Hey doods and peeps, welcome to another episode of The G-Views. Here’s a show that came out of left field and was…interesting to say the least. This is Another.
Objectionable content: Intense
Number of episodes: 12 + 1 OVA.
G-Rating: 8/10 for being better than all Final Destination sequels and most murder flicks. 7/10 overall rating because I won’t be seeing this show a 2nd time.
Plot Summary: When Kōichi Sasakibara transfers to his new school, he can sense something frightening in the atmosphere of his new class, a secret none of them will talk about. At the center is the beautiful girl Mei Misaki. Kōichi is immediately drawn to her mysterious aura, but then he begins to realize that no one else in the class is aware of her presence.
Let me get this out of the way right now. As a supposed horror anime, it fails. This show wasn’t scary at all. Compared to BRS TV’s Kagari who nearly made me wet my pants, all that took place in Another was creepy at best. What this show does excel at is as a mystery and suspenseful thriller. I of course recommend watching this show in the dark. However, notice an intense objectionable content rating. Why? Because this show could easily be nicknamed, “Final Destination: The animated series”. If you’re squeamish and can’t stand the sight of fatalities that get more and more brutal as the show progresses, then this one isn’t for you. It starts off slow, building up as more fear is instilled on our protagonists, leading to a most heart pounding, possibly a bit over the top climax that will leave you flabbergasted and out of breath, depending on how much you can handle.
The mystery portion of the show works quite well. It unravels itself quite nicely and the answers become clear over time. Do they make sense? I leave that for the viewer to decide since I was satisfied with the entire experience and didn’t bother asking questions…mostly because I’m not good at mysteries. I’ll also say this, for some who were disappointed by last year’s mediocre mystery anime (I’ll admit as much as I love GOSICK, it fails as a mystery show) this one will satiate your thirst for a good puzzle.
The animation is decent on the background scenery. The character art kinda reminds me of the Persona series for some reason…maybe it’s Angry Tails.
Yes, there’s a beach episode but let’s face facts, you all wanted to see Mei and Angry Tails on the beach as much as I wanted to see Reiko. I just noticed I’ve been calling Reiko Ryoko all this time…whatever. As you’ll find out, most of the characters’ names didn’t interest me. Why? Because you’ll find out this show will become infamous for having MANY background characters. Whether you’ll care for any of them is up to you. I personally have some favorites, two in particular.The music: At first the music was one of the best parts of the entire series…but as the show progressed…something happened. I don’t know about others who have watched this show but after the beach episode, I stopped noticing the music altogether. Oh, and it should be no surprise both the OP and ED are really good.
Characters: Like I said there are many characters on this show but thankfully we have a main cast. To save time I’ll mention the ones I cared about most.
Koichi Sakakibara: I just call him Male Lead. Believe it or not, he’s all right for a male protagonist outside of Slice of Life, sport and select few action shows. He fills his role as the “person who gets involved in something big” quite well. He isn’t emo and reacts believably to the situations he gets into. Coming from me, a guy who enjoys bashing anime male leads to kingdom come, that’s saying a lot.
Mei Misaki: Ah yes, the poster girl and main reason animeniacs, who haven’t the novels, were intrigued to check the show out. She pretty much acts the way she looks, monotone, cold, wise and creepy, yet adorable. Most viewers will quickly warm up to her. Being the female protagonist, she has much to hide and share at the same time.
Izumi Akazawa: The above mentioned girl in the blue bikini I nicknamed Angry Tails for two reasons: She’s often in a bad mood and she has twin tails. That’s pretty much her character in a nutshell. She tries her very best to find a way to end the suffering and rarely shows actual joy, for obviously unknown reasons till they are eventually revealed.
Reiko: Male lead’s aunt and the source of many OG Raging Ring Boners. Rawr.As for my favorite background characters:
These two.In conclusion: Is this the anime of the season most predicted? Don’t know, don’t care. What I do know is that if you can handle a dark, creepy, suspenseful mystery with thrills, chills and increasing brutal fatalities, by all means go for it…just don’t expect me to watch this more than once. I saw it once and was satisfied.
The Yuri Empire 
You gave it a much higher rating then I expected and honestly after certain character deaths, I’m not quite sure if I can really can fairly rate this series. Which is unfortunate because up until the last couple episodes I was rather liking the series.
I honestly think there was some good ideas and a good mystery in there, but unfortunately the mystery in the end was buried under a pile of bodies. For being a curse, it seemed to me it relied too much on people just going flat out insane and murdering random people in the end.
I agree, the music was the best, especially the OP.
I will admit, the idea I seen floating around about a sequel consisting of Mei hunting down the dead would probably be something I would watch.
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The reason I gave it a high rating is because it’s worth seeing at least once. The ending wasn’t convoluted and pretty much provided a decent closure to the whole thing. Sure, some deaths were most unfortunate but what can you do? It’s certainly better than most modern slasher flicks/horror movies or Final Destination sequels, ya gotta give it that. Those factors influenced the high rating. Hmm…maybe a 7 would be more fair.
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Yes, many background characters indeed, and they could die almost any given time 😀 I’m glad the librarian survived though, he’s badass.
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Meh. He was there to fill his role. I didn’t really think much of him till the very end.
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It was a good mystery with over the top deaths.
The ending was completely unexpected, but it was a good ending. It’s a lot better than if I could have easily predict it.
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Yes indeed. I didn’t see that twist coming…I really should have paid more attention to the names.
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The ending was definitely great. It’s what makes everything worth the watch from the beginning. I kinda guessed the dead one though before watching the last episode so it wasn’t really that surprised. 7/10 would be alright for me as well 🙂
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Like I said, I didn’t pay attention to the names…and I was distracted after said dead person was conked on the head so I didn’t predict this person getting up in the finale…and then…
“sobs” Oh well, great show regardless.
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I didn’t see the ending coming like that at all either, it was a good mystery and kept my interest all throughout. It did get a little crazy and I thought it was going to be a lot scarier. I think the first death was the one that affected me the most, for sticking in my mind for days.
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It’s hard to tell which death was the most gruesome but I guess the 1st one gets bonus points for being the most shocking and creative of the bunch. “Death by umbrella” would be a meme I wouldn’t mind becoming a trend…it sounds much better than “Arrow to the knee” at least.
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