Although I watched Another all the way through, I can’t recommend it. It’s the classic tale of anime gone wrong: an incredible start followed by increasingly poor episodes that by the end become unconscious self-parody. Still, the first three episodes are very well done, and worth keeping even if the rest of the series fails.
Another is the story of a cursed class whose members and relatives die under mysterious circumstances every year. This is horror, and initially, it’s done right: atmospheric music, taut characterization, and eeriness without gore. By the fourth episode, gore has replaced the atmosphere, and the series is off the rails by episode five. The series contains no sexual content, occasional profanities, and tons of blood and gore. Be warned. It’s not subtle stuff, and that’s another tragedy. It didn’t have to be dehumanizing. Anyhow, here’s my short guide.
1 – Excellent. The intro music is out of place, though; but once the show starts, the creeping dread settles on you like a funeral shroud. The music is perfect; the sound effects, dead on; the characterization and the plot and the atmosphere are all pushing 10. So far, some gore, no profanity, but tons of atmosphere. This is one that you want to not watch anything else afterwards, just to keep feeling the frissions of creepiness.
2 – A little slower-paced, but still creepy as all get out. The music in this series always keeps you on edge. The ending theme, is the perfect counterpart, slow-moving and beautifully sad. You start to see the little touches that make this series stand out. The scene in the doll house is amazing.
3 – The ravens gather. The beginning is creepy, very unsettling, and the MC slowly finds out what is going on through the story of 26 years ago, Misaki, and the warnings of the class. The ending is gory, but it’s not exploitatively so. I’d say this is somewhere between 2 and 1 in terms of quality.
4 – The atmosphere is still good, one profanity, but the merciless ending is something that is getting to me. There’s not enough exploration of the grief, and the deaths are just random and brutal. The music is still good and the whole outsider/secret angle is used well.
5- WHAT? In a single word, lame. All of the supernatural fear and horror are drained out of the show, leaving just another boring girl/guy thing, since the charm (the shunning) works. I swear. The emotional jags that anime series take sometimes utterly mystify me. Why build up all this atmosphere if you’re just going to dissipate it and let it come to nothing?
6 – OK. The atmosphere returns to some degree, and a total cliffhanger ending.
7 – The beginning is completely gory, and the emotions that the class has to deal with are never even addressed. There’s some creepiness at the end, but it’s like the series has become schizo. The atmosphere is gone, the characterization is gone.
8 – No prurient camera angles, but there’s a lot of girls in swimsuits. Another pointlessly gory ending. The characterization is barely there. No atmosphere.
9 – Some attempt at restoring the atmosphere, but it’s ruined by the pointless deaths. They do explain the ending of the prior episode, but it’s become an emotionless by-the-numbers gore thing by now.
10 – Ok, this one is good. There is only one death at the end, and the rest is atmosphere, although it’s not as compelling as in the early episodes.
11 – Incredibly bad. People go crazy for no reason, tons of blood and gore, not scary, just by-the-numbers and stupid.
12 – Again, just bad. Lots of people die and they die in silly, stupid ways. It’s done to excess and the dead person is such a freaking deus ex machina that you’d never suspect it in a thousand years. There was literally no way to predict. The emotional wrap up is absent — there’s no greater relevance, no spiritual point, the people just survive and that’s it. The closing scene is pointless.
If you want it, you can find it at the torrent hole of your choice. Quite a few groups did this one, with ReinWeiss doing the best job, in my opinion.
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Oduza, Okasa 