[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Spoiler for How are they a desk short:

The problem is not any fixed number of students in class (though anime in general seems to prefer to have students at a neat number like 20 or 30) but the fact that a desk is missing and an additional desk has to be provided for the "inexistent one". This additional desk is taken from the old school building, which is why it looks so damaged and old.
The size of a class is determined before the year actually starts so the janitor or students will provide the appropriate number of chairs and desks to each classroom before even the entrance ceremony starts. The "one person more" only seems to join from the ceremony onwards, so they go to class and notice "damn, we're a desk short".

I can think of a number of ways that doesn't sound plausible but, ah well, if that's the way the novel works, so be it. Chalk it up to another detail that didn't get adapted well in the anime. As it were, there are already a number of loopholes that stretch belief, so another one doesn't matter much.

Can we have further clarification about how names are erased from past records? Because, as I understand it, all historical traces of the Other are removed when the phenomenon is in effect, to prevent its identification during the year.

So, like totoum pointed out:

Originally Posted by totoum

Isn't the curse supposed to erase previous traces of the Another so if she was the Another would people remember her being in charge of 3-3 in 1996?

If Ms Mikami were the Other, then, by right, people shouldn't remember that she was the assistant teacher of the Class of 96, since she would have presumably died that year and has now returned.

Now, to further extend that train of thought, I would say that this year's Other is almost certainly a boy, not a girl. That would rule out Izumi as a suspect, along with Reiko and Ms Mikami. Consider this: the name of the Other in Matsunaga's year consistently cannot be heard in the audio record, and we know now that it was a boy Matsunaga accidentally "killed" that year, thus putting the extra person back into the grave and stopping further deaths in his class.

It also means that the Other of 1983 has returned to haunt the Class of 98. Whoever this person is, he would be someone who died before 1983.


A couple of other random thoughts:
(1)
I think I now know why the ostracism counter-measure works, even if I were to disregard my now debunked theory about just assigning 29 students to the class the year before. We've already established that ostracism is a form of "social death"; the person who doesn't "exist" is as good as "dead" in the eyes of the world.

Since it's now established that killing the "Other" effectively stops the phenomenon for the rest of the year, ostracism "works" because it plays out like a proxy for murder — but only if the "social death" is inflicted before the real deaths occur.

(2)
You know, I wished at least one of the students had thought of taking along a polaroid camera for instant photos...

It would appear that you don't need a special eye to see the "extra", as the original Misaki clearly looked out of place even to normal eyes. So... if you really need to identify the Other, simply take a class photo at the beginning of the year, not at graduation.

Then lynch the bugger!


And oh, another point:
(3) How is it that Mei could see through her glass eye? It's an inorganic construct. How could it possibly be sending visual signals to her brain?

I've always thought that Mei sees through her right eye, and that the glass eye superimposes another layer to her vision, allowing her to identify the dying and the dead. But, in this episode, she clearly shows that she can actually "see" through the glass eye alone. Wut? How's that possible? Is this something voodoo I have to accept at face value, or just another mistake in the adaptation?