Another: First Impressions

Koichi is a transfer student from Tokyo into a remote Japanese town/city where his family is rooted from. He seems to makes friends at his new school, but it also seems that something is off; and they are hesitant to talk to him about it. The one girl that he is enamored with also seems to be alone all the time. That's probably because she's already dead [conjecture by me, not actual plot ... yet].

First Impressions: First off, this "horror" anime isn't nearly as scary as its premise would seem. The ghost girl is way too cute (and lacks any visible deformations, other than possibly whatever she's hiding under her eyepatch) to actually scare anyone. If anything, the eyepatch just adds to her moe. Then this show tries to reinforce the atmosphere by inserting moody music and cuts in all sorts of disturbing shots like dolls and empty moving elevators, but I'm not sure its actually working. While the "the new kid playing detective at his cursed school" plot isn't particularly original, the setup was done well in this case and is somewhat compelling still.

It's a little cliche as far as horror stories go (and also lacking edginess in the first two episodes), but Another looks to be something decent to watch this anime season. It's getting a movie adaptation released this summer too, and if I know Japanese horrors, that one might actually be pretty damn scary.

Bonus: To be honest, I kind of wish they would drop the horror thing and make this into a romance comedy. I'm half serious.