"This is what kids today find scary, right? Right?"    Watching Another is like listening to a little kid try to tell you about a story that they found really scary. They add in stuff to try and make it creepier and really try to impress on you that "this story is scary, really!" and meanwhile you're just smiling along, trying to give the kid the benefit of the doubt, and you don't want to tell them that they've already spoiled the ending with their excitement. This episode really goes out of its way to emphasize how "creepy" it is; long silences, lack of proper lighting whenever possible, and random shots of dolls (although that might be the show's way of having scene transitions, I don't know). If the twist is that Mei is dead, then we've got a problem. As for the strange behavior of the students, my money's on that they're "acting," a la Blood-C. To be fair, all of this is really a minor annoyance at best (but great to poke fun at on Twitter), but my main problem at the moment is that the Generic Anime Lead™ doesn't seem to notice any of this. I hate to say it, but it reminds me of Ookami Kakushi, which started off with a promising premise but then fell flat on its face in the execution (among other things). While there's no reason to expect that it will get that bad, the fact that some of the "secrets" are plainly obvious from the get-go does not bode well. At the very least, the show looks great; P.A. Works delivers again. Despite my misgivings, I'm going to assume for now that Another has more up its sleeve than it appears to. I would love to be proved wrong. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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