Another anime – Sapphire Anime

Aired: Winter 2012
Episodes: 12 (plus an OVA and Special)
Genres: Mystery, Horror, Supernatural, Thriller, School
Studio: P.A Works
Source: Light Novel

Another anime review, this time about Another! This horror anime is one I haven’t watched in a long time, so I’ll be a little more lenient with this review. Another is about a boy named Kouichi Sakakibara, who transfers into class 3-3. Right away, he notices something is obviously wrong with not just his class, but the entire town in general. Kouichi notices everyone’s strange aversion to Mei Misaki, another member of class 3-3, to the point where they are completely clueless of her existence. Despite everything, he wants answers and will even look to Mei to find them, even if everyone tells him not to. From there starts a weird relationship between Mei and Kouichi, and how a legend and possible curse is connected to them and the class 3-3. Along the way, of course, is a lot of horror, blood, mystery and a bizarre sense of fear and anticipation to keep you watching. Or will it?

Story: 6/10

The story is surrounded in death and a sense of confusion throughout most of the first episodes. Like the main character, the watchers also don’t know what is going on and keeps getting little bits and pieces of hints to fit the puzzle that is class 3-3. Although obviously a serious topic, death and life is thrown to the wind and honestly sometimes it’s comical how much death is involved. The way situations play out is played out is disturbing and unsettling, but sometimes would make me roll my eyes, especially towards the end of the series. The story itself was so confusing at the beginning that I almost wanted to drop it. I couldn’t tell what was reality and if something was real, or some sort of flashback or dream or something not real. I didn’t understand if somethings should have been taken literally or metaphorically, which just lead to a lot of confusion. The more and more episodes went by, the more I started to understand the pattern and what was going on.

The topic itself- a horrorshow with a curse involving a frightened class and a gloomy town was a interesting set up. I like how they involved the history as well- as in 1975, a student was mysteriously killed, which started a chain reaction to the point where it affects the main character today. I appreciate the detail of history and the whole mystery has me intrigued, if not confused at times. Also, I feel the death theme is thrown out there for mostly shock value, and the whole mystery aspect isn’t even beginning to get solved until episode 10. There’s definitely flaws in the story and honestly doesn’t live up to what I expected.

Characters: 6/10

Overall, the characters were mostly generic and didn’t have a lot of time to develope or even change in the slightest, which is understandable considering the series is more of a murder mystery than a slice of life. The main character isn’t someone I remember vividly, but I think was pretty generic as well. He was busy focusing on finding things out to really be developed. The only character that really gets a lot of developing and time to learn about is Mei. I think she was an interesting character and her design was interesting- y’know, with the eyepatch and everything. There’s another OVA about her ~~which I never watched oops~~ and that goes into her development further. I’d recommend you watch that after the 12 main episodes though, in case of spoilers. There’s side characters too, and a lot of them, but most of them didn’t stand out to me. I wish they were more developed, but also I don’t that would have even saved this show.

Sound/ Art : 7/10

The music is interesting to say the least. It fits the theme well and is very unsettling but also pretty bizarre and weird. The opening music is pretty good, and should definitely be given a listen once or twice, even if your the type to skip an opening. The visuals of the OP is simple and pretty okay, nothing very groundbreaking. Although, I did find the visuals in Mei’s eye during the opening to be really cool looking. Also, I feel like the tone- sound and visuals- makes the anime feel much older? Before I researched the airing date, I had thought it was from 2009 or 2010. The art and sound is bad per se, just a little dated even for it’s time. I think the dark tones in the art also makes it look a lot older as usually the newer an anime is, the more bright, crispy and HD it looks. So i’ll give it a little break in that department. The ending song is honestly very pretty sounding, and I’m surprised they choose such a sombre, soft song to use. It does fit the mood of mourning, and kind of the gloominess of the whole show between intense scenes. The OST fits that unsettling bill well. It’s quite creepy and honestly I think it would a cool thing to play and listen to on Halloween. Definitely has those Halloween vibes.

The art was pretty okay as well. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and looks pretty similar to 2012-ish anime in terms of character designs and tones. It’s darker toned, which fits the theme and genre real well. Some character designs look pretty generic- brown hair and brown eyes and a simple face. Mei has an interesting design- eyepatch, bob-length black hair and red eyes- and so does a few of the side characters. Overall, pretty okay character designs. The backgrounds are nice as well, but once again, nothing to write home about. Average, average, average. Average sound, average art.

Enjoyment: 7/10

Although it wasn’t my favorite, I did stay and watch until the end. It succeeded in the fact that I wanted to take a break and stop watching, but I also wanted to know what happened in the end. Again, I don’t really remember well, but I think I watched it pretty quickly. Now what really sucked my enjoyment of this anime was the ending. I’m not going to spoil it, don’t worry! Just saying, I didn’t not understand the ending. I had to look up what the hell it meant because I didn’t understand even after the last episode ended. Granted, I was also 12/13 when I watched this. Yeah… it’s been a while. Still, I’ve heard from others that they did not like the ending or had some sort of problem with it. Honestly, the middle part of Another is my favorite and that’s why I gave it a seven.

Should I Watch This?

If your a horror fanatic, or maybe some kind of completionist, give it a try. It’s definitely not my favorite, which you could probably tell my negativity towards it, but maybe it’s more your speed? Even after all these years, I haven’t gotten the urge to rewatch this, and honestly probably never will, at least for a very long time. I know that there’s some people who really enjoy this show and it’s horror, but also a lot of people who hate it for that reason. Give the first episodes a watch, but be aware it’s very confusing at the beginning!