Gakuen Alice

Manga: Ongoing
Anime: Complete at 26 episodes, should be a season 2

Actually, didn't want to pick this one up at first as it didn't appealing at all, as I'm not really interested in those mangas/storylines about elementary children (I completely couldn't stomach strawberry marshmellow) - I mean, how complicated can they get right? And I'm not that into cutesy. But happened across this anime and decided why not, to see what the fuss was about, cos apparently this seems to be qutie a popular series. The thing is that it is simple and cute, and I think the saving grace is that there is something more interesting in the form of the "Alices" (special powers), and the mystery of the school, etc.

The main protagonist, Mikan is cute, but she's also kinda (very?) silly. Overall there's a lot of comedy involved with her character's actions and especially in her interactions with her "best" friend Hotaru. I really can't stand the latter's attitude and behaviour somethings. It gets on my nerves!

Overall, it's just a light anime but fun. I heard the manga is better, but I'm not sure I'd want to get it. A friend and I calculated that it would take me perhaps 5-6 years (depending on how many chapters this manga eventually has) for me to complete it, if I really wanted to, that is. Seems like they are releasing four English volumes a year, each with around 5-6 chapter. With already 100 chapters (in Japanese) so far, there should be more than 20 English volumes. I guess I'm not really going to collect so many but it's more because I wanted to see the difference in story and feel between the anime and manga. As the story delves into the school and the children's activities there are a lot of little stories that are quite stand alone. It also goes into the relationships between the children and it can be rather touching.