i watched it till 3rd episode, i think. and i don't undestand the story. why the one eyed girl got ignored by the classmate and why they are dyiing one by one? also what are the relation with the one girl who died in 1972? spoilers is okay. i don't intend to rewatch the show.

Sometimes an anime can be bad but still have an interesting concept. To me, Another was an anime that actually got some things right and actually had an interesting concept but destroyed itself towards the second part of the series. It has a horror concept that’s interesting but what really killed it for me was the fact that it wasn’t able to stay true to the rules it creates and later on devolves into complete nonsense. It was kind of creepy at times and that’s where it does a decent job but the story as a whole has some issues. Here’s why I think despite not being close still to the worst thing I’ve ever seen still failed as a whole series.

Story:

The first few episodes were fine in this show. You see Kouichi going to his school named Yomiyama Middle School where the school is cursed. There he meets a strange girl named Mei Misaki who doesn’t exist in the school to most people except Kouichi himself. They explain I think that Mei was cursed also because of the weird connection with her mother which I think is interesting by itself but they actually forget to develop further with this concept so it still doesn’t mean much. I think they did a well job setting the idea up in Episode 2 but it’s like they forgot about it when they wrote the later parts of it. It’s mentioned that her mom was actually the doll she owns which I won’t lie is kind of creepy.

The main plot focuses on the fact that the school is cursed because there is an extra person that doesn’t belong there. The curse began with the class 3-3 that was killed in 1972. Their souls are what haunt the school to this day.

I think the anime does well setting this up but we’ll get to what makes the concept fall apart when we start talking about the flawed writing towards the end of the show.

In Episode 6, you see Kouichi and Mei Misaki have a conversation together. This is where Kouichi learns that they don’t exist anymore because the law of equivalent exchange is in order to protect the rest of the students from suffering the same past fate. This is not bad by itself because it’s trying to give reasons behind what is going on.

The writing starts crapping itself in Episode 7. In this episode, they are shown having a conversation with a person. This is a problem because it was literally explained in the anime that these people were not able to exist communicating with people anymore due to the school’s curse. They could have written a situation where they maybe could have developed a way to sort of break the curse a bit so they could at least talk to people but the problem is that it’s just shown as a deus ex machina and not as a way to explain how they can just magically exist now.

What I find really weird though in the story was when the characters just decided to go to the beach at around Episode 9 just to show pointless fanservice. The whole episode could really just be considered filler as nothing really happens. Yeah, the characters just like to swim in the beach and play with frigging starfish. I mean it doesn’t develop the curse that the school has in anyway or develop the characters so what was really the point of the episode? Just to have fun? Like alright.

The biggest problem really though with the story was the whole thing regarding Kouichi’s mother. In one episode, it was brought to him that his mother died when he was a young child. In the last episode though, it’s revealed that his mother was actually his assistant teacher and was actually the extra person that they needed to exterminate and here’s where the problems with that lie.

Why would they tell him that his mother is dead when she literally works at the same school he goes to? What were these people hoping to gain by lying to him? Nothing? What was the point of that? Oh and by the way if she was still alive, then why couldn’t she just tell him that she was his mother? The problem isn’t even that she’s his mother. It’s that it just pop’s out of nowhere like suddenly this happens. Like yeah okay. There’s some info dump for you.

The last real thing was really the romance between Kouichi and Mei Misaki. I actually didn’t really care for it. I saw what they were trying to do with the show being dark but it’s like they didn’t develop it past a certain point so I felt lost after they talked in Episode 6.

Ultimately, the real issue with this show was that it was only 12 episodes long. What I mean is that there wasn’t enough time to actually flesh out everything and make a really dark series. They needed more budget I think.

Animation:

The school setting is actually okay in the start of the series but the overall visuals fell apart in the later episodes. The beach setting was bland and generic as crap as I also don’t really care for beach episodes.

Mei Misaki’s character design is pretty cool but the rest of the characters look kind of bland and forgettable. Kouichi himself looks also like literally every protagonist you have ever seen in an anime too and nothing stands out about his design.

There’s also not enough color palette in the world building so that kind of also makes the overall presentation look a bit rusty.

Soundtrack:

The soundtrack felt somewhat forgettable overall but I liked the opening theme.

Conclusion:

Overall, I wished we got more anime out there that actually felt dark and scary. If only they were able to connect the characters more and flesh some more things out then the show would be great but it really felt short towards the end with some of the nonsense with beach antics and a very poorly implemented plot twist about Kouichi’s mother. I feel like they could have explained more why the school was haunted but instead they decided to break the rules they tried to establish and the show just wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I wanted a dark romance with some really creepy horror elements thrown together but all that came out was nonsense that wasn’t really necessary.

That’s why my final rating for Another is a 3/10 (Bad).

Tell me what you thought of this anime down below. I always value people’s opinions. Support the god of all critics and have a miraculous day.