History Literature / Another

Twenty-six years ago, in the 9th grade's class 3 (Class 3-3) of Yomiyama North Middle School, there was a student named Misaki. As an honors student who was also good at sports, the charming boy was popular with his classmates. When he suddenly died, his classmates decided to carry on as if he were still alive until graduation. Then, in the spring of 1998, a boy named Kouichi Sakakibara transfers to that classroom, and he grows suspicious of the fearful atmosphere in that classroom. In particular, he becomes curious about an aloof girl with doll-like beauty named Mei Misaki who wears an eyepatch and is always alone, drawing pictures.

* BeachEpisode: Episode 8.

** Finally, in Episode 12, Mei finally reveals to Kouichi who the extra was (she did try earlier, but was interrupted by Teshigawara). When he asks her why she didn't tell him sooner, she says that he wouldn't of believed her anyway. Probably could've saved a lot of deaths had she of communicated this sooner, but everything fits together once they replay all the clues sprinkled out throughout the series at once for anyone who missed it.

** Akazawa has signs of being a very mild example. Were her actions not clearly spiteful, she'd be classified as a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] ClingyJealousGirl. In Episode 10, she randomly decides to blame Mei [[spoiler:for the reactivation of the curse]]. When Sakakibara attempts to defend Mei, the camera focuses on her angrily biting her lower lip. On top of that, the episode opened with Akazawa having a dream about Sakakibara that exemplified her growing feelings for him. Clearly, Akazawa is very jealous of Mei for how close she and Sakakibara have become. In Episode 12, she seems almost excited in getting rid of her "rival" for him, and hated how he keeps interrupting her. Then she seems to simply give up and [[IfICantHaveYou considers killing him as well.]]

* GenderBlenderName: In a minor twist (due to Japanese's general lack of gendered pronouns), the Misaki from 1972 was a ''boy''. Although it should be noted that for 1972!Misaki it's his given name, while for 1998!Misaki it's her family name.

* {{Gorn}}
* GratuitousEnglish: The anime's episode titles.

* AccidentalMurder: Katsumi Matsunaga accidentally killed a student in his class when they were fighting during the summer trip. [[spoiler: The kid turned out to be the extra student, thus making Matsunaga realise what had to be done to lift the curse.]]

** Mei's mother. Mei confirms that her mother wouldn't care even if she was aware of how her daughter was being treated at school [[spoiler: as if she didn't even exist.]] This is because [[spoiler: as she's not in the healthiest mental state. In fact, she's not even Mei's (biological) mother.]]

* ArcWords: "Misaki's not dead." has been said a few times. One was by a random student narrating the beginning of the Anime. The other was said by Mei herself, when explaining the story to Kouichi. Lastly, Kouichi shouts it when [[spoiler: Izumi tries to kill Mei.]]
** [[spoiler: Send the Dead Back to Death]] is also one.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Real fire would burn much, much faster in addition to producing massive quantities of smoke. Also, yanking someone up by the throat the way [[spoiler: Takako]] dies is much more likely to either rip their head completely off or break their neck. Death by hanging actually usually snaps your neck from the drop; you're only strangled to death if you have an incompetent or sadistic executioner. The Calamity apparently qualifies as both, though.

** [[spoiler:In Episode 11 Yumi Ogura and Takako Sugiura (obviously from the trauma of witnessing her brother's death and long-suffered mental instability respectively), as well as the inn's landlady who's gone insane from her grandson's death. Eventually almost all of the students turn to this upon learning of the confession.]]
** [[spoiler: In Episode 12 Kazami appears again and starts killing off students, wanting to kill the extra student first before another attempt can be made on his life.]]

** The anime has a similar ending, [[spoiler: except worse since Akazawa and Kazami both die at the mansion.]] The ending of the original novel is on par with this, as [[spoiler:Akazawa breaks her neck when she falls from a veranda.]]
*** The ending is also heartbreaking and a SequelHook TearJerker. [[spoiler: Sure, you manage to end the dreaded Class 3-3 curse for this year for now, but over half the class and many of the classmates's family members are dead. And Mei, Koichi, and the remaining surviving students recorded a tape and hid the tape in the locker with valuable information about the curse, implying that the Class 3-3 curse hasn't ended ''permanently''.]]

* BoltOfDivineRetribution: In the anime, [[spoiler: Izumi is killed when one of these causes a window to shatter, impaling her with the shards]].
* BreatherEpisode: Invoked example with the anime's Episode 8, which is also a BeachEpisode. [[spoiler:This comes right after Kouichi himself gets {{Unperson}}ed, Mr. Kubodera commits a very public suicide, and very strong evidence arises that Kouichi is the dead student]]. Everyone is exhausted by the events in Yomiyama, and the downplayed soundtrack and the emptiness of the beach make the entire affair feel like a rather futile attempt to relax in the wake of the recent disasters. [[spoiler: Too bad it doesn't last.]]

* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: Initially implied that only Kouichi and those near death can see Mei. [[spoiler: Then later subverted when it turns out to be an example of {{Unperson}}.]]
* CatapultNightmare: Kouichi has one in Episode 7 and 9.
* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler: Takako's]] justification for the glass to attack Mei: [[spoiler: her eyepatch]] is a sign she came back incomplete. Somewhat tragic, since [[spoiler: Takako]] is actually confusing [[spoiler: Mei]] and her [[spoiler: twin sister, Misaki]]; this is made doubly so if you know something about Japanese culture: [[spoiler: Takako]] remembers someone who looked ''just like'' [[spoiler: Mei]] named [[spoiler: Misaki]], but who, of course, had [[spoiler: both eyes]]. She assumes this means [[spoiler: Mei]] came back incomplete and is therefore the Extra. However, in Japanese culture, you only use first names with ''very'' close friends or family (Izumi and Takako are described as being "joined at the hip" in the novel and first-name each other, and Izumi specifically asks Kouichi for permission to call him this way in the anime). Thus, [[spoiler: Takako]] isn't being entirely truthful when she says she "knew" [[spoiler: Mei]] years earlier: they were actually fairly close friends, and now she thinks her old best friend is undead and causing her friends and classmates to die, and the only way to make it stop is to kill her.

** And again when [[spoiler: Nakao gets hit by a motorboat propeller (the next episode revealed he was dead already) and thrown into the air]].
** It was apparently deemed graphic enough for [[spoiler: Takako to be shown in close up twice with her eyes bulging out of her skull that the upper half of her head is censored whenever her body is shown.]]

* CounterpartComparison: Sums up the whole anime as it is ''Franchise/FinalDestination'''s [[SpiritualSuccessor spiritual cousin]].

* DemotedToExtra: Kazami in the anime. Despite being one of Kouchi's friends and a member of the mystery-solving gang in the manga, he's pretty much sent off-screen after the beginning of the anime. [[spoiler: And then he starts killing people.]] In a literal sense, [[spoiler: Chibiki]] becomes this in the film adaptation.

** In the next to last episode, [[spoiler: Takako]] mentions if [[spoiler: Izumi]] had been killed by the homicidal psychopath [[spoiler: Takako]] herself has just barely survived, she isn't sure she'd be able to go on, as [[spoiler: all her friends would be dead.]]

* DiesWideOpen: Several times. Basically whenever a character's face is shown before their death, their eyes will be open. Special mention goes to [[spoiler: Takako]], whose eyes are actually censored when her body is shown after her death.

** And in the manga, [[spoiler: Akazawa]] tries to kill Mei by stabbing her in the eye. [[spoiler: She fails because she went for the doll eye and Mei comes out unharmed.]]

* FallingChandelierOfDoom: In the anime's opening. [[spoiler: One does fall on a group of students in Episode 12, but in a subversion, everyone trapped under it survive, and the one who manages to get out from under it [[KarmicDeath (without trying to free the others)]] gets crushed by a falling pillar after running away.]]

** Sanae Mizuno is a lovely-looking SchoolNurse, and once the camera focuses on her nice ass. [[spoiler: This takes place when she falls victim to an ElevatorFailure, so her butt's on sight ''right before she's crushed to death''.]]
** The BeachEpisode features many cute teenagers of both genders in swimsuits. Then, [[spoiler: Nakao suffers a fatal aneurysm when he's swimming.]] ''Then'' [[spoiler: Nakao's lifeless body is accidentally chopped up by a speeding boat's propeller.]] And the kid's still swimsuit-clad schoolmates, including the very pretty Izumi whose light-blue bikini flaunts her curves and the PrettyBoy Kouichi who is [[ShirtlessScene just in his swim trunks]], can only look in horror.
** The [[spoiler: massacre at the inn]] takes place one night and it involves many good-looking teenagers [[spoiler: snapping and killing one another in rage and despair after Mei is believed to be the Extra.]] It includes "lovely" scenes like [[spoiler: the cute Matsuko being almost blown up when she's in a top crop and shorts]], [[spoiler: a shot of Takako's long legs as she's about to be slowly strangled with cables]], [[spoiler: the PrettyBoy Makoto having his long hair blow in the wind right before he's fatally incinerated]], etc.
* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: The current Class 3-3 finds out that a student from a previous class figured out how to stop the curse and left behind an audio tape to record his discovery in case his memories were rewritten. [[spoiler: Afterwards, the surviving students leave behind a new recording for the next class to find.]]

* FourIsDeath: The elevator Sanae rides in Episode [[StealthPun 4]] is missing the sign for the fourth floor, as a nod to this trope. [[spoiler: That doesn't stop the elevator from malfunctioning, though. Poor Sanae...]]
* FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler: Things were bad enough leading up to Episode 10, but once they visit the vacation resort? Let's just say that blood flood in The Shining has nothing on this...]]

** It's not really clear if [[spoiler: Takako]] could have been stopped with reason. The fact nobody even ''tries'' falls firmly into this category.
* IllGirl: Kouichi is introduced as an IllBoy, his left lung having collapsed[[note]]for those curious this is know as a "[[https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/primary-spontaneous-pneumothorax spontaneous pneumothorax]]"[[/note]] on the day of his fifteenth birthday. Takabayashi is also one, explained as some sort of heart condition. [[spoiler: Misaki Fujioka is a far more typical example. She dies of leukemia in the anime, and of an unspecific kidney disease in the manga.]]

* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:Akazawa]] basically turns the whole class against Mei with their speech in Episode 10. To be fair, nobody had any idea [[spoiler:that Mei's actions as 'the nonexistent' ''couldn't'' have anything to do with the start of calamity at the point Kouichi transferred, so Akazawa's reasoning was valid.]] [[spoiler:Kazami]] murders a student in the last episode while she's begging Kouichi to help her, and shows exactly no remorse over it, even when he learns she wasn't the Extra. To put this in perspective, [[spoiler: Takako]] ''does'' explain she's unwilling to [[spoiler: kill Kouichi]] because she's convinced he isn't the Extra. When [[spoiler: Akazawa]] beats him to death almost immediately thereafter, you can't help but feel by now he had it coming.

*** [[spoiler: Kazami]] has just murdered two of her classmates and is about to kill a third on the ''off'' chance they might be the Extra, and Mei apparently very violently murdered [[spoiler: her best friend]]. Most people would be homicidally furious at that point.

* LaserGuidedKarma: One student who becomes trapped under the fallen chandelier in Episode 12 manages to free himself and bolts for the door without helping the others. [[spoiler: He is immediately crushed by a fallen pillar while the rest of students who were trapped survive.]]

* LovecraftianSuperPower: Mei's ability to [[spoiler: see when people are going to die]]. It's subtle, but she says that [[spoiler: the person is highlighted in a color outside the spectrum]]. She covers that eye with an eyepatch because this ability makes her uncomfortable, but think about the implications if she embraced it...
* LoveDodecahedron: The chain of attraction within the group of main characters is hinted in the anime: Teshigawara -> Izumi -> Kouichi -> Mei. [[AllLoveIsUnrequited The last one may be reciprocated]]. Yukari Sakuragi and Aya Ayano seemed to be interested in Kouichi too [[spoiler: but both girls die]], and Kazami apparently had a thing for Yukari, [[spoiler: as the audience learned [[{{Yandere}} when he went nuts partly because of it]].]] [[spoiler: Izumi explains Takako's emotional instability is due to their previous trip to the beach, wherein Junta was very horrifically killed. While everyone else is horrified speechless, Takako screams very loudly, and is very nearly inconsolable at his funeral in the next episode. After surviving an encounter with the homicidal inn-keeper, she also admits to Izumi if the other girl had died ''too'', she'd probably not be able to keep going her self.]]

** How [[spoiler: Yukari Sakuragi]] dies. You will never look at umbrellas the same way again.

** [[spoiler: Takako]]'s death in the anime. A fire from earlier in the episode wells up and create an explosion from the backdraft, which destroys some of the building's foundations. [[spoiler: She then gets caught in some of the loose wires, which are somehow hoisted into the air and end up strangling her to death]]. The fact that none of this should be physically possible doesn't lessen it any.

** Takako is one of these in the film. She tries to sit with the main characters at the Inn toward the end (and has to be berated by Izumi to keep from doing so) and flatly refuses to help [[spoiler: Izumi and Takeru]] attack [[spoiler: Kouichi and Mei]] when evidence points to them being the Extra, because they may be wrong and ''that's still murder.'' She nearly gets killed herself for this.

*** [[spoiler: played with when the audience learns that killing the extra classmate will stop the curse, there's a character that is in some sense responsible for the string of deaths but even they don't know it, and never take action to harm anyone. When Reiko turns out to be the dead one we're left wondering if killing her was justified in the first place as she never did anything wrong.]]

** The curse [[spoiler: tries to get rid of the dead person in Class 3 just like the humans are trying to do. The problem is it's non-sentient and therefore has no qualms with indiscriminately killing the other children until it guesses right.]]
*** How non-malcious the Calamity is can be debated, given how the deaths in the anime seem to directly cause each other. [[spoiler: Yukari's]] death causes [[spoiler: Tomohiko]] to snap and murder two of his classmates in cold blood, and it would have been three had [[spoiler: Izumi]] not intervened. The deaths of [[spoiler: Aya]] and [[spoiler: her big brother]] depress [[spoiler: Yumi]] to the point she's willing to recklessly attack another classmate she believes is the Extra, which ends up killing her. [[spoiler: Ikuo's]] death causes his grandmother to lose her mind and attack several other people, including her husband. An encounter with her, combined with [[spoiler: Junta's]] violent demise a few episodes earlier prompts [[spoiler: Takako]] to play Matsunaga's tape for the rest of class, before incorrectly identifying [[spoiler: Mei (who else?)]] as the Extra. Her fairly avoidable death (because nobody tried to explain this was wrong) causes [[spoiler: Izumi]] to attack [[spoiler: Mei]] herself, not because she believes her, but because she thinks [[spoiler: Mei]] murdered her best friend.
*** The maliciousness of the Calamity is also questionable based on the fact that for the past twenty-six years, it has tried to kill people from the beginning of the school year until graduation. That means that if it really is [[spoiler: an attempt to get rid of the extra person in Class 3, it has done a really, really bad job. Instead, it seems like it could be a punishment against the class for merely existing as a place that welcomes the dead.]]

* PetTheDog: [[spoiler: Takako]] isn't willing to actually go the extra mile and kill [[spoiler: Kouichi]] specifically because she's convinced he isn't the Extra, even though it'd make her life a ''lot'' easier if she did because [[WellIntentionedExtremist she'd be able to protect everyone else]]. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: Tomohiko and Izumi]] don't show any similar restraint.

** We also have an example of an inverse of this trope in the series. When the boys go in search of a clue to how to end the calamity, they decide not to tell anyone about what they are doing. Except they run into Yumi Ogura and Aya Ayano along the way and fill them in on their intentions. [[spoiler: If they had stuck to their guns, Ogura would never have let that information slip to Izumi and Takako, which would prevent them listening to the tape and inspiring an unhinged Takako from making a general announcement that inspires half the class to try and kill Mei at the climax of the series.]]

** This can be interpreted other ways, however. While the attachment is definitely ''not'' healthy, it doesn't need to be romantic. She explains she's unwilling to kill [[spoiler: Kouichi]] because Izumi apparently has some feelings for him, and her exact words when she last speaks to Izumi are "If you had died ''too''...," suggesting the other was [[spoiler: Junta]], killed a few episodes previously. You can read this as a shy girl who's already lost one friend to the Calamity and can't bear the thought of the other being killed too.
* QuestionableConsent: Mei is given the option to refuse [[spoiler: becoming the non-existent student]]. However, she's also told that if she does, [[spoiler: any deaths that occur that year will be her fault]].
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Chibiki in Episode 12, who stops [[spoiler: Izumi attacking Kazami]] and points out that needlessly killing other students is ''not'' the best way to go about things. At the same time, Izumi points out, up until this point he's done absolutely ''fuck all'' to help them (taking the first possible opportunity to leave the Inn and therefore not being present to deal with the homicidal old lady wandering around knifing people among many others).
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Mei. [[spoiler: But underneath her emotionless persona, she's actually a NiceGirl.]]

* TheStinger: In the anime, [[spoiler: Teshigawara and Mochizuki]] are shown putting away a [[spoiler: new version of the tape]] that explains how to stop the calamity for the next Class 3 to find.

** After [[spoiler: Mr. Kubodera kills himself]] one of the students throws up - we don't see it but the audio is still there.

** Subverted at first in Episode 3 when Mei removes her eyepatch [[spoiler: to reveal she has a doll's eye]] (note that Episode 2 before it played this as a huge CliffHanger). Then played straight at the end of the episode when [[spoiler: Sakuragi]] is impaled by an umbrella.

** Akazawa has signs of being a very mild example. Were her actions not clearly spiteful, she'd be classified as a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] ClingyJealousGirl. In Episode 10 she randomly decides to blame Mei [[spoiler: for the reactivation of the curse]]. When Sakakibara attempts to defend Mei, the camera focuses on her angrily biting her lower lip. On top of that, the episode opened with Akazawa having a dream about Sakakibara that exemplified her growing feelings for him. Clearly, Akazawa is very jealous of Mei for how close she and Sakakibara have become. In Episode 12, she seems almost excited in getting rid of her "rival" for him, and hated how he keeps interrupting her. Then she seems to simply give up and [[IfICantHaveYou considers killing him as well.]]

* YouDontLookLikeYou: Some of the character designs were changed quite a bit between the manga and anime. Compare Mochizuki and Teshigawara from the [[http://tinyurl.com/86p36n3 manga]] to the [[http://tinyurl.com/7tpkmle anime]]. [[spoiler: Reiko and Ms. Mikami's]] designs are flipped between the manga and anime. Takako's manga appearance is recycled for another student, Sayuri, in the manga.

** Increasingly between Mei and Kouichi. Not much else to happen when they have no one else to talk to.

* TheTease: Not intentionally on their part, but every warm moment where Mei and Kouichi are face to face, with the music playing in the background, you'd think they were about to kiss and they don't.

* [[ButYourWingsAreBeautiful But Your Eye Is Beautiful:]] Kouichi is the only one to compliment Mei on her doll's eye.

* StrawManHasaPoint: During the dinner confrontation at the Inn in the novel, Takako's sole real contribution to the narrative is to suggest, had Kouichi not stopped to talk to Mei, or at least, had Yukari not ''seen'' the two of them flagrantly breaking the rules, she wouldn't have panicked and [[spoiler: fallen to her death running the other way.]] Kouichi himself admits she probably has a point there. Interestingly, despite having a much larger role in the anime, this scene is ''not'' [[PetTheDog present (it's referred to earlier by Aya, but only insofar as to mention Takako saw Yukari's death, but that's it).]]

** It was apparently deemed graphic enough for [[spoiler: Takako to be shown in close up twice with her eyes bulging out of her skull that the upper half of her head is sensored whenever her body is shown.]]

* GroinAttack: Kouichi gets one from [[spoiler: Takako]] in Episode 11. He gets another one from [[spoiler: Izumi]] in almost the exact same place for more or less the exact same reason in the finale.

* AHouseDivided: [[spoiler: The summer trip.]] By counting students only, the curse doubled the number of all victims that year just in one day of it.

** [[spoiler: Mr. Kubodera (Class 3's teacher)]] does this to himself with a ''kitchen knife'' in the neck.

** There's also Makoto Ouji in Episode 11. [[spoiler:Teshigawa and Mochizuki both warn him and his friend Saruta about the fire in the dining room. So what's the first thing Makoto does when he leaves his room? Checks the dining room, of course!]]
* TookALevelInJerkass: In episode 10 [[spoiler: Izumi forces Mei to "apologize" for this year's calamity]] even though Kouichi, Teshigawara and Mochisuki call her out on how pointless it was. To be fair, Mei's attitude up to this point, where it appears her negligence has caused the Calamity to start in the first place, doesn't make it seem like this way to the rest of the class; to them, Mei's a selfish sociopath who doesn't care the rests of them are dying because of a mistake she made.

** The English dub of Teshigawara's entrance [[spoiler: before he revealed he nearly killed Kazami]].

** [[spoiler: Junta Nakao's demise]] is very reminiscent of ''Film/{{Jaws}}''. Though [[spoiler: it was an aneurism that killed him, before the boat chopped him up.]]

* SoundOnlyDeath: [[spoiler: Mizuno's]] death is done like this in the novel, due to it being completely from Koichi's point of view. We only hear the horrific sounds through his phone, and later find out what actually happened.

* TomatoSurprise: The fact that [[spoiler: his aunt Reiko and his teacher Ms. Mikami are the same person]] is not a secret to Kouichi, but the anime hides it from the audience until the final episode, making it harder to connect the dots leading to [[spoiler:the "Extra's" identity]].
* TooDumbToLive:

** There's also Makoto Ouji in Episode 11. [[spoiler: Teshigawa and Mochizuki both warn him and his friend Saruta about the fire in the cafeteria. So what's the first thing Makoto does when he leaves his room? Checks the cafeteria, of course!]]

* EyesDoNotBelongThere: The opening features a ''chandelier'' with eyeballs instead of lights.

* ParentalAbandonment: Kouichi's father is a professor who's currently in India (leaving him in the care of his grandmother) while his mother passed away while giving birth to him. Mei stays at her aunt's house while her father's in Germany.

* GirlishPigtails: Izumi.

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The kind of catastrophic ElevatorFailure depicted is ''very'' unlikely because of the multiple safety mechanisms in modern elevators. In the first place, there are usually multiple hoist cables, which can individually hold up the car's entire weight and collectively hold up multiple times the car's weight. It would take a ''real'' freak accident to sever them all at once. If the computer controlling the elevator detects anything unsafe, it will shut off the motor and apply the brakes, which include both a clamp that closes on the pulley above the car, and safety brakes underneath the car that jam a metal brake into the guide rails along which the elevator travels. Lastly, there is a set of counterweights on the opposite end of the cables that attatch to the car, which weigh slightly more than an empty car and slightly more than a full car, so that even if every other safety system failed the ascent or descent would accelerate only slowly, and the car would eventually come to a rough but hopefully survivable stop. Whatever the case, the elevator would not immediately plunge uncontrolled down the shaft in the manner depicted just from some cables snapping. Granted, a supernatural curse could contrive such a catastrophic failure across multiple systems, but the police talk as if the cables snapping was the only thing that caused the accident.

* DemotedToExtra: Kazami in the anime. Despite being one of Kouchi's friends and a member of the mystery-solving gang in the manga, he's pretty much sent off-screen after the beginning of the anime. [[Spoiler: And then he starts killing people.]] In a literal sense, [[spoiler: Chibiki]] becomes this in the film adaptation.

** Sanae Mizuno is a lovely-looking SchoolNurse, and once the camera focuses on [[http://imgur.com/aFXYD1j her nice ass]]. [[spoiler: This takes place when she falls victim to an ElevatorFailure, so her butt's on sight ''right before she's crushed to death''.]]

** Sanae Mizuno is a lovely-looking SchoolNurse, and once the camera focuses on her nice ass. [[spoiler: This takes place when she falls victim to an ElevatorFailure, so her butt's on sight ''right before she's crushed to death''.]]

* LoveDodecahedron: The chain of attraction within the group of main characters is hinted in the anime: Teshigawara -> Izumi -> Kouichi -> Mei. [[AllLoveIsUnrequited The last one may be reciprocated]]. Yukari Sakuragi and Aya Ayano seemed to be interested in Kouichi too [[spoiler: but both girls die]], and Kazami apparently had a thing for Yukari, [[spoiler: as the audience learned [[{{Yandere}} when he went nuts partly because of it]].]] [[spoiler: Izumi explains Takako's emotional instability is due to their previous trip to the beach, wherein Junta was very horrifically killed. While everyone else is horrified speach less, Takako screams very loudly, and is very nearly inconsolable at his funeral in the next episode. After surviving an encounter with the homicidal inn-keeper, she also admits to Izumi if the other girl had died ''too'', she'd probably not be able to keep going her self.]]

* CounterpartComparison: Sums up the whole anime as it is [[FinalDestination Final Destination's]] [[SpiritualSuccessor spiritual cousin]].

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The instance of ElevatorFailure focuses on the accident which causes the cables holding the elevator up to snap, but for the elevator to freefall down the shaft would also require the safety breaks to malfunction, a very unlikely occurence. This mechanism, invented by Elisha Otis all the way back in 1852, causes the elevator to stick in the shaft the instant the tension goes out of the cables and was the main selling point by which he was able to convince prospective buyers that elevators were safe. Perhaps the curse could have contrived a way for this safety to fail, but the police don't even mention the safety mechanism in their report. There are rare instances in which elevators kill people, but these accidents tend to involve the elevator mangling people who were caught between the car and the shaft, or ascending or descending in an uncontrolled fashion, rather than from the car going into freefall.

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The instance of ElevatorFailure focuses on the accident which causes the cables holding the elevator up to snap, but for the elevator to freefall down the shaft would also require the safety breaks to malfunction, a very unlikely occurence. This mechanism, invented by Elisha Otis all the way back in 1852, causes the elevator to stick in the shaft the instant the tension goes out of the cables and was the main selling point by which he was able to convince prospective buyers that elevators were safe. Perhaps the curse could have contrived a way for this safety to fail, but the police don't even mention the safety mechanism in their report. There are rare instances in which elevators kill people, but these accidents tend to involve the elevator mangling people who were caught between the car and the shaft, or ascending or descending in an uncontrolled fashion, rather than going into freefall.

* IllGirl: Kouichi is introduced as an IllBoy, his left lung having collapsed on the day of his fifteenth birthday. Takabayashi is also one, explained as some sort of heart condition. [[spoiler: Misaki Fujioka is a far more typical example. She dies of leukemia in the anime, and of an unspecific kidney disease in the manga.]]