Let's Talk about: Another

Feb 7, 2020 5:05 PM

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Nov 2010

179

Another's page on MAL
Another's Fandom Wiki

First, I would like to post some sore informations that might be revelent from the thriller genre wiki page:

Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.

Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element.[3] Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is usually a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist must overcome.

Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said:

"In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine."

In psychological thrillers, the protagonists are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with the antagonist or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.

With that in mind I think that Another is a psychological thriller that uses horror and supernatural elements to achieve it's goals. Well, of course this is debatable and would love to hear your opinions on it

* Spoiler Alert *

33orion77Feb 8, 2020 2:55 AM

Feb 7, 2020 5:39 PM

33orion77

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Nov 2010

179

Kuudere9
Well I was actually very interested in the thought of how they thought thinking to make a student invisible would help them with the curse of "accidents" happening.

npandey
@Kuudere9 if you ask me.......i think most of the students were gung ho on the fact that mei is the bringer of those ill incidents.............yukari's death(The umbrella victim) was the fuel that intigated them to think that mei indeed was the cursed person..................................but what i find strange was that doll shop and its purpose in the plot..............

@Kuudere9
From what I understood the idea to make one student invisible is to re-establish the correct number of student in the class. How did they found out that is not properly explained in the anime. Maybe there are more info in the ova or in the manga tho.

@npandev
At first, I think the animosity towards Mei comes from the perception that she hasn't "played" the invisible student has she should have and blame her for getting in contact with Kouichi. Maybe she just became the scape-goat for their anger and just felt natural for them to target her as the root of their misfortune.

Since the other was not technically part of the class, my guess is that one member of the teaching staff should have "played" the invisible one for the counter-measure to work.

About the doll house, it's a good question. I think we would need to find more about the symbolism of dolls in japanese culture. From my limited knowledge, the type of dolls that we see are often associated with horror stories. It made me think of the haunted manor and the dolls in Konosuba.

With that in mind, I would suggest that the purpose of it would have been to create an atmosphere of doubt and uneasyness toward Mei, as we are not sure who she is exactly at first and wonder, like the MC does, if she is alive or dead.
A bit like if her house was like in a cemetary. It could also be more than just a storytelling technique but I don't know what other purpose it would serve

Feb 7, 2020 9:29 PM

npandey

Offline

Oct 2018

283

33orion77 said:

Kuudere9
Well I was actually very interested in the thought of how they thought thinking to make a student invisible would help them with the curse of "accidents" happening.

that konosuba doll scene, you would not believe but while writing this, I also was thinking about it........

what I get about that doll shop(or whatever it was) was that it was creepy through and through....

In my knowledge, dolls are seen as some kind of tradition in modern Japan..........they have that doll festival too.........but sticking to the topic at hand, I understood that the purpose of the doll shop in the whole plot was to create a tense atmosphere..........maybe to make the fans think that mei could possibly be a puppet like those dolls in the shop........i found this doll mystery really a central part of the whole story, and certainly wanted it to get clear.........but in the end, it was portrayed as something unimportant and unrelated to the actual plot line.......................it made another rather redundant for me, leading it to low rating......

also, taking the discussion ahead, the characters are rather interesting, izumi(though overall I find a bitch) was well written, and so were naoya and yuuya.......and is it just me, or are the female characters in another(excluding mei) actually trashier than the male characters(though I absolutely hate dividing people on the basis of gender)?

I mean, izumi, you can argue, was well written.......but in the end, she could not do anything as the leader of the class........i understand that we cannot expect much from a 15 year old kid, but still, she gave the impression of a representative of the entire student body of the class right?

coming on to mikami/reiko, I don't understand that person's mindset.. ............ it's clear that because of her so many lives were taken..............but she never told any heed............i mean, if she was already gone(yeah I understand that her death was sad and all), she should not have bothered with becoming the cause of the death of children half her age......

Feb 8, 2020 4:26 AM

33orion77

Offline

Nov 2010

179

npandey said:

In my knowledge, dolls are seen as some kind of tradition in modern Japan..........they have that doll festival too.........but sticking to the topic at hand, I understood that the purpose of the doll shop in the whole plot was to create a tense atmosphere..........maybe to make the fans think that mei could possibly be a puppet like those dolls in the shop........i found this doll mystery really a central part of the whole story, and certainly wanted it to get clear.........but in the end, it was portrayed as something unimportant and unrelated to the actual plot line.......................it made another rather redundant for me, leading it to low rating......

I've added a link to Another's fandom wiki, it has pictures of the dolls and additionnal info. Here is the link to the doll house page:
Studio M

Sure, the doll shop create an atmosphere but also kind of mislead the viewer about Mei's identity as I was almost wonderinf if Mei was also a doll or a dead person. It is also Mei's sanctuary, where she escape, beside the creepiness of the place, there are some kind of beauty in these dolls but also a sense of loneliness as there are no customers which is maybe dome kind of reflection of Mei's inner self. Each doll is also work of art in the sense that they could be analysed, interpreted and carry some kind of symbolism. When you look at the peaceful dolls (I think it's Mei's favorite one) I can't help but to see the representation of Mei's and her sister.

Also I thought that these lines of Mei's dialogue (ep3) were important: " Dolls are hollow. Both their bodies and their souls are completely hollow. It's a hollowness that connects them to death. But hollow things seeks to fill their emptiness. Don't you feel as though this place is drawing something out of you?"

npandey said:

also, taking the discussion ahead, the characters are rather interesting, izumi(though overall I find a bitch) was well written, and so were naoya and yuuya.......and is it just me, or are the female characters in another(excluding mei) actually trashier than the male characters(though I absolutely hate dividing people on the basis of gender)?

I mean, izumi, you can argue, was well written.......but in the end, she could not do anything as the leader of the class........i understand that we cannot expect much from a 15 year old kid, but still, she gave the impression of a representative of the entire student body of the class right?

I don't agree to say that female characters are trashier. Sanae Mizuno (the nurse) is helping the MC quite a lot and Yukari was quite friendly before she sees the MC breaking the class rules and become overwhelmed with fear. Naoya may be good-natured but behave in a stupid manner a lot of the time and Tomohiko becomes a kind of psychotic killer.

Well, it's a psychollogic thriller after all so it's kind of normal to see the character's mental state meltdown.

npandey said:

coming on to mikami/reiko, I don't understand that person's mindset.. ............ it's clear that because of her so many lives were taken..............but she never told any heed............i mean, if she was already gone(yeah I understand that her death was sad and all), she should not have bothered with becoming the cause of the death of children half her age......

In my opinion, Reiko is a victim like the others. She is unaware of her death after all and it doesn't feel like she choose to be the extra as I don't get the type of vengeful type of vibe from her. She is not the vilain, the phenomenon is. I see her more like the symtom of the phenomenon rather than the cause of it. She does not kill ppl but the phenomenon is.

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