kanna-chan's cafe

Kanna here! It's been FOREVER since the last Anime Monday! I was originally going to do this one on a different anime, one that I thought was pretty bad (but everyone else thought it was good for some reason I honestly don't understand), but then I saw another one that just made me question the sanity of the writers. I was originally going to save this one for Halloween, but then I thought, "I'm bound to come across something scary, bloody, and more than a little disturbing eventually."

So...without further ado...

Now, before you say ANYTHING, I promise that this anime really is called Another. You can only imagine what kind of results you'll get if you type this into Google, Bing, or whatever search engine you use (I haven't tried searching for this under Baidu, but I'm sure I'd get similar results in Chinese). I even found this hilarious meme of Thor throwing down his mug, with the caption, "ANOTHER ANIME!" Unfortunately, I can't find it again, but when I do, I'll make sure to put the link.

This anime...well, a little background before I get into what I really think about it.

Another actually started out a little differently from some of the anime I've reviewed before. Most of what I've reviewed so far has been anime that was based off of video games or manga that had been serialized in various magazines. This one comes from a whole new ballpark.  

Another was based off of a Japanese mystery-horror novel by Yukito Ayatsuji. The novel was published in Japan on October 29, 2009, and it was apparently so popular that it got a sequel released in 2013 called Another: Episode S.


Disclaimer #1: I haven't read the book. I don't know if I will read the book. This is all based off of research. If you want a review of the book, go and look for it. Whether I'm going to read the book is still up for debate.

Naturally, with such a popular novel, manga artists and writers knew they could make a crap ton of money through an adaptation. So in May 2010, Hiro Kiyohara published a manga adaptation that got serialized in the issues of Kadokawa Shoten's Young Ace until January 2012.

Disclaimer #2: I'm not familiar with Hiro Kiyohara's work, and I haven't read the manga.

Well, there's your background. Now for the plot.

The story starts in 1972, with a girl...boy...person (yeah, the gender kinda changed throughout the anime. The character wasn't transgender or anything, it's just something the writers never really made clear) named Misaki Yomiyama. Misaki was a student of Yomiyama North Middle School, class 3-3, who died midway through the year. Devastated by the loss, the students and teachers acted as if Misaki were still alive. They went so far as to keep Misaki's desk in the room and bring it to the graduation ceremony. This led to a strange presence in the graduation photo. That presence: the dead Misaki appeared in the photo. No one could explain why their dead and buried classmate appeared in the photo.

Fast forward to spring of 1998. 15-year-old Kouichi Sakakibara transferred into Yomiyama North Middle School, class 3-3. He meets Mei Misaki, a girl with an eye-patch who the whole class and the teachers seemingly ignore. Kouichi grows suspicious of the fearful atmosphere in the class as time goes on. Mei tells Kouichi that she is "something that doesn't exist" and can only be seen by Kouichi. So...what exactly is going on here?

Well...Mei does exist as a living, breathing human. She just doesn't exist as a member of class 3-3. Why is this? Well, in 1973 - one year after the death of Fujioka Misaki - the number of desks in the class decreased by one, meant for the "dead person" in the class. However, school attendance records were altered, and so were the memories of those in class 3-3 of that year. No one was able to confirm who the "extra one" was. Year after year, people from class 3-3 and their relatives died. No one could figure out why. What was the solution that someone came up with to prevent people in the class and their relatives from dying? To treat one person as if they didn't exist.

Too bad that didn't work, because people kept dying. Kouichi works with Mei and class 3-3 to figure out exactly what is going on and how to prevent more deaths.

So, thoughts.

Well...WHAT WERE THE WRITERS THINKING?

I'm sure that this sounded great on paper. Really. The story honestly sounded pretty interesting on paper. And while I may not be familiar with Yukito Ayatsuji's work (mainly because this is the first I've heard of him and I have no idea whether any of his books aside from Another have been translated into English), I'm sure he's a great writer. But...there is just so much about this that doesn't make sense.

Granted, the anime was a medium transfer (novel) from a medium transfer (manga). I'm sure that there were things in the novel and manga that couldn't quite carry over to an anime. After all, they could only cram so much into twelve episodes and an OVA; all of which were about half an hour long. I'm just not sure what went wrong.

But it gets better! By which I mean worse. Why?

Well...let's say the writers of the anime thought, "Hey! That Yukito guy and that Hiro guy made a crap ton of money off of this series! We're making a crap ton from turning it into an anime! Let's get in touch with some producers and directors and turn this into a live action! It'll be great!"

Disclaimer #3: I'm pretty sure that this isn't what typically happens when an anime series gets a live action movie adaptation. This is all purely hypothetical...to an extent.

And boy...were they wrong.

Yeah, the live action SUCKED. I can't believe I'm saying this, but not only is it the worst live action adaptation I have ever seen, it is also worse than the anime.

I've seen bad live action adaptations. I forced myself to sit through ALL the episodes of the Chinese live action (unofficial) adaptation of my all-time favorite anime, Inuyasha, titled Holy Pearl. It sucked. Now, I could be saying that because I'm a die-hard fan of Inuyasha as an anime and therefore, biased. But it was really pretty bad. However, we're talking about Another, and not Holy Pearl.

Another's live action movie...the characters are NOT in character. At all. The death scenes are laughable at best, whereas in the anime, you could actually take them seriously. I can't believe I just said that, but it's true. Also, NONE of the characters are likeable. Actually, that's not entirely true. There is one likeable character. The librarian, Chibiki. I'm not sure why, but between the anime and the live action, he was just the only character I actually liked.

Altogether, Another - as an anime and a live action - just wasn't well executed. If the guys from CinemaSins were going to do an "Everything Wrong With Another" video, I have a feeling there would be a couple of BIG sins. Those being:

1. WHY couldn't anyone tell Kouichi about the rule of acting like someone in the class didn't exist? Don't get me wrong, the best aspect of the anime is the mystery of why the class is "cursed." But if Kouichi had been told, he would have understood the situation and setting aside the morals he grew up with. The class just drops hints rather than being straightforward with him about it. Makes no sense.

2. The countermeasures group is a JOKE. If they're supposed to keep the death toll to a minimum, then why aren't they doing a better job? A minimum number of deaths is basically any number under 10. How many people died over the course of 12 episodes? Well...keep reading and you'll find out.

3. The characters just don't seem to act their age. Don't get me wrong, there are characters who are teens or adults who act like children from time to time. However, that's because it's built into their character and part of who they are as characters. It's like Higurashi, only...not. Because in Higurashi, while some of the characters acted their age, there were others who acted more mature because they had to be that way. In Another, they don't have to act this way at all. It's not even that they choose to. It's how they were written. And that makes no sense. I get that this isn't Higurashi, but...seriously, guys. Scripting 101.

4. SPOILER ALERT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Mei Misaki is THE WORST CHARACTER IN ALL OF THIS. Why? Well, it's not that she isn't executed well. It's that she knew who the "extra" was the WHOLE TIME and DIDN'T TELL ANYONE. She can see "the color of death." Don't ask me what that means, the anime did a poor job of explaining it. Anyway, that ability was super important for the survival of the whole class, even if no one knew how to stop the calamity. Knowing who the "extra" was would have been just one step closer towards saving the class. That way, we know who it is, and then we can focus on how this whole thing happened. Maybe, if they knew who the "extra" was, they would know who to ignore and that would actually be an effective method. But no. EVERYONE WHO DIED IN THIS SHOW DIED BECAUSE MEI MISAKI JUST STOOD AROUND AND HAD NO CARE IN THE WORLD ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL EFFECTS IT WOULD HAVE ON OTHER PEOPLE. She's almost inhuman this way, and it's just wrong.

Oh, and you want to know how many people died over the course of 12 episodes because of Mei Misaki? Do you? I'll tell you. TWENTY-THREE.

That's right. TWENTY-THREE PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE MEI MISAKI KEPT HER MOUTH SHUT THE ENTIRE TIME.
There is just one extra thing that doesn't really go with the bit above. This is more of a general complaint on my part than it is something wrong with the anime. You know how most TV shows have a "previously on..." bit where they recap the main events of the last episode? Well, let's say you just watched an episode that ended with a really bloody, gruesome death scene. The credits rolled, and you moved on to the next episode. And...you know what it opens up with? THE EXACT SAME BLOODY, GRUESOME DEATH SCENE.

So...overall thoughts:

I'd give this a 3/10. And that's just being polite. Because I don't have the heart to give it a 1/10.

Why: I know I trash-talked Another a quite a bit, but there are A FEW good things about it. The anime is better than the live-action (hands down). The music is tolerable (for the most part). I think the opening would be a lot better if they just had the instrumental track without vocals. The ending sequence doesn't really make a ton of sense. I mean, if you were watching a bloody anime like this, would you expect your sequence to look or sound like this? Click the video below to see what I'm talking about.


I'd share a video of the opening, but I can't because I don't want to scare any readers away, and because nearly all the videos I found had been muted for copyright. Guess the opening was so bad that even YouTube hated it.

And...that's basically it. The animation is decent, the voice acting isn't that bad (unless you watch the English dub; that was some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard), and the overall mystery of it is what really draws people into it. I can't mention this enough: this idea really looked good on paper.

However, there are too many unanswered questions during the anime and when it ends. For starters, how does one become the non-existent?  Why do students assume that only students can be the "extra?" Even if the calamity is stopped for this year, will there be future calamities? What does it mean to be an "extra?" How do you become an "extra?"

While the anime does its best to answer some of these questions, and you have to give it credit for trying to, it really doesn't carry through. It's one thing when you have a cliffhanger and leave things open for another season. It's another thing when you don't give an anime another season and leave a bunch of unanswered questions. Another never got another season. Nearly everyone I talked to who saw both the anime and the live action said that they hated both.

My opinion: I would encourage others who haven't seen the anime and/or live action not to watch either one or read the manga. Instead, read the novel(s). Mainly because it's one of the only books (if not the only book) by Yukito Ayatsuji that got an English translation. Both the first and second book got a translation. This idea sounded much better on paper and in a book.

Again, I haven't read the book, but now that I've finished this review, I think I feel inspired to read it. Who knows? Maybe it really will be better. Or it will suck just as bad as the anime and live action. I'll probably get to it in a week. Or five.

Have you read/seen Another as a novel, manga, anime, and/or live action? What did you think? Did you like it or hate it, and what about it did you like/hate? Leave your responses in the comments!

Next Anime Monday: probably Black Butler. I think I'll do a video review and a written review for this one. After all, the subs for the second part of Book of Murder were released last week.