Gakuen Alice ep.5

November 28, 2004 | 9 Comments

And the procrastination continues. Having said that, I'm not a believer of 'all study and no play' is a good thing prior to exam so yay! to procrastination. Anyway, this episode is another good one for the series. I'm really tempted to say that this is a keeper but I'll wait until a few more episodes. But if they keep the quality like this, I'm sure I'll be quite keen to have this on my DVD collection. Plot-wise, I realise now that despite its outer similarity to Kodocha, this series seems to focus more on the adventure/mystery/comedy aspect of the story instead of on the serious drama path that Kodocha often takes. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the series but it does require me to adjust the initial expectation that I had when I first watched this series. Besides, I find it hard to believe that Mikan is capable of angsting longer than a couple of minutes.

The episode begins with Hotaru still acting indifferent towards Mikan and chooses to go to the class on her own instead of together with Mikan. As a result, Mikan ends up walking to the class on her own. On her way, she meets Iincho and Narumi-sensei who are having morning tea in the middle of a garden. Narumi-sensei decides to give Mikan a brief tour of the school's area by using Iincho's Alice. So Mikan gets to see different areas of the school from the sky. Or rather, she feels as if she's in the sky while the truth is the whole thing is just an illusion. Anyway, she finds out how students of different age live in different dorm and how the school has its own small town. Her happiness, however, is short lived when she finds out that she's not allowed to tell her grandfather about the school. Mikan is sad about this but Iincho tells her that she can write a letter and give it to Narumi-sensei. Their conversation, however, is interrupted by the arrival of an angry-looking Natsume.

His anger seems to be directed mostly towards Narumi-sensei so the two end up in another explosive match. When things are over, a bleeding Narumi-sensei tells Natsume that he'd be better off running away quickly since Narumi can't help him anymore now. Later on, Mikan gets to re-introduce herself at the B class. Most of her classmates seem to be happy to accept her now, well, everyone but Sumire so she decides to ask Narumi-sensei what is Mikan's star rank. Mikan is confused about this, so Iincho gets to explain how each student has their own star rank, which seems to correlate to their performance as a student. There are five levels of the star system: nothing, single, double, triple, and special. Some students like Iincho and Hotaru are three-stars students. Natsume, however, is in a class of his own since he seems to be the only student who gets the 'special' star treatment. Speaking of the devil, he suddenly appears inside the class wearing his black cat mask again.

According to other students, the mask is in place to prevent him from using his magic. It works by sending electric current to Natsume's brain if he tries to use his power. Mikan also notices that Natsume now has some fresh scars in some parts of his body. Anyway, later on Mikan gets on the wrong side of Jinno-sensei thanks to Sumire's prank. And since they haven't decided what her rank will be, Jinno-sensei decides that hers will be zero. That means she'll get the worst in everything from accommodation to food. She's even more depressed when she realises that Hotaru doesn't care much about it. However, when she overhears a child saying that he doesn't want to be in school, Mikan realises that she came to the school on her own volition so she decides to keep her chin up. The next day, Hotaru comes over to give Mikan some encouragement. This, however, doesn't stop Hotaru from using her invention to smack Mikan to the wall when the girl tries to hug her.

Impression:

The school's system turns out to be darker than I originally thought. The scars on Natsume's body are a bit disturbing. I really want to know who or what caused them. Even without the scars, the concept of putting a mask that sends electricity to one's brain to stop one's ability to use magic is quite disturbing. Having said that, this is what I like about the series. Despite its cute design and funny moments, it never hesitates to delve into dark issues. Speaking of funny moment, I'll say that this episode is probably the second best episode after last week's. It has the right amount of comedy to make me laugh a lot. The concept of star system and the way each student is treated differently is also funny and at the same time shows that the school encourages competition. It's amazing therefore to see Mikan manages to be happy despite having the worst luck of them all. Although it doesn't take a genius to figure out that she'll be happier if Hotaru acts less cold towards her.

© memento 2003