The series consists of 12 episodes and 1 OVA, which I have seen titled to be an episode 0. In chronological order the OVA is first, but I would recommend watching it last for maximum enjoyment.
After watching the first episodes of this anime, I was a bit disappointed. While the atmospehere was good, the story seemed to be very basic and uncreative ghost story. Something that I might expect from an American B-class horror film. Another soon proved me wrong: storyline was both interesting and unique, progressed with a good pace and even provided an optimal amount of comedy relief to underline the horror parts. The only major flaw was sometimes bit too convenient coincidences that serve as interruptions and keep the characters from exchanging vital information. Depending how you look at it, even that might be understandable, as Another is based on supernatural powers.
The soundtrack is very basic horror, an old and tested format that relies on contrasts of very loud, sudden noises and suffocating silence. It is used often... because it works. In Another music and sound is a tool rather than there for artistic reasons: it is there to server a purpose of making the audience anxious rather than being pretty. You don't really pay attention to it, except when it's overbearingly loud. I watched the show with headphones on, and sometimes it was difficult to adjust to volume to the level I liked. If I heard the characters voices as I wanted, the sudden noises not only startled me, they hurt my ears.
As it often is in series as short as this, the characters really didn't have the time to develope. Another is no exception: most characters are rather simple, their main point in ther story is just die in gruesome ways. Their history and personalities below sterotypes are not really given time in the story. In this way Another is a bit more of a mystery story: we see the world through the thoughts of the main protagonist, everyone else is more or less mystery.
What really appeals to me in Another is the unique nature of the horror: there is no malice. Haven't we all seen a dozen of movies about hounted houses built on top of cemetaries or bitterness of the people who have died cruesome death? In Another, shit just happens. And when it happens, anything can be dangerous. It keeps you on your toes, thinking how many possibilities for death there is in everyday life. No matter is there reason or not, what started it, when there is no motive it feels more grand that a mission of a single vengeful ghost. It's like a law of nature, impossible to fight against.
