Gakuen Alice Volume 12

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By Tachibana Higuchi. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

As everyone knows, sometimes setup is important. Especially in manga, you can’t just get to the awesome stuff right away. You have to build your world, establish your characters, and of course bully them mercilessly until the reader wants to throw the volume across the room. Likewise, when you’re doing a long dramatic arc, you need to have lots of dramatic fights against mid-level enemies, and standing around asking yourself why you’re doing this. And of course, you need flashbacks.

This may sound like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not really. When the payoff DOES arrive, if it’s all perfectly timed, it can be a thing of beauty. Such a thing of beauty is Gakuen Alice 12, which draws together several threads from the previous books to create the best volume to date.

We start off by finishing up the previous volume’s flashback, which shows, as expected, everything going wrong for Natsume and his family. It’s especially heartbreaking as they’re just so sweet, and makes you want to reread previous volumes so you can kee3p that in mind when seeing Natsume’s grumpy, sullen demeanor. Natsume agrees to go to the school in order to protect his family, with his sister essentially being kidnapped and imprisoned to act as insurance. Since she’s blind and amnesiac after the climax of Volume 11, this is easier than it sounds. And so Luca comes along, out of pure determination to be Natsume’s friend. The flashback ends with Natsume’s father, still hospitalized, hobbling after the limo taking him to the school screaming out his name. The close of of Natsume’s tears as this happens is just devastating.

After this, and Luca’s noting that his ‘success’ at the school is mostly due to the school baiting Natsume and treating him like a walking firebomb for hire, Mikan simply flips out. “What’s wrong with this stupid school?” she asks, and she’s not kidding. The Natsume flashback actually helps me deal with the bullying we’d gotten in previous scenes better, as it now becomes clear it’s NOT just the standard Japanese “Why did you make him hit you?” school of bullying, but that the author is showing that this school’s treatment of children as a combination of prisoners, lab rats, and spoiled brats leads to exactly this sort of behavior.

And so, filled with determination, they split up to go find Persona and rescue Natsume. First, however, Mikan ends up in a different level of the basement, where she runs into a familiar face. The meeting between Mikan and Aoi manages to be cute and serious at the same time, as their immediate bond (they’re extremely similar) is offset by Aoi’s devotion to Persona, which is a bond of deep empathy. Having only seen the brooding, broken Persona rather than his killer evil side, Aoi wants nothing more than to help him.

That changes fast, as Mikan is called to another part of the building, where the others have found Persona, Natsume… and Nobara, who is in an ice princess trance (this school does love priming its kid weapons, doesn’t it). One thing I loved is both Natsume AND Persona assuming that Mikan stops Nobara through using her nullification Alice, when really it’s just Nobara herself, terrified of Mikan seeing her when she’s like this, breaking down and running off. Mikan has so far proved to be much better at getting her way through the power of friendship than due to her Alice.

So now we’re down to Persona, who is verbally destroying Natsume. The confrontation is made even worse by the arrival of Aoi, who had left her little prison cell (one suspects, being blind and sympathetic to Persona anyway, she wasn’t locked up so much as persuaded to stay there for her own good), and she finally sees him threatening everyone with his ‘monstrous’ powers. These two chapters are notable for a few things; Mikan’s sheer determination to stop Persona, even if it means her own death; Persona’s traumatic past, which we only see bits of but which will surely pop up again in the future, as it’s become clear that Persona is Natsume’s dark mirror; and Hotaru, normally very deadpan, completely losing that and looking just as worried as the others when it becomes clear that Persona’s attacks on Mikan are making her seriously ill. The scene where she essentially begs her brother to save Mikan is very touching.

Nevertheless, Mikan *does* stop Persona, and not just by giving him a big hug (though that’s how it appears). A male figure with his face hidden by hair appears behind her as a sort of ‘ghostly image’, much the same way the spirit of a dead teammate appears behind the hero in a shonen anime as they deal their new finishing move. It’s not stated, but it’s fairly clear that this must be Mikan’s father, and that she not only has nullification, but ANOTHER Alice… one which can not only stop Persona (who gets a taste of his own medicine), but actually manages to heal herself. Most of this is shown in a very vague “But … wait, it couldn’t be… that?” sort of way, and clearly Mikan’s new ability will drive the plot of some future volumes.

I also must praise Tono in this volume, who actually manages to figure out a way not to get everyone brutally punished. His solution, relying on the fact that Aoi-chan was imprisoned at school despite not having Alice abiliti4es anymore, is very clever, and I liked the reaction of the student body to the revelations. Notably, their reactions also seemed to be along the lines of ‘what’s wrong with this stupid school?’. It’s always nice to see that it’s not just Mikan vs. the world. And then we get the last scene, showing Aoi leaving the school. It’s so ridiculously heartwarming that words just can’t describe it. For a manga that deals with child abuse, bullying, and trauma the way Gakuen Alice has so often in the past, seeing a happy ending like this, even if briefly, is incredibly necessary. It’s even capped off by Luca throwing his stars away, realizing the falseness of the school’s hierarchy.

As I noted in the review of my two previous volumes, the buildup to this was sometimes a bit of a slog. But this volume basically had everything I wanted from Gakuen Alice. Mikan’s determination (which reaches new highs here) and ability to use niceness as a weapon; Persona getting his ass kicked by a girl, even if only metaphorically; and the resolution of the horrific flashback in a way that’s pure joy. Almost everyone gets a chance to shine, either by being very clever or by showing sides of themselves we don’t normally see. Yes, I’m sure in a volume or two we’ll be back to more of Mikan being bullied and other student abuses, but that is sort of the premise. In the meantime, we have this.

Walter Lantz Cartoons Part 4: Hollywood Bowl, A Haunting We Will Go, Life Begins for Andy Panda, Scrambled Eggs, 100 Pygmies and Andy Panda

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As we get into the period I’m covering here, from 1938 to late 1940, the Lantz studios were doing OK but not great. They’d retired Oswald, but hadn’t really found a character to replace him that would be popular and possibly sell some merchandise. So a lot of the cartoons in this period feature characters that appeared in only a few cartoons as ‘tests’ to see if they would catch on with the moviegoer. With one exception, they didn’t. And even the exception would only be a ‘minor star’.

First, though, we’ve got another Hollywood caricatures parody, this one revolving around the opening of the Hollywood Bowl. Note that the Bowl had already been around for 16 years when this cartoon aired, so I can only assume they meant for a new season. In any case, half the cartoon is an excuse to see celebrity caricatures. The impersonations have gotten better since Wax Works, though we still aren’t anywhere near you average Warner Brothers cartoon. They still can’t do a Groucho voice, for example. The ‘plot’ involves Leopold Stokowski attempting to conduct Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, with some magic gloves playing all the instruments. This leads to some very intriguing, arty sequences, which sadly also show the art limitations at the time – Lantz’s group can’t draw hands well. Disney had similar issues 3-4 years ago. When it becomes clear the symphony really is unfinished, Stokowski storms off, and we get a bunch of stars finishing the show off – Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, and Martha Raye among them. We even get Jack Benny at the violin. Quite an interesting cartoon, if only to show how well Warners’ celebrity cartoons hold up compared to their rivals. It’s also the last B&W; cartoon I have on DVD – everything from now on is in color.

The first of our three attempts at cartoon stars here is L’il Eightball, a young black boy with a deep voice (well, deep for a boy as young as he’s supposed to be). A Haunting We Will Go is his final cartoon, so clearly he didn’t work out. It’s a very well-made cartoon, especially if you like ghosts. A ‘child’ ghost is enjoying going around and scaring various animals, but comes across our hero, who says that he doesn’t believe in ghosts. L’il Eightball is a bit racist, what with his jive talking and ‘hyuk hyuk’ laugh, but compared to other black characters of the period, he’s really fairly harmless. The ghost takes him to see his ghost father, who gets together with his pals to scare the child. They do this mostly by shaking him up, with lots of ghost tricks and reality-bending mind games. Windows roll up into the wall, shadows become nets, etc. At first holding out, L’il Eightball finally ends up getting scared out of his wits – though denying it to the end. Incidentally, he was voiced by Mel Blanc, who still freelanced at this point.

We then get Life Begins for Andy Panda, which is, quite naturally, Andy’s first cartoon. After Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy, Andy is Lantz’s best knows star, and this short makes his birth – literally, it begins with the forest creatures congratulating the pandas on their new baby. (The title, by the way, is not a parody of the movie Life Begins for Andy Hardy. That movie came out 2 years after this cartoon.) Andy quickly grows to about 6 months old, to become a mischievous and curious toddler, who drives his father crazy with constant questions. Then he tries to go out of the forest, and his father yells at him, saying if he does that he’ll “wind up in the newsreel!”. Of course, telling a toddler not to do something never works out. Andy runs off, and when his father tries to catch him he is captured by a tribe of pygmy African hunters. These caricatures, unlike L’il Eightball, are as bad as they sound, being a bunch of racist African ‘unga bunga’ types, all interchangeable. The other forest creatures, as well as Andy’s mother, hear about this and run off to the rescue. Sadly, Andy still wants to be in the newsreel. This is a decent short, but I don’t like Andy as a precious l’il tyke.

However, it’s magical compared to the next cartoon. Scrambled Eggs stars Peterkin, a cute boy satyr (yes, you read that right) who is playing his flute in the forest and looking for mischief to cause. He is distracted by a bunch of birds of various types in the tree above him, all of whom are waiting for their eggs to hatch. (We even see a woodpecker couple, though we don’t get Woody just yet.) Peterkin decides to have some fun and switches all the eggs, so that the sparrows have a blackbird egg, etc. This leads to all the parents fighting and storming off (as the dads think their wives have cheated on them), leaving all the babies behind. Oh well, so much for sympathetic parents. Peterkin isn’t much better, as he’s presented as cute and adorable and twee in the worst kind of Disney imitator way, and you just want him to get his ass kicked. It’s sort of fun seeing the bratty little babies demanding food and water and entertainment, but really, this is a giant drag. This was Peterkin’s only cartoon, and I can see why.

In the meantime, Andy Panda had done better than the other short-lived characters, and returns in the aptly titled 100 Pygmies and Andy Panda. It’s not as good as the other Andy cartoon I saw, sadly, and features, as you can no doubt guess, the same racist African hunters, this time with a Witch Doctor added. Andy has gotten a magic wand in the mail, and is enjoying using it to make bunnies appear and torture his father. However, the witch doctor’s magic mask now says that Andy is more powerful than him. (Man, imagine if Andy had gone for the sea monkeys instead. We’d have no cartoon!) The witch doctor goes to confront Andy, who quickly conjures up some shoes to literally kick his ass. So the witch doctor calls in the titular 100 pygmies, who chase after Andy and corner him. They grab the wand, but use the wrong magic words to activate it, and end up trapped in the middle of a live-action city street, running away from cars. (The city street is in black and white, but this cartoon is in color, making it even more jarring and weird.) This would thankfully be the last appearance of the pygmies (who’d also battled Andy and his dad in a fishing cartoon earlier in the year.)

So Andy’s doing OK, but not terrific. Lantz would continue to try new one-shot characters with him, however, In fact, in his next cartoon we’ll see Andy and his father battle a particularly obnoxious woodpecker…

License Request Day: ’80s Jump series

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As with most of my license requests, these are more ‘far flung fantasy’ than anything else. That said, I have been growing nostalgic lately for old-school Jump shonen, pre-Naruto. The series of that period aren’t necessarily lighter or goofier (in fact, there’s far more bloodshed in these than there is in today’s Jump), but they have a rawer, less refined quality that I quite enjoy.

For the record, I’m excluding 80s Jump series ALREADY out in North America, even partially. The series are still good – you should track them down. That’s Dr. Slump, Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, City Hunter, Saint Seiya (aka Knights of the Zodiac), JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Bastard!!, and Video Girl Ai. And I’m not talking KOR as I already did a post on that one.

What does that leave? Well, how about High School! Kimengumi? It pretty much is everything one could want in a bestselling series for North America. It has old-fashioned, goofy shonen art that looks sketchy. It’s multiple volumes, with the three series stretching to 27 volumes at Shueisha and 5 for a revival at Square Enix. It’s a manga filled with obscure Japanese puns about virtually everything. And it’s a shonen romantic comedy. As you can see, all these things are HOT BEST SELLERS in the west, and would be unbeatable here. :) Seriously, though, it looks fun, cute, and goofy – a great combination for me.

No, huh? Want more action? And some babes who are actually somewhat above the age of middle schoolers? Well, I said I wouldn’t talk City Hunter, but what about Cat’s Eye? This 18-volume series about a group of 3 sisters who run a cafe but moonlight as thieves, stealing famous paintings in the hope of tracking down their collector father. It also stars a headstrong young detective who is determined to catch those evil thieves!… having no idea he drinks in their cafe every day. Again, old art, but in my opinion that actually is the only thing stopping this from being a good license. Well, that and the fact that Hojo was one of the Gutsoon/Raijin mangaka, and rumor has it they were pissed off at how that ended up and want to avoid the West. Regardless of that, Cat’s Eye is great fun.

Also, as long as Viz was forced to slog through Whistle!, they may as well go back and publish the really GOOD soccer manga from the 1980s (and far more famous, even over here), Captain Tsubasa. The first series (it’s had endless sequels) ran in Jump for 7 years and 37 volumes, and runs from Tsubasa’s start in elementary school through his national championships, ending with him joining Brazil. Perhaps a sponsorship deal can be worked out with a soccer league to promote it here, similar to how the NFL promoted Eyeshield 21 in Japan.

For those who loved Saint Seiya and Bt’X, there’s Fuma no Kojiro. It’s… a ninja manga! Old-school ninja manga, the sort that Naruto’s author grew up on. And best of all, it’s only 10 volumes long! Something reasonable! I feel I should note, for those who have read Even a Money Can Draw Manga, that this is in fact just a ninja manga. There are no psychics in it. However, he did move from ninjas to Spirit Warriors for his future series, as fans well know.

Lastly, and possibly least likely, is Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin. This is a badass, awesome 18-volume series about… well, dogs. But this is not Chi’s Sweet Home by any means. These are wild dogs, who our hero (an Akita puppy) joins in order to band together and take down an insane giant bear. We see Great Danes, German Shepherds, Weimaraners, French Spaniels… and a couple of humans as well, but this is about DOGS FIGHTING A BEAR. It’s wildly popular in Northern Europe, as you might expect, and has had some anime released in the West, though heavily, heavily edited. I can only imagine the blogger love that would pour forth if this were licensed. Especially from me.

I’ve only covered from 1980-1984, too. Anyone have any favorites I missed?