YMMV / Gakuen Alice

• Complete Monster: The Elementary School Principal (ESP), Kuonji, is involved in kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, child abuse, and child slavery. At first, he turned Luna against Yuka and made them enemies. Then, after Yuka's Stealing Alice was discovered, Kuonji forced Yuka to go on missions and steal the Alices of dying/dead people. Kuonji was also responsible for Izumi Yukihira's death; practically brainwashed Rei, aka Persona; is believed to have been responsible for Kaoru's death; burned Natsume's hometown by making Aoi's Alice go out of control and held her hostage to ensure Natsume's loyalty; caused Yuka's death; and severely injured Narumi. Kuonji's currently holding Mikan hostage, preventing her from using her Alice to heal Nobara. Also, his clone is the boss of the Z organization, which kidnapped Natsume and nearly killed Hotaru.
• Fan Nickname: The Elementary School Principal is referred to by fans as the ESP or PSP (Primary School Principal) for short.
• Jerkass Woobie
  • Natsume is a rude and callous jerk who constantly antagonize Mikan for seemingly no reason. He also has a lot of angst about his dangerous powers, his Doomed Hometown, his being used by the Academy to perform dangerous missions and the fact that his Alice type is life-draining and he's dying for overusing his ability.
  • And then, there's his Manipulative Bastard handler, Persona. Having what probably counts as the most dangerous Alice in the entire series he has spent most of his entire childhood being locked up in a dungeon, and was considered a "monster" by other students. The only person who was nice to him was Izumi Yukihira, whose Nullification Alice allows him to be immune to Persona's and could interact with him normally. Then Kuonji manipulated him to work for the ESP in exchange for his freedom, and made Persona believe that Izumi was the one who locked him up this whole time. When Izumi saw what the ESP was planning, he tried to get Persona back to his cell, and in his anger, Persona infected him with his Alice, and killing him. Made even worse that his Alice is so difficult to control that he needs at least 10 power-controllers to keep it from infecting himself, but the controller breaks if he gets too emotional, so it happens quite often.
• Moral Event Horizon: Goshima arguably crosses it when he murders Yuka on the ESP's orders.
• No Export for You: When Tokyopop shut down, they had only published up to volume 16. It remains a mystery if the rest of the series will ever make it over to the west.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: According to Higuchi, Persona was one of the most hated characters when he was introduced. Then when she revealed what he looks like without his mask, people started warming up to him a lot more.
• The Woobie: Mikan, especially when she first enters the school and has to bear plenty of snobbery from the other students and a crappy dorm room. Which is quite for the best, considering her Alice and her parentage that would make her off the Elementary School Principal's radar. Things gravitate from worse to better as the plot progresses, though she has friends to back her up and protect her heavily by then.