[kitten320]

Originally Posted by totoum

Dropping vital clues about what's going on,no, episode 4 doesn't outright tell you what is going on but it gives you enough info to speculate which is where the fun is.
For exemple Kouichi Aunt doesn't outright say "look Kouichi,your mom was victim of the curse and that's why she died after giving birth to you".

She just mentions that she was in class 3-3 15 years ago,using that info you remember that Kouichi is 15 and you remember from a previous episode that his mom died shortly after his birth.You add all that info together and you get the above mentioned theory.

If you cut down half the show you cut off basicly all the info the viewer has to speculate upon and believe me I would find it a lot less interesting.

We knew that his mother was studying at the same school as him and at the same age. Since she died later on it was not hard to guess that she was most likely in class 3. I've got that right from the start, I didn't need 4 episodes in order for his aunt to said out loud
Besides his aunt was running around the bush for 5 min before she said it. For the obvious piece of information, it was too long. There was too much emphasis on her head ace so there better be something about it in the future.

And no it doesn't, with 3 episodes it would be enough to get pass boring part and to give time for speculation. Especially since none of secondary characters got flashed out.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

^ This. And it didn't help that the cast of Shiki was far too huge and, by the middle of it, I couldn't care less for any of them, dead or alive. The majority of the characters were either too passive or too over-the-top. This, combined with the lack of mystery, basically killed the series for me, though I did stick with it to the end, in the vain hope that things would, somehow, pick up eventually.

It was a village for a reason you know. You can't have a big village of 30 people. 2-3 deaths among 1300 people have barely any role, it needs to be far bigger than that. Besides Shiki had only few main characters, everyone else were there to die and move the plot, only few characters were significant. Every death made things rolling on someones part while here it took 4 deaths to finally make a move in story.

Here every death is supposed to have a huge impact and in order to have it, you need to care for characters. I don't.

And don't get me started on the ridiculous character designs. There just wasn't anything suspenseful about Shiki's atmosphere, let alone anything horrific. In the end, the show just descended into a corny and predictable blood fest. Not fun. At least, not for me.

At least it was different from norm. Here almost every character has the same face.
And Shiki was not meant to be mystery, you can tell that just by looking at the eyes. It was more about exploring the "if". Shiki cast were like rats trapped with serpents while we viewers are scientists who observe and study.

And that's just the thing. If you're not the type who enjoys a gradual build-up of tension and atmosphere, then Another is probably not the kind of thriller for you. As things stand, it's still a bit early to judge whether the pacing is just right or too slow.

What I do know is that I've been enjoying the ride so far. Much more than I had with Shiki.

I always liked shows with slow build up but that was totally ridiculous.
Just take a look at The Sixth Sence, The Others and The Woman In Black. All of them have slow starts with gradual build up but none of them dragged. The Woman In Black is different since it is tense whole time but the other two needed time. That time was spent to explore characters, their personalities and bring them closer together or separate them. There was almost always some kind of action before actual suspense came, you got to know the characters what made you care.
Another has none of that so far.

I will try to be quiet from episode 6 and watch it till the end before giving my last critique.
I truthfully hope that pace will improve now and that I will finally get to enjoy it.