First Impressions Winter 2012: Another - Subtlety -Nerd Age

Another is a slow horror anime with a heavy emphasis on mystery. Some would argue too much mystery, but we’ll have to see.

Another is not particularly impressive in it’s opening. It’s about what can only be a haunted boy, a haunted school and a haunted girl with an eyepatch. It does surprise you with it’s strange pacing and story structure, though.

The art varies from decent animations on the characters to some beautiful backgrounds. The show actually uses some CGI to very good effect. Some of the CGI is quite impressive, it’s nice to see artists getting better.

What brings another it’s appeal is that you and the main character are kept in the dark. Both literally and figuratively, things are shrouded in shadows.

The first episode raises some interesting and macabre questions:

• Why is the main character special? Clearly his classmates treat him with suspicion. You find out in the end but we won’t spoil it for you.
• What is the purpose of Misaki, the girl with the eyepatch? Why is she searching for her other half in the morgue? What caused this event?

• Even the grandfather is shrouded, and some characters only appear off screen.

Even though the first episode was rather slow, it did pique my interest. The show has generated a ton of questions. And that’s what really gives the show it’s appeal. If you go into this show not having read any spoilers, or the novel, it’s going to leave you puzzled. Well, unless you paid close attention to the back story of the school. This is also subtle horror, which is a nice change of pace from screamers. There will be deaths later, but the buildup to them is quite good.

There are some downsides though. This show is extremely slow, most viewers will be bored before anything happens. Technically, nothing major happens in the first episode.  And plus there is a terribly cliched girl with an eyepatch. Ugh.

As for backstory, this comes from a popular horror novel. It will also have a manga adaptation later on. This series was first mentioned on temple-knights.com. We’ve been seeing some excellent novel adaptations in anime lately.

Final Verdict: I’ll continue watching this show. While it does move very slowly, I’m hoping that the payoff will be worth it. Pretty much all of the fun of the show stems from revelations at this moment.

Update: There is now a review of the full series up.