History Headscratchers / Another

* Isn't there a chance that the curse could be broken, if the class from 1972 came together and openly acknowledged that Misaki was dead and they should never have pretened otherwise? Or was something like that tried during the 26 years since the curse started and it turned out to be pointless?

* If the 26-years-ago students from Class 3-3 openly stated that Misaki was dead and they shouldn't have pretended that he was alive, wouldn't that break the curse? Or is that perhaps something tried out during the 26 years and it's one of the 'rules' that the curse has, that admitting things won't change anything?

** We know that the curse has the power to affect people's reasoning, memory and perceptions. I'm going out on a limb here, but I reckon the curse is affecting the amount of attention people pay to the deaths in class 9-3 the same way that it makes them think a dead person is alive. The curse makes people perceive the number of deaths as nothing unusual in the same way that it also makes them perceive their dead acquaintances walking around as natural, or makes them fail to see the deceased's name on previous class registers.

** We know that the curse has the power to affect people's reasoning, memory and perceptions. I'm going out on a limb here, but I reckon the curse is affecting the amount of attention people pay to the deaths in class 9-3 the same way that it makes them think a dead person is alive. The curse makes people perceive the number of deaths as nothing unusual in the same way that also it makes them perceive their dead acquaintances walking around as natural, or makes them fail to see the deceased's name on previous class registers.

* Lots of students in 9-3 dying seems to be just a rumor outside of 9-3, and not known outside of the school, but wouldn't so many deaths in one school have been noticed by the whole town?

** The Japanese school year starts in April rather than September [[spoiler: so the countermeasures did not work at all since Mei's sister died that month. Presumably they would have to ignore one of their teachers for the countermeasures to work since there was one less seat in the staff room rather than the classroom.]]

** The Japanese school year starts in April rather than September so the countermeasures did not work at all since Mei's sister died that month. Presumably they would have to ignore one of their teachers for the countermeasures to work since there was one less seat in the staff room rather than the classroom.

** It could be that the countermeasures didn't work this year for the same unknown reason that they don't work some other years. Hell, the countermeasure this year ''was'' working for a while, but stopped in April for some reason. Maybe the curse is just more persistent in getting rid of the extra person in certain years.

* So is the reason why the counter measure didn't work this year because [[spoiler: the extra wasn't a student but a teacher/family member?]] Has something like this happened in other years too? Is this the reason why the counter measure only works some of the time? How does the curse know the difference?

*** Was it said anywhere that she didn't report it? She'd only have a vague description of him and he'd have time to get away since he's on the opposite side of the river, so it's possible she reported it and he just escaped.

** So why did Misaki fail to report a murder that she witnessed firsthand to the police?

** Random lunatic.

* So who was the student who [[spoiler:stabbed Reiko? I thought that it looked like Kouichi himself with hair over his eyes, but this wasn't referred to in any way after the scene. So was it just some random lunatic, or did Kouichi commit a murder that the curse prevented him from remembering?]]

** Family members up to two degrees of separation are affected by the curse.

* Why would [[spoiler: Mei's sister Misaki]] be counted as a death due to the curse? Was she counted as being part of Class 3-3?

** Perhaps it's trying to kill the extra specifically, but the curse is no better at figuring it out than a human...so it just kills at random, hoping to get the extra at some point.

* Why does the curse kill so many people? If the premise behind it is that it's balancing out the uneven roster due to the Extra, shouldn't it need to only kill one person?

** Alternatively, outside of Class 3 the story itself may have distorted in retelling and most of the student body does think Misaki was a girl.

** This is just an issue of something getting LostInTranslation. In Japanese, you can easily get by with non-gendered pronouns or no pronouns at all. The Japanese script ''very lightly'' implies that Misaki was a girl, and the English translation (which is likely going on an episode-to-episode basis as opposed to really knowing the whole plot) pretty much had to run with Misaki being a "she" without realizing that there would be consequences.

* Why is it that Misaki, the dead student, is suddenly a boy? In the first episode Misaki is referred to as a girl, but now the old teacher said that she was a he. I suppose it's not really that significant but it's bugging me...

** Moving to other classrooms and changing the class's name didn't work, so presumably this would be a similar cheat. Or maybe the curse would start affecting the classroom the student transferred to. The explanation of the charm made it sound like they had tried every conceivable solution before they found the one that worked.

* So how does the ignored student actually get anywhere in their studies? Keep in mind that they're in their last year of middle school--a year spent doing nothing is ''very bad'' considering upcoming high school applications and how that would feed into college prospects. Since only 3-3 has to follow the charm to letter, I assume Mei can simply bop over to the staffroom and have another teacher correct her homework or something?
* Why not simply transfer one, randomly chosen student to another class once the school year has started? That way there would be a right number of students on the class, and no-one would have to be excluded so harshly.

* So how does the ignored student actually get anywhere in their studies? Keep in mind that they're in their last year of middle school--a year spent doing nothing is ''very bad'' considering upcoming high school applications and how that would feed into college prospects. Since only 3-3 has to follow the charm to letter, I assume Mei can simply bop over to the staffroom and have another teacher correct her homework or something?

* So how does the ignored student actually get anywhere in their studies? Since only 3-3 has to follow the charm to letter, I assume Mei can simply bop over to the staffroom and have another teacher correct her homework or something?