I will now proceed and explain what many people overlooked in this series and prove that this series is a masterpiece. Let’s start.
At the beginning of this anime two people were talking about Misaki, from the 9th grade-class 3.
they talk about the incident that happened 26 years ago.
Misaki yomiyama. he has been popular ever since the 7th grade. He was smart, handsome and had a great personality. So, he was liked by students and teachers alike.
But, shortly after starting the ninth grade, he died from an accident. Everyone was was shocked, until, suddenly, someone pointed at Misaki’s desk and said “Misaki is right there. He’s not dead”.
Class 3 continued to behave as though Misaki was still alive.They kept up the act right up until graduation.The principal even arranged to have Misaki’s seat included at their graduation ceremony.
When they took the class photo, they could actually see Misaki in the photo.He was deathly pale, but he also smiled like the other students.
This is what triggered the curse.Since they acted like some dead person is still alive, the class invited the dead in.Which in turn, drew class 3-3 closer and closer to death.It basically became a place for the dead to live.
This is really sad. What this anime shows by this is that Humans can not accept death. They would do anything to bring the dead back to life. And since even the dead couldn’t accept their own death, they would do absolutely anything to live again — even killing other people. I don’t know if you believe in ghosts or spirits, but in the universe of Another, they exist.
This anime geniusly showed how humans can’t accept the truth and how they live their lives delusionally, in this case, they acted like death doesn’t even exist. This anime showed that acting like some dead person is still alive, is going to keep inviting the dead in, and this would cause a bad curse.(meaning if you don’t accept the truth, you’ll regret it)
The message behind this, is that humans build illusions in their lives, just to try to live happy life and run away from the cruel reality.
Let’s say If you face a really terrible trauma in your life; like losing someone close. Your subconscious mind tries to save your mental health by making illusions in your life. Let me give you an example.
You are a really quiet person, that doesn’t socialize often and doesn’t make any jokes or have any sense of humor, you are basically a shut in who gets emotional really fast. You’ve lost the only person that ever cared about you, Your family always gets in fights, you always have misfortune, you’re always bored and you have nothing to do.you have no purpose in life.
If you continue like this, it might cause depression. You will be very mentally ill. So the job of your subconscious is to save you from getting ill and tries to make you forget about traumatic events that has happened in your life.By building illusions. This is sort of like a Defense mechanism.
In this case, your subconscious will change your whole personality in a way that you could survive from your cruel reality.
You would first change from being solitary and unsocial, to being a really sociable and approachable person.
You’re changed from hating jokes and being serious all the time to being really sarcastic and having a really good sense of humor. You will try to act happy, even though your heart is in complete pain. Because you have lost the most precious person to you.......the only one that cared about you and made you happy. After that person dies, how could you be happy? Exactly. To bare with this sadness, you will make the most necessary personality and environmental changes in order for you to be as much happy as you was when that person that you’ve lost was alive. So you act like that person never even died. It’s all an illusion.
“It’s sad when people die”-Misaki Mei.
The lives of us humans are full of illusions.
Friendships, love, kindness...........
that’s what the curse is about.
Also, many people say that the characters were just killed off for no reason whatsoever.
But the matter of the fact is, there is a good reason.
“Dead people would do anything to come back to life even if it meant to kill a human being” Does anything come to mind?
These dead people, or these “ghosts” or “dead spirits” or whatever you want to call them. Also wanted to be back alive.They didn’t want to accept their deaths. Thus, every month, one student would die due to class 3 inviting the dead in.
To organize all of this mess, they treated one student non-existent. If they treat one student non-existent, it would make up for that dead person, thus the “ghosts” wouldn’t kill other students to replace them. So the reason people kept dying, is because the charm didn’t work, not because Sakakibara treated Misaki like she exists. But because the curse now happens automatically even without the students treating as though the dead are alive. This happens because they kept acting this way for many years. So, you people who say all of this is Misaki’s fault because she kept speaking with Sakakibara, you’re wrong. Because the curse started way before Sakakibara came to school. The curse started in April even though Sakakibara wasn’t there. So you have to use your brain first before blaming Misaki for this disaster.
Also, haven’t you ever wondered why Kouichi was so drawn to being near Misaki? Why did he keep approaching her? This is a theory, but i think that these “ghosts” kept drawing Sakakibara near Misaki. Either that, or Sakakibara really is one hell of a protagonist That’s basically the message behind the curse in Another.
Let’s now go more in depth about the other deep subjects that were shown in another
Let’s first talk about Misaki Mei. Misaki is a very withdrawn, solitary and anti-social girl that sees no value in having a bond with someone.She is fascinated by a pair of conjoined dolls in her grandmother's shop, wondering how they can be so calm even though they are attached. When Kouichi suggests that is the reason, Mei claims that that's impossible. She also claims that, in the end, everyone is alone, no matter how many bonds they may have.
However, Misaki was much more cheerful and happier and much more sociable and wore bright clothes. She even had a childish side. But after the death of her sister Misaki Fujioka, due to the curse, Misaki changed completely. She avoided socializing and having bonds, she even became null to any other trauma, as she didn’t even flinch when their teacher commit suicide right in front of the entire class. Misaki was alone, she had no one that truly cared about her, not even her parents. Her mother only thinks of her as a doll.
And that’s the reason I love Misaki. Because I can relate to her so much.
Fortunately, I’ve never experienced the death of someone close to me. But I’m also really lonely. No one cares about me. All of my friends became my friends for the sole purpose of using me for their own benefits and then backstab me when I’m no more in need. I have experienced this more than 30 times. It’s easy to move on from your old fake friends, but my best friends have also abandon me many times, they left me all alone. I thought they were the kindest human beings before, but they showed their dark sides, and left me all alone. Friends weren’t the only issue I had, I also experienced getting bullied by many peopls, that I became this person who shows no emotion, and doesn’t believe that there is any value in having bonds with someone.
On Episode 6 Misaki says, “Death is not Kind. It’s dark and black as far as you....as far as you can see, you are all alone. There’s no one else. But it’s no different when you are alive. No matter how many relationships we seem to have, we are all alone.”
This quote is actually really deep. It’s in fact the deepest quote that I’ve heard of. But it’s the truth. What Misaki means is that there may be many people around us whom we have strong bonds with but still at the end of the day all we have is ourselves trying to figure out our problems, finding solutions, solving those unending puzzles of our brain and crying silently with that heart wrenching pain. People may support us, motivate us, stand by our side but ultimately no one can or will experience the exact feelings or exact struggles we have been through. There is no need to be connected to people, after all, love is just an illusion.
Love as we understand it doesn’t exist. People treat others well or become attached to people only when they are able to provide something for them, whether this is material benefits or emotional support. Those who argue against this are simply not self conscious enough to deeply evaluate what they truly feel.
Your friends love you because you give them time, you entertain them by having fun with them and you listen when they need to rant or cry. You make them feel good. They love you, but only because they are able to use you to maximize their own emotional satisfaction.
Your parents love you in a deeper way, but this is probably more out of habit than anything. They don’t truly love YOU. They could have given birth to any other baby and loved them just as much. Even if they love you, they are loving the idea of you, The idea of a child who loves them and will treat them well. I guarantee you, if you went full psychopath mode and told them you wanted to kill them, even your parents will stop loving you.
Therefore, true love does not exist and everything we do is a barter. Even something seemingly altruistic is done in order to make a person “feel good”. So in this case, we engage in altruism in exchange for a pleasant personal sensation. So it’s still selfish in the end.
“Love” is a manufactured concept that was generated to tie communities together in order to further survival.
And you might be saying. What has this got to do with Another? Isn’t this just a quote by Misaki, and how she thinks? Well, don’t you remember what happened at the last two episodes of another?
Everyone went insane when they figured out how to stop the calamity; killing the extra student for survival. They thought that the extra student this year was Misaki Mei, they tried to kill her in order to stop the calamity. Nobody could think critically and lost their sanity just to kill Misaki. To save their selfish lives, they tried to murder a fellow classmate who’s completely innocent. So the last episode showed the true feeling, and the true side to humans. Humans always hide behind a mask; trying to hide their true feelings. But when faced with true terror, their real feelings are released.
Of course, Misaki wasn’t the only one targeted. The students killed other students; but also tried to kill their teacher. But, they even tried to kill their best friend to survive and live on with their selfish lives.
What does this imply? Exactly what Misaki said — No matter how many relationships we seem to have, we’re all alone. This is exactly what this anime is about, Loneliness. But as we said, this doesn’t only happen in the Another, this is also true for real life.
No matter how many friends you have. There will come one day when they show you their dark side and betray you for their own selfish desires. No matter how kind someone is, they also have a dark side, this is the sad truth about life.
We only make friends not actually for the sake of helping your friends or making them happy or being with THEM specifically. But it’s just a method used to cope with loneliness.
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.
Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”
Humans are terrified of being alone. Let’s say you wake up one day and every human on earth, has disappeared. You would go absolutely crazy, right? Indeed, There are some people in this world that enjoy being alone. Like introverts.
But time to time, they like to socialize and have fun with some friends for a change.
Did you know that people can actually go insane, from isolation? It’s actually true, there are many experiments and articles on the internet talking about the effects of loneliness and isolation to your brain. So we being connected to other people is nothing but a selfish way of living.
Anyway. Enough of this part.
Next, let’s go over Another one of Mei’s quotes.
Misaki says “If you’re here, can you prove you’re really here?”
Yet, another deep quote by Misaki.
First of all, what if you are actually the only one that exists in this world? What if all the other humans are not real, but only you are real? What if you’re the protagonist of this world? What if the humans you are talking to aren’t actual humans? What if they are ghosts or demons?
Second, is this world actually real? Do we really exist? Is this whole thing just a dream?
What happens after you “die”? It’s turning really philosophical here.
But one other thing this quote could mean, is that, there are some people who do not exist. Everything they say, every joke they try to tell, every opinion they share, they all get ignored by other people. It’s just like they don’t even exist. They’re not there.
This happens to me a lot. We’re just having a casual conversation in the group, everyone says what they say. But when I try to say something, it gets ignored, or when someone tells a really bad and unfunny joke, everyone laughs at it. But when I tell a funny joke to them, they don’t even giggle. It’s just like I’m not even there. They even asked for everyone’s opinions but mine. This is from my experience. Why do we even waste time working hard in this world? Everything you say, every opinion you give, every action you make, every talent you have, every good things you do.........will all be forgotten, someday.
If you die, will the world be in a crisis? Absolutely not. Sure. It might cause a shock, or sadness. Your parents and family may cry and can’t accept your death. But after a while, you are forgotten. They have all already moved on with their lives, they accepted your death and they can already smile normally again after they’ve accepted what happened to you.
Another, showed being non-existent really well. No, really AMAZING that it’s really relatable.I am sure there are plenty of people that can relate to this.
Misaki, who had no one that cared for her, it’s just like she doesn’t exist from the start. So, when she was picked to be the non-existent student, it was a really easy task for her. After all, all she had to do was live her life like she has always lived. After the charm failed to stop the calamity, Teshigawara said “What does it feel like to finally have the weights lifted?”(Meaning, how does it feel being existent again?) But Misaki replies “Hard to say. I didn’t really feel any weight to begin with.”
...............How sad. It actually made me cry while writing this. It just shows how much Misaki means to me as a character. It also just shows how messed up this world can be. Poor Misaki.
“How does it feel not to exist?”-Misaki Mei.....
Now, let’s go over the people that hated Misaki and thought she was very selfish.
Loneliness, pain, sadness, being hated, losing the closest person to her.......
Even after having Misaki go through all of that, she still isn’t completely cold. She actually has a really soft side. As shown when Misaki says”I’m the most suited to be the extra student .Because if another student was to be picked. I would’ve acted like all the other students, and acted like someone doesn’t exist.” But we also see the really soft side of Misaki at the last episode of Another. When Misaki knew that Reiko/Mikami sensei was the dead one, since she could see the color of death with her left eye. But, She couldn’t get herself to tell Sakakibara, because she didn’t want Kouichi to be sad. Sakakibara was the only one that cared about her, and was with her all the time.
At first Misaki told Sakakibara that he should stay away from her.But after a while, she actually gets used to the presence of Sakakibara, and they become really close friends...
Even though she went through hell in her life. She still is sane, and she didn’t even lose her kindness.She could still give a really bright smile.........
If we experience pain, we get stronger.
The more trauma you experience, the stronger you get and the more null you get to trauma.
But to call Misaki selfish for “caring only about her self and not caring about other people” is just absurd.
When did “People” ever care about her so that she would care about them? Everyone just thought that Misaki is weird and would even kill her if it means the calamity would stop.
Now, can’t we call everyone “selfish”?
At the last episode everyone cared about them selves only and they literally MURDERED every other student and yet Misaki who has killed NO ONE and hasn’t lost her sanity gets called “selfish”? What the fuck?
It’s really sad that people call Misaki selfish and that she cares about no one but herself. Yes. She could’ve just used her left eye from the start to know who the extra student is.
But you should also know the feelings of Misaki.
She is very scared of seeing the color of death. She doesn’t want to see it anymore because of the incident with her sister Misaki fujioka. Also, even if she said who the extra student is, nobody would believe her.And it might even cause problems.
Since, if she said (insert name here) is the extra student, that extra student’s best friend would never ever accept it and would never believe Misaki. So, There would be no point for her to do that at all.....
Many people also call her selfish for not seeming to care about other people’s deaths, or not caring about what’s happening at all.
If you actually think about it for a second, Misaki has every right to be like that. When has the world ever cared about so she would care about the world? Nobody would care if she dies and yet she HAS to care if others die? That’s like finding a very rare diamond after searching for years and just giving it to a random stranger without having anything in return.
She has every right to not give a fuck about this messed up world or it’s messed up people. Misaki had such a tragic life and when she finally found out about her sister and starts to hang out with her, she started to get really happy and finally experience having a connection with someone.
But then, what happened? You guessed it. The world stole that happiness away from her.
After she knew that this world won’t provide her happiness. She didn’t give a damn anymore.
This is exactly what every one should do. You shouldn’t care about this world, it’s people and it’s events.
No matter what happens, it’s never permanent. Yes, if you have a serious injury, it will cause so much pain. But after a while, you will get used to that pain and live with it. If you experience the death of a close one, you will get used to living without them. If you have an embarrassing moment. It doesn’t matter. It will be forgotten anyway.
So many people have also called me “emotionless” or someone who doesn’t care about anything. Well then, let me ask this.........Is that a bad thing? Not caring about anything is much better than caring about everything.
If you don’t care about anything, then pain and loneliness won’t affect you as much.
But if you care about everything, then pain and loneliness would drive you crazy.
Plus, being emotionless is impossible.
Unless you have brain problems.
If you’re a normal human, then you have emotions.
Even if some people don’t display their emotions, that doesn’t mean they don’t have them.
They are just reserved and like to keep everything to themselves.
Misaki is best girl.
Also, Many people said that Misaki’s left eye is a plot hole and wasn’t explained why she could see the color of death.....I’m going to ask this just in case but ummm............did you pay attention while watching the show? If you don’t know why Misaki can see the color of death, then you are either stupid, or have a really short attention span.
Misaki clearly said this in the anime “Dolls are hollow, you see? Completely hollow in body and soul. The void connects them with death. But hollow things seek to fill their emptiness.”
She also said “Don’t you feel like this dolls are sucking or draining something out of you?”
(She clearly means your soul.)
Mei can see the color of death because the void connects the dolls with death. That’s why her eye is called “The Voids Eye” Even if you don’t believe this in the real world. It’s true in the universe of Another. Do you get it now? It’s not a plot hole. It’s just a big hole in your brain that made you unable to calculate what’s happening.
Also, Misaki Mei is best girl and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees with me.
The darkness and deepness of Another isn’t the only amazing thing about this anime.
The story of Another is really good and actually very unique. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.
Story: 10/10
Uniqueness 10/10
The animation is absolutely fantastic. I mean, P.A works has some amazing anime out there.
Animation: 10/10
The art style is also very good. Again. P.A works
Art style: 10/10
The music is just top notch! The osts in this anime are just fantastic. Also, many people hated the opening to Another. But I absolutely loved it. It suits this series really really well.
If you can’t believe me.Then go and listen to the english cover of the Another’s opening.
Like, just Right after you finished reading this, just go and listen to the whole english cover of the Opening, while thinking that Misaki is the one singing the lyrics. After you’ve listened to it, you’ll know how much it makes sense.
The opening is really catchy and has absolute meaning in every single word.
So I give the Music: 10/10
The voice actors also absolutely nailed it.
Misaki’s voice is basically eargasm to me.
Voice acting:10/10
But the only problem this anime had was the characters. they weren’t explored that much. We didn’t know anything about some of them, they were just there.Many people have big problems over the characters. But I actually don’t mind this problem with Another. Since, even if the other characters weren’t covered that much, they actually have really important roles in the anime.
So I rate the characters a:9.5/10.
Enjoyment: Something that can’t be meaured by numbers/10. Best. Overall rating: 10/10
I could’ve went more in depth of the review of Another. But I think I’ve said enough about how amazing and how much of a genius Another is, but since I’ve never reviewed anime, I can’t make good reviews. But I’m sure there are plenty of reviews you can read of this anime. But don’t read them on myanimelist, because they are bad. Another is the best horror anime ever made and I would fight anyone who disagrees with me.
(Not really. I wouldn’t fight for such thing, but you know. I say this for exclamation)
The tension and the creepiness that you feel watching Another is just really incredible.
every episode left me on the edge of my seat.
Every episode, I wanted to know more and more about, what’s behind the mystery of this cursed class? Who’s Misaki Mei? Why can no one see her?
When watching Another, you’re just like “just one more episode, then I’ll sleep” After watching that episode, you say “just one more, I swear” But then before you realize it, it’s already 5 o’clock in the morning, and you watched every episode of Another. Magic? No. It’s just the genius work of Another.
At the end of each episode, something really intriguing happens, that you just can’t help but watch the next episode to know more about what happened.
So the episode starts off with explaining what happened at the end of the last episode, and then at the end of this last episode, there is yet another mystery(pun unintended) that needs to be explained in the next episode. This anime is basically something you can only watch in one sitting.
Also, this anime ended really geniusly.
Why?
Because at the end, it ends somewhere where you definitely didn’t want it to end. So you are like “You can’t just end it there. I need more! ” If there is any anime like this. Then it’s just a sign of how amazing it was.
This anime knows exactly when to add gore. Also, the death of the characters in this anime has really good reasons, unlike corpse party. That was just an anime that had no good story whatsoever and just added gore everywhere to make people think that it’s a good horror anime.well, let me tell you. It’s not. Unlike corpse party, Another has a pretty excellent story. Also, have i mentioned the dialogue in this anime?
Kouichi and Misaki are just talking when suddenly, everything goes silent.......What will happen?! Where there be a death?
*BREATHING REALLY INTENSELY**........
...........
.......
.......
.....
....
Ow.
She just continues talking.....
Thank god nothing happened.
I thought one of them would’ve died for sure.
An example of the dialogue would be something like this:
Misaki: Sakakibara-kun.....
Sakakibara:Looks at her................
*eerie music starts to kick in*
*the atmosphere is really silent*....
....
....
.......
...........
..............
....................
........................
.............................
Misaki: You should be going home now.
This just shows the amazing atmosphere that Another has. This is how horror anime should be.
This anime relies on it’s story and atmosphere to scare people, and not jumpscares or unnessecary gore.
People said that the ending was very bad and “comedic”.
And that they killed off every character for no reason. And they also ask why did everyone go crazy.
Let me start by saying. The ending of this anime makes so much sense. The students were basically in a class, where the eead were having fun in.
They were in a cursed class....... A place where the students die each month.
You are basically coming to a place where you have a 98% chance of dying. Now tell me, if these emotionally unstable students found out how to stop the curse, wouldn’t it make sense for them to go absolutely insane? To stop the curse, they HAD to KILL another student. These students want to escape from this curse by any means necessary.
How the hell are you expecting them to be sane after trying to kill other human beings??
These insane students would also kill their best friends to escape from the curse.Even if those students weren’t actually the extra ones. So it all makes god damn sense.
The psychological aspects of this anime is very genius. It shows exactly what would happen to your brain, when you face trauma.
As regards to those who are wondering why I rated Another’s OVA as a masterpiece. Let me explain. You might say I love it because of the shower scene. Well. You aren’t entirely wrong.
But the main reason I love it is because This OVA is really important. Not only does it show Misaki’s backstory but, It also shows the transformation and the drastic change of Misaki’s personality — From someone who was very cheerful and laughed after finishing every sentence, to someone who displays no emotion or interest at all. Also, I get to finally see my waifu laugh....
As for Another’s music track “Shizukani-Misaki Mei” Just go and listen to it with english subtitles. It makes SO much sense.
So after you read this, go and listen to Another’s opening(english version)
But also listen to shizuka ni- Misaki Mei
with english subtitles and i dare you to say it doesn’t make any sense.
Specially shizuka ni. Misaki basically puts her suffering into words.It’s an absolute masterpiece.
This anime is a masterpiece in my opinion.
But of course, this anime isn’t for everyone.
if you are a big action fan that can’t stand watching a whole anime about amazing indirect character development and slow world building. And you just want fight scenes everywhere.
Then Another is not the anime for you.
Of course, every anime has its flaws, and Another definitely did have a lot of flaws everywhere. But I personally didn’t mind or care about those problems in Another at all.
Because I absolutely loved every single second of this show. It’s simply a masterpiece.
