Another - Episode 2

*cue eerie music*

"Another" creepy episode (excuse my lame pun) that ends in a cliffhanger. Kōichi further surprises me in this episode with his interest in Mei. If I were him, I'd probably listen to Mei's warning and cease any further contact with her, fearing the consequences if I don't. Instead of doing that, Kōichi gets himself even further into the whole mystery; the removal of Mei's eyepatch doesn't seem like a good sign for him. To be honest, I'm a bit worried about what might be under that eyepatch; I'm hoping it's nothing too grotesque.

Judging from this episode, the creepy dolls seem to be important symbols in this series. The random shots of them throughout the episode and the doll shop at the end were disturbing, though. I give Kōichi credit for even setting foot inside as I certainly would not have been able to do that. And when the doll version of Mei started to "talk", I started to fear that the series was heading down the "horror" path.

One questionable aspect of the story is Kōichi's unawareness of everything that's going on around him, especially the behaviours of his peers. They made it so obvious that they were hiding something so it's shocking to see Kōichi not show a single sign of suspicion. Instead, it seems like all his focus is on Mei, which is ironic since information on her is most likely what his classmates are trying to keep hidden. I find Kōichi's actions to be slightly unrealistic but at least they're not unbelievably fake.

Another point of criticism would be on the poor execution of the whole exchange between Kōichi and the nurse at the hospital. There were several times where I was waiting for something dramatic/surprising to happen but, instead, I got an anti-climatic follow-up. The nurse's revelation about the "girl" who died earlier possibly having the family name of "Misaki" right before she suddenly hangs up (more like got killed?) was too typical to be of any surprise.

All in all, it was a decent episode. Mei taking off her eyepatch may be the turning point for the story; whether the series turns out to be excellent or not may actually be resting on this action. Half of me is anxious to see what's there, while the other half is scared of what it might be. Nonetheless, the next episode should be interesting.