Story: 8/10
The story follows the bland and over curious Kouichi, a new transfer student to extremely strange and eerie high school, as he meets the mysterious and beautiful Mei, a girl who seems to be non existent to everyone else in the class. His curiosity about the school and Mei leads him down some dark paths and he learns about forces which no one can comprehend, all of which he ends up trying to battle with the aid of his classmates. It sounds like a really interesting story but I feel like it wasn't told as well as it could have.
I found the the first episode to be boring. Like really boring. And for me, first impressions have a really large impact on my opinion of an anime, especially if said anime is 12 episodes long. So even though subsequent episodes made the story more interesting, I continued to have a somewhat negative opinion of the anime as I continued to watch it. However, having said that, this anime has some really freaking good cliffhangers, the only thing which really kept me interested in investing my time in this anime. As one episode ended, I wanted desperately to know what going to happen the next episode despite the fact that the episodes themselves were somewhat boring to me. It's only after things are finally explained that I really began to appreciate what the first few episodes were about, and thus my first impressions had been erased quite a bit.
But one of the things which made me dislike the first few episodes is the fact that I felt like the anime tried way too hard to be a horror. It continually placed you in really cliché settings like a dark under-funded hospital or a shop full of creepy looking dolls. To me, it wasn't scary at all and I would've much preferred it just be a regular mystery anime rather than a mysterious horror.
Sound: 9/10
While on the topic of Another trying too hard to be a horror, I want to talk about the background music, particularly in the first few episodes. The background music itself was actually pretty darn good; it was ominous, mysterious, fear-evoking. However, I felt like it was overused and definitely used in scenes which didn't need such background music. If I recall correctly, there is a scene where a few of Kouichi's new classmates visit him in the hospital to say hi in he first episode. Sure they act a little strangely, but I really did not see the need for the music to be that typical to any sort of horror medium. This only really seems to be a problem for me the first few episodes because as the series went on, I found that the music started to fit the scenes a lot more appropriately and the horror music was used a lot less, making it more scary when it was actually played.
I watch english dubs and I have to say that I probably should have watched the subbed version instead, especially seeing that it was better than the dub in the OVA which I could not find dubbed. It's not to say they were particularly bad. The voice acting was decent. No one felt out of place but at the same time, no one stood out as being good. However, I did like Mei's voice acting. Despite being kind of bland due to her "I don't really give a shit" attitude, it really made her all the more mysterious.
Characters: 6/10
This is one of the more major problems I had when I was watching Another. Aside from Mei and her mysteriousness, all the other characters were bland, uninteresting, and at times just plain annoying. None of the characters are really given much development, if any at all, and even if they were given development, most of it led nowehere. In particular, I want to point out Izumi's development. She's initially shown as cold and heartless but after things are explained you realise that she knows she comes off as cold and heartless but it is for a good cause. Its an interesting development, however it leads nowhere. There is also her connection to Kouichi prior to knowing him at their current highschool which was introduced but had absolutely no connection to the story, well at least one that I couldn't see and which still bugs me quite a bit.
Art: 10/10
This is one of the things that this anime does extremely well. It's beautiful in just every scene and it's heavenly in the scenes where it wants to be beautiful. While I wasn't scared at all, the art did a really good job of compensating for it by always having me slightly on edge because the art was more realistic and vivid. This also translated to more gruesome moments when people die, especially since deaths are kind of creative in this anime. Seeing how well the art was done when somebody's neck was pierced by a sharp object or stabbed by more than enough knives really made it seem all the more gruesome.
Enjoyment: 8/10
As I said before, the first few episodes were boring and this anime tried too much to be scary. However, as events are properly explained and the anime tried less and less to be scary, I satrted to appreciate it a lot more, especially the final two episodes which really explored some pretty dark themes and which were extremely intense.
I hope I helped you in the decision as to whether you want to watch this anime or not. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
