Another

Horror is a genre that many people seemed to be enthused with. Between the suspense of what might happen next or the jump scares that some movies use,or the combination of both, it is a very appealing genre. However, there are times when the suspense makes little to no sense or the jump scares are used so much it is repetitive and boring. The anime Another tries too hard to be suspenseful and while in some cases it succeeds, it doesn't quite get there.



The anime Another starts off with a kid named Sakakibara Kouichi that moves to the small town of Yomiyama due an issue with his lungs. At the hospital he is staying at,he meets up with a girl named Misaki Mei, a girl who is abnormally quiet and wears an eye patch over her left eye. When he transfers into the local school's class 3, Misaki Mei is in the class, but no one seems to notice her, even when he tries to draw attention to her. However, people in the class and their family members start dying from freak accidents, and as it turns out class 3 is cursed due to an extra person showing up on the class roster who in actuality is dead and it is up to class to figure out who is dead in order to stop the calamity. One of the charms used to keep the calamity from happening is for the class to make the class roster numbers right by acting like a person in the class does not exist, whether they're the ones that are dead or not.

The plot of this anime has so many holes it is not even funny. First of all, they say they can't ever get the desk count right at the beginning due to the person appearing randomly,and the fact that when the person does show up, memories get altered, but yet they know an extra person will appear. Another plot hole is the fact they even said in the anime and in the manga this curse is like a cell phone to a cell tower: if you move away from the town, the curse has little to no effect on you and almost everyone knows rumours of this curse though no one is allowed to know specifics outside class 3,so why don't the local people move out of the town? Also the part of no one allowed to know specifics is annoying because literally for the first five episodes Sakakibara is not allowed to know the exact curse but trying to find out because his classmates would not tell him the curse.  You can not tell someone in a show for a god amount of time with out sounding like complete idiots, and that's what happened in this show: his class mates not telling the information and basically being sketchy about was intriguing at first,but got redundant real fast. Worst yet, Misaki Mei knew who the dead person was,and she doesn't say anything.

The art of Another is actually pretty decent, given the abnormal amount of plot holes. The characters are well drawn, though my only complaint is yes you have your two main characters, but amongst other anime, the character designs are not unique. If you try to make the case for Misaki Mei, I might give you that one, but only because Takanashi Rikka's from Chunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai eye patch is on her right eye,nother left.  Another weird thing I noticed about the animation is at the beginning of the anime,the animation does random cuts to pictures of creepy dolls. This is not a SHAFT work, so the random cuts literally did nothing for me because at least SHAFT uses them tastefully; Another uses to the point I actually had to wonder if my video player was glitching.

The characters, like their designs, were not distinguishable or interesting. Misaki Mei is the most interesting character, and she doesn't even have that much of a presence. The classmates of Mei and Kouichi try their best to be interesting, but it turns into their bland and forgettable. In this anime everyone follows a ridiculous stereotype i.e. Misaki Mei is the quiet mysterious girl, Sakakibara is the boy that moves to a small town to recover from illness, the class representative, Akazawa, is a tsundere in a twisted sort of way. I do think this anime suffered from what I have to call "Game of Thrones Syndrome": Do not get too attached to the characters because they might die in the next episode.

Overall, I admit, I enjoyed the anime if only for the plot holes and the ridiculousness of the deaths. If I have taken any one thing away from this anime is the fact that panic will make people do things that are outside of their normal character. Otherwise, this anime,while it was trying to be serious, it became laughable by the end of how bad it actually was.

The Muppet's Movie

It seems lately in the movie industry that they have been making seemingly kids movies, but the undertones are aimed directly at adults, or at least teenagers, The Muppet's Movie is no exception to this trend. Even though the Muppet's is a childhood classic for those kids like me, there are some obvious adult undertones to the movie, those that provided laughs, and some made me go What were the creators on?

The movie starts out with Gary and his muppet "brother" Walter growing up. While Walter stays the same height, Gary grows taller, though they are still close as, well, brothers. Now, this sadly bothers me a bit. Gary still is attached to his muppet, even when he is about thirty or forty, and this relationship kind of continues through out the movie.

After the growing up preview, we are then brought to modern day California, with Gary, now a teacher of an overly studious group of kids, and his girlfriend, Mary, also a teacher, are planning on going to Los Angeles for their anniversary. Gary invites his brother without his girl friends approval first, because Gary thinks that they could go see the Muppet's set, because like me and a lot of other kids, he grew up on the Muppets. After a musical number, ending hilariously in "They're finally gone" from the other people involved in the number, they board the bus to Los Angeles.

When they get there, they go directly to the Muppet studio, much to Mary's disdain. But instead of it being glamorous and shiny like it was on the tapes Walter had watched, it was abandoned and run down. On the tour, Walter strays from the group and goes into Kermit's office, where a guy named Richman and his goonies  are talking with the two old men about selling the set because they claim they want to make a musem, and that if the Muppets wanted to stop them, then they would have to raise 10 million dollars. Now, the two old men plow straight through the fourth wall, or they reference the audience directly, by implying they not only ruined plot for the audience, but also implying that half the audience is dead.

When the two old men walk away, Richman reveals that there is oil under the set, and that he wants to demolish it, and the only way the Muppets can stop him is if they buy the property back. luckily, Walter was there to overhear the plan to demolish the building. He then goes to his brother, who is currently more hung up on this astonishing plot point than the subplot of his girlfriend. yes, this is a "kids" movie, so of course the girlfriend takes back seat. While they go to find Kermit, who is hiding in plain sight, with the gates even having pictures of him and Mrs. Piggy, Kermit actually comes up behind them when they are at his house. They actually make him look like a God to Walter, which prompts typical fan-boy like reaction, and he faints, just to wake up in Kermit's house.

After telling Kermit the antagonist's plan, they decide to recruit the crew, starting with Ozzy, the joke-ster Muppet, who is singing at a club with imitations of the Muppets, the Moopets. Originality in naming, perhaps not, but these things scream evil, especially the Pig. next they recruit Gonzo, the hooked nose, pink spandex wearing Muppet, who has successfully started his plumbing company, though he nukes the company and strips out of his formal attire to the Pink spandex super hero uniform. They recruit the gang through a montage, and whats even funnier is that they even say the quickest way to do it is through a montage. After they have gotten everyone except Mrs. piggy, they decide to "travel by map" to Paris. I will admit, the idea is ingenious, due the the fact that when most most movies they usually abridge travel time to, well, a map.

When they find Mrs. Piggy, she refuses to join them, because she is happy with her life in Paris. Though the first attempt fails, she eventually decides to join them. When she does join them, she finds that they had gotten a stand in for her, and Mrs. Piggy then proceeds to fight the fake one.

When they finally get around to raising the money for the set, they have to jump through hoops trying to get a network deal, due the fact they aren't that popular anymore. Actually, I think this sort of reflects on real life, due the fact that if I went up to a kid, and said who is your favorite Muppet, they would probably give me a strange look and ask me who are the Muppets. This point is further exaggerated by the chart of the in group, and that the Muppets are way out there in never ever land, where no one knows them. They do manage to score a deal, and then the insanity ensues. What type of insanity, you're going to have to go see this movie, because it is worth every penny of a movie ticket

This movie I will praise for the comedic genius and musical numbers. The music was very Mary Poppins like, though I thoroughly enjoyed it because the music touched on everything from going on a vacation, to being all alone on your anniversary. They were catchy, and one of them had a hilarious end. The comedy had me laughing, like for example when they steam rolled through the fourth wall, and also they implied that tying up people for money is alright. (Which it is).

This weekend, or sometime while it's still in theaters, I highly recommend that you take you and your family to see this masterpiece of a movie, because you will not be disappointed, and it will be every penny well spent.