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Year: 2012
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Psychological, Supernatural
Episodes: 12
Rating:
Have you ever been to a cursed place? Have you ever heard of something being cursed and ventured to know what it was hoping that you might not be affected by the curse? Superstitions on being “cursed” exist today like walking underneath a ladder, having a black cat walk in front of you or breaking a mirror. These things will place a curse on you of seven years for bad luck.
How about real curses. Curses that are in the world. Aokigahara is a cursed forest in Japan. It also goes by the name of “Suicide Forest or Sea of Trees.” It is a reputation as the home of ghosts and one of the world’s most popular destinations of suicide. In 2003, 105 bodies were found in the forest, beating the previous mark of 78 in 2002. What makes this place a suicide destination and curse for all that venture towards it?
Curses can also be found in sports. Before winning the World Series, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs both had long stemming curses. The Boston Red Sox had the “Curse of the Bambino,” for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. The curse started in 1918 and finally didn’t end until 2004. The Chicago Cubs had the “Curse of the Billy Goat,” Billy Goat Tavern owner became offended when fans complained about the odor of his pet goat that prompted the owner to place a curse on the team. The curse started in 1945 and ended in 2014.
What makes a curse happen? Another ventures into a deadly tale of a curse set upon a class where members of the class are killed each month by a ghost that is already dead in class.
Overview:
In the school year of 1972 at Yomiyama North Middle School, Class 3-3 had a tragedy. A popular honor student named Misaki died partway through the school year. Her classmates were devastated by the unexpected loss of their friend and decided to carry on as if their classmate were still alive. The class went as far as to keep her desk in place along with bringing it to the graduation ceremony. No one could explain why their classmate, already dead and buried, was present on the graduation photo.
Twenty-six years later in the spring of 1998, a boy named Kouichi Sakakibara transfers into Class 3-3, but before he gets to class, he is hospitalized. While in the hospital, he is visited by three classmates who ask a series of strange questions. Kouichi thinks nothing of it and while walking around the hospital, meets a young girl with an eye-patch over her eye named Mei.
Kouichi attends his first class and notices Mei in his class. As he is drawn to her and her mysterious ways, he begins to grow suspicious of the fearful environment that shrouds over the class. He notices that the class and the teacher treats Mei as she doesn’t exist.
As Mei warns him about seeing and talking to her. Not heeding her warnings and his classmates, Kouichi begins to get closer to her and the truth of the class. A gruesome phenomenon that has been plaguing class 3-3.
A phenomenon that Kouichi and his class can hope to escape with their lives.
Review:
WOW!! What can I say about the story of this anime? This is one of the bloodiest and intense anime I have seen. When looking at the anime, you think, “What can happen in twelve episodes?” The anime would have to move fast or have another season with it. Was I wrong! The story starts off somewhat slow. The main character Kouichi, moves to this new town but ends up in the hospital. He is visited by his new classmates, but they are acting weird. They ask him all sorts of questions, but overall they blow it off. Then he meets this creepy girl named Mei, who has an eye-patch over her eye. The story progresses where the students ignore Mei for someone reason, but this doesn’t persuade the main character from talking to her. As I watched, I was like, “Okay, another anime where the main character tries to help out the girl with no friends.”
As I watched, I noticed everyone in the class being weird. Several class members want to state the secret to Kouichi but seemed to be under some spell. In the third episode, rain is falling from the sky, and everyone is on edge when one of the female classmates sees Kouichi talking to Mei. She grabs her umbrella and then BOOM slips on the stairway and impales 
herself through the neck with her umbrella, dying in the process. My mind changed that this was going to be a violent anime. Episode after episode, classmates seemed to die in an extreme way. The central theme of the story is for the class to figure out who the extra student is. A student that has died in the past, but during the present, all memories of the student exist until the class year ends or a person kills the extra. The ending is quite intense, where everyone loses their minds trying to kill one student. The anime does a great job with keeping the intensity high and the fear of death all around until the absolute end. The way people died was like watching Saw all over again. Just brutal and to the extreme.
The animation of the anime is pretty good. It does a great job of keeping the mood and tone of the anime in its proper perspective and feelings with the characters. Almost every episode has a gloomy feel to it. It always seems to be raining in every episode. This sets up the effect to no happiness is around the class. That they are in a world of death and despair. The anime does a great job when changing up the color scheme. The episode of the beach. The class seems happy with bright colors all around. The students are enjoying themselves when their beach ball flies in the ocean. The color scheme slowly changes as the person swims out for the ball. The once sunny day turns to dark clouds until the person is ultimately killed. This theme of color changes is prominent throughout the anime.
With a short anime comes no time for much character development. With that said, you really feel for the characters and the situation they are in. You see them as high school students just trying to survive the year. At first, you don’t know why they are scared, but you can see and sense the fear on their face. The main character, Kouichi, is a curious person that just wants to know what is going on. He breaks one of the rules without knowing it. His curiosity keeps him going as he tries to find the truth about the class and mother. The main female character, Mei, is quite interesting as she has the creepy girl look but has an attitude of just going with everything but also has a secret of her own.
Overall, Another is a surprising anime to watch. It is a perfect anime for Halloween. At first, it started off slow with no one knowing what was going on. When the first death happened followed by others, you know you will be in for a ride. It is truly an entertaining anime to watch during October.
