Okaeri Alice
Welcome Back, Alice

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"Okaeri Alice" by Shuuzou Oshimi is truly a unique manga. You don't see comic books like that very often. It is more like an experience, telling a story about gender identity, sexual desires, self-acceptance, self-esteem, puberty. All of that presented in a respectful and realistic way, as one would expect from a manga by created by Oshimi-sensei. Realism of "Okaeri Alice" becomes even more impressing when the person reading it is familiar with psychology, so a lot of emotions, reactions or situations happening to the characters of this manga can be easily detected as fine examples of certain behaviors known in the field of clinical ... psychology. There are also afterword sections that add even more depth to elements presented in this manga.

All of that is coated with beautiful art and great panelling, allowing readers to literally soak in the story. The farther we dwell into thoughts of certain characters, the more artistic the visuals become, making pretty much every scene filled with psychological content more memorable and impactful. I'm a fan of that kind of artistic methods, so I was delighted to see them in this manga. Also, we cannot forget about the absolutely stunning way of drawing expressive close-ups of characters' faces. Something well-known for Oshimi-sensei fans that will surely impress a lot of people for whom "Okaeri Alice" is the first manga created by this mangaka.

The cast is not crowded. The story focuses on a several characters. Few of them are the main ones, receiving obviously the most attention and "screen time", although what I find as really nice about this manga's wriring is that the line separating "main characters" from "side characters" is thin enough to give justice to pretty much all of them. At least equally to the time they had in the manga itself.

Even though I generally enjoyed reading "Okaeri Alice", there are two things worth of mentioning that I did not like in particular, and which have greatly affected my final score given to this manga.

First of them is the length. While the story is complete and the main element of it were wrapped up pretty well, I couldn't stop thinking about how it would've been grand to see more chapters of this manga. They would surely allow to flesh out more the story itself, but more importantly - they could give more depth to few characters that were interesting, but felt to be treated more like plot devices than actual characters.

Second thing is scenes containing lewdness and erotism. I'm not against seeing that kind of stuff. Also, we are talking about a seinen manga, so it shouldn't be a problem at all by default. However, many of them (mostly in the first chapters) felt forced in "Okaeri Alice", resembling more a typical fanservice from mediocre hentai manga than actually meaningful moments from a manga not focused strictly on showing spicy scenes. Sexuality and gender identity are surely sensitive topics requiring respectful approach and seriousness. While their core elements were presented in a rather respectful way, such additions felt pointless to me and out of place, unnecessarily reducing the seriousness of the story. Sure, later on there are no such elements, but was it necessary to include them in the first place? That's the question. If we add to them the length of the whole manga, we might think about whether it was really necessary to include that kind of scenes, instead of, let's say, more interactions between the characters.

Nevertheless, "Okaeri Alice" is totally worth of reading. It's really a well-written story, with great looking art style and original concept. I definitely recommend it. Of course, it's not for everyone, due to themes present in the story. However, if someone is a fan of good stories, filled to the brim with psychology, social elements and realism, then "Okaeri Alice" might be something at least worth of checking out.

Okaeri Alice is thematically about how social constructs of gender limits us from freedom of expression. It is not necessarily a work aimed at queer audiences, but anyone who is conscious of performative roles based on gender and the pressure that may come from living up to those expectations. Okaeri Alice can be fairly problematic in the way that it executes this message, and it needed more time in the oven to fully realize its message, but is nonetheless a sincere attempt at solving a complex identity issue.

The protagonist Yoh is effectively the vehicle ... for Shuzo to deliberate on his themes regarding identity and repression. Yoh does not show genuine interest in what would be considered "masculine" activities. He just does things based on what is expected of him and what his peers decide is the correct way for a male teenager to conduct themselves. This largely leads him down a path of confusion as he increasingly becomes more aware of his leanings towards homosexuality, which clashes against what he believes to be the correct way of life based on his straight edge environment. The internal conflict that Yoh feels throughout the story is the emotional backbone of the entire manga as you’re meant to empathize with his growing discomfort that he feels within a body that he doesn’t think matches his figurative soul. I found his internal musings to be very moving throughout the story as his conflict feels genuine.

The catalyst for Yoh to find self actualization is Kei, a childhood friend who disappeared and later returned as a transgender. Kei is by far the most interesting character in the story as they work to liberate Yoh and defy the conventions of how people should behave based on appearances. Kei is, regardless of your leanings, incredibly beautiful which seems intended to challenge heteronormative ideas of how beauty should be perceived.

But interesting as this character is, they also lead into one of the more problematic issues of the manga - Kei’s method of freeing Yoh is to stimulate him to the point that he can no longer deny his true desires. This is matter of factly sexual assault and probably more damaging to Yoh than for him to navigate life “normally” under their existing limitations. To make matters worse there is another character, Mitani, who manipulates Yoh as way to affirm her own social standing. She leverages Yoh's (perceived) attraction to her to make herself feel better. So Yoh is in the middle of two forces that are pulling him in opposite directions, both damaging to his mental state. I don’t think Shuzo intends to promote sexual assault nor emotional abuse, but rather chooses the most visceral approach to make a reader question their own views regarding gender and sex. The problem is that it’s the least sensical of all possible solutions (though it does make for a lot of drama, and more intrigue). Some of this could be forgiven if characters outside of Yoh were more transparent, but we get to know so little about them as their perspective is never really shown. We are always with Yoh.

I love reading Oshimi Shuzo manga because it feels like he “gets” the adolescent perspective more than any other writer. He comes close to doing the same here, but needed more time to make this work match the quality of his others under the same subject matter.

As of writing this, I've read two other works by Shuzo Oshimi - "Flowers of Evil" & "A Trail of Blood".
I appreciated both for their emotive, suspenseful character art, and the palpable, ever-escalating anxiety it created. Between the two, I felt the author established a very distinct style, with an obvious knack for psychosexual drama - honest, detailed portrayals of tortured sexuality at young age, and a touch of absurdity that didn't bother me personally.
"Welcome back, Alice" is an ongoing story with many of the same features - an obsessive, loveshy protagonist, torn up by the eccentric and assertive personalities of the women that orbit ... them. But this project has not yet managed to cultivate quite the same atmosphere, and perhaps by design - since Oshimi's own comments seem to point towards it being more of an exercise of self-examination than a mood piece.
"I used to fantasise about being a girl, but that's only an escape that ignores what it's like to be a woman.
Facing, confronting and deconstructing the concepts of "lust" and the "man within oneself", I hope I manage to do some of that with this series."

So, the central dynamic within this story - that between the protagonist and his sexually-forward, crossdressing friend - seems to be the author's dramatisation of his own feelings about gender identity.
Indeed, when pressed to describe this relationship, the protagonist explains that he "want[s] to go back to when we were neither boys nor girls, before those kinds of things were instilled into our minds", and during a sexual encounter, the friend assures him that "you don't have to play the man or the woman, just be yourself".
Quotes such as these would suggest a positive regard for or openness to gender-non conformity on the author's part, but the friend is largely depicted as a source of trouble, frequently undermining the protagonist's wishes such as to appear invasive, even predatory at times, and intervening in the romance between the protagonist and a girl who attends the same school. When considered at the surface level, this depiction seems to fit comfortably into a long lineage of uncharitable characterisations of feminine men and transgender women. As the "forbidden fruit" whose hypersexuality or atypical presentation is threatening to prevelant identity. When treated as metaphor instead, it seems as if Oshimi is working through unresolved issues regarding gender in real-time, without conveying a particularly coherent message in the process.
Wanting to be a girl is no closer to escapism than being comfortable as a boy, and while our bodies and presentation may alter the way we relate to others sexually, "lust" alone does not motivate alternative expression.