Yay or Nay?: Another (Manga- Our Belated Halloween Post!)

Happy day after Halloween! Since we couldn't post on the actual day itself, we still thought it might be nice to still post something "spooky-ish" in terms of a review on the week of! We hope you guys had an awesome Halloween. It was windy...and snowy here, but that hasn't stopped us! I still have so many leftover treats its not even funny! So in lew of Halloween yesterday, I present to you our review of a slightly horror, slighly mystery, slightly thriller, slightly kinda graphic manga, Another by Yukito Ayatsuji. It's also super long (the print version itself) so it was certainly an enjoyable read, regardless, this is our review! 

The Story 

Koichi Sakakibura transfers into Class 3-3 at Yomiyama North Middle School, and immediately notices that his classmates harbour a dark secret that he has yet to figure out. Drawn to the elusive, beautiful, yet mysterious Mei Misaki, and noticing that his classmates are oddly fearful of something having to do with her, when a fellow classmate dies a disturbing death, the first in a long chain of gruesome and unexpected deaths, Koichi begins to learn the dark truth and dark curse that haunts every Class 3-3 that he has unleashed upon them-- but can he stop it before the curse kills everyone? 

So albeit intriguing I will warn those who do wish to read this to pay attention to the story when you start to read this. It's a good--but complex storyline, and when you get to the curse part of the manga, you really need to pay attention because if you miss a single detail the rest of the story won't make sense. 

My Thoughts

So this story had me hooked from the beginning, as you can probably guess, not for the horror necessarily, but for the mystery element that comes with it. You have a character switching schools that brings back memories of his mother-who died when he was a baby-raised by an aunt who knows the secret "curse" that plagues his class. He wants to make friends as he's be kept in a hospital after a traumatic event, and as soon as he makes friend with a girl from his class, he's alienated for it. And the question that the book has you asking is: WHY. And it's not answered for a good while either. Mei Misaki herself is an enigma and the story makes you wait quite a long while as well to figure out why. Throughout all of this, without an explanation as well, you can't help but wonder if Koichi is to blame for all this, since as soon as he begins to befriend Misaki, bad things start happening, and the class begins to tell him that it's all his fault. 

Underneath it all, there is a dark undertone to it, which I found both eerie and intriguing, especially since the author makes you hold out to find out why. The art and style of drawing is perfect for this type of story-- its a type of rough but smooth sketch saturated by dark greys and mostly blacks, giving it this "thunderstormy" type of feel. I really loved that, its a style that actually pops out through the story and helps to give the visual part of the manga that "spooky" and "something is wrong" type of feel throughout the story. With that said, I will warn future readers that this story goes into a bit graphic territory, by that meaning there are some very visual-- very gruesome deaths that are shown that may not be for all-age readers, so be warned of that. 

This is also the type of series one can read twice, even after finishing it the first time. Like I said, the plot and story is rather complex and I know that there were some things that confused me, and I do want to go back when I have some free time and reread it because there is no doubt I missed important parts that a first read wouldn't give me. So this isn't a story you can just put away after, its one you can look at again and again and go "oh I didn't see that".

 While I will say that sometimes the story made me hold out and wait to figure out the "why" of everything, that also sometimes irritated me. That, and, do to the complexity of the curse and just the sheer layers of everything makes it a little difficult to keep everything in track, so I do have some questions that went unanswered pertaining to the "curse" that is mentioned in the story-- a big question being that I'm not sure why it's a thing, although I'm sure that was explained early on. 

My Rating

So, I would definitely recommend giving this manga a borrow if you like creepy, mysterious, and eerie! Even more so if you like all this, I'd give it a buy! It's a dark, and really well-told story! 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

~Meghan