[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Great argument you made there. I'm astounded by your reasoning and deductive skills. Bravo.

I'll say it again.

If people act completely logically and without emotion, how does drama even happen? There is no story then. The characters would know not to get stuck here with their emotions. The characters would solve these problems instantly. So doesn't drama require people being beaten with the stupid stick to some degree?

And I would say that considering this show has spanned merely a couple weeks and the emotional trauma some of them are under (Though some question whether there really is such emotional trauma to begin with, which is fine), then it's no real surprise that it's taken just this little bit for the culmination of emotions to occur this episode.

Let's forget the "emotionless" bit (what does that have to do with anything). Bad things happen even to people who do everything "right". Our fate isn't as much under our control as we'd like to think.

Originally Posted by Spoonroo

I think many of the people complaining about the late reveal forget that Menma died when she was 10. She still acts like she's 10. Just think abut that for a moment.

Heck, I'm a teacher. You wouldn't believe all the things that it wouldn't occur to a 10 year old to do without being explicitly told by a parent or teacher. Not to mention the fact that they called her an "airhead" which implies it more.

Let's not forget the scenes of her watching her family and her mother over her shrine, and when she was in Anaru's house - those two scenes seem to explain why, with the mindset of a 10 year old airheaded girl, why she wouldn't show herself. wanting to lessen the sadness of her mother.

I don't see WHY the idea of making some glass float in the air would have occured to her to do. Most of the times that the group showed signs of not believing Jinta outright she was not there for (she tended to stay at home while jintan was out) and Jintan never told her about stuff like that, so how would she have been aware of that? Even the scene when she was trying to get Poppo to see her, he wasn't doubting her existence - none of them were outright saying it yet - and even if there were non verbal cues she's an "airhead" 10 year old, so I wouldn't expect her to notice that. Notice that immediately after she was aware (when she heard Poppo on the phone) what did she do. Immediately try to get the others to notice her, like people are saying she should've. She tried to call them (Yukiatsu and Tsuruko, which I though was a very interesting choice) on the phone, remember. It didn't work, obviously, but she the point is that tried ASAP after a reason existed. Also, hat's how she got them to join, remember, when they were kids - she called them to the clubhouse, so it makes sense that that would be what she tried first.

I like the diary too because she could actually convey a message - it's a way she can talk to them. it makes sense with why she tried to telephone. She wanted to communicate with them. Doing some lame Scooby Doo trick like floating a cup or dumping flour on her does not fit with the serious vibe of the show, and does not let her speak to the others. Even when she tried to communicate to the others, it's always by talking - that's how 10 year olds like to communicate, with words. and I'm glad they did something deep like using the diary - using that item was great. Also, since it was in her handwriting, there's no way it could've been explained as a magic trick or something Jintan set up to trick them, which is probably what Yukiatsu would've said if they had gone the Saturday Morning Cartoon route (float object, dump flour) to try to get her to prove her existence.

You can always doubt. Handwriting isn't that hard to fake.

But I generally agree with you. Sure, she acted sub-optimally, which I guess is where the complaints come from. But that's realistic: people act sub-optimally all the damn time.