Do you guys remember when people used to eat spoonfuls of cinnamon? When they thought at first, "Hey, you know what, it can't be that bad," and then they are utterly proven wrong and start choking? Yeah, that's how Okaeri Alice makes me feel. Every single time I try and swallow it, I start gagging. I cannot properly portray just how angry this manga makes me.

No, I am not angry because there is sexual assault and transphobia in this manga, or that the mangaka is portraying a transgender person as a horrible person. It's the fact that the mangaka has no clue what he is doing. Okaeri Alice doesn't understand itself.

Okaeri Alice is a mess of obnoxious pretention that doesn't have a single idea what it's trying to tell the audience. It is not a psychological deep-dive into the mind, it is a bowl with a bottom that stops your fork prematurely. The characters are built off of about three traits, like a family of Sims. They have no depth. A weirdo is a weirdo and a pervert is a pervert. They are nothing more than objects to move along the story... but they don't even feel like part of the story in the first place.

The manga is so terrible and off the mark that there isn't even a hilarity to it. It's painstaking. With a disrespect to how people actually act in the real world, it's disturbing. Once again, I am not saying that transgender people in the real world can't be dangerous and terrible, but Okaeri Alice takes it as the fact that Muroda is the kind of person she is, BECAUSE she is transgender. Simply put, that is not how it works.

The only strong point of this manga is the art: good on that, Sensei. Other than that, please, for God's sake, put down the pen. Okaeri Alice is embarassing.

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If you think this story is transphobic or BAD because it offends your sensibilities then you're ignorant.
The characters and themes are all obviously aspects and ideas surrounding the author's own complicated relationship with gender, masculinity, femininity, love, and lust. It's painfully obvious...and also beautiful and eye-opening.
Each of the 3 main characters represents a part of the author, or at least ideas the author feels represent aspects of society's understanding of gender and attraction. I can't stand identity-based cultural commentary, I feel that today it takes up too much space when there are more important things that need attention, this made me think that maybe it's got some stuff worth exploring.

Androgeny, traps, young love, and confusion. With a sorta Junji Ito Esque haunting art style that really extenuates what the authors attempting to convey.
Read it because it's trying to say something, or because you're horny and this sorta stuff works for you, either way, it's very good.

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