Since watching the show Mirai Nikki last year, Thriller has since been a genre of great interest for myself, so when a friend from Dissidia Forums told me about Another, I was immediately interested to see what the show was like, and if it could live up to the scope Mirai Nikki has set for me. After finishing the show last night in one sitting, you will be pleased to hear that it was not far from reaching this scope.
- Anime: Another
- Aired: Winter 2012
- Length: 12 30 Minute Episodes
- Genre: School, Thriller, Horror
Another follows a student called Kouichi Sasakibara who has just moved from Tokyo, and is about to join Yomiyama Middle School when he suddenly fall ill after joining the school, he meets a mysterious student called Mei Misaki. After meeting her, strange events starts to happen in class 3-3 and everybody starts to panic, Kouichi then discovers that Class 3-3 has been cursed for over 25 years, the anime shows the class struggle to try and lift this curse after events start to unfold. The show sets out to be a mixture of Thriller and horror at the same time, jumps and scares are more common than your normal thriller. The story is a great one, with many twists, and during the entire time, I was only able to pre-predict one twist in the story, other than that, every other plot twist that the story had to offer generally surprised me. and this is the way thrillers should be, the only minor issue I had with the story was the slow introduction of the curse, it took almost half the show to finally get the curse explained, but other than this, the studio had a great plot on their hands.
Characters were another strong point Another had (haha, that unintended pun tho!) The lead characters were strongly developed, had a flushed out backstory behind each of them, and were designed (even more with Mei) with great detail. Looking at each of the two main characters, Kouichi really had that aura of ‘I need to know’ behind him, always asking questions, and always looking to find out the true mystery around Mei, and why the others didn’t even seem to think she was even in the class. While Mei really shined as the girl of mystery, and the design choice of giving her a Eye patch really helped, along with the design choice of giving her a paler skin color. The way she spoke gave her that extra bit of mystery as well, the soft and to the point tone of her lines made her truly look like a strange character, even right at the end of the show, not much was known of Mei and her past, and this was better left the way it was.
Side characters were surprisingly detailed as well, smaller characters like say, the rest of Class 3-3 really had some story behind them, they were not left as the ‘oh, there’s a rest of the class too’ kind of situation. Each student within the class had a basic back story behind them, with family, and each class member had their own personally. This isn’t something you see that often for characters that may get, say, 10-20 lines across the entire show, but this was a good move to at least, have the entire class of 3-3 have their own personally.
Music was, sadly, one of the weaker points of the show, with it’s soundtrack only containing 13 tracks, don’t expect to be listening to a wide range of music, to be honest, you will be hearing the same tracks quite a few times over the course of the show. However, the soundtrack composed by Kow Otani does some good pieces that can be listened to again, Track 07 is for me, the standout track in the 13 track OST the show has to offer. The song tends to play when Mei is telling Kouichi something about her or her past. The calm smoothing tone of track 07 does really stand out from what is otherwise, a pretty standard Horror soundtrack.
Finally, a quick look at the voice cast, Mei was voiced by Takamor Natsumi while Kouichi was voiced by Abe Atsuhi. Kouichi has a calm yet collective voice to him, while Mei has that mysterious and slightly sharp voice. With Mei this works really well, while Kouichi also has a voice that fits in well, but it’s nothing ground breaking, still, the entire voice cast done a great job of giving the characters, each and everyone of them the personally they need.
Overall, Another is a great show that is helped by it’s great storytelling as well as it’s strong cast of characters. If you are looking for an anime with the thrills and spills you need from the genre then you come to the right place. With it being a 12 episode anime as well, you, like me, can very well sit down and watch in an evening, just be ready for a soundtrack where you might be hearing the same tracks over and over, as 13 tracks for a 6 hour show just isn’t enough.
Score:
- Storytelling: 8
- Characters: 9
- Music: 6
- Voice Acting: 8
- Overall: 31/40
Stevie Gaming World 