Wolfe reporting.
Today feels really strange to me. 16 hours of sleep, for starters. And now here I sit in shorts and without a shirt, sweating, with the door open and not a drop of snow outside, not even a cloud in the sky... in December. Man, I miss the colder climates. Had trouble falling asleep last night, though, all these Japanese words flooding my brain. I seriously need to find some sort of "basics" website and study up.
So, I'm reviewing the anime Another today! I really, really enjoyed this anime, it's definitely in my top 10 of all time. I got to rewatch a lot of it yesterday, so it's nice and fresh to me. I'm still somewhat empty after having finished Shiki the other day, and I'm probably going to have to lapse into some lighter-hearted stuff before I go back to my beloved dark anime.
Anyhow, on to the review!
If I was to sum up the anime as simply as possible: there's lots of death because of a calamity because of reasons, high school setting.
When it comes to the Japanese, アナザー appears to be a phonetic spelling of the English word "Another" (pronounced "anazā").
There are 12 episodes for Another, each being roughly the standard 24-minute length. It appears to switch genres at one point [roughly halfway], but then changes back to how things were (though now more intense).
Personal/Subjective Opinion: 11.5 / 13 (=88.5%)!
Score Without Edges: 10.5 / 13 (=80.8%)!
Objective Opinion: 3.5 / 5 (=70%)!
Altogether Score: 25.5 / 31 (=82.3%)!
Concept: Similarly to Ergo Proxy and K (and what appears to be a common theme in anime), the concept is not immediately explained. In the first part of the first episode, you're told the first part of the story. It goes something like this: there was a popular person who died, and the classmates started acting like they were still alive. However, when the class graduated, the dead person showed up in the picture.
[From this point on, things are a tiny bit spoiler-y, in that the viewer doesn't learn about most of this until a few episodes in. You have been warned.]
So, since then, a "calamity" happens. You later begin to understand that this Class 3 is very close to death, causing a dead person to join the class each year. Memories are altered (including that of the dead person), so nobody can know who the dead person is, not even the dead person him/herself. If nothing is done, people will start to die each month. Those in danger of these deaths are two degrees of the students-- so, a student's parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles/cousins, as well as the student. The deaths are generally freakish accidents of sorts, but to give examples would be very spoiler-y, in my opinion.
So, what can be done? Well, the Head of Countermeasures chooses a student that everyone from that point on will pretend doesn't exist. This works about 50% of the time. There are a bunch of little rules about this, too.
Introduction Sequence: 2 / 2. This introduction sequence doesn't give you too good of an understanding of the anime, actually. You get to see some characters and some locations, and you get a taste of the ominous feeling that is present through most of the anime, though. Having said that, I love this introduction sequence! I watched it every single time, even though I was incredibly tempted to skip it when things got so very intense in the last few episodes. I'm giving it a 2/2 because it's so unusual for me to enjoy an introduction sequence like this. The song's good, too! You should check it out: Link to Another OP.
Animation Style: 1 / 1. The animation style is often pleasant, with the music giving you the chills. Occasionally, though, the style seems to bring out a pressured-feel, rather gloomy. I liked it!
Examples:
Music: 1 / 1. The music is what makes this anime. If you took away the music, this wouldn't be nearly as good as I consider it to be. The music sets the tone, sends chills down your spine, forces tears from your eyes. Because I'm listening to the OST as I write this, if you listen to it as you read it, it might make things more... interesting. Link to Another OST, if you dare.
Plot: 3 / 3. I found the plot to be interesting. Almost the entirety consists of a suspense-held feel, with the viewer asking a lot of questions. Whenever the viewer gets a hold of any answers, they come with more questions to ask.
Then things start happening. People start dying.
Your brain starts to draw conclusions. You say, "Oh, I think I've got this." Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But the end result, whether you know it's coming or not, it has to happen.
If you're almost at the end, and you say to yourself "I know who it is!", you're wrong. Trust me, you're wrong. I thought I had everything in my palm, and the anime slapped me across the face and said "I've been playing you this whole time. Here're some details that make all the dots connect, and, by the way, you were wrong, so wrong." I like that in an anime.
Carrying over from the Concept, the main character Kouichi moves into the area and joins Class 3. The anime is from his perspective as events unfold and the calamity takes lives.
Similarly to Shiki, there's a lot of human nature present in Another. People's reactions seem very, very realistic to me. People react in different ways under different types of pressure, but the fear of death is the ultimate form of pressure. It twists people, changing them in ways that aren't pleasant or expected. It makes people do rash things.
With that cheerful note, I'll mention that there is a brief moment of mood-change at about the halfway point. Things seem happier and almost cheerful. Don't worry, this changes.
With three major arcs (arguably four), I adored everything.
The main character isn't a wimp, though, and Mei Misaki is adorable. I also have mixed feelings about Izumi Akazawa. You add all that up, and the pros and cons cancel each other out, leaving the rating at 1.5/3. I almost gave it a 1, but the realistic portrayal of human characteristics (referencing to later episodes) is a real boost in my views.
Combat: - / 1. I actually think the addition of some sort of combat would be cool, though probably irrelevant to the story at hand. Regardless, there wasn't enough real combat (just killing and death) to give it weight here.
Power Balance: 0 / 1. See, there's a lot of death, but I never really felt as if the main character[s] was/were in danger. Iorek could probably name the Trope for that sort of thing (Main-Character-Invincibility would be my guess). He wasn't exactly over-powered (OP), but that's because there really wasn't much in the way of combat.
Addictability: 1 / 1. Heh. Another was ridiculously addicting. When it starts, you keep watching just because of the shivers and the questions, but as things carry on, you really can't stop watching. Questions become more intense and vital, and characters start dying off.
Darkness and Bloodiness: 2 / 1. Edge given. You could always feel the darkness; it was ever-present. And the animators were clearly not afraid of showing blood. When deaths happened, there was always blood, and in very nice amounts to boot.
Believability: Okay, I have two major points regarding believability. Firstly: the calamity seemed like a bit of a stretch, and the charms that could be used to stop it were definitely stretches. Second: if you assume the calamity and charms to be part of reality, everything is well played-out. I don't remember any defiance of physics or the laws of nature, besides the possibility of extra blood during deaths and Mei Misaki's eyes. Well, except for one more point: once everything's over, you're given a death count. This death count seems extremely and unusually small compared to what I had witnessed. That might be my fault as a human viewer, but that's just how I felt about things. Again, though, human nature is well-portrayed, and everything felt realistic enough. So, mixed feelings about this one, rather like dream logic. While you're watching, everything seems to follow reality; in retrospection, however, there are some obvious reality-breaches.
Philosophy: Unlike Shiki, there's not too much philosophy here. There's always the question of "is killing classmates to potentially save the remaining classmates morally right?", but that question isn't addressed too well.
Pros and Cons: Pros: plot, darkness & bloodiness! Cons: characters.
Objective Opinion: 3.5 / 5. Animation style was nice (1), music was nice alone (1), reality was represented somewhat-well (0.5), introduction sequence failed to accurately portray anime (0), and there was some good character development (1).
Wallpapers:
AMV's:
Man, most AMV's for this suck. This is also an "oh darn" thing, because now I have an excuse to make one at some point. I'm really surprised that there weren't many good ones. So, I found these, but they're not even that good:
I Don't Wanna Die [Borgore Remix] (Hollywood Undead) - Meh.
Whisper (Evanescence) - It's decent.
Sick of It (Skillet) - Good cuts, at least.
Next time: Maybe Shiki, or maybe I'll redo Claymore. Or maybe even Future Diary. You'll have to wait and see.
Wolfe out.
Today feels really strange to me. 16 hours of sleep, for starters. And now here I sit in shorts and without a shirt, sweating, with the door open and not a drop of snow outside, not even a cloud in the sky... in December. Man, I miss the colder climates. Had trouble falling asleep last night, though, all these Japanese words flooding my brain. I seriously need to find some sort of "basics" website and study up.
So, I'm reviewing the anime Another today! I really, really enjoyed this anime, it's definitely in my top 10 of all time. I got to rewatch a lot of it yesterday, so it's nice and fresh to me. I'm still somewhat empty after having finished Shiki the other day, and I'm probably going to have to lapse into some lighter-hearted stuff before I go back to my beloved dark anime.
 |
| Logo! Source. |
If I was to sum up the anime as simply as possible: there's lots of death because of a calamity because of reasons, high school setting.
When it comes to the Japanese, アナザー appears to be a phonetic spelling of the English word "Another" (pronounced "anazā").
There are 12 episodes for Another, each being roughly the standard 24-minute length. It appears to switch genres at one point [roughly halfway], but then changes back to how things were (though now more intense).
Personal/Subjective Opinion: 11.5 / 13 (=88.5%)!
Score Without Edges: 10.5 / 13 (=80.8%)!
Objective Opinion: 3.5 / 5 (=70%)!
Altogether Score: 25.5 / 31 (=82.3%)!
Concept: Similarly to Ergo Proxy and K (and what appears to be a common theme in anime), the concept is not immediately explained. In the first part of the first episode, you're told the first part of the story. It goes something like this: there was a popular person who died, and the classmates started acting like they were still alive. However, when the class graduated, the dead person showed up in the picture.
[From this point on, things are a tiny bit spoiler-y, in that the viewer doesn't learn about most of this until a few episodes in. You have been warned.]
So, since then, a "calamity" happens. You later begin to understand that this Class 3 is very close to death, causing a dead person to join the class each year. Memories are altered (including that of the dead person), so nobody can know who the dead person is, not even the dead person him/herself. If nothing is done, people will start to die each month. Those in danger of these deaths are two degrees of the students-- so, a student's parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles/cousins, as well as the student. The deaths are generally freakish accidents of sorts, but to give examples would be very spoiler-y, in my opinion.
So, what can be done? Well, the Head of Countermeasures chooses a student that everyone from that point on will pretend doesn't exist. This works about 50% of the time. There are a bunch of little rules about this, too.
Introduction Sequence: 2 / 2. This introduction sequence doesn't give you too good of an understanding of the anime, actually. You get to see some characters and some locations, and you get a taste of the ominous feeling that is present through most of the anime, though. Having said that, I love this introduction sequence! I watched it every single time, even though I was incredibly tempted to skip it when things got so very intense in the last few episodes. I'm giving it a 2/2 because it's so unusual for me to enjoy an introduction sequence like this. The song's good, too! You should check it out: Link to Another OP.
Animation Style: 1 / 1. The animation style is often pleasant, with the music giving you the chills. Occasionally, though, the style seems to bring out a pressured-feel, rather gloomy. I liked it!
Examples:
 |
| Something feels off, but looks normal. Source. |
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| Mei Misaki is adorable to me. Source. |
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| [Tension] Source. |
Music: 1 / 1. The music is what makes this anime. If you took away the music, this wouldn't be nearly as good as I consider it to be. The music sets the tone, sends chills down your spine, forces tears from your eyes. Because I'm listening to the OST as I write this, if you listen to it as you read it, it might make things more... interesting. Link to Another OST, if you dare.
Plot: 3 / 3. I found the plot to be interesting. Almost the entirety consists of a suspense-held feel, with the viewer asking a lot of questions. Whenever the viewer gets a hold of any answers, they come with more questions to ask.
Then things start happening. People start dying.
Your brain starts to draw conclusions. You say, "Oh, I think I've got this." Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But the end result, whether you know it's coming or not, it has to happen.
If you're almost at the end, and you say to yourself "I know who it is!", you're wrong. Trust me, you're wrong. I thought I had everything in my palm, and the anime slapped me across the face and said "I've been playing you this whole time. Here're some details that make all the dots connect, and, by the way, you were wrong, so wrong." I like that in an anime.
Carrying over from the Concept, the main character Kouichi moves into the area and joins Class 3. The anime is from his perspective as events unfold and the calamity takes lives.
Similarly to Shiki, there's a lot of human nature present in Another. People's reactions seem very, very realistic to me. People react in different ways under different types of pressure, but the fear of death is the ultimate form of pressure. It twists people, changing them in ways that aren't pleasant or expected. It makes people do rash things.
With that cheerful note, I'll mention that there is a brief moment of mood-change at about the halfway point. Things seem happier and almost cheerful. Don't worry, this changes.
With three major arcs (arguably four), I adored everything.
Characters: 1.5 / 3. I found the characters to be interesting, although I'll be needing to mark down this anime for its characters. There were some characters who didn't need to be as they were (old lady at Yomi-Midnight-Whatever Store), and there were other characters who seemed thoroughly inconsistent (Izumi Akazawa). While I very much enjoyed the sheep-mentality of most of the students after things started happening, it didn't make much sense before then. These are kids, kids with naïve moral compasses and rebellious tendencies. Sure, I get that they're kids in a private school in disciplined Japan, but their actions were unsettling to me. Especially under the amount of pressure, there was a severe shortage in emotional outbursts-- I'm happy about that, but it made the characters seem less than human. In fact, only the two main characters really seemed to have distinct personality. We catch some hints as to other characters being their own persons, but I don't think it played out on the level it should have.
The main character isn't a wimp, though, and Mei Misaki is adorable. I also have mixed feelings about Izumi Akazawa. You add all that up, and the pros and cons cancel each other out, leaving the rating at 1.5/3. I almost gave it a 1, but the realistic portrayal of human characteristics (referencing to later episodes) is a real boost in my views.
Combat: - / 1. I actually think the addition of some sort of combat would be cool, though probably irrelevant to the story at hand. Regardless, there wasn't enough real combat (just killing and death) to give it weight here.
Power Balance: 0 / 1. See, there's a lot of death, but I never really felt as if the main character[s] was/were in danger. Iorek could probably name the Trope for that sort of thing (Main-Character-Invincibility would be my guess). He wasn't exactly over-powered (OP), but that's because there really wasn't much in the way of combat.
Addictability: 1 / 1. Heh. Another was ridiculously addicting. When it starts, you keep watching just because of the shivers and the questions, but as things carry on, you really can't stop watching. Questions become more intense and vital, and characters start dying off.
Darkness and Bloodiness: 2 / 1. Edge given. You could always feel the darkness; it was ever-present. And the animators were clearly not afraid of showing blood. When deaths happened, there was always blood, and in very nice amounts to boot.
 |
| Yes, blood. Source: me! |
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| And lots of it. Source. |
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| See? They were totally unafraid of blood. Source: me! |
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| Yay, darkness! Source: me! |
Believability: Okay, I have two major points regarding believability. Firstly: the calamity seemed like a bit of a stretch, and the charms that could be used to stop it were definitely stretches. Second: if you assume the calamity and charms to be part of reality, everything is well played-out. I don't remember any defiance of physics or the laws of nature, besides the possibility of extra blood during deaths and Mei Misaki's eyes. Well, except for one more point: once everything's over, you're given a death count. This death count seems extremely and unusually small compared to what I had witnessed. That might be my fault as a human viewer, but that's just how I felt about things. Again, though, human nature is well-portrayed, and everything felt realistic enough. So, mixed feelings about this one, rather like dream logic. While you're watching, everything seems to follow reality; in retrospection, however, there are some obvious reality-breaches.
Philosophy: Unlike Shiki, there's not too much philosophy here. There's always the question of "is killing classmates to potentially save the remaining classmates morally right?", but that question isn't addressed too well.
Pros and Cons: Pros: plot, darkness & bloodiness! Cons: characters.
Objective Opinion: 3.5 / 5. Animation style was nice (1), music was nice alone (1), reality was represented somewhat-well (0.5), introduction sequence failed to accurately portray anime (0), and there was some good character development (1).
Wallpapers:
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| The entire class! ...Or is it? Source. |
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| Mei Misaki the Adorable! Source. |
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| I really like this one. Source. |
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| This is nice, too. Source. |
AMV's:
Man, most AMV's for this suck. This is also an "oh darn" thing, because now I have an excuse to make one at some point. I'm really surprised that there weren't many good ones. So, I found these, but they're not even that good:
I Don't Wanna Die [Borgore Remix] (Hollywood Undead) - Meh.
Whisper (Evanescence) - It's decent.
Sick of It (Skillet) - Good cuts, at least.
Next time: Maybe Shiki, or maybe I'll redo Claymore. Or maybe even Future Diary. You'll have to wait and see.
Wolfe out.
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