Another is an interesting story. Each episode leads into the other with a cliffhanger that keeps the viewer hooked on to each episode. The animation, while not the best I've seen, is adequate, and the character development and voices are done excellently.

Violence/gore: In the series, a lot of characters die. The death scenes are realistic, and rather gruesome. For example, one character is stabbed in the juggular by an umbrella, and a pool of blood shows up around the body. An elevator crash happens, and the dead character has a pool of blood after his face hits the floor. The most gruesome death, however, is a suicide which I will NOT go into detail on. However, some could argue that it is typical for a horror series.

Nudity/Sexual content: No sexual content, but some of the dolls are detailed, and have nipples. But it is not in a sexual contex. In a beach episode, some of the females wear revealing bikinis, but nothing more to report here.

Potentially Problematic Theological themes: The series all centers around a Spoiler: curse of sorts that infests the whole school. When an extra student pops up, school students, and or relatives of school students, apparently die once a month when an student is extra, and is not given room in the classroom. The students make a point to pretend a extra student doesn't exist so the curse doesn't take effect.

Other Potentially Problematic Themes: The series atmosphere is very dark, and creepy, and dolls that appear during the series have a very creepy feel about them.

Another has been a small phenomena in the anime community, a true supernatural mystery not unlike Ghost Hunt, but managing to be far more brutal in execution (sorry, bad pun!) than that show ever was. For me, this show started out on a pretty high note, with a boy who’s been hospitalized, while his classmates come and visit. There’s something that they’re not telling him, but what could it be?

From there on, it goes downhill. This works far better as a survival anime than a mystery one. It’s really not that difficult to figure out who’s going to die; the first three people even have a little ‘tell’ for it. There was only one character death I was genuinely surprised by. This anime made it by purely on how brutal the deaths were. The moment I stopped focusing on that, it was a matter of figuring out who the person was through the clues presented in each episode. And believe me, they are there from the beginning, but it’s easy to be distracted by the red herrings that the characters keep focusing on and throwing out. Even I got sidetracked one or twice, but then something popped up that got me back on track.

The grand finale was pretty inevitable, from the very announcement of the class trip. Unfortunately, that last episode was so bad that it actually had me laughing. A lot of these deaths are supposed to be horrible and shocking, but instead it seemed like a terrible parody of movies like Final Destination. I don’t care if it makes me a terrible person, but I was laughing during it. When the boodbath is over things got resolved pretty quickly and rather unsatisfactorily. The amnesia that was implied in the first episode ends up being a convenient Deus Ex Machina in order to let this mystery play out.

The characters make this far more tolerable. While there are a good amount of stereotypes, they’re pushed to the limits of changing by the events that are going on. That’s where this show really works; seeing all the characters being driven to paranoia and near-insanity by the stress of the deaths and finding a way out. As logical and foregone as that ending was, it was still fascinating to see their psyche’s breaking.

One of the main characters did drive me up the wall, though. At first this character seemed to be perfectly sympathetic. However, the complete inaction – indeed, complete indifference – to the suffering of this character’s classmates once the key to ending the deaths was discovered made me hate her with a vengeance. Who’s more guilty of a murder – the person who commits it or the person who does nothing to stop it? That’s pretty key in whether you’ll be okay with this character overall. Since it’s a main character, that will probably effect how you feel about the rest of the anime.

This still will be a good anime for those who aren’t as quick to pick up on the keys to telling who’s going to die. There are enough wrong leads and mistakes made by the characters that those who aren’t watching closely will be genuinely surprised, and the deaths will only enhance that effect. It doesn’t change how unlikeable one of the mains is, but it will affect what you decide to rate it.

Overall, poor characterization and a virtually nonexistant mystery make this a sad excuse for an anime.

Violence/Gore- This is a very violent, blood-filled anime. People are killed in brutal ways, from necks being impaled on umbrellas, to being crushed in elevators, to being chopped up by boats. You do see the body, you do see the death, and while there's no gore, there is a lot of blood, and there's no way to mistake what's going on even if it's not in detail. People do murder each other. Lots of blood spatter everywhere.

Nudity/Sexual Content- A few of the dolls are anatomically detailed (chest-wise), but the dolls aren't everywhere nor in each episode.

Theological Themes- This does deal with an actual, at-work curse, and people do come back from the dead.

Other Themes- If it isn't apparent from the vioence, this is a dark title. There often seems to be no hope, and the ending can barely be considered happy. I wouldn't consider it happy, considering the circumstances. Terribe things happen and people are worse off for it.