Ever since 1972, class 3-3 in Yomiyama North Middle School has had a strange tradition of pretending that one of their students did not exist. When Kouichi Sakakubara transfers into the class, he finds himself drawn to a girl that no one seems to notice. Not paying heed to the warnings of his classmates, all hell is about to break loose.
While I feel Another blew its mystery too early, who doesn’t enjoy the occasional anime slaughterfest? If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Another, then head on down below.
Anime Like Another
For Fans of Deadly Curses
The Lost Village
A bus full of eccentric individuals that met on the internet all decide to leave society behind in search of a mysterious village that cannot be found by any map. Excited for their new life, these people soon find that this village is full of more mysteries than they can comprehend.
Both series set themselves up as mysteries in which people suddenly start dying in mysterious ways. Another sets it up to look like accidents while The Lost Village paints it as maybe a murder mystery / killer in the woods. However, both series tend to play their hand at what is really happening a bit too soon.
Corpse Party
On the night after the school’s cultural festival, eight students and their teacher gather to say goodbye to a friend that is moving to another school. While it was a fun time of telling scary stories, they decide to perform a ritual that will assure that they are together forever. However, what they don’t realize is that their school is built atop an elementary school where a series of gruesome murders took place many years before. After doing their spell, the groups finds themselves transported to another dimension where they are trapped inside the old elementary school building that is now home to only corpses and vengeful ghosts.
You want dead characters? Because that’s what you get in both series. Another does its due diligence to plot, but knows when to bring the gore. Corpse Party has a plot, a pretty flimsy one surrounding a curse at their school, but it is mostly remembered for its very graphic gore.
Higurashi – When They Cry
Keiichi Maebara just moved from Tokyo with his family to the small town of Hinamizawa in the summer 1983. As the town is so small, school children of all ages are lumped into one class. There he becomes fast friends with four girls where he spends his days after school idly playing games. However, as the town’s annual festival approaches, he learns about a series of murders, disappearances, and other mysteries that surround it. When he confronts his friends, he finds them mysteriously tight-lipped.
What Higurashi and Another both do really well is playing coy through their storytelling. They enjoy doing misdirects, and Higurashi has a unique form of storytelling through resetting arcs that can be interestingly confusing. Ultimately, however, both series focus on local deadly curses that may or may not be folklore which lead to tons of graphic deaths.
Higurashi is one of those series that can be hard to break into, but worth it for horror fans. Be cure to check out our Higurashi – When They Cry Watch Order guide.
Umineko – When They Cry
Rokkenjima is an island owned by the wealthy Ushiromiya family. As is the custom, once a year the family gathers on the island to discuss financial matters. However, this year, because of the poor health of the family’s head, they are to discuss a successor. Things go south as soon as a violent typhoon hits the island, trapping them there, but things turn dire when a string of mysterious murders begin.
While related to Higurashi in creator and technically share the same world, Umineko is a standalone series. Like Higurashi, Umineko also does well to build itself an interesting curse-based mystery like Another. Instead of focusing on a class, this curse surrounds a family who may or may not be killing each other for the family fortune.
For Fans of Horror Mysteries
Shadows House
The Shadows are a family of nobles who live in their massive mansion. They are pitch black in appearance and emit soot that will linger on everything they touch. In order to effectively display their emotions, each Shadow is given a Living Doll to be their attendant and their face. This is the tale of cheerful and curious Emilico, a newly created doll, who was given to her more soft-spoken young Shadow, Kate. While it is promoted that Living Dolls be loyal and unconcerned about trivial matters, Emilico is constantly intrigued by the massive mansion and those that live within.
While Shadows House has more moments where it is rather upbeat, it, like Another, has this pervasive dark and melancholy tone running through its undercurrent. Furthermore, it shares that same Gothic aesthetic that Another occasionally enjoys. Both series can be creepy, but Shadows House is vastly less violent.
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
For 60 years, the Seikyou Private Academy has been haunted by a ghost known as Yuuko, a young woman that died in the basement. With no memory of her life, the ghost founds the Paranormal Investigation Club to find answers.
Another and Dusk Maiden of Amnesia focus on school-based ghost mysteries. However, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is upfront with who the ghost is immediately and becomes a paranormal mystery solver and romance. While it doesn’t share the same element of gore as Another, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia still manages to keep quite a creepy tone despite showing you that the actual ghost isn’t particularly scary.
Gosick
Kujou Kazuya is a transfer student to the elite Saint Marguerite Academy in the Southern European country of Sauville. However, because of his Japanese descent, he is shunned by the other students. One day in the library of the school, he ends up following a long blonde hair to a beautiful doll-like girl call Victorique de Blois who can predict the future, including their own currently entwined one. Together, the pair begin to solve the mysteries that are beginning to plague their surroundings.
While both series are innately similar in that they have normal male main characters attracted to mysterious female characters who end up teaming up to solve a mystery. Both series also have similar ways of going about mystery. In Another, the main character doesn’t believe the curse, which turns out to be true. In Gosick, each of the cases are set up to be supernatural, but Victorique quickly grounds them in a real causes.
From The New World
After a small portion of humanity suddenly developed psychokinetic powers, the world underwent a rapid transformation. After 1,000 years of turbulent history where regular humans struggled against those with powers, we focus in on Kamisu 66, a small town where 12-year-old Saki Watanabe finally awakened her powers. This awakening means she is finally able to join her friends at the Sage Academy. However, things in Saki’s life do not remain as simple as those precious days. With missing children in the village, rebellious rumblings, and a world steeped in myth and mystery, Saki and her friends are about to face the shocking truths of their peaceful society.
While vastly different in setting, From the New World matches Another in its mystery initially. Both shows start by suggesting something very bad is going on and letting that simmer for awhile. At the right time, things dive off the deep end in a vicious way. While From the New World lacks the same amount of slaughter as Another, it has plenty still. It is also a mystery show that really excels in answering the myriad of questions that it initially front-loads in the series.
The Promised Neverland
Grace Fields House is a home for orphans. However, even though they have no blood families, they are all one big family. That is, until the age of twelve when they are adopted out. The kids also know that they are not allowed outside the fenced yard, but one day, two children break that rule. They then discover that the children who are “adopted” are actually subjected to something much darker.
If you don’t necessarily need a lot of gore in your horror-based mysteries, The Promised Neverland is a pretty good option. It takes the slow simmer of the beginning of Another and really stretches it out through the series as the characters uncover the dark truth about everything they have come to know.
For Fans of Building Massacres
Shiki
The fifteen-year-old Megumi Shimizu dreamed of leaving her small country town behind for the big city, but those dreams died when she did. It was her murder that kicked off a summer of blood and terror in this small town where a city boy and a country doctor try to stop the epidemic of death happening around them.
While focusing on different types of mysteries, both Another and Shiki have a similar story progression. They start off slow, move to a shocking first death, have a few more mysterious deaths, and then by the end they build full on into massacres where few are left alive.
King’s Game
Nobuaki Kanazawa is a new transfer student who has closed his heart to his fellow classmates, determined not to make friends. However, due to their persistence, he begins to open up. Just as he does, his worse fears comes to life, the King’s Game starts on his cell phone. Now his classmates must play a cruel game where all orders must be obeyed. If they don’t, they die.
While King’s Game flubbed adapting the manga it was based on, it is still a fine watch for people who just like school children dying miserably in their anime. Both series feature students that are under a curse which will result in their death if they disobey specific criteria.
Angels of Death
Rachel awakens to find herself trapped in the basement of an abandoned building. After wandering around – lost, dizzy, and without her memories – she happens across a man in full bandages named Zack. While at first he tries to kill her, eventually they come to an agreement. Together, they try to find a way to escape from their bizarre circumstance. In return for his help, Rachel offers up her own life to him.
While Angels of Death takes place in a closed space, like Another, it is a show that invites you to keep watching in order to discover what is really going on. To keep fans engaged, it involves a lot of vicious death as you continue to climb towards the climax of that mystery. However, Angels of Death does have more sadistic sort of characters in it compared to the rather normal students in Another.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Another? Let fans know in the comments section below.
