Anime Opinions: Another

Anime Opinions, Article — By Dark_Sage on February 2, 2012 2:11 pm

Stop spazzing out over this shitty show, kthx.

Spoilers up to episode 4. People who haven’t watched it yet, you can read on because this show’s “twists” are about as obvious as a J-RPG’s.

Basic premise: Some dude moves to a small town where a creepy curse affects the members of the class he just joined. Also, he can see and interact with some chick who’s missing an eye (she’s also dead, so the eye thing isn’t really a big deal). The whole town is afraid to tell him the “secret truth” about the crazy events that are going on, and someone dies every week in the show, probably because the main character is a

.

The main problem with this show is its oh-so-flawed execution. The creepiness levels are pushed up so far that the show becomes an unintended parody of the genre. The main character overreacts to everything and the creepy music plays nonstop so the audience never has time to be caught off guard. Essentially, there is no suspense at all.

There are some points that people may use to defend the show, but I’ll deconstruct them in short order.

 

zOMG There Are Creepy Dolls! Be Afraid!!

Dolls? Really? I spend half my time masturbating to dolls.

Whenever you show a doll, I pretty much get fap material for ten minutes. I creep myself out more than you guys ever could.

Nice try, but moving on…

 

Super Hardcore Significance Bullshit

“But Sage! You just don’t get it! Another has so much deep Japanese meaning that a normal baka ningen like you wouldn’t understand.”

Fine. Let me put on my wapglasses and figure this shit out.

 

~The Significance of the Three~

Main Character-kun is in class 3-3 — the same class that Misaki was in 26 years ago when she died. “3” for the year (first year, second year, third year) and “3” for the class number (class 1, class 2, class 3, class 4, class 5).

Wait a second… Misaki… How many syllables does that have? Mi-sa-ki… Holy shit, that’s also “3”! And Misaki had a cousin called Masaki… which is also 3 syllables long!

And where did Misaki live? On street…

Holy shit!

And now what’s the most important piece of advice his sister gives him?

S: Remember the advice I gave you for life at Yomi North?
MC: Yeah.
S: Including [tip] number three?
MC: Of course.
S: Number three…
MC: That was to always uphold the class rules, wasn’t it?

It’s all “3”! It’s ALL THREE!

So what does this mean? To the Japanese dictionary!

3: Can be said “San” or “Mi” or “Mittsu” — OH MY GOD. There are even three different ways to say it!!!

San: Cut down, an honorific, Sun, acid

Mi: Fruit, body, sword, not yet, a Zodiac sign

Mittsu: Mittsu only means three

Oh, so it doesn’t mean shit. Well played, Another.

 

Sorry, “3” doesn’t mean anything at all. What you’re looking for significance in is “4”, which can be said as “shi” (meaning “death”). The elevator in this scene doesn’t have it marked because the Japanese like to pretend that fourth floors don’t exist. (The Japanese believe such floors are replaced with “magic vortexes that draw away all evil and unhappiness”, which totally makes sense when the elevator kills Nurse-chan.)

 

This is so freaky!

Take a shot every time the main character gets the camera zoomed in on his face while he’s freaking out. Actually, don’t. You’d be dead in a minute. This show’s idea of suspense is “Have the main character flip the fuck out after every other sentence he hears and have the only music playing through the entire episode be ‘creepy, spooky music’.”

Here are some pics of him randomly shitting his pants:

 And it just goes on and on so much that it loses all effect and the main character becomes a joke.

 

Everyone who thinks he may be overdramatic, but he’s still an all right character… I’d like to refer you to episode 4, when he’s talking about Misaki to the nurse.

Yes, Detective Conan. Yes, indeed. She’s only seated in the most run-down chair in the room, unacknowledged by everyone, lacking an eye (which she shows him has been replaced with a doll’s), invisible to everyone else (as she told him), considered a non-existent entity (as yelled to the character in episode 3), and fucking dead.

I hereby dub him…

 

Conclusion

Now before you get all mad that I insulted your favorite show of the season, there are some circumstances under which it is okay to like Another. For example:

• You find chicks with eyepatches hot. Ignoring the obvious implications of an extra hole, you could also pretend Misaki is a sexy Nazi.
• You find dead chicks hot. A new girl dies every month (episode) and bodies are fresh for about the same period of time. Coincidence? I think not.
• You find dolls hot. Hey, welcome to the club.

Basically, unless you’ve got your dick out or your schlicking fingers ready…

you probably don’t have a reason to watch this show.

 

Overall grade: 8/10 (fap material), 4/10 (actual show)

Tags: Anime Opinions, Another, Article