyable experience. 

Now for a bit about the aesthetics of Gakuen Alice. The art style, in my opinion, is rather unique. Personally, I find many run-of-the-mill mangas have scarily similar drawing styles. Plus many characters in these mangas look similar aside from the way hair is drawn. I can assure you you won't find much of that in Gakuen Alice. The mangaka, Tachibana Higuchi, has a art style that really compliments her story-telling style and the story itself. Plus, due to the length of the series, you can see her style slowly progress and change bit by bit. Nothing about her art really annoys me (keep in mind that I can get REALLY picky) and I often find myself drawing her characters.

Overall I'd recommend this series to anyone who's looking for a good series to read. Yes, it is shojo, but that doesn't mean it can't be a great series with plot twists and suspense (for all you die-hard anti-shojo fans).You may think I'm lying considering the fact that the manga is mainly about a group of 11/12 year olds, but believe me: the story goes deeper than you think. The first volumes are very misleading and judging it to be a simple and childish manga would be a big mistake (there's a reason why it's tagged as tragedy). Anyone looking for a good manga that has both deep ideas and conflicts as well as comedy, cuteness and a some childish whims will surely enjoy this series. I know I have. 

Well that's all for now (by for now I mean for this review not about the series... it's still ongoing right now so I may rant about any new chapter releases haha).

Feel free to comment etc~~~! 

Chang'e

Review: Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu

Here's my first review guys! First manga for review is Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu (aka Today our love begins). I'm aware that this is still an ongoing manga, but it's really rather popular and I've heard a lot about it so I decided to sit down and speed read it for a bit. So onto the amateur review!
Note: I will probably refer to character names in their natural Japanese form (or whatever the culture of origin) and I will try my best to conceal all possible spoilers (and if I do have a spoiler I'll make sure I make it known that there is a spoiler... or I'll put it in white text)

Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu
Ratings
Plot: 6.5/10
Art: 7/10
Characters: 6.5/10
Overall: 6.5/10
Recommend? Probably...?


Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu is a highly typical Shojo love story about a girl named Hibino Tsubaki who one day has the audacity to cut the hair of the most popular playboy in her grade: Tsubaki Kyouta. The already unpopular bookworm Hibino thus becomes a target of the infamous playboy as Kyouta vows to take away all her firsts!

From the beginning you can see the pairing. Although the story is initially a little disgruntling since the way Kyouta tries to take Hibino's firsts is essentially sexual assault, the pair eventually get together through more heartwarming ways. Plus, Kyouta's blatant disregard for the treatment of women is explained and all seems a bit more reasonable. As the series goes on, you see the relationship between the two progress and watch the development of true feelings. It's all very heartwarming and "kyaaa~~!" inducing like your everyday shojo.


Onto the explanation of my ratings.
The story itself isn't exactly farfetched or stupid, it's just very conventional: the plot is all relatively predictable and nothing really along the lines of breakthrough creativity. That's not to say a series needs to be a breakthrough to be successful and interesting, just pointing out that if you're looking for a series with fresh ideas and unexpected plot twists this manga probably isn't the one for you. Drama it has (oh boy does it...), but the drama is predictable.

Yet, even so, the plot isn't detrimentally flawed in any other way. The only thing I find a bit annoying (spoiler) would be Hibino's personality and the fact that she creates drama and problems out of absolutely nothing. A few "breakups" or misunderstanding could have been easily avoided if she just didn't act so stupid. Yes shojo needs to have some drama to keep going (at least a shojo like this one does), but the drama shouldn't be over something stupid (yes this is all based on my opinion. feel free to disagree).
The art style is actually pretty good. Of course this all depends on your opinion (I for one have some weird standards for art), but I find the art style to be at least a bit above average. She does clothing rather well, and I enjoy the way she draws hair. The hands bother me a tiny bit mainly for proportion and shape reasons, but in general she does a good job with hands as well.

Overall, this manga isn't a bad series. Sure it's on the predictable side, the leading protagonist can at times get on your nerves, but it's a nice story of teenage love and one that is more realistic than some: it's a bit mature. There is no sugar coating: people kiss and make out and they try to move beyond that. That's reality and that's what's in this manga. It's more realistic than those shojo love relationships that depict high school romances as basically plutonic (sure there are such instances, but not every relationship is close to plutonic). Therefore, for anyone who wants a shojo to read, isn't looking for a highly unpredictable and plot-twisty story, and can deal with maturity in manga, this isn't a bad manga to read in your free time. :D


feel free to comment~!


Chang'e

Introduction

Hi! This is Cyndi speaking (or err... writing). I'd like to introduce you to my new blog! This blog will be dedicated entirely to anime, manga, and anything else Japanese I can talk about! (like Pokémon and such...). Though these aren't exactly top notch posts or professional reviews on anime/manga series I will be blogging about the latest chapters in X manga, talking about why Y series is good or bad in my own opinion or how random thing Z is pretty awesome :P
If you want to just get the jist of a series from my perspective or discuss a newly released chapter of any series I discuss feel free to check this place out :) I'll admit I don't read the biggest variety of manga (or watch a large quantity of anime) but I enjoy talking about it nonetheless and I'm a HUGE Pokénerd :) so hopefully this will all work out nicely!

Yays~!
Chang'e