Gakuen Alice ep.10

January 15, 2005 | 27 Comments

I really like it when a boarding school-based stories like this one features its own little town. It reminds me a lot of classic English fictions from Enid Blyton as well as the recent Harry Potter series. Another interesting part of this episode is the use of "The Little Match Girl" fairy tale. This is the famous Hans Christian Anderson tale where a poor little girl is ordered by her cruel father (or mother depending on which version you read) to sell some matches on a cold winter day and therefore the poor girl ends up frozen dead the next day. Yup, charming stuff. The kind of fairy tales that will traumatise kids for a long, long time. Other examples of this are the non-disney version of Hansel and Gretel and The Little Mermaid. Warning: this entire entry + comments contain future anime/manga spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

Anyway, the episode begins with Mikan writing to her grandpa about how different students with different stars receive different allowance. Special stars like Natsume receives 300 rabbits, 3 stars like Hotaru and Iincho receive 100 rabbits, 2 stars receive 50 rabbits, 1 star students like Kokoroyomi, Anna, and Nonoka receive 30 rabbits. How about no star? Well, 5 rabbits are good enough for them. Anyway, all of the kids then tell Mikan that they're about to go to Central Town. Mikan is clueless about the place so Hotaru tells her that Central Town is the school's own shopping mall. Iincho adds that the products sold in the town are the creation of people who have Alice ability. Hotaru then invites Mikan to come to town and Mikan immediately assumes that Hotaru is asking her out on a date. LOL. So everyone tells her that there's no date but Mikan is welcome to come with Hotaru, Iincho, and Kokoroyomi-kun.

Unfortunately for Mikan, Jin-Jin (Jinno-sensei) decides to be an ass and tells her that a no-star, trouble child like her is not allowed to go to Central Town. Thankfully for Mikan, Narumi-sensei then arrives and asks Jin-Jin to allow Mikan to go. Jin-Jin finally relents on the condition that Mikan is accompanied by her partner: Natsume. Mikan is devastated about this and has no choice but to grovel in front of Natsume, asking him to come to Central Town with her. Sumire doesn't miss the opportunity to mock Mikan telling her friend that Mikan is trying to ask Natsume out on a date. While groveling, however, Mikan is distracted by the presence of a cute 3 year old boy called Yoichi. Natsume seems to be awfully nice to the boy much to Mikan's surprise. So Ruka-pyon tells her that Yoichi is familiar with Natsume due to Yoichi being in the same group as Natsume (Kiken nouryoku-kei - students with dangerous Alices).

Mikan and Sumire immediately coo over the rugrat. Unfortunately for them, the brat is not as sweet as he looks. He loves calling Mikan and Sumire names ranging from idiot to ape thanks to Natsume's tutelage. Mikan, however, still insist on playing with Yoichi despite the kid's reluctance so Ruka warns her to be careful because the kid's has the ability to release evil spirits. It's a case of a little too late because Mikan and Sumire are already spooked out by then. Never the less, the tot seems to be interested to go to Central Town. So Natsume agrees to come on the condition that Mikan becomes an ice-cream seller inside the bus that takes the students to Central Town. Of course this means she gets to be abused by other students while doing her job. The pain seems to be worth it, however, because Mikan seems to love Central Town the minute she arrives at the place.

Unfortunately for Mikan, she doesn't have enough money to buy anything good in the city. For example, she's interested in a vanity mirror that can display a mirror image of herself wearing different costume but that mirror costs 300 rabbits. So Hotaru and Iincho suggest that they go for soft-cream since it'll only cost Mikan 2 rabbits. On their way to get the food, however, Mikan is distracted by an apple that refuses to be eaten by anyone. Mikan tries to defend the apple's right and in doing so, setting it free. Well, it's not free for Mikan because she has to pay the store owner 5 rabbits. There goes her entire allowance. Whilst Mikan is still in shock, Ruka, Kokoroyomi-kun, and Yoichi arrive on the scene carrying a box of Cotton Candy. Mikan, who never saw Cotton Candy before is excited to know what it is. So Rukan points her to a store selling Sweat driciaus Cotton Candy. :P Yup, that's not a typo on my part.

Upon hearing Ruka and Kokoroyomi-kun's explanation, Mikan wants to buy the candy as well. But unfortunately, the price is beyond her budget. One small box apparently cost 10 rabbits. Iincho offers to lend her some money but Mikan then remembers the advice of her grandpa not to borrow money from others. So Mikan tries to earn money by offering various entertainment/services on the street. After several failed attempts, she sees a successful performer on the street and decide to do something similar. Employing the help of her friends, Mikan decide to make a theatrical play of "The Little Match Girl - Mikan". Iincho provides the special effects that makes it looks like the place is snowy. Meanwhile, Hotaru plays the role of the evil old lady who forces poor Mikan to sell Match stick or else she can't go back home. Anyway, the play then starts with the story started out similarly to the original version.

In brief, the story goes like this: the little match girl tries to sell a match on a cold winter day but she feels cold so she lights one of the matches to warm her body and in the process start to hallucinate (courtesy of Iincho's Alice) and imagine nice pleasant home, etc. Halfway through Mikan's performance, however, a few mishaps happen such as Yoichi unleashing his evil spirit on Mikan. Since the whole play becomes messy by now, Mikan decides to go straight to the point and makes her character hallucinating some Cotton Candy on the and tells her captive audiences that she wants to eat one. Once the little match girl drops dead from hunger, Hotaru goes around and tries to sell a crappy stick for 1 rabbit. Quite a good scam if I may say so myself. :P For some reason, everyone including Sumire and her friend love the play and decide to buy the useless stick. So Mikan gets her 10 rabbits in no time.

Upon receiving the money, Mikan bolts immediately to buy a box of Cotton Candy. But being the nice person that she is, she decides to give everyone who has helped her their share of the Cotton Candy. She, however, decides not to finish the candy and leave a small portion in the box. She then approaches Natsume who's sitting alone underneath a tree reading a book. She gives the candy to Natsume and thank him for making it possible for her to come to the town. Natsume pretends as if he doesn't care but once Mikan disappears, it's obvious that he's whipped. Heh, it's certainly different from the manga where Mikan only eats a little and asks Narumi-sensei to give the rest to her grandpa. The episode ends with Mikan telling her grandpa through a letter (which probably will never get sent to him) that despite the fact that she has no star, she's happy to be able to go to this school.

Impression:

Well, that was a rather good adaptation of the manga although I feel that the anime tries to stretch a rather short chapter into a half hour episode. The out of nowhere scene of Big Piyo rampaging across the school is a good example of this. On top of this, the episode also doesn't move the plot either. This should have been the filler that the anime used in last week's episode. So now we still don't know much about the story and yet it seems next week's episode is going to be filler again. I definitely don't have a recollection of the manga story that sounds similar to the one that is in the preview. Having said that, this episodes is still enjoyable and funny. Plus, you have to love the Engrish! Anyone up for some Sweat driciaus Cotton-candy? :P Hmm, hmm. I always suspected that those Cotton candies are made with unusual ingredients.

© memento 2003