Gakuen Alice - Chapter 134

Natsume confessed to Sakura last chapter. This chapter Sakura returns her feelings. Then almost immediately, Ruka tells Sakura that he loves her too! Geez, all at once! Everyone is in love with this chick!

The traitor has been revealed as Hijiri Goshima. Honestly, I can't remember the details on the traitor stuff. I need to go back and re-read some chapters. It's been too long between releases. Anyway, Natsume is given the responsibility to catch Hijiri and get the key to the door that takes them out of Gakuen Alice.

Next chapter is out on 8/5. Gotta find another source, since OM will be gone by tonight.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 133

Well, I didn't expect this chapter to come out so quickly, but it seems that they were a month behind.

In this one, everyone ends up splitting up to get Mikan to the portal in the high school. It looks like Hotaru was able to save her brother too, if I understand the chapter correctly. There really are too many things going on at once and it's too hard to tell the difference between the characters some time. Next chapter is on July 20th. I'm hoping that they'll finally get to the portal during that chapter. This whole "race to the portal" part is taking forever.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 132

Um. WHAT?!?! That was weird. Hotaru "loves" Mikan? That was out of left field. I wonder what the original Japanese was. Is this a romantic love kinda thing? I'm a bit confused. Shocked. Wow.

The rest of the chapter was so choppy because the manga-ka is trying to follow so many different storylines at once that I get confused. Definitely a weird chapter with not really all that much progress, except for the girl-girl love going on.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 131

Maybe I'm getting too picky, but the translation seemed off on this chapter. It's the first time I've seen the word "behalfism" in a manga (or anywhere else, for that matter). And Persona is suddenly a woman! I had to re-read the chapter twice to understand what was really going on. Nobara kept on defending Persona and is trying to help him break free from the ESP. Hotaru's big brother is being controlled by Luna's soul sucking alice, so Hotaru decides to stay behind, saying that she would regret it if she left him. And so the journey continues to the portal and Mikan's mother. Meh.

Gakuen Alice - Anime

Fail.

The only thing I liked about the anime was in episode 18. There is a brief scene that shows Luca, Natsume, and Mikan as adults. ^_^

Now for everything that sucked:

The opening is very irritating. The voices are a bit different from what I would have chosen. They give away too much stuff to quickly. But the fire is badly drawn and it's kinda an important element of the story. And the story concentrates mostly on the Mikan-Hotaru relationship, almost ignoring the growing Mikan-Natsumen relationship. Pfft.

Episode 9 is random filler, which is surprising for a 26 episode series. Episodes 23 to 25 make up a random arc that's not in the manga. It sucks. A circus in the academy? That would involve a lot of contact with the outside world. Also, why would a circus be interesting to a bunch of kids who can do the same things naturally? Bringing back Leo for these episodes was a mistake. Natsume's opinion of the academy seems to randomly do an about-face. I'm sure this was created so they could attempt to have some sort of conflict with the academy which has been foreshadowed so much.

Episode 26 was another random story which didn't appear in the manga. I think that they had just stopped trying. Crappy crappy ending and no resolution of the real issues that were presented. I was actually glad to be done with it.

Gakuen Alice - Chapter 130

Nothing special. I'm guessing that Persona will end up betraying the elementary school principal and get killed in the process. He doesn't seem like the kind of character that would be reformed and just join the group.

Gakuen Alice - Update

I'm up to date with Gakugen Alice. It's formulaic in some ways, but there are quite a few surprises. Since I've read 129 chapters, I'm sure you can guess that I like it. The most recent chapter was out on 4/20 in Japan. Hopefully it'll get scanned soon. I'd like to read some Death Note tonight, but I have to work tomorrow. Meh.

Gakuen Alice

Alice Academy is a government-run school for super geniuses. Mikan's best friend Hotaru suddenly leaves for Tokyo from their rural village to attend the Alice Academy. After several months with only a post card, Mikan steals her grandfather's secret savings and heads off to Tokyo to see Hotaru.  Long story short, she ends up enrolling in the academy and finds out that it's a school for kids with unique abilities, which they call Alices. She immediately makes Natsume, the most powerful boy in school, her enemy. As time goes on, she discovers that there's much more going on at Alice Academy than she ever expected.

I like the story so far. The characters and their Alices are interesting. Mikan is a bit of a crybaby, but also a hard worker. As of chapter 15, I think this one's going to be good. It's on chapter 129 and still being produced. Expect more updates.