Another’s Genre

After a brief one week hiatus, I am catching up on the new anime season. One series airing this season is called Another.  It is a based on a Japanese mystery horror novel by Ayatsuji Yukito, husband of Ghost Hunt and Shiki author Ono Fuyumi.  I haven’t read the novels, and so far only two episodes are out, so I only have conjectures as to the nature of the series.

It is most definitely billed as a horror series.  There are elements so far as well.  The first episode began with the main character narrating a story of a girl in 1972 named Misaki who died mysteriously in the small town of Yomiyama, yet after her death her ghost apparently stayed in her junior high school class, and she appeared in the graduating photo.  Fast forward to the present time, the main character, Sakakibara Koichi moves to Yomiyama and is transferred into the same class Misaki was in.  He begins to notice strange things occurring around him and especially around a mysterious girl with an eyepatch… also named Misaki.  There are currently hints now that if Koichi takes one false step, he could catalyze death and destruction primarily in the class, but also potentially in the whole school.

As it stands right now, this series could go both ways.  Ghosts/spirits on killing sprees is not a new formula to horror.  But probably what draws me so insistently towards believe Another to be a psychological thriller is its fixation with eyes, which we saw in Chaos;Head.  The way in which Koichi’s classmates avoid the topic, and the way they handle this spirit is also increasingly interesting to me.  It has really deepened the mystery for me of what exactly the consequences are, who Misaki is, etc.  There is a certain degree of psychological imbalance outside of the potential spirit… and that’s why I would like to believe this will become a psychological thriller.  The second episode even featured a grandmother, whose eyes you couldn’t see, running a shop with creepy dolls that stare blankly into nothing.  I have high hopes for this series, but I’m aware that at the first sight of cheap screams and thrills, I will probably have to drop it.

 

Horror vs. Psychological Thriller Part 1–A Look At Rebecca

I don’t like horror.  When the eerie music and unsettling camera angles start in in a horror movie, I curl up in a ball, plug my ears, and squint my eyes.  Anybody who’s seen any horror knows that when those cues come into place, the movie is building up to a startling cut scene that makes the audience scream from fright.  After all, that is what horror is for – to frighten you in what is probably meant to be a cathartic way.  All it does for me is set me on edge.

On the other hand, I love psychological thrillers.  Several films that I enjoy are Se7en, Black Swan, Gaslight, Donnie Darko, Memento, and Perfect Blue, to name a few.  My favorite of the genre though, are Hitchcock movies, The Shining, and Silence of the Lambs.  I would like to take a little bit of time to talk about each of these to explain my preference for psychological thriller over horror.