Gakuen Alice Review

 Gakuen Alice

Story: 7
Gakuen Alice is presented as a comedy and while this anime certainly has comical elements, it didn’t make me laugh out loud much. This doesn’t mean this is a bad anime; it just wasn’t what I expected. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed the deeper elements that this story had to offer. On the surface it seems like any ordinary school life anime, but as the story progresses you get drawn deeper and deeper in the underlying secrets of this school. Hidden motives are a keyword in this series and it was interesting enough for me to finish this one in 2 days.

A minor point was the ending. The anime was building up to what I thought would be a climax. However this wasn’t even close. The ending was really ordinary and quite disappointing. There were many questions that were left unanswered. 

Animation: 7.5
The animation is pretty basic, yet they spend time to add details to the total picture. This is especially clear in the character designs. They made certain that the animation fitted with the unique characters of certain personalities. Also it is one of those series where characters actually wear different every day clothes instead of the same thing over and over, of course the school uniform is the exception here.
The comedy aspects are brought out more by using exaggerated facial expressions. To my opinion this really adds something extra to the series.

Audio: 7
Voice acting is good overall. Most of the times the voices fit the characters however there is one boy though who sounds like a girl and I think it took me about 4 episodes before I noticed he was a boy because of his uniform.
The opening theme is a wacky song that fits the anime well. The ending theme is a mellow song, almost like a lullaby. Both songs aren’t bad, but I wouldn’t play them on their own. It is too bad that the former are the only two vocal tracks for a 26 episode series. The scenes in the series are accompanied by little weird sounds to accent the comedy aspect. As for background music, they use the same tunes over and over but this is only noticeable if you pay attention to it.

Character development: 8
When Mikan, the main character first comes to the new school, almost everyone acts cold towards here. But with her personality she wins people over 1 by 1. This is the main event for this series and if you compare the beginning of the series to the end there is a major difference. They did a good job here, following this line of development. Mikan stays the same cheerful girl overall in spite of all the hardships she has to endure, yet she still develops to a stronger person. Even if she still stays a crybaby in the end.

As side characters there is a whole bunch of classmates which each have their own skills and quirks. They have their own problems and reasons for acting the way they do. The series reveals these backgrounds one by one. And each character that gets highlighted develops to a certain extend, some more then others of course. There are a few episodes that are being spent solidly to highlight a characters story or their relationship to Mikan. But those are very few. I can truly say that I enjoyed the way everything turned out even though also on this aspect some things are left open.

Overall: 7.5
To my opinion a lot of people will be able to enjoy this series. Some will appreciate it for the humor while others might be drawn to the drama aspects of the anime. There is also some action involved and is has a deeper story then expected. The ending could have been stronger and it is true that the series leaves quite a few things untold. All though these flaws are there, I nevertheless enjoyed watching it.

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March 22, 2008 :: Comedy, Drama, Reviews, Slice of life ::