Another - Anime Review

Another - Anime Review

Duration: 12 Episodes
Watched: Crunchyroll
Published: Sentai Filmworks
Released: July 30, 2013 Locally

Another is a horror story which involves protagonist Kouichi Sakakibara. After moving from Tokyo to Yomiyama for the year, he attends the infamous Yomi North middle school. Being a newbie and an outsider, Kouichi does not understand what is going on with his fellow classmates or why certain things are happening. One thing, though, is for certain. Something is definitely not being discussed despite it obviously being on everyone's mind.

We start this series with Kouichi in the hospital following a collapsed lung. He is greeted by a few of his fellow classmates in his new school. Everything about this meeting seems off. The visitors are unnaturally stiff and discuss things in a very rigid manner. You can cut the tension with a knife.

Soon after this, he starts school and is told to always follow the class rules no matter what. The major issue with this is that no one seemed like it was a good idea to inform him of what, exactly, all these school rules entail. This ignorance is what kicks off our story.

The plot to this is a fairly slow-burner. The writers took as much time as they needed to establish the characters and the setting so that we clearly understand who most of the major players in the story are. Things are handled in a timely manner leaving virtually no questions unanswered. In fact, the way this was paced left me eagerly anticipating every new bit of lore.

The atmosphere in Another is simply fantastic. The washed out dark colors, the oh-so-creepy dolls, the chilling bits of music, and especially the noticeable distress of the other kids in school. All of this builds into a very cohesive experience. The awkwardness is absolutely palpable.

Conclusion
Being a huge fan of the horror genre I gave this a whirl and I am very glad that I did. Simply put, this blew me away. I had heard of this title in the past but never really gave it any thought. This built a very creepy story without resorting to any cheap or easy horror tactics. Everything is done in such a way that it actively left me feeling a bit uneasy. They really put the effort in here and it shows. This might actually have wormed its way into my top horror list and I definitely plan to buy it soon.

Recommendation
Yes. Absolutely yes. If you like horror, you owe it to yourself to check it out. However, and I will add a small caveat, and that is you should be ready for anything. Some of it might be very disturbing to people and rightly so.

P.S. If this is intentionally vague, it is intentional. It is far too easy to give something away in a review and that is especially true when talking about something in the horror genre.

Edit(4-19-2016)P.P.S. I rewatched this with the dub recently, and while it was fine for the most part, I did really have an issue with the inconsistency they had with names and pronunciation. Whether or not what they use is right of wrong, please keep it consistent across all the actors. It's not a deal breaker but it does make me roll my eyes a bit. The same thing occurred on an extremely minor scale in AKB0048. The devil is in the details as they say.