Yomiyama
Middle School in Yomiyama, Japan is a strange place. Starting in the 1980s,
every few years several students in third year class 3, or people close to
them, die. The deaths are from accidents or disease, everything looks perfectly
natural—but it’s not. There is a powerful curse on the class. After a year
where the deaths happen, students slowly forget about the phenomenon, and
parents are never alerted to the danger. However, there is a slight shadow of
class memory that realizes something is wrong and forces students to take
precautions to stop it.
Koichi Sakikibara is a late transfer to third year
class 3. He doesn’t know the rules and no one has time to tell him, so it’s not
his fault when he breaks them and people start to die. But can the deaths be
stopped? That’s what Koichi and his friend, the beautiful and mysterious Mei
Misaki, have to find out.
Another is
a brilliant horror manga that is all the more disturbing for the ages of the
characters involved. These are older teenagers, some of whom die horribly
because of the curse. It can also strike family members, up to two degrees of
relation away. Because Koichi broke the rules and started the deaths, and Mei
was involved unwittingly in helping him, they are blamed by the class and
shunned by their classmates. The two, especially Koichi, whose mother was
killed by it the year he was born, are obsessed with the curse and stopping it
before anyone else dies. Particularly him.
Although over 700 pages in one
volume, Another is an enthralling,
fairly quick read. I kept turning pages to see who was next to go and how
Koichi and Mei find the next clue to stopping the curse. Also, why is there a curse? How did it start? And can it really be stopped? The answers have some unexpected
twists, especially regarding how things involve Koichi’s own family. Creepy and
addicting, Another is a page-turner
you won’t be able to put down. Highly recommended.
Rating: **** out of 5 stars
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