Gakuen Alice ep.6

December 6, 2004 | 8 Comments

I am not too crazy about this episode mostly because it lacks in comedy and yet, it fails to present the dark story that was in the manga. Never the less, it is interesting to know more about the school and the way it operates. In this particular episode, it's obvious that major classifications of Alices are used to group students together for training. I think this makes a lot of sense in the way that some students in schools are normally grouped by their interest in a particular subject (biology, social sciences, etc). Anyway, there isn't much of Hotaru in this one either and she seems to be a bit out of character somehow. Was it just me or did she actually smile in one of the scenes? The Harry Potter references seem to be quite thick in this one as well. Especially with Noda-sensei's ability to manipulate time just like Hermione's time turner in Prisoner of Azkaban.

The episode begins with Mikan having a hard time in school. As a zero star, she gets to wash everyone else's plate and of course, she successfully breaks all of them. Then on her way to the class, Mikan gets to meet a kind but strange teacher who claims that Mikan is his student but then he suddenly disappears without warning. Later on, Mikan also finds out that despite her best intention to succeed in PE, she is easily beaten by students who use their Alice to cheat as simple jogging exercise. Some of those students obviously need someone to tell them that there is no point in participating in jogging exercise when you just teleport your way from the start to the finish line. Never the less, Mikan feels as if her Alice is useless in comparison to other student's. The next day, Mikan finds out that it's the day where the junior students and the middle students have joint lesson. Therefore, to facilitate an effective training, all students are divided into their Alice type.

Matthew's already done a comprehensive explanation on the 5 Alice types, so I'm not going to repeat them here. Suffice to say, Mikan is assigned to a 'special' group, Tokubetsu nouryoku-kei, which is known to be populated by weirdos. Mikan is disappointed again but has no choice but to go and look for them. On her way to meet her would-be sempais, however, she encounters Natsume who seems to be hiding from someone. Mikan quickly finds out that the person is a man who wears an opera mask and wears a black long coat. Once the man left, Mikan demands explanation as to why Natsume covers her mouth with his hand back then. But their noises end up being intercepted by a group of sempais who clearly don't like Natsume. They make fun of Natsume by telling him that the reason he's there is because he's Persona's favourite. Natsume is angry upon hearing this and ends up using his fire Alice to burn the hand of one of the sempais.

Angered by Natsume's act, one of them decide to hold Mikan hostage so that Natsume will save his 'partner' by allowing himself to be punished by the sempais. But Natsume is not bothered by their threat and proceeds to leave poor Mikan in the hand of the not-so-nice sempais. Thankfully, before things get out of hand, another sempai appears from the top of the tree and defends Mikan. The guy, Andou Tsubasa, uses his Alice, which turns out to be a shadow manipulation to make the jerks do 1-hour squat. He then offers to take Mikan to her class but is surprised to find out that Mikan is his kouhai/junior. Therefore, he ends up taking Mikan to Tokubetsu group where Mikan ends up being greeted by other kind-hearted sempais such as the girl with the doppleganger Alice, Misaki. She is then re-introduced properly to Noda Sensei, whose Alice turn out to be the ability to manipulate time. The episode ends with Mikan realising that she fits in nicely with these 'weirdos'.

Impression:

Okay, I'm not happy that the animators decide to eliminate a scene which I consider important to this particular story (despite being slightly darker in tone). I'm not going to spoil much here in case that it'll be shown in future episodes. But the scene in question involves Jinno sensei and actually contains important future plots. Therefore, I don't understand why it's not shown here. I hope the animators simply decide to shelf the scene so they can use it in later episodes. I will, however, be severely disappointed if they decide to not show it in the anime. Besides, I think the point of Tsubasa's arrival and Mikan's introduction to the Tokuryoku group in the story is supposed to be one of the bright sides for Mikan in the school. She clearly hasn't had a good day ever since she arrived there and Hotaru is not exactly much of a help either. This particular day originally makes Mikan wonder if she's made the right decision in entering the school.

While the substitute scenes (the plate-washing scenes, the PE class, etc) are adequate, they are pale in comparison to what Mikan has to go through in the original story. Similarly, I don't understand why they chose to not include that slightly darker information about Natsume in the two episodes (episode 4 and this one) that provide hints about his past. Thankfully, it's still quite early in the game to panic yet. And to their credit, the animators decide to incorporate the presence of the mysterious masked man, as well as the tidbit information about 'Persona', who according to those obnoxious upperclassmen, seems to favour Natsume. Other than that, this episode is generally a good tale about how one must not judge people before knowing them. In here, Mikan clearly is intended to learn that her supposedly 'weird' sempais turned out to be some of the coolest and nicest people she's ever met.

© memento 2003