Gakuen Alice manga recap/log part 2

Resuming my log/recap of the Gakuen Alice manga. This is after I started and got near the end of the Gakuen Alice anime, but at this point the manga's story has deviated a lot from the anime and isgoing a lot further than where the anime ends at.

8/28/2016

Mikan somehow fully recovered by using an alice stone she was carrying... everyone theorized that Mikan had some sort of Alice-stealing powers, but she couldn't replicate it after she woke up... and now that Aoi is recovered and has her sight/memory back, her and Natsume no longer have a reason to stay at this academy... but Natsume decides to stay anyway, because he doesn't want to leave all his friends behind while he and his sister escape.

Now starting a new arc at chapter 72...
Narumi teaches the class about Alice Stones... Mikan hears about the tradition of giving alice stones to the person you're going to propose to, and then gets all embarrassed as she remembered that Luca promised to give her his alice stone... Mikan starts thinking a lot about Natsume and wanting to give her alice stone to him... then Narumi suggests they do a casual game where the lights go off and the person who you grab onto when the lights go back on is the person you will exchange alice stones with... Mikan's stone that she made was very small and weak, and she thought that nobody would want it, except for Natsume who hates having to use his alice so much... Mikan manages to grab Natsume and give him her alice stone. The next day, Natsume gives his alice to her...

Next chapter is about valentine's day.. the girls all make these "mystery" alice chocolates that have an ability in them, and then give them to the boys who they want to see these effects on... all the popular boys like Luca, Natsume, Tsubasa, Narumi are on the run all day, trying to avoid having to eat weird chocolates.. Luca gained bunny ears by the time he managed to get away and hide in a classroom, where he met Mikan working on her chocolates... Mikan was having trouble getting anyone to try her chocolates out, and she convinced Luca to be the first one to accept them... Natsume was watching this whole thing from a distance.. later Mikan found Tsubasa and his friends who were running away from girls all day.. and they also ran into Natsume who was also running away.. someone then managed to throw a chocolate into Natsume's mouth (I think? this scene was really hard to follow), and that caused him to.. i dunno... some of these chapters are really badly translated. then the chapter just ends abruptly right there and the next chapter is about something completely different...

chapters 74-75 are a really boring side story where the elementary class decides to put on a musical performance for the graduation ceremony of some character I don't even remember.. when students turn 20 they have to leave the academy. and this character, Otonashi or something, is somehow well known to the elementary students... there's a thing where Sumire gets in a fight with the rest of the class and goes off to do her own musical performance, but then the time of the show Mikan somehow merges the two performances together or something? this was one of the most hard to follow substories in the whole manga so far.

chapter 76 is really cute.. one of the students in Narumi's class, and also in the special abilities class, is about to lose his alice due to a defect, so he'll be leaving the school and returning to his family... he has an alice like Mallow from SMRPG where his emotions control the weather. he's very shy and mostly only speaks through writing. Mikan gave him an alice stone as a going away gift, and he didn't seem to appreciate it at first, but later he made up with Mikan.. also he's been at this school since he was 3 or 4, and only has very vague memories of his family.. despite that, he wants to be happy enough to leave behind a rainbow when he leaves, so that's what he'll be remembered by...

chapter 77.. we find out that Natsume is apparently in the student council. though he doesn't have much power in there.. the council suggests that the students all be monitored by guards from now on, because of what happened with that junior high party..

Chapter 78... whoa this is getting interesting... a new student transfers into Narumi's class.. she has the type of alice that shortens her lifespan whenever she uses it, so she has a very weak/ill body and Narumi urges the class not to ask her about her alice.. Luna goes to take her seat, but then decides she doesn't want that seat and asks Mikan to move so that she can sit next to Natsume instead... huh that's really suspicious... Natsume tries to refuse, saying he's the only one who decides who he sits next to, and wants Mikan to remain here.. but Luna then becomes really scary and manages to get her way.. the other students are wondering what's up with her..
"Women are really scary. In order to achieve their goal, they would do anything."
"So if she isn't in a good mood, her health gets affected."
"That's not illness, that's just acting."

Natsume is now following Luna's every order, as if he has no choice.. it seems that Luna knows a lot about both Natsume and Mikan, and is doing this out of revenge or something. Pretty soon, Luna has nearly the whole class obeying her every whim.. some classmates are accusing Mikan of using her nullification powers to prevent Luna from showing her powers off because she's jealous.

Later, at the sports day, Mikan is miserable because they got split off into 2 teams and Hotaru, Natsume, and Luca are all on the opposite team and the teams aren't allowed to interact with each other all day... she at least has Iinchou and the mind reader kid who are still on her side... also Sumire hates Luna now and thinks something is suspicious about her..

Then, during the practice, some stuff starts flying around everywhere and Mikan gets pushed into the gym storage room. Luna is in there, and she threatens Mikan and starts talking about Mikan's parents, and that she is just like her "criminal mom", and because of that she wants to see Mikan suffer... She warns Mikan that nobody will believe her if she tells about this, not even the teachers..

8/29/2016

Got up to chapter 81... almost half way through now.
Luna is a really scary enemy... she has even made Mikan afraid do anything but take the blame for everything that happens, and saying nothing about all the crazy rumors being spread about her... when Natsume comes and asks her about a rumor, she tells him off, says he shouldn't worry about her anymore because his partner is Luna now... it's like a complete reversal of what Mikan and Natsume's relationship was like at the beginning.

9/04/2016

The Sports Festival went on for another 4 chapters... it was pretty good though. there was a lot of silly stuff like a relay race where people had to put on a random cosplay outfit.. Hotaru was in an eggplant costume and had to "spit" out the baton to the next person..

Mikan is mostly focused on the event and ignoring Koizumi and Natsume.. during one of the events, where each racer had to complete the race with another person based on the condition they are given.. the person who got the condition "The person who I love" was wearing a mask and turned out to be Natsume taking over for someone else, and he grabbed Mikan. Mikan noticed the earring and recognized the warmth of Natsume's hand...

Ruka has been keeping an eye on Natsume and is suspicious of Koizumi who is all over him.. while at the same time he also gets further in his own relationship with Mikan.. Koizumi then comes and says something about how his relationship with her won't last.. Later, Koizumi is trying to make friends with Hotaru.. omg no way don't do this, Hotaru is the one person Mikan absolutely CANT lose.. Ruka is spying on them and sees Koizumi trying to use her mysterious alice, and he jumps in and interrupts them... Hotaru is now very suspicious of Koizumi as well.

During the cheerleading contest, where Mikan and others had bee costumes on and were flying aroun... Koizumi does something and Mikan suddenly loses the ability to fly, and an older student who tries to save her isn't able to use his alice somehow.. someone else manages to stop her just before she hits the ground, but she's now fainted and the rest of the event is put on hold. Persona suddenly comes in out of nowhere to bring up the theory that Mikan did this to herself with her nullification alice.

9/05/2016

Persona threatens to take Mikan into the dangerous ability class under his supervision, if she causes any more trouble... Luna Koizumi is now talking to Natsume and openly warning him against standing up for Mikan.. she has successfully gotten most of the elementary students to hate Mikan now, except for the ones that are her friends..

Those older guys that are working undercover to protect Mikan have found out about Koizumi's connection to Mikan.. she has the soul sucking alice, and she used to be in the same class as Mikan's mom...

the next sporting event is some kind of combative contest. Mikan's group starts winning, but then Luna does something and a bunch of people from Mikan's own team are now attacking her... Mikan instinctively used her alice to stop them, and realized that they must've been controlled by someone's alice... she somehow had some small alice stones in her hand at that point.

up until now she's been trying her best to ignore Luna's threats and act cheerful and optimistic for the sake of the sporting event, but this has crossed the line for her and now she runs straight over to Luna and yells at her to stop causing everyone so much trouble. she ends up using her alice one too many times, which activates the punishment device and causes her and Luna to faint.. Everyone looks at Luna and sees that she used her alice more than 3 times as well...

Chapter 89... the sporting event is now over, and everything is pretty much back to the way it was before Luna made Mikan into everyone's enemy... except Natsume is now being antisocial and ignoring both Mikan and Luna as well as Luka... it shows a scene where Luna gets new orders from the principal, saying to only observe Mikan for now
"We're just using her to lure Azumi Yuka. Other than that, she's a nuisance.
Luna: "That little girl... is your enemy, Azumi Yuka's daughter."
"Get back to your work, Luna. Next time, make sure you don't make such a mistake again."

Also, Narumi has been away for the last few days due to sickness.. he's poisoned, and will die unless he follows the principal's orders to investigate whether or not Mikan has the STEAL alice. that can be used to suck the poison out of his body... some more confusing plot exposition about Yuka and another person... they snuck into this academy a year ago and stole something from the principal... and when the principal learned Mikan might have the STEAL alice, he suddenly became very interested in her.

Now Mikan herself is wondering if she has the STEAL alice. Someone explains to her that the steal alice is what allowed her to create alice stones out of nowhere...

next in chapter 90... Somehow Narumi is attending class again despite his condition, this isn't explained at all but whatever... there's a really weird scene in class where some special aroma causes everybody to switch bodies.. some goofball student is in Sumire's body.. Iinchou is in Natsume's body, Natsume is in Luka's body, Luka is in Hotaru's body, Hotaru is in Mikan's body... Mikan is in the body of Bear, and Bear has taken Mikan's body and ran away with it. Now Mikan is desperately running around trying to find bear, and others are helping her.. Hotaru (in Mikan's body) comes across Luna, and Luna talks to her not knowing she is Hotaru.. giving her vague threats. Hotaru is just silent...

9/08/2016

Mikan (in bear's body) finds Hotaru right after that scene where Luna threatened her.. Hotaru feels really bad for mikan and hugs her... And that is enough to switch their bodies around.. Other students have been switching bodies too.. Mikan thinks that bearnis in control of natsume's body, so she talks to him about how she's confused about natsume's recent behaviour and wants him to open up to her.. Then she finds out that was actually him all along.

Mikan then comes across narumi, who has passed out from the poison.. He is dreaming about when yuka was at the academy and... I dunno some vague plot that I still don't understand.. Jinno-sensei seems to be on the opposite side of narumi, being yuka's enemy, but  he finds mikan and narumi and wants mikan to save him with her stealing Alice... Narumi wakes up and tries to stop her from turning the poison into an Alice stone, because that's exactly what 'they' wanted her to do.. But jinno punches narumi to let mikan continue.

Chapter 93.. Kaname is on his deathbed, and Mr. Bear wants to sacrifice his life so that kaname will getma little bit of his life back.. He spied on mikan and narumi to find out that she has the stealing alice, and now he wants her to help him make an Alice stone for kaname. Tsubasa tells bear that kaname wouldn't want that... Meanwhile, students from other classes are going after mikan because of the rumor about her having the stealing Alice. She promised narumi not to tell anyone about it, but it got out anyway..

Bear dies protecting mikan from these other students.. Mikan brings bear to kaname, and bear revives.. Kaname says it was mikans power that gave him life this time.. He has a really touching moment with bear where he says that his life radiates through bear and all the others he created, and for that reason he does not see it as sacrificing his life..

Suddenly some really serious stuff going on in chapter 95-96... It starts off with hotaru getting swimming lessons from her brother, and they have some vague serious emotional scene... Mikan had a propetic dream about hotaru being called to the principals office. The students tell her that really did happen, hotaru says it wasnt anything major.. But then mikan finds out that Tsubasa went missing on a dangerous ability class mission.. She is crying in her room, when natsume suddenly climbs in through her window to comfort her. He says he won't return until he finds tsubasa..

Yuka shows up at the high school principal's office. Imai and some other guy are there asking her why shed do something as dangerous as coming back here.. She says she's here to take Mikan.

Narumi has something important to tell Mikan after class. Mikan bumps into Luna, who starts trying to spread rumors about Mikan being an alice-stealing criminal, just like that academy traitor who caused that incident years ago... and even starts spreading the rumor that Mikan is the daughter of that person. Luna uses her alice on other people to have them start ganging up on Mikan.. Hotaru and Iinchou seem to know exactly what's going on, and that something terrible is about to happen to Mikan.. Hotaru tells Iinchou to tell everyone in the elementary division that Koizumi is behind all this...

Luna even says that it's Mikan's fault that Tsubasa got into the dangerous class.. Misaki (Tsubasa's gf) comes and kicks the guys that are ganging up on Mikan.

ah... I suspected this might happen.. the guards conclude that Mikan used her stealing alice to stop Luna.. she says she just used her nullification alice, but they don't believe her... they drag Mikan over to the elementary school principal, where Persona and the others welcome her into the Dangerous ability class.

Nobara is also in this class, and earlier they were hinting that they'd add another girl her age to be her partner.. Luna is also here, and she starts fighting Mikan and Mikan is forced to demonstrate her stealing alice in front of everyone... Narumi shows up but it's already too late..

Persona says to Nobara: "While the elementary principal is contented, wait till the right time and use your alice to capture Mikan with your ice".

dunno what that's about, but the moment that Luna grabs Mikan's hair, Luna's hair catches on fire.. Natsume is there to stop her..

this story is getting really intense... I wanna keep going but I should stop here for now so I can let it all sink in...