[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Shiki is just Shiki and, besides, her "vision" works differently in that she doesn't see "death" so much as she sees...

Spoiler:

...fate lines or life lines that she can cut at will.

I would prefer that Mei's ability isn't so out-and-out mystical, as almost everything that has happened in Another isn't completely outside the realm of possibility, unlike in Kara no Kyoukai, which is at heart, just another shounen action-drama.

Well, my understanding is that she sees

Spoiler:

the "origin" of things, when she cuts the lines which connect the physical object to it's "origin", she entirely negates it's existence. In that sense she isn't "killing" anything, merely causing it to cease to exist. That's why she can "kill" anything, even inanimate objects like locks, by cutting the thread that connects the object to it's origin.

And something happened already in Another which absolutely cannot be within the realm of possibility, and that's the appearance of the dead Yomiyama Misaki in the class photo of the original Class 3-3 which started the whole thing off in the first place. Unless you want to claim that someone dug his body up and propped it up in the background of the class photo on purpose, the dead appearing in a picture of the living is entirely out of the realm of possibility and underpins the entire story of Another with a supernatural or paranormal element from the get-go.

It's not hard for audiences, particularly Asian viewers, to accept the possibility of paranormal vision. We hear about people with such abilities all the time, and are aware that it's not a nice trait to have (the dead aren't, you know, a pleasant sight). It's hard, on the other hand, to figure out how a fake eye could actually trigger visual signals to the brain...

Because you can't use science to explain paranormal vision.