Why Gakuen Alice is a Terrible Manga and Why I'll Keep Getting It

Gakuen Alice is a terrible manga- a mishmash of a manga which can't decide whether it wants to be a fun magic school manga, or an angsty chronicle of the school de child abuse. It also has way too much creepy pre teen romance in it. We get way too many wacky hijinks involving decorating Christmas trees, and way too little about important things such as say, someone's dead[not literally] little sister recovering from her amnesia and blindness! The dramatic arcs often seem rushed, despite there being plenty of time for filler stories. And there's the age issue. Now, I give a lot of leeway to manga about realism. However, speeches about how we're all going to protect the future together are usually not common among the tween set, so it's best to confine them to once every two volumes. The effect gets lost when it's pulled out too often- this is why these speeches are usually limited to the most dramatic volumes in other manga.

Not to mention, romance with ten year olds is hard, I know. There are many limitations. One of the limitations is that ten year olds tend to still be in the 'ew cooties' stage- i.e. making out isn't likely, nor are conversations about your rival in love's taste in women. Really, I can't let that slide!

But why will I keep getting such a terrible manga? Well, I just can't give up on learning what happens, and even though it's the sort of story that throws everything that appeals to the audience in- 'hey! let's add some androgynous guys, little kids, obsessive guys who appear nice but have a hidden dark side, cross dressing, etc,etc in there!", there still is potential for the story to lose its scattered desire to appeal to everyone at once, and focus more on whether it wants to be a comedy, a drama or even, urgh, a romance.

*Note: I'm on American fantime, and have only read up to vol. 12.