Another Review

This is the first review in my ABC Challenge series. In this case, A will be for Another. This week I felt like watching a horror or mystery series. My coin flip genre determination came out with me having to watch an anime series. Logically, I thought I’m going to watch Another, it fit what I wanted to watch and met my show criteria. For anyone who has not seen Another prepare for some spoilers, I won’t ruin the major stuff though. The nature of this series is mystery, so I wouldn’t want to reveal everything.

Plot Summary

Another starts with a story of a student named Misaki dying 26 years earlier, who was a hugely popular student in Yomiyama North Middle School class 3-3, which for those who don’t know is 9th grade class 3. The class so distraught with Misaki’s death that they said Misaki was still alive and attending class. The principal even had a chair set up for Misaki at graduation. The weird part starts with that when class 3-3 took their graduation photo the ghostly image of Misaki was in the back of picture.

Then we move ahead 26 years, where we meet our main character Koichi Sakakibara who’s just transferred to Yomiyama North Middle School class 3-3, but had to be hospitalized for a collapsed lung. While in the hospital he receives a visit from the class representatives and the head of countermeasures. During his extended stay in the hospital he sees a strange girl with a Yomiyama North Middle School uniform and an eyepatch on her left eye with a doll heading towards the 2nd level basement. She introduces herself as Mei Misaki.

Koichi finally gets healthy enough to go to school. He notices during gym class that Mei is on the roof by herself and completely ignored by their classmates. Mei responds when he talks to her to say that class 3 is closest to death and so is he. Over the course of some time he gets bits and pieces of what’s really going on. Basically, class 3-3 has a curse that students, teachers and their families will die each month if there is an extra person in the class. The extra person phenomenon started the year after Misaki died. Basically, a dead person is in the class and nobody knows who it is. The phenomenon removes any memories of the dead person and wipes the records of their existence. The calamity as they call it is only encompasses 2 separations of family and they have to be in Yomiyama. The only countermeasure that seems to work to slow the calamity is to treat a student as the extra person and not acknowledge their existence which is why Mei is treated like she’s not even there.

Commentary

If you just look at the designs of the characters in Another you would think this is a slice of life series. You’ve got the creepy but cute girl, the bossy but softhearted girl, and the ordinary but still fascinating main boy. You also have the artist, the jock, and the ‘bookworm’. The character setups are very slice of life but that’s Another just trying to play your head. First, your characters other than Koichi completely alienate Mei, admitted for fear of their own lives but still. This would drive a normal person to complete insanity but Mei admitted she would rather not have the shoe on the other foot and have to ignore someone else. We also have no idea if he hadn’t met Mei first if Koichi would have alienated her too. I understand the desire for self-preservation but they didn’t even know if it would work. Not only did they not know if their countermeasure would work, most didn’t believe the calamity even existed until people started dying. This basically means purely on speculation of something and group fear mentality, each year the class ruined somebody’s life. I’m even ignoring, how easily the class turned on Mei and Koichi with no real justification.

Another is basically the anime version of Final Destination. If you’ve never seen a Final Destination movie, basically creative and intricate deaths follow a group of people. Another is not much different.  Starting in episode 3, if you include flashbacks every episode except episode 6 has a death scene. Episode 6 gets a pass because it’s an exposition episode and explains how the calamity first came to be. Most of the deaths in Another are on-screen and brutal. This is the most disturbing aspect of Another by far. Warning: The following section is NOT safe for kids. Just for example, the first death is the female class representative running down the stairs having found out her mom was just in a major car accident. She slips and has the metal point of her umbrella go through her throat. This was just the first of many horrific deaths in Another. In fact, if you are a fan of creative ways for characters to meet their end, you will love the last 2 episode of Another. Basically, half of the class finds a way to bite the dust in the last 2 episodes each in unique and somewhat disturbing ways.

The two most brutal death scenes, from my perspective, come in episodes 7 and 8. The beginning of episode 7 starts with the homeroom teacher of class 3-3 going to the front of the classroom and explain that he has failed them as a teacher. He then pulls a knife from his bag and stabs himself in the throat. What you see next is a huge splatter of blood going everywhere including all over the students. The sheer look of terror in their faces is mortifying. When I was reading the book I briefly described this scene to my mom who admitted doesn’t like gore but is a fan of a good mystery novel. She was absolutely mortified and at a complete loss of words. Episode 8 until the last minute is a very stereotypical beach episode of an anime show. They go to beach because a classmate of Reiko (Koichi’s aunt) found a way to stop the calamity in their year and they wanted to find out how he did it. He just so happened to work at a beach inn so they went there. They couldn’t find him so logically, they went to chill at the beach. Beach activities ensue. Cute little flirting going on between Koichi and Mei. You think for just a second this might be a happy episode. Then you remember this is Another, happiness is at best fleeting, at worst non-existent. With one minute to go in the episode, a classmate of theirs named Junta goes after a beach ball that was going out to sea. He had not been feeling well all day. He starts drowning and is then run over by a speedboat. This was brutal not so much for the chopping him up scene but the episode up to that point. The episode literally felt like a break and then that happened at the very last moment. It was something I did not expect at all and it was brutal. Although, I use the terminology ‘disturbing’ a lot, I rarely actually feel disturbed by too many things. And most of them are associated with what the target audience is and how certain things are way darker than what the target audience can handle. See my Over the Garden Wall Review for reference. But with my inability to see that scene coming, it just felt really disturbing to me. I had to take a moment to digest what I had just seen after the episode finished, that’s how bad it was. From here on, the rest of this review is safe for kids.

This series did a very good job of masking the plot twist until the very end. Obviously, the two big mysteries present throughout the story is how to stop the calamity and who is the extra person? These questions are both wrapped up very well. You can probably figure everything out if you look for very subtle cues throughout but it’s not a one episode in I know the ending series. You have to put forth a good bit of effort to solve the mystery. Having a logical answer without being obvious how a good mystery story is supposed to be.

One final comment, Another is not a traditional horror story. In fact, it’s not really all that scary. It is a mystery story with horror elements. I just wanted to make sure that point was across.

Summation

Another is not a story for people with a weaker constitutions. It is also not a story for all ages. Another is for the enthusiast of a good mystery story that can handle a little bloody situations every now and again. It is a story I highly recommend for anyone that feels they can handle it. It’s definitely not for everyone, you might want to gauge yourself after episode 3.  I would say if episode 3 doesn’t turn you off, you should give the rest of it a watch, it is great from then on.

Join me next week when I watch and review a new series brought you by the letter B. Again comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.