The 12 episode (+1 OVA (original video animation)) anime television series, Another (アナザー Anazā) (2012) produced by P.A.Works and based on Yukito Ayatsuki’s 2009 highly acclaimed horror mystery novel of the same name, represents a distinctly Japanese understanding of religion and the afterlife.
While television shows are dominantly for the purpose of entertainment, escapism and above all, profit, this does not lessen their ability to challenge, reflect and present the views and beliefs that shape society. Another, while staying within the relatively universal confines of the horror genre, the calamity that threatens the lives of the students is a direct result of incorrect ritual behaviour concerning the death of Misaki Yomiyama. The situation is motiveless and defies all scientific explanations. The only way to overcome the situation is through enacting beliefs which many Japanese have and hold at their disposal if they are ever in need.
The way death is viewed in Japan is changing. However, traditional ideas and beliefs greatly underpin the Japanese understanding and attitude towards death. According to Professor Rihto Kimura, “Zen-Buddhist phrases such as "accept death as it is"... have been key motifs totally integrated into our traditional understanding of life...However, the traditional perception of death as an acceptable process has been vanishing as the Japanese have applied modern biomedical technologies more frequently in well-equipped hospital settings.” (Kimura, R. (1996)) Thus, modernisation worldwide, especially in terms of medical innovations have had an impact on how the Japanese see death. In many instances, death can be prolonged and cast aside if the proper medical procedures are performed and, in the case where the patient dies anyway or seems to have died before their rightful time, denial as a form of grief prevails. In Another, the instance which causes the death inducing calamity is where a death is left unacknowledged and completely denied.
In Another, the complication the characters face is not a new problem they caused but a curse-like phenomena, caused by the ninth grade’s ‘Class 3’ of 26 years ago. This urban legend is known by everyone in the town but never believed until they experience the effects first-hand. According to the story, a popular student named Misaki Yomiyama died shortly after starting the ninth grade in Class 3. Everyone in the class was shocked and unsure of how to deal with the news until one of the students proclaimed that he is not dead after all. The student said that Misaki was alive and well, sitting in the classroom with them. Soon after, the rest of the class and the homeroom teacher joined in and acted as if Misaki was still alive, to the extent of including a seat for him in the graduation ceremony at the end of the year. Like the ghosts in American films, such as Casper (1995) and Ghost (1990), Misaki’s spirit could not move on from the earth because of unfinished business. After the class’ graduation, the class and their homeroom teacher returned back to the classroom for a commemoration photograph. When they looked at it later, the dead student Misaki could be seen standing, smiling with the rest of the students, with a deathly pale face and distorted features. This is in accordance with a widely popular and believed Japanese phenomena called ‘Shinrei Shashin’, where ghosts reveal all or part of themselves in a photograph. In the photo, they are believed to look strange, different from the living subjects. Similar ‘image distortion’ is shown in the Japanese horror film, Ringu (1998) and its American remake, The Ring (2002) and its sequels (Lacefield, K. (2010)).
While this short term consequence may seem minor, the main point of difference between Western ghosts and Japanese ghosts is that the Japanese believe the dead have a polluting power. In this sense, whether intentionally or not, their being in the world of the living causes those around them to die. As a result of Misaki Yomiyama’s treatment, Yomiyama High’s ninth grade Class 3 became a place that was open and thus closer to death as each year an ‘extra student’, a person who is already dead, joins the class. Their presence not only causes death but death in extravagant, stylised and horrifying ways, similar to what you would see in slasher films like Final Destination (2000), death caused by tragic accidents and that are hard to see as purely coincidence. The first death that we see in the series is of the class representative who trips on the stairs while holding an umbrella, resulting in the tip of it impaling her through the neck. Unlike the ‘yurei’ Japanese spirits of the dead or ‘yokai’, monstrous demons, the extra student has a physical body, memories and does not know that they are dead, which links to the idea of ‘living on’ in the underworld. The librarian and homeroom teacher from the class 26 years ago, Chibiki Tatsuji says that the calamity is not a curse as it harbours no malice but rather it operates more like a natural disaster, as a natural reaction to the acts of ritual impurity and ignorance.
The way in which we judge the actions of the students 26 years ago as right or wrong is heavily reliant on our regionally and culturally specific understanding of death and dying. As Mei Misaki is telling the story to the protagonist, Koichi Sakakibara, she says that “no one wanted to accept the cruel reality. I’m sure you can relate”, condoning the behaviour. From a Western perspective, the way the class acted was strange but an understandable reaction as denial is the first stage of the five stages that make up the grieving process according to Kübler-Ross and Kessler (Kübler-Ross & Kessler. (2014)). However, in the Japanese context, this story has terrifying consequences. In Japanese death, the dead must be barred from the living for the sake of ritual purity and good health. According to Popovic, “At the funeral the deceased gets "kaimyō" or a new Buddhist name. The purpose of this special name is to stop the return of the deceased if her or his name is called.” In addition to this, as part of what the Japanese call ‘Kamidana-fuji’, the household shrine is covered in white paper to keep the “impure spirits of death” away. Relatives and friends also put up a white lantern outside of their house as a sign of their acknowledgement of the person’s death (Popovic, M. (2016)). While it is not revealed if Misaki Yomiyama had this style of funeral, what these aforementioned rituals have in common is their commitment to keeping the dead separate from the living. Infosino says that it is “...believed that after the body is cremated, the spirit starts a 49-day spiritual journey to reach its destination, which frees it from any bonds to the physical world.” Until they reach this destination, they dwell in an in-between world, ‘Yomi’ which means ‘underworld’ in Japanese. This place is not rewarding like heaven or a punishment like hell, as in a western sense, but a neutral place in which every human soul, good or evil passes through. In this place, the dead continue to be the person they once were, for example, a man who was a carpenter unknowingly remains a carpenter in death for eternity. This directly links to the behaviour and nature of the ‘dead student’, a being in a state of selective amnesia concerning their moment of death, in Another.
The meaning of the town’s name in the series, ‘Yomiyama’ deepens and confirms its connection to death and to a very old Japanese legend. Izanagi and Izanami were the first female and male gods to be born and were in charge of giving the earth form and inhabitants. Firstly, the pair created the gods of the sea, wind, trees, mountains, fields and then of fire. Birthing the fire god left Izanami badly burned and she soon died. She was buried on Mt. Hiba, then her spirit ascended to Yomi-no-kuni, the underworld. Missing his partner, Izanagi travelled to Yomi-no-kuni to retrieve her. Izanami said that she could not go as she had already eaten the food there, but said she would talk to the master about her release on the condition that Izanagi would wait outside and not look upon her while inside the underworld. Izanagi disobeyed and went inside only to see Izanami looking like a rotting corpse. Furious at his betrayal, Izanami sent death hags to chase after him. When you break up the name of the town, ‘yomi’ means underworld and ‘yama’ means mountain, thus together refer directly to the place where the body goes and the place where the soul goes after death. The people of Yomiyama are trapped, both body and soul inside the town, thanks to the calamity and those who unknowingly conjured it.
While it was believed that there was no way to tell the dead person apart from the living, Mei Misaki possesses a special gift. Under Misaki’s eye patch that covers her left eye is a prosthetic doll’s eye that, as Mei says, “can see what should be left hidden”. When looking upon people and images of them, Mei is able to see the colour of death. Not only does this colour show up on dead people but also on those close to death, just as the image distortion in Ringu applies to those exposed to the cursed video, as their death is impending. The fact that her doll’s eye, an eye which is man-made, can see beyond what a natural eye can see is interesting in the sense of considering transhumanism, where our inventions will eventually perform better than we can, leading us to ‘upgrade’ ourselves for the purpose of self improvement. However, Mei’s eye is linked to a much older idea in Japan, that dolls are linked to death. Like a soulless human body, a doll is empty but as Mei tells Kouichi, “empty things seek to fill their emptiness.” This is why in the prequel OVA episode, Mei takes her sister Misaki Fujioka, the girl who dies before the series begins out of the doll shop’s underground level as “It is not good for newcomers to be here”. When Fujioka asks why, Mei says simply that “the dolls are empty”, reminding us of what she explained during the series. The OVA, which serves as a bonus episode in many anime series, adds context to Mei’s character and solemn behaviour for the sake of the mystery narrative, as it was important at the beginning of the series to leave her story ambiguous. It also provides a deeper link between dolls and death.
While the dolls are lifeless, they remain more than just a main motif in the story. Shots of Kirika’s artistic and strange dolls appear randomly in flash frames throughout the series. When Mei and Kouichi finally talk openly in Mei’s apartment, a doll on the right side of the frame appears to be watching them with unwavering attention. When we see Misaki Fujioka die during the prequel OVA episode, the dolls that she admired from Mei’s mother’s shop look down at her with pitiful expressions and are the last thing she sees before she too becomes like them in a sense. When considering how the dolls operate as part of the television show, “Space defines the relationship of one object to another- if someone sits too close to you on the bus, you feel that they are invading your ‘personal space’. The way in which space is described is usually in terms of quantity: distance ..., area ..., volume or amount .... Therefore, space relations are imbued with the effects of ... power” (Lury, K. (2005) p. 148). Thus, while they are lifeless, speechless and are not active participants of the show, like the human characters, they fill rooms and are the eyes on the walls as a strong memento mori, symbolising how death surrounds and suffocates the majority of frames in Another.
In order to truly grasp what Another is trying to say to not only its Japanese audience but its global audience, it is essential to understand not only how Japan and the west differ in terms of ideas of death but of religion and how it operates in these divergent contexts. When considering what is truly meant by the term ‘religion’, one may think of the Big 5: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. While other religions are practiced, these seem to be the most prominent in the world in terms of their number of followers and influence. They each have their own sacred texts, creation stories, place of worship and set of worship practices. However, when considering major cultural trends and behaviours, seemingly secular activities and structures operate in undoubtedly religious ways. For example, if finding happiness was the ultimate concern in life, many people, especially in the West, try to achieve that through the consumption of commercial goods. Nationalism in terms of the ‘imagined community’ as defined by Benedict Anderson is deeply religious, as it binds groups of people together based on shared places of origin and common interests, even if these people have and never will meet (Anderson, B. (2006)). This is especially evident in the United States of America, a country which exhibits extreme national pride and believes in myths such as freedom, democracy and the ‘American Dream’, where every person as a powerful individual, no matter their upbringing and background can achieve greatness if they work hard for it.
While the West seems to be linked to the East, due to the effects of globalisation and the increased interest in consuming Japanese cultural products, especially in terms of their entertainment through manga, films and anime, there is still much that we do not know or fully comprehend about their highly religious way of life. Many believe that religion in Japan is a combination of Buddhism and Shintoism, however it is not so black and white. According to Thomas, who had researched what young Japanese people thought about religion in anime, a student responded that “We are often told that in Japan the two [religions of] Buddhism and Shintō are amalgamated, but to me the truly essential [the student used the English word] thing that is deeply ingrained in Japanese people is a kind of nature worship akin to animism, I think. I think that what especially illustrated that [nature worship] was Miyazaki Hayao’s [anime] Princess Mononoke.” (Thomas, J. (2012), p. 61). It is not the student’s mention of animism that is the most provoking here but that such beliefs and practices are “...ingrained in Japanese people.” What you do because you are religious and what you do because you are simply Japanese are inextricably linked. According to Garcia, “While most Japanese don’t believe in one specific religion and only 20 percent believe in the existence of gods, they do… embrace certain superstitions, popular beliefs, and the notion of fate. For instance, the most common activities when visiting a Shinto shrine are making a wish, buying protective charms...” (Garcia, H. (2014), p. 20).
This notion is represented in many popular anime franchises and most interestingly in Infinite Stratos II, a science fiction romantic comedy about a Japanese boy, Ichika who has five female love interests from different countries: Japan, China, France, England and Germany. In episode 11, the class goes on a trip to Kyoto where they visit the Jishu Shrine, a real world place famous for making love wishes come true. In a comical scene, we see firstly the Chinese, English, German and French girls come to the shrine for the intention of performing the love ritual, with Ichika in mind. Before proceeding to pour the water on the ‘love stone’ statue, the Chinese girl, Huang Lingyin tells us through an internal monologue that she is “...not the type of person who makes wishes to gods, but since this shrine is so famous for making romantic relationships successful, there has to be something to it, right?” While every girl from the main group but the Japanese girl is in this scene, the behaviour of these foreigners exemplifies a distinctly Japanese understanding of religion. Unlike the Catholic Church, where the adherent is baptised and expected to pray daily and frequently visit the church for mass, for the Japanese, such requirements are entirely voluntary. No matter the beliefs of the parents, every baby born in Japan is listed as part of the Shinto shrine closest to where they live. It is also fine and not at all unusual for Japanese people to pick and choose what kind of rituals they want ie. “to be baptised in the Shinto ritual, get married with a Christian ceremony in a church, and, finally, celebrate a funeral following Buddhist tradition.” (Garcia, H. (2014), p.18). Enrollment in an Australian Catholic school, requires proof of affiliation with a specific church to get a spot in the school. Islamic adherents are expected to pray five times daily and read the entire Quran at least once a year. Unlike these religions, Japanese people do not need to meet a specific devotional quota so to speak, rather because the beliefs are so entwined with their identity as Japanese, they are known and available if the person ever feels they are in need of them. Additionally, doing rituals half heartedly or without complete faith that they will work as shown in the Infinite Stratos example, does not lessen their power or usefulness whereas from a western religious perspective this would be seen possibly as disrespectful or even blasphemous.
This urban legend of Misaki Yomiyama and the calamity informs not only the direction of the series’ narrative but also the actions of the characters, causing them to act in bizarre and irrational ways. As soon as the students can see the events happening around them, they are quick to believe in the calamity. While they all immediately enact a set of rituals to prevent the calamity, they do this half heartedly, with the exception of the ‘head of countermeasures’, Akazawa who lost her brother to the calamity years ago. Instead of having faith, like what a Christian has in God, the students only believe when they see the calamity for themselves. Like in the above Infinite Stratos II example, their religious beliefs are available when they feel they need them. When they become more extremely involved and find the tape left by a former Class 3 student from 15 years ago, they put aside their values, lose their personalities, and revert to a quasi-hive mind, focused on killing the dead student, even if that means mistakenly killing living students in the process. This is especially striking considering that the class is made up of anime character archetypes. The fact that these stable and semi-predetermined characters absolutely fall apart with the exception of the outsider hero, Kouichi, shows just how strong their underlying beliefs are and how it did not take very much to make them not only believers but murderous, survivalist and fanatical.
Therefore, while Another is a television program, operating under almost universal horror tropes, it has a distinctly Japanese message regarding their attitudes and beliefs towards death. While the show was well received in the West, the deeply religious foundations of the frightening situation faced by the characters in the series only make complete sense when you consider how the Japanese viewer would understand it, based on their religious and spiritual beliefs. Unlike the beliefs of religions such as Christianity, where the adherent firmly believes in God and his teachings, what it is to be religious in Japan and what is to be Japanese in a cultural sense are inextricably linked, causing the country and its cultural products to become a ‘melting pot’ made up of both secular and religious ideas both old and new.
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