2. The opening teaser sequence nerfed the idea that Mei can't possibly be the Another, since she was picked after Class 3 began (probably either on the first day of class, or the first day after Sakakibara was going to
join the class).
3. Blond-guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember said that the number of seats was right at the beginning of the year. But actually it wasn't, because IIRC someone mentioned in the Ep. 5 thread that Kouichi's dad arranged for his transfer before school started and it was just delayed by illness. So it wasn't that the seats were right, but just that a student was late (and no doubt the administration didn't tell the teacher). Oops!
4. Then later in the ep., the scene with the phone call and Kouichi's dad opens the door to Kouichi being the Another. Or as some posters have noted, that Kouichi's memories have been tampered with...for example, to keep him from knowing who the Another is (because perhaps when he was in town, he experienced some traumatic event that would tell him).
5. I agree with Kouichi. Mei's artificial eye is cool-looking. On the other hand, eyepatch moe.
6. Adorable Kouichi/Mei shipping fodder this ep.
7. Crazy teacher snapping under the stress at the end...makes me wonder...
8. So, the question is...why on earth can't Reiko remember what happened??? Seriously, if they found a way to
stop the calamity in 1983 after it began, shouldn't they be shouting it from the rooftops? So have
her memories been tampered with, or was whatever the method was so traumatic that it's making her block it out, or just not want to talk about it? "Poor Reiko" seems like rather a strong hint in the latter direction...
9. So leaving Yomiyama makes one safe from the calamity. That's handy. On the other hand, I suspect that
attempting to leave Yomiyama for the purpose of escaping the calamity raises a whole forest of death flags!
But apparently, if the entire village ceases to be (as in, everyone moves out, the school closes, and the town is abandoned to the dead), the calamity will stop, since apparently it isn't directed
at people the way a malicious curse would be.