Line #56 Literature/Another


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/another_main.png]]
2
3	->''"The school is a place that is very close to death, especially the 9th grade's class 3. It's much, much closer to it than the other classes."''
4	-->--'''Mei Misaki'''
5
6	A horror/mystery novel by Yukito Ayatsuji which was published in 2009, and later adapted into manga and a 2012 anime by Creator/PAWorks.
7
8	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. Soon, students around him start dying in gruesome ways, and now Kouichi has to solve the mystery of the event that has taken the lives of so many students throughout the classroom's history if he wants to break the cycle of death that has plagued this school for decades.
9
10	For those in the US, the series can be watched legally at [[http://www.crunchyroll.com/another Crunchyroll]] and [[http://theanimenetwork.com/Anime/Another/Watch The Anime Network]].
11
12	A LiveActionAdaptation in a form of a movie aired in Japan on August 4, 2012.
13
14	A spinoff novel, entitled ''Another: Episode S'' was released in Japan on July 31, 2013 (with an American version coming May 24th, 2016), and a sequel entitled ''Another 2001'' was released on September 30, 2020.
15
16	Compare ''Franchise/FinalDestination'' for another work in which people die from bizarre, supernatural "accidents."
17
18	----
19	!!This series provides examples of:
20	* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: In this case, an absurdly powerful class officer in the form of Izumi Akazawa, "Head of Countermeasures". It's justified and downplayed in that while her resources and power are limited mostly to the class and some school faculty, she is nonetheless responsible for researching, devising and implementing "[[ProtectiveCharm Charms]]" that can keep the class safe and ''alive''. [[spoiler:For example, she has the power to UnPerson a classmate, as done to Mei and later when she decided to "strengthen" the charm by also unpersoning Kouichi. And can get the faculty to follow along. A previous officer many years ago came up with the idea, showing the position is historically quite powerful.]]
21	* 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.]]
22	* AdultsAreUseless:
23	** 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.]]
24	** The school administration is not very helpful with preventing the curse, putting a transfer student in class 3-3 (resulting in the class's initial PoorCommunicationKills problem) and making Ms. Mikami the assistant homeroom teacher (she had already had a harrowing experience as class 3-3's homeroom teacher two years prior). Turns out the latter was necessary because [[spoiler:she's the extra person and ''has'' to be in the class, even if FakeMemories result in a backstory that would make the homeroom teacher appointment seem unwise]].
25	* AlliterativeName: Mei Misaki.
26	* AlternateContinuity: All the versions are this to each other, to various degrees. The anime has some deaths either occurring differently, happening to different people, or not happening at all compared to the light novel and manga versions, while sometimes it covers parts of the original novel which the manga skips or changes.
27	* AnimationBump: Episodes 7 and 12. Note that since this is an anime out of Creator/PAWorks, the animation quality is ''already'' sky-high, so receiving a bump in quality over that is damn impressive.
28	* AnyoneCanDie: "Anyone" and "Can" hardly come close to describing it.
29	* ApocalypticLog: In the form of an audio cassette, detailing the doomed expedition to Yomiyama Shrine. Unfortunately, circumstance conspires to screw said cassette before Sakakibara and co. get to the most important part.
30	* ArcWords:
31	** "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.]]
32	** "[[spoiler:Send the Dead Back to Death]]" is also one.
33	* 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 attach to the car, which weigh slightly more than an empty car and slightly less 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.
34	* 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.
35	* AxCrazy:
36	** [[spoiler:Mr. Kubodera ''pulls a kitchen knife'' on the students in an attempt to fight off the curse. Instead he just kills himself with the knife, but then it turns out that he killed his mother long beforehand.]]
37	** [[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.]]
38	** [[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.]]
39	* BeachEpisode: Episode 8. Reiko, Kouichi and several of his classmates take a trip outside of Yomiyama (and outside of the curse's reach) to ask Matsunaga about how he stopped the curse.
40	* BetweenMyLegs: An unpleasant example in episode 11, when [[spoiler:Takako dies]], showing her legs slowly stop moving, and [[spoiler:Mei's reaction to the happening through her legs]].
41	* BittersweetEnding:
42	** The manga. [[spoiler:Most of the main cast survives, the curse is stopped mid-year, Akazawa recovers from her paranoia and Kazami apparently forgives Teshigawara for trying to kill him... But Kouichi had to kill his own aunt and will likely forget about her along with everyone else. To top it off, the curse was only stopped for this year.]]
43	** 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.]]
44	*** 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''.]]
45	* BloodyHorror: [[spoiler:Mr. Kubodera's]] suicide. He plunges a knife into his throat, ''repeatedly'', in full view of the entire class, [[BloodSplatteredInnocents spraying some of them with his blood]].
46	* ABloodyMess: At the beginning of Episode 8, someone is being egged on to do something then you see a splash of red. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a smashed watermelon.]]
47	* BodyHorror: Some of the {{Creepy Doll}}s invoke this; one has an open skull with roses spilling out, while another has tentacles emerging from her eye sockets.
48	* BoltOfDivineRetribution: In the anime, [[spoiler:Izumi is killed when one of these causes a window to shatter, impaling her with the shards]].
49	* 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.]]
50	* BrokenMasquerade: [[spoiler:After it turns out that their {{Unperson}}ing didn't stop the deaths, everyone stops bothering to ignore Kouichi and Mei, and some even work up the courage to tell their friends and family about the curse.]]
51	* ButYourWingsAreBeautiful: Kouichi is the only one to compliment Mei on her doll's eye.
52	* BystanderSyndrome: The school seems to at least be aware that something is wrong with Class 3-3, which is why they are kept separate from the other classes as much as possible. However, besides that, the school does not really do much to try and figure out or prevent the accidental deaths that plague the class.
53	* 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}}.]]
54	* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:Takako's]] justification for the class 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.
55	* CatapultNightmare: Kouichi has one in Episodes 7 and 9.
56	* CellPhonesAreUseless: One of the first signs that the curse is manifesting is when nearby phone signals start breaking up. Given that the curse is apparently sentient, these outbursts of static tend to be perfectly timed to hide important information from listeners.
57	* CensorShadow:
58	** Used somewhat in [[spoiler:Yukari Sakuragi]]'s death. There's plenty of blood shown quite explicitly but the images are noticeably darker than Kouichi's reaction shots and the wound is totally dark in wide shots.
59	** The same technique is used just after [[spoiler:Kubodera stabs himself in the neck]].
60	** And again when [[spoiler:Nakao gets hit by a motorboat propeller (the next episode revealed he was dead already) and thrown into the air]].
61	** 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.]]
62	* ClassRepresentative: Yukari Sakuragi and Tomohiko Kazami. Izumi Akazawa isn't really one [[spoiler:at least until Sakuragi dies]], but acts the part the most.
63	* ContrivedCoincidence: The curse arranges for these all the time, but a harmless one happens in Episode 8. Mei couldn't help Kouichi and friends because she went on vacation with her family. They went to the hotel Matsunaga worked at to ask him about the curse, the exact same hotel where Mei was staying at during her vacation.
64	* ConvectionSchmonvection: No-one seems to be all that inconvenienced by the fire of the vacation resort in the last episodes unless they actually touch the flames or end up under falling rubble. People walk around and talk normally even as the walls blaze all around them.
65	* ConvenientlySeated: Mei is seated in the back row by the window so she can daydream and easily exit if she so feels. [[spoiler:It also helps her classmates ignore her.]]
66	* CosmicFlaw: [[spoiler:The cause of the curse is ultimately this. After a student beloved by the whole school tragically died, they all pretended he was still alive, up until the day they graduated. However, in doing so they "brought their class closer to death", essentially causing a malfunction in reality. Thus, a single deceased person was to be resurrected every year as an extra student, with the memories of the living being rewired in accordance. Now a paranormal force is attempting to rectify this mistake, using causality to engineer the Extra's death and return them to the grave but most of the time, it is one of the ''living'' who ends up killed.]]
67	* CosmicHorrorStory: The curse is outright stated early on to be less of a curse and more of a force of nature. Add that to the fact that [[spoiler:it is never explained what it actually is, and how they only stop it for the rest of the year. It will always return the next year]].
68	* CreepyDoll: All over the anime's opening sequence... and then there's an entire doll shop/gallery full of them. Mei implies that the dolls will attempt to draw out the souls of the living. Also, in certain parts of the episodes, there are short half second cuts to creepy shots of dolls.
69	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The curse doesn't bother with killing its victims either nicely or [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident plausibly]], most of the time.
70	* {{Curse}}: The class is technically under the effect of not one but ''three''. First, a dead person (the "Extra") joins the class. The process of the Extra entering the class causes LaserGuidedAmnesia to make everyone (including themselves) forget they'd died and papering over any inconsistencies and forging documentation. The third, the "Calamity", is far more dangerous and is a response to the first. Because of the imbalance in class 3-3, there being one more person than there are assigned seats, the Calamity will start trying to [[BalancingDeathsBooks "balance the books"]] by killing the Extra. But since it is also affected by the amnesia, it kills people randomly, including family members of those in the class.
71	* CurseEscapeClause: The Calamity has no known way of being truly ended, however, the students of class 3-3 have devised a ProtectiveCharm that can keep them safe. This being to designate a student as a [[UnPerson non-person]], and having them and their homeroom teacher ignore them for the entire school year. This is believed to "balance out" the Extra student throwing off the correct number of students. However, this charm only has a 50% success rate, sometimes failing for explainable reasons (the non-person breaking under the pressure and demanding to be acknowledged) and sometimes not.
72	** Before that though, a student found an alternative solution by accident. [[spoiler:Katsumi Matsunaga of the 1983 class got into an argument with another student that turned violent, and accidentally pushed him onto a branch and he died. Wracked with guilt, and confused no one noticed the other student was missing, he returned to the scene of the crime to find nothing but broken branches. He had unknowingly killed the Extra, and this restored balance to the class. Knowing the curse caused LaserGuidedAmnesia and rewrote records, he taped his findings onto a cassette and hid it, hoping a future class could use this knowledge to save themselves.]]
73	** Pairing the above with the ability of [[spoiler:Mei Misaki to see the color of death around a person, she had identified the Extra early in the series but took no action since she had no idea killing them would restore balance. With her ability and Katsumi's knowledge, Kouichi is able to end the curse for that year by killing the Extra.]]
74	* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: A lot of characters in the anime.
75	%%* CuteClumsyGirl: Mizuno.
76	* CuttingTheElectronicLeash: Mei invokes this sometime after the [[spoiler:end of the calamity]], although she realizes her mother will probably just buy her another phone.
77	* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:Every year, a dead person appears in Class 3. They're not aware that they're dead, and the records and memories of everyone else are altered so that they were always there. As a result, the class registers as over-full, and... [[MurderIsTheBestSolution takes steps to rectify the imbalance]]. In all adaptions it's revealed that the dead person this year isn't any of the students but Ms. Mikami, the assistant homeroom teacher.]]
78	* DeathByAdaptation:
79	** [[spoiler:Kazami and Yumi Ogura.]]
80	** [[spoiler:Aya Ayano, Kenzou Kawahori, Aki Matsui, Kyouko Kaneki and Makoto Ouji are anime-only characters so their deaths only occured in the anime.]]
81	** [[spoiler:The live-action notably killed Teshigawara and Chibiki, the latter of whom becomes the "extra" for a future Class 3-3.]]
82	* DelicateAndSickly: Kouichi is introduced as an ill boy, his left lung having collapsed[[note]]for those curious, this is known 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.]]
83	* 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.
84	* DespairEventHorizon:
85	** Poor Mr. Kubodera hits one, due to the stress of having to both taking care of his very ill, very old mother (and he is a bachelor) and fighting the curse that befalls his class. The result is gruesome; [[spoiler:he kills his mother and then kills himself in front of his class]].
86	** 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.]]
87	* DerailingLoveInterests: The anime teases us with two possible options of love for Kouichi - Mei and Izumi. [[spoiler:Izumi's last actions certainly weren't pretty.]]
88	* 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.
89	* DudeLooksLikeALady: Mochizuki.
90	* ElevatorFailure: [[spoiler:Sanae Mizuno]] gets killed gruesomely inside an elevator when the cables snap and the car plummets to the bottom of the shaft. The investigation afterward finds lack of maintainence at fault, but the main characters know that the curse on class 3 was the real cause.
91	* TheEndOrIsIt: The end of the manga gives us [[spoiler:a mysterious student with a supernatural feel wandering in the empty school]]. Also, all of the continuities make clear that [[spoiler:the curse is stopped only ''this year'']].
92	* EverythingTryingToKillYou: An occupational hazard for Class 3 students. The entire mansion in the last two episodes tries the hardest.
93	* EyepatchOfPower: Mei.
94	* EyeScream:
95	** Happens during Kouichi's dream sequence in Episode 7.
96	** 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.]]
97	* EyesDoNotBelongThere: The opening features a ''chandelier'' with what appear to be eyeballs instead of lights.
98	* FakeMemories: Why nobody notices anything odd about [[spoiler:the dead student in Class 3]].
99	* 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.]]
100	* FanDisservice:
101	** 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''.]]
102	** 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.
103	** 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.
104	* 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.]]
105	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The first minute and a half of the anime's first episode is a montage of seemingly random and unconnected imagery. They are actually subtle hints at things to come.
106	** Also the early episodes have quite a few subtle hints that only make sense once we are told [[spoiler:(or notice that they have very similar character design, but more likely the former) that Reiko and Ms. Mikami are the same person, and hint that she is the dead one]].
107	** A minor one but if you look closely to Kouichi's hospital table in the first episode, the Creator/StephenKing book Mizuno points out to is ''Literature/PetSematary''. Any King fan watching would know it was all about the consequences of trying to bring the dead back to life, a recurring theme in the series.
108	** Around the time Kouichi becomes the second "non-existent" student, Mr. Kubodera says that Ms. Mikami goes along with it in spite of how difficult it is for her. [[spoiler:It's difficult because she's Kouichi's aunt]].
109	* 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...]]
110	* 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...]]
111	* 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. Averted in the film, in which 1972!Misaki was apparently female.
112	* TheGhost: Mei's father is referenced but is never seen.
113	* GirlishPigtails: Izumi. Takako has them in the manga and film; Sayuri is a carbon copy of Takako from the former, and so she also has these.
114	* {{Gorn}}: Quite a lot of it, especially [[spoiler:Yukari and Kubodera]], who both die from being stabbed in their throats.
115	* GratuitousEnglish:
116	** The anime's episode titles.
117	** In the film, Misaki wears a shirt that says "chummy" during the climax.
118	* GroinAttack: Kouichi gets one from [[spoiler:Takako]] in Episode 11.
119	* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Reiko.
120	* HereditaryTwinhood: Twins run in the Misaki family. Besides Mei and her SeparatedAtBirth twin sister Misaki their birth mother Mitsuyo was also a twin, and Mei was adopted by Yuikyo, the other sister after Yukiyo suffered the TragicStillbirth of her own child.
121	* HeterosexualLifePartners:
122	** Kazami and Teshigawara. Sakuragi and Izumi.
123	** More like Teshigawara and Mochizuki, and Izumi and Sugiura in the anime (due to Kazami being DemotedToExtra [[spoiler:and Sakuragi being killed off early on]]).
124	* HighPressureBlood: [[spoiler:When Kubodera, the cursed class' teacher commits suicide by throat-slitting. Justified in that he appeared to have severed his carotid arteries in the process.]]
125	* {{Hikikomori}}: Yumi Ogura's older brother, Atsushi.
126	* HopeSpot: One student manages to survive Episode 12's FallingChandelierOfDoom only to be crushed by a pillar as he tries to run.
127	* 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.
128	* HotTeacher: Ms. Mikami.
129	* IdiosyncraticWipes: {{Creepy Doll}}s are shown between scenes in the anime. Later episodes stop doing this.
130	* IdiotBall: Many of the characters at some point, to the point that you have to wonder whether the curse is specifically making everyone dumber so they'll be easier to kill. The group who get an idea of warning the class [[spoiler:that there's a fire ''and'' a psychotic murderer in the building]] by politely visiting every room and telling them instead of using an (existent) radio system in Episode 11 deserves a special mention.
131	** It's not really clear if [[spoiler:Takako]] could have been stopped with reason. The fact nobody even ''tries'' falls firmly into this category.
132	* ImagineSpot: Kouichi's daydreaming about dancing with Mei in the middle of class while everyone (including the teacher) is trying their hardest to ignore them.
133	* ImpromptuTracheotomy:
134	** [[spoiler:Yukari Sakuragi]] gets this through the ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath neck]]'' of all things. ''And with an umbrella'', to make it worse.
135	** [[spoiler:Mr. Kubodera (Class 3's teacher)]] does this to himself with a ''kitchen knife'' in the neck.
136	* InSeriesNickname: The nurse Mizuno calls Kouichi "Horror Teen" due to him reading horror novels. Teshigawara calls him Sakaki.
137	* {{Irony}}: The perpetually-cloudy setting and morbid students let off an atmosphere of NothingIsScarier, but the ending credits provide a stark contrast: everyone is in a beautiful mansion with large windows that let in the light of the sunny day outside. They're all smiling and seem to be relaxed, and Mei is outside on a balcony, looking at the GhibliHills that surround the mansion.
138	** Although the chord usage in the song is quite creepy (and more in-tone with the rest of the show), and the people fading in as the credits run can also be, especially as the series runs on and more people die.
139	* ItCanThink: The curse. Oh, and it is one ''sadistic'' little bastard.
140	* JapaneseSchoolClub: Mei is a member of the art club. Since the students of ''other'' classes aren't affected by the Calamity, they take her in without much trouble.
141	* 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.
142	* KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler:Sakuragi (and her mother), Takabayashi, Mizuno, Mr. Kubodera (and his mom too), Nakao, and Reiko Mikami. In the anime Kazami and Akazawa also bite the dust.]]
143	* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler:One of the students dies in a fire backdraft during the summer trip.]]
144	* KnightTemplar: Instead of the fear-fueled [[AxCrazy ax-craziness]] some of the characters give in to, Izumi's actions fall under this trope in the last episode.
145	** Kazami [[spoiler:goes on a random killing-spree ''before'' encountering the person whom he thinks is most likely to be the dead person, and it's played more like he's a villain than a victim of SanitySlippage.]] Granted, he ''did'' fall from the balcony in the previous episode...
146	** ...But Akazawa has no such excuse, when she tries to [[spoiler:''murder'' the unconscious Kazami because she feels he deserved it. And later she tries to kill Mei, while basically admitting that announcing her "the dead one" is an excuse she doesn't necessarily believe in.]]
147	*** [[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.
148	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Information that would help later victims of the curse seems to end up forgotten. The curse modifies the memories of people related to Class 3 and any kind of record that may help others figure out how to break the curse, ensuring that it will continue to claim lives.
149	* 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.]]
150	* LetThemDieHappy: [[spoiler:Kouichi got the opportunity to make Izumi happy in death by lying and telling her that he did remember their first meeting but Kouichi got hit by BrutalHonesty and told her "no." Izumi even lampshades this by calling him mean and telling him he was supposed to lie before she died.]]
151	* LimpAndLivid: [[spoiler:Kubodera]] spends a few seconds flailing and waving his knife around before plunging it into his own neck. It's implied that he's trying to fight the curse off.
152	* 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...
153	* 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.]]
154	* MadnessMantra: [[spoiler:"Send the dead back to death."]]
155	* MagicAIsMagicA: After two and a half decades of dealing with the curse, those involved with Class 3 have worked out most of the rules involving the curse, such as the fact that it can't harm you outside Yomiyama (the one time it looked like it had was a TimeDelayedDeath).
156	* MaleGaze: Ms. Mikami practically has a panty line in Episode 3.
157	* MaybeEverAfter: The anime ends on heavy ShipTease for Mei/Kouichi.
158	* MauveShirt: A whole wardrobe of them.
159	* MurderIsTheBestSolution: [[spoiler:The only way to stop the curse is to kill the dead person. Unfortunately, most people can only guess who that is, leading to a lot of innocent blood being spilled.]]
160	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "Mei" is written with the character 鳴 ("to sing, cry"), which is innocuous on its own, but she herself points out that it's used in 悲鳴 ("scream").
161	* NecroNonSequitur:
162	** How [[spoiler:Yukari Sakuragi]] dies. You will never look at umbrellas the same way again.
163	** The excavator in Episode 9.
164	** [[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.
165	** This nearly happens in Episode 12, where [[spoiler:several students are seemingly crushed by a falling chandelier in the opening scenes. The one who manages to get up and run away gets crushed by a randomly falling pillar before reaching the door while the rest survive]].
166	* NewTransferStudent: Kouichi. It gets him and his class into a ''whole'' lot of trouble.
167	* NiceGirl:
168	** The Misaki from twenty-six years ago was basically the pinnacle of perfection in both personality and academics before her death. Turns out that Misaki was actually a NiceGuy.
169	** Same could be said about both Mei. She must have been nice, if the Art Club welcomed her back with open arms. In the film, she also takes Takako's place as the Extra ''voluntarily.''
170	** Yukari is this in every version but the film (where she has very little screen time; otherwise it'd probably be true there too).
171	** 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.
172	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It's all but outright spelled out that the curse was caused by [[spoiler:the Class 3-3 of 1972 when they decided to pretend one of their deceased classmates was still alive.]]
173	* NightmareDreams: Kouichi has a nightmare about being the dead student himself in Episode 7. It involved melting faces and bleeding eye sockets.
174	* NoAntagonist:
175	** The curse is never directly personified, while various characters make bad decisions none of them are ever a real antagonist.
176	** [[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.]]
177	* NonMaliciousMonster:
178	** 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.]]
179	*** 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.
180	*** 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.]]
181	** The [[spoiler:dead person]] is also one. They're never really antagonistic, it's just that [[spoiler:their very presence causes other people to die, and they don't even realize they're responsible]].
182	* TheNothingAfterDeath: Apparently Mei saw that during her NearDeathExperience, when her eye was surgically removed.
183	--> '''Mei Misaki:''' Death isn't kind, it's dark, black and as far as you can see, you're all alone.
184	* NothingIsScarier: The oppressive atmosphere and the way everyone dances around mentioning the incident from 1972 is creepy enough on its own.
185	* OhCrap: Mochizuki and Teshigawara have this well justified reaction when in search for Ms. Mikami they find [[spoiler:the blood-covered AxCrazy inn's landlady holding a cleaver]] instead.
186	* OldSchoolBuilding: Still in active use for art lessons etc., but the classrooms moved to the newer part of the school some time after Reiko was in Class 3. Here is where [[spoiler:the ApocalypticLog from Reiko's class, the only one that stopped the disaster mid-year,]] is located.
187	* 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. Likewise, in ''Another S'', both of Teruya's parents died suddenly within a few years of each other, leaving him their sole heir.
188	* PerpetualMolt: See page image.
189	* 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.
190	* PoorCommunicationKills: Many times:
191	** Justified by a really nasty Catch-22. Class 3's continued survival depends [[spoiler:on pretending that Mei doesn't exist]]. On the other hand, explaining that to Kouichi would require them to [[spoiler:acknowledge her existence in the first place]], which would trigger the events they're trying to prevent. Needless to say, things go to hell very quickly indeed. They probably could have gotten away with it if they'd told him before he officially started attending class, but by the time they got around to it Kouichi had already [[spoiler:acknowledged Mei's existence, leaving everyone unsure as to how best to proceed]].
192	** Mei has [[spoiler:the power to detect the taint of death in people at all time]], but her classmates just have to [[spoiler:shutdown all communication channels with her]].
193	** If Mei has told anyone that Misaki was in reality [[spoiler:her twin sister]], people wouldn't be left in the dark about the progress of that year's Calamity and she wouldn't have [[spoiler:been blamed for failing as the 'nonexistent student']]. And there wouldn't be any theories about [[spoiler:her 'returning incomplete', thus being the dead person, in the Episode 11.]]
194	** There's also Mei's not telling anybody but Kouichi about her ability earlier than she did. Though given how everyone responded to [[spoiler:the knowledge of the tape and the possibility that she was the "Extra", her keeping quiet is probably justified]]. Also, in the manga version Mei tells Kouichi that her ability explicitly does ''not'' allow her [[spoiler:to see accidental deaths coming]]. This means that she couldn't necessarily save anyone or prevent their death anymore than anybody else in her position could, and could ''still'' get her blamed for failure because of it. Plus, the ability to [[spoiler:spot the "Extra" didn't have any practical use until the characters discovered the tape and learned killing them could end the Calamity]].
195	** 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 have 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. [[spoiler:Considering how her reacts when he learns that his aunt was the "extra" and he'll have to return her to death to end the curse, it isn't hard to see why she'd have trouble telling him]].
196	** 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.]]
197	* PsychoLesbian: Takako's love of Izumi is very powerful and [[{{Yandere}} very unhealthy]]. 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.
198	* 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]].
199	* 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, blaming his absence while taking a classmate suffering from anaphylactic shock to the hospital and therefore not being present to deal with the homicidal old lady wandering around knifing people among many others.
200	* RedEyesTakeWarning: Mei. [[spoiler:But underneath her emotionless persona, she's actually a NiceGirl.]]
201	* RedHerring:
202	** [[spoiler:In Episode 8, Nakao dies in spectacular fashion outside of Yomiyama, leading the audience and characters to believe that the curse is not confined to Yomiyama. In Episode 9, however, it's revealed that this is probably not the case--he may have actually died from complications from a concussion that took place in town, which one could technically count as an in-Yomiyama death.]]
203	** [[spoiler:The creepy shopkeeper whom Koichi met when he discovered the doll shop. On the first two occasions, she notably says the exact same thing to - and seemingly because of - him. This is never revealed to be anything significant.]]
204	*** [[spoiler:The shopkeeper largely only exists as part of the larger subplot of Mei being dead, even before the audience knows what that implies]]
205	** A hammer and sickle showed is displayed prominently in the OP in the hospital elevator but nothing it could reasonably be a symbol of ever develops into an actual plot point
206	*** The hospital in general appears in a lot of establishing shots and gets a lot of charaterization as being creepy despite never having any real plot significance.
207	** Let's face it: how many people didn't think at least for a while Mei is the dead person? Even the ending theme of the anime heavily implies it, with her fading away while all the other kids fade in.
208	* ReiAyanamiExpy: Mei Misaki.
209	* RepetitiveName: Discussed. [[spoiler:Mei is actually the twin of her "cousin" Misaki; Mei was adopted by her aunt Kirika Misaki, whose actual child died in childbirth. Mei speculates that she was the one given over and not Misaki for the sake of avoiding the latter's name being "Misaki Misaki"]].
210	* {{Retconjuration}}: An effect of the curse is its ability to hide the "Extra's" existence with both FalseMemories and false official paperwork. Only handwritten or handmade records seem anything close to immune.
211	* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Reiko and Ms. Mikami are the same person, and she's the dead one of the year. And Kouichi has to kill her to stop anyone else from dying.]]
212	* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler:Should Ms. Mikami be spared, or not? Notable though, that Mei ''tried'' to spare Kouichi from doing it himself.]]
213	* SanitySlippage: Happens to multiple people as the story continues and the body count rises. Gets really bad in the last two episodes, as desperate students take matters into their own hands.
214	* ScareChord: The anime is particularly fond of this.
215	* ScaryShinyGlasses: Mr. Kubodera and the doll shopkeeper.
216	* SchoolSwimsuit: Worn by Mei in Episode 8.
217	* SeparatedAtBirth: [[spoiler:Mei Misaki and Misaki Fujioka, who are twins. Mei was adopted by their aunt Yukiyo, who had a stillbirth around the same time, but later the secret came out and the pair spent all their time together.]]
218	* SequelHook: [[spoiler:The ending shows the surviving students of Class 3-3 recorded a tape about the curse and preventive measures of the calamity, indicating that the curse hasn't ended permanently. WordOfGod confirmed that he is planning to write a sequel to the story.]]
219	* TheSevenMysteries: Kouichi wonders aloud if there's a set of these related to Class 3. There isn't, although the school as a whole apparently has seven mysteries that no one seems to really care about.
220	* ShipperOnDeck: Teshigawara is the most obvious with his shipping of Mei and Koichi, but Mochizuki has a habit of leaving the two together, and near the end of the novel Koichi's narration outright suspects he's giving them some quiet time alone.
221	* ShipTease:
222	** Increasingly between Mei and Kouichi. 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.
223	** There's a bit of Kouichi/Izumi teasing in Episode 7 as well. And again when she decides to ride in whichever car Kouichi is in to the beach in Episode 8.
224	** Kazami/Yukari is teased in Episode 12; [[spoiler:Kazami is particularly enraged at Kouichi due to her death]].
225	** Also Izumi/Teshigawara in the last chapter of the manga.
226	** Izumi/Teshigawara is sort of faked out ship teased in Episode 8 as well (Izumi originally told Teshi that he was to ride in her car, momentarily giving him the impression she wanted to be together for the ride to the beach, to which he seems rather surprised/happy). It's quickly revealed that she did this to free up a spot in the car Koichi was riding in, thus the fake out.
227	* ShoutOut:
228	** Various pieces of horror fiction and their authors are often alluded to, thanks to Kouichi's interest in horror stories and Mizuno's calling attention to it. Among the name-drops are Creator/StephenKing, John Saul, and Creator/HPLovecraft. Stories include ''Film/TheOmen''.
229	** The [[ImagineSpot dance scene]] to ''Film/PulpFiction'' as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZlXOeOf6U&feature=related this video]] shows.
230	** [[spoiler:Junta Nakao's demise]] is very reminiscent of ''Film/{{Jaws}}''. Though [[spoiler:it was an aneurysm that killed him, before the boat chopped him up.]]
231	** Kouichi describes Teruya's Lakeshore Manor as looking like the house from ''The Amityville Horror.'' Mei, characteristically, doesn't get the reference.
232	* SignificantNameOverlap:
233	** The series's [[PlotTriggeringDeath plot began]] with the death of a popular student named Misaki, whose popularity caused their classsmates to [[SelectiveObliviousness deny the death and carry on as if they were still alive]]. 26 years later, a girl named Mei Misaki attends the same class and becomes central to the mystery that is going on at school. Mei also has a cousin/[[spoiler:twin sister]] named Misaki Fujioka, who also plays an important role in the plot.
234	** The novel also features Naoya Mochizuki, Yuuya's twin brother who, while never shown, shares his name with Kouichi's closest male friend. ''Another S'' stars Teruya Sakaki, whose real name is the same as Naoya's nickname for Koichi; Mei describes him to Kouichi as "the other Sakaki."
235	* SilentSceneryPanel: The manga has lots of these. For example the OldSchoolBuilding is introduced this way
236	* SkinshipGrope: In the OVA Misaki gets rather touchy-feely with her sister/cousin Mei while bathing together.
237	* 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.
238	* SoundtrackDissonance: The OnTheNext preview for Episode 8 (which is a BeachEpisode) still uses the disturbing tune for other episodes' next week preview.
239	* SparedByTheAdaptation: Manabu Maejima and Shigeki Yonemura in the anime and Izumi Akazawa in the manga. Takako Sugiura, of all people, manages to survive to the end of the film
240	* SpookyPhotographs: The dead student is eventually revealed in this manner when they turn out blurred-out and smoky in photos.
241	* StealthHiBye: Mei pulls one on Kouichi in the doll shop in Episode 3.
242	* 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.
243	* 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).]]
244	* SuddenlySober: Reiko comes home drunk and slurring in Episode 3 but is somewhat alarmed and completely loses the slur when Kouichi brings up the incident from 1972.
245	* ThoseTwoGuys: Teshigawara and Mochizuki, [[SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan the jock and the feminine one, respectively]].
246	* TimeDelayedDeath: [[spoiler:Nakao's death wasn't actually caused by being dismembered by the motorboat, but from an earlier fall which caused an aneurysm in his brain which burst a few hours later when he was in the sea.]]
247	* 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]].
248	* TooDumbToLive:
249	** Nakao is afflicted with this in Episode 8 when he goes way too far into the ocean to retrieve a beach ball. [[spoiler:Justified in the next episode - turns out that he was suffering from a severe (and eventually fatal) head injury at the time.]]
250	** 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 hall. So what's the first thing Makoto does when he leaves his room? Checks the dining hall, of course!]]
251	* TookALevelInJerkass: In episode 10, [[spoiler:Izumi forces Mei to "apologize" for this year's calamity]] even though Kouichi, Teshigawara and Mochizuki 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.
252	* TownWithADarkSecret: In 1972, a popular student from Class 3-3 named Misaki died. However, the rest of class 3-3 chose to pretend that he was still alive until graduation. [[spoiler:This altered the class to a place that "invited death". Every year since, an extra student has appeared on the roster--a dead person. All significant records and memories--even those belonging to the dead students themselves--are altered to accommodate them, and the identity of the dead person is not brought to light until graduation. Additionally, at least one person with connections to 3-3 dies every month. The only way to prevent the deaths, as Class 3-3 discovered through trial and error, is to treat one student as if they don't exist for the entire year to "even out" the imbalance caused by an extra student. Or they can find the "extra" and kill it to end the curse for that year.]]
253	* {{Tsundere}}: Izumi Akazawa. And you can really spot it by her twintails and facial expression alone.
254	* TwelveEpisodeAnime: The anime adaption contains 12 episodes and an {{OVA}}.
255	* UmbrellaOfTogetherness: Kouichi and Sakuragi in Episode 3 (although it's not shown onscreen). [[spoiler:Ironically, the same umbrella is what kills Sakuragi. ''In that same episode''.]]
256	* {{Understatement}}: "This is not normal."
257	** The English dub of Teshigawara's entrance [[spoiler:before he revealed he nearly killed Kazami]].
258	--->'''Teshigawara:''' [[SayMyName SAKAKI!!!]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero I think I might have fucked up!!!]]
259	* {{Unperson}}: [[spoiler:Class 3's countermeasure against the curse consists of 'sacrificing' a single student to counterbalance the ghosts that overfill their roster, pretending that they don't exist for the entire year even as they attend class together. Mei is the current sacrifice, and when Kouichi upsets the balance, he gets unpersoned by his classmates as well.]]
260	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
261	** Sakakibara. He just ''had'' to transfer into thick of things, unaware of the unspeakable rules. [[spoiler:But Mei reassures him that the calamity had already begun when he started making contact with her. You can almost hear the audience breathe a sigh of bittersweet relief.]]
262	** The entire Class 3-3 of Yomiyama Misaki, hands down. Simply by pretending that a beloved classmate was still alive and graduated with them, they [[spoiler:supposedly "opened the gateway to Death"]] and brought down a catastrophe that terrorizes every future generation of Class 3-3 students and their families.
263	** And by extension, the [[spoiler:dead student, whose presence in the class jeopardizes the lives of every student around them as well as their families, even though that person was forcibly brought back to life and had no ways to know they are dead.]]
264	* VomitDiscretionShot:
265	** After [[spoiler:Mr. Kubodera kills himself,]] one of the students throws up - we don't see it but the audio is still there.
266	** Comedic example in Episode 8 with the carsick Nakao. [[spoiler:Which gets a lot less funny in the next episode when we find out ''why'' he was so ill.]]
267	* WhamEpisode:
268	** 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.
269	** Again in Episode 6. [[spoiler:Kouichi is strongly implied to be the dead student, the librarian reveals that {{Unperson}}ing only has a 50% success rate in preventing the calamity, and Mr. Kubodera [[CliffHanger pulls out a knife in class]].]]
270	** In a grand subversion of the BreatherEpisode, Episode 8 demonstrates that [[spoiler:leaving Yomiyama will not protect the students of Class 3-3. Or at least it won't if someone has already been injured in the town and then leaves.]]
271	** In Episode 10, we discover that the only known way to stop the curse is to [[spoiler:kill the extra student]]. Also, Mei [[spoiler:has the ability to identify said student]].
272	* WhenSheSmiles:
273	** The stern, serious Akazawa really comes out of her shell during the BeachEpisode, and even [[TheStoic Mei]] lightens up a bit. The latter is even seen ''giggling'' in the background of one scene.
274	** The dream in Episode 6 also has some Mei related adorableness.
275	** Again from Mei in the final episode, when it's all over (for that year, at least).
276	** Some promotional artworks have a smiling [[TheStoic Takako]]. She also smiles during the beach episode. It's [[TheStoic surprisingly]] warm.
277	* {{Yandere}}:
278	** Akazawa has signs of being a very mild example. Were her actions not clearly spiteful, she'd be classified as a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] ClingyJealousGirl. When she's leaving [[spoiler:Nakao's funeral]], she throws a glare over her shoulder at Mei. In Episode 10, she 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.]]
279	** Kazami shows signs of being a {{Yandere}} for [[spoiler:the late Sakuragi]], also in Episode 12.
280	** Takako might be one [[PsychoLesbian for Izumi herself.]] She's also seen giving Yumi what looks like a death glare when she's talking to Junta in an earlier episode.
281	* 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.

Context Literature / Another