Another - Final Impressions

Holy.  Crap.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of the final episode of Another because it pretty much played out how I expected it to.  More or less, the gore-filled killing continued with Kazami going completely crazy and killing anyone he comes across in order to find the Another.  What I didn't expect, so much, was for Akazawa to go completely off the deep end that she was willing to kill Kouichi in order to get to Mei.

I also didn't expect for her to actually die, but she did, in the most beautifully animated, yet tragic way possible.  Mei was even affected by her death, despite the fact that just minutes before, she was trying her hardest to kill Mei (who didn't really seem to care).  Her death, and her subsequent flashback, did answer some questions: Kouichi really was in Yomiyama a year and half ago.  Someone close to him died the same time her brother passed away.

As the climax of the show nears, Kouichi is forced to kill the one person that's been there for him the entire time: Reiko, who is also Mikami-sensei, as shown in a flashback.  Reiko died a year and a half ago when she was murdered by an unknown person, and she came back as the Another this year.

I'll admit it, I screamed aloud more than once during this final episode.  The continued gore of the classmates caught me by surprise.  While I enjoyed the finale, there were definite parts that seemed off to me.  One was the fact that Reiko and Mikami-sensei were the same person.  I guess I can kind of understand why the writers decided on that route, but I almost wished they made it clear from the beginning.  Maybe we, the viewers, would have figured it out, but maybe not.  The manga certainly made it clear, and I may have spoiled it for myself since I read other discussion forums discussing whether or not they were the same person.  Then there was the gore aspect.  For most of the show, the suspense was built using the music, sounds, and atmosphere.  The random killings in the last two episodes were most definitely different from the rest of the show.  Lastly, there's the calamity itself.  It still wasn't explained much, and really, it was stopped for that year but not forever.  I was hoping for something a lot more solid.

All in all, I really enjoyed this show.  I'm not much of a horror person, and to be honest, the horror in this show gave me nightmares at night.  But isn't that the point of horror shows?  It was fun, and it was done well, and that's all I could ask for.