If you understand love, family, or true friendship this manga will hit home HARD.

This is a series set around a school for special children found to have an ability called an alice and this school called Alice Academy helps them learn to harness and progress their alice while still learning normal school standards. So essentially its Hogwarts with a twist, since people with alices are considered "national treasures" you can not leave the school until you graduate and you will absolutely no outside contact with your family ( until you graduate).

The story follows and optimistic girl named Mikan Sakura who is best friends with Hotaru Imai. When Mikan finds out Hotaru has an alice and will be attending the school, Mikan follows her to the school Alice Academy. Outside the school while she tries to get in she runs into a teacher there and he finds out she has a special and rare alice and admits her to the school, unbeknownst to the heartache to come.

*WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILER* ( and just in case you don't listen to my warning and read anyway I won't use any names) Some like me will scream at the page YOU'RE ONLY 11!! But love is love right? An I feel even though they are so young they truly understand love and they fit each other perfectly. One shines like the moon and stars and the other is mysterious like the dark night sky. I also really love it when characters get jealous it just really makes me laugh. But I always feel bad when there is any sort of love triangle... Because someones gonna get hurt. Especially when the two are best friends.

* SPOILER FREE FROM HERE ON* Any way one of the many themes is friendship which usually is pretty cheesy but when presented like this it feels.. right. Like Hotaru and Mikan... just make sense and there are times when they tease each other but when it gets down to it the two would do anything for each other, which is something not a lot of people can say honestly about anyone anymore.

There is also has a hidden theme of family, and sacrifice. Honestly this was one of the saddest parts because of how much had been given up to reach the main goal.

Another great thing which I love in a story is how almost every character has some connection to a bunch of other characters through the past, which gives the whole set of characters a kind of huge family connected to one another by something bigger, like the red string of fate is entangling them all in a huge web. And in the end this really for me pulled it together as a series

The story was great but it kinda had two climaxes it felt like cause they almost achieved what they wanted but didn't reach their goal till the second attempt, and the end kinda left me feeling empty like it wasn't really DONE and needed a sequel to resolve everything (this is my opinion though). I also didn't understand the villains motives or what they were really doing that was so bad(though is might just be my stupidity).

The art was okay but felt a little dated and took some getting used to. It felt like Inuyasha miked with Kuroshitsujii

But overall I thought it was a good series with a LOT of sad surprises at the end, and an overall feeling of love, family, sacrifice, friendships, and bonds.