[FredFriendly]

Originally Posted by inisipis

I love what they did here in this episode. Gives us a better understanding of the character and background even better, and it shows us that she's not always an unfeeling robot that we always see in the series.

I'll agree with this.

Spoiler for just to be polite to those who haven't seen the subs yet:

But it also may explain why Mei seems to be such an unfeeling robot during the series itself. She just lost her identical twin sister, after all. I can't even imagine how that must feel, especially at such a young age, plus with the fact that she foresaw death in her sister's aura. The immediate effects of grief must be completely overwhelming, leaving little room to be that lively, happy girl we were fortunate enough to see in this OVA.

In retrospect, it's pretty easy to imagine that the death of her sister caused her to become listless and rather apathetic towards the plight of the cursed classroom, coupled with the fact that she was appointed as the invisible classmate. But it does cause me to wonder if those who speculated that she was made the invisible one because of her general attitude were wrong, since she certainly did not act like the typical introvert in this OVA. Quite the contrary, she seemed perfectly lively and normal.

Although this OVA reminded me of all the good things I liked about the series, the artwork, the sound, the characters, it also reminded me of the things about the series I didn't like. The last two episodes aside (which to me were worse than any B-grade horror flick I've ever seen), I was reminded of the far-fetched and ridiculous ways in which some of the deaths occurred.

After the great build-up, Misaki's death was a complete let-down for me. If that was supposed to be curse-related, I'm not buying it. The death of the heart-problem kid during the series itself seemed way to coincidental for me to believe the curse had anything to do with it, and now leukemia? Falling from the ferris wheel because one of the four screws of the latch was loose is barely believable, but I would have an easier time believing that than the previously unmentioned disease that was only sprung on us in what seemed to be an afterthought.

Overall, I enjoyed this prequel to the series. It certainly enlightened me to aspects of Mei's character that I did not expect.