Another - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by LKK

Finally, is this the first time we've had confirmation that the current class 3 students are not the same building as where the original Misaki incident took place? Proof that changing school buildings hasn't prevented the phenomenon's occurrence.

No, its not the first time. It was mentioned earlier when Chibiki was giving his lecture to Misaki and Kouichi-chan (I just fucking love this nickname for Sa-ka-ki-ba-ra of all people lol).

Originally Posted by Hakuromatsu

Chibiki may not be all that he seems; we know now that he's the drama club advisor and an actor on top of that. Couple that with "the secret of the auxiliary library" and we have a bit of intrigue surrounding Chibiki.

Yes. He is very suspicious. Especially because he seems especially close to the only other really furtive prominent Character, Misaki Mei.

Originally Posted by ThereminVox

Akazawa gave Mei the exact same death glare this week that she gave her outside homeroom after the teacher offed herself. Does she suspect Mei of being the extra? I doubt it. More likely, she suspects, as I do, that Mei knows way more than she lets on, and is getting tired of watching her stay stoic as lives are lost.

I wouldn't blame her. My point about Chibiki being close to Mei makes both of them suspicious as hell. Chibiki is the only person who knows a lot about the phenomenon and from the way Izumi waltzed out of his office, I doubt he had been particularly helpful with her inquiries. But he had no issues entertaining Mei at leisure. Akazawa would have to be suspicious of both of them if she takes her job seriously.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

You wouldn't believe how right you are. The music and the sound effects were absolutely spot on. I could feel the shivers down my spine.

...and what makes you think Mei was trolling...? Get yourself a pair of bassy headphones, I suggest...

Oh bloody hell. This episode was the best thus far in terms of making me feel the environment. It did as perfect a job in the audio department as possible. And the visuals were very fitting too.

I totally think Mei was trolling all right - when she said she was, that is.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

As to Ayano, something struck me odd immediately with her. When she and Komu met Teshi and Kou-kun outside the old school building, she said “Sayonara” to Kouichi as she and Komu left – and he said “Sayonara” back. Now, in Japanese it’s unusual at best – and downright rude or bizarre at worst – to say “Sayonara” to someone you expect to see again – normally (especially with students) you’d say “Ja mata” or some variation thereof. Kouichi was clearly unsettled by this. Did she somehow know what was going to happen? Or was she saying it only because she knew she’d be leaving town for a while?

As Hagurama pointed out, her family seemed to have decided to leave the town for good. Kouichi was clearly unsettled because he didn't know. But Komu did and that's why the whole sequence between Komu and Ayano. Btw, the music was absolutely haunting in that scene. It felt so surreal and made my whole body cringe in anticipation.

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

I thought it was explicitly stated that the Another knows he or she is dead. Mei told Kouichi that awhile back IIRC.

The other way around. But you shouldn't believe Misaki or Chibiki that easily. They are making speculations just like us.

I don't particularly care if the way the tape was destroyed felt kinda stupid. At the very least, it certainly fit in with the culprit's character. No offense Teshy, I like you, but you're freaking dumb

I can't believe some of you guys found the deaths funny. Okay, maybe the death by rolling off the mountain could be taken as hilarious. But the music that was playing and the color scheme that was in play should have made you feel otherwise ._. One thing, guys. You should most definitely watch this show with a pair of good headphones on your ears. The sounds are what makes this show imho.

And the death of the Aniki and the family most certainly weren't funny. They were spooky, especially that moment of impact when the rock hit the windshield.

The weakest part of the episode, as far as I am concerned, was actually the wannabe creepy flashback that was also aired in the preview last week. The flashback thing was perfect the first time it happened but it was really weak this time, especially because it was already spoiled by the preview

Regardless, this episode gets a perfect score from me. It was very well done and looks like things are only gonna get better.

[Lord of Fire]

Lots of interesting stuff revealed here.
- The guy that died last week may have been dead when he hit the water (long before he got hit by the boat). Observations by others and Chibiki's claim seem to add up with what we saw.
- Chibiki is an actor and drama club advisor. I'm a bit skeptical of discrediting his theories until evidence proves otherwise. If we do, that would bring us all the way back to square one. After all, if we can't trust anything he says, who can we trust?

I knew right away that Mei was in the art club room when the boys got there. Seems like Kouichi can't hide anything from her (as I assume her "I was bored and didn't want to stay at home" claim was a bold-faced lie). She looked seriously cute when she out the flower in her hair during the search. And even a bit mischievous when she joked about hearing voices at night in that school building (which should have left people wondering what she was doing there in the first place). And Mochizuki is rising on my suspect lost. I already found him suspicious before (especially since he left that note for Kouichi after the second death), this isn't making it any better for him.

The tape being cut off was also expected, given that it's a typical horror cliché. And I wonder if they'll ever hear the last part of the tape, given that it should tell them how to stop the curse.

I could be wrong, but wasn't Ayano the same girl that Kouichi saved from a falling sheet of glass in an earlier episode? if so, does that mean that Mei is also a potential victim, since Kouichi saved her as well?

With all the deaths included, not counting those in the flashback, doesn't that bring the tally for this episode to four – Ayano and both her parents, and Ogura's brother?

[Lumir]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

She was going to the morgue to visit the dead body of her cousin (Fujioka Misaki). This was explained in an earlier episode. Well, that's still as creepy as it sounds. Mei's cuteness is well over 9000 but she does do some seriously creepy things during this show.



Mr. Creepy Librarian was the homeroom teacher for Class 3 the year that Misaki Yomiyama, the original Misaki, died and started all curse stuff this way in the beginning. Again, this was explained in an earlier episode.

Yes my wonderment about misaki visiting her dead cousin is more so on how she seemed like she was on a mission to deliver that doll. Not to mention the "doll factor" seems to have less focus recently.

Also im interested in the librarian because of his involvement. Hes very knowledgeable about the entire phenomenon knowing a lot yet anyone else who starts discussing things of the past end up dead, except our main cast. For all we know he could be the reason the phenomenon started due to some hidden action. Another thought I have had about him is what if he is a murder hiding under the guise of the phenomenon? Maby its his shady look, but he seems more involved then we the viewers are let on.

But alas its all speculation.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

Chibiki is an actor and drama club advisor. I'm a bit skeptical of discrediting his theories until evidence proves otherwise. If we do, that would bring us all the way back to square one. After all, if we can't trust anything he says, who can we trust?

We don't have to put off everything he said as false. Just because someone's suspicious doesn't mean all the info he gave are wrong. It only means they are unreliable narrators at worst or just speculators that have done significant research but still don't know everything at best.

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

I knew right away that Mei was in the art club room when the boys got there. Seems like Kouichi can't hide anything from her (as I assume her "I was bored and didn't want to stay at home" claim was a bold-faced lie).

If you're implying that Kouichi told her to come - I seriously doubt that. He was most definitely worrying over her safety even after she joined so he would have tried his best not to involve her. Especially because he is definitely romantically interested in her, as we know from his pulp fiction daydream. That excuse from Mei is more than likely a bold-faced lie but it only means Mei knows more than she lets on and not that Kouichi invited her behind the other two boys' backs.

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

She looked seriously cute when she out the flower in her hair during the search.

It was actually very spooky that in a rundown classroom that is offlimits and while searching for a clue to end a nonsensical disaster, that girl tries something like putting a paper flower (covered with dust, no doubt) in her hair. Talk about being stoic.

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

I could be wrong, but wasn't Ayano the same girl that Kouichi saved from a falling sheet of glass in an earlier episode? if so, does that mean that Mei is also a potential victim, since Kouichi saved her as well?

I would consider everybody involved except for Chibiki a potential victim since they are related to Class 3 somehow.

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

With all the deaths included, not counting those in the flashback, doesn't that bring the tally for this episode to four – Ayano and both her parents, and Ogura's brother?

If everyone in that car died, yes.

[sa547]

Four... What a body count in a single day.

A few things I noted:

Spoiler for can't say but read on:

* Noticed Akane Ayano's behavior and speech before leaving the school, as well as moving boxes that were stack around, supposed to be brought in later after moving elsewhere, but sadly they wound up as human pancakes at the bottom of a cliff.
* The hikkikomori guy (brother of Yumi Ogura) got pwned in a more creative way, still holding the mouse in his hand.
* Way to go Naoya; even Mei scolds him for being derp with cassettes.
* Koichi's gonna have worse nightmares after this.

By the next episode:

Spoiler for looking forward to...:

* Yuya finally fixes the tape, thus able to complete what was disrupted (as demonstrated by a boy bleeding to death).
* Who's the one suddenly on knees and crying? Must be Shigeki Yonemura.
* Izumi really, really needs a hug, as she wails. Looks like a character (or his/her relatives) is about to be killed.

[Dengar]

LOL and back to square one. It looks like the death of Vomit Guy was within the scope of the calamity's known rules after all.

Damn you Easygoing Guy! What kind of moron removes a tape while it's still running? Seriously what are you? Five and still learning how a casette deck works?

Seriously, I really feel for Pretty Cute Girl. That's really an awful scene to come home to.

Energetic Girl... is probably dead too.

My current theory, the "Something" that happened during the class trip was something that made it apparent who the extra was, and Tape Guy killed him/her (which is his sin).

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

It was actually very spooky that in a rundown classroom that is offlimits and while searching for a clue to end a nonsensical disaster, that girl tries something like putting a paper flower (covered with dust, no doubt) in her hair. Talk about being stoic.

Random thought about that flower:
White is the color of death in the Asian countries, not black.

Intentional symbolism, or the flower just had to be white in order to contrast on her head with her beautiful black hair?

And yeah, Mei has indicated a number of times to everyone who has asked her that she is pretty sure she can't be killed by the calamity. And she has never explained why, to the consternation of everyone around her. Well, she explained to Kouichi, apparently she has died once already and been resuscitated (during the surgery that removed her left eye and replaced it with the doll's eye) and people who have already died cannot die again according to the rules of this calamity. How she is so sure of this has not yet been explained, other than the Another is apparently the only class member who cannot die, since they are already dead. Kenshiro should be pointing at the screen when I say that.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I see no reason to assume Chibiki is 100% correct here, and I'm still treating what he says as theoretical and not factual. He might be right about Nakao, he might not - and the fact remains that the actual death occurred outside Yomiyama.

Where's Gregory House when you need him?

True, we can't be sure his theory is right. However, it's a very solid theory backed up by real evidence (autopsy of his corpse) and it added up to what we witnessed last week, so I believe he is most likely right.

There is also the possibility he is lying, but I don't see what he would gain by doing so, especially since he only shared his findings with Mei and Kouichi, both of whom are unlikely to recklessly spread the information everywhere.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

You wouldn't believe how right you are. The music and the sound effects were absolutely spot on. I could feel the shivers down my spine.

...and what makes you think Mei was trolling...? Get yourself a pair of bassy headphones, I suggest...

The sound effects and the music are one of the best aspect of the series. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I hadn't seen a show with such fantastic sound direction in a very long time.

And...w-what...?

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

Count me in the camp who strongly suspects that Izumi is the Another. Why else would she be so hellbent on finding a way to stop the Calamity? Everyone's been assuming that the Another is malicious and responsible for the Calamity. What if it's exactly the opposite? What if the Another comes back because he or she is looking for a way to stop the Calamity from occurring again? Izumi's insistence that she knows Kouichi from somewhere really places her under the most suspicion at this point.

It's almost amusing that Izumi is constantly giving Mei the stink-eye now, it's as if she suspects that Mei knows way more than she's letting on. A really long time ago in this show, Mei told Kouichi that her doll's eye lets her see things which should be unseen. If Izumi suspects that Mei knows she is the Another, she might be suspicious of Mei's motives, since Mei has thus far not given even the slightest indication about what knowledge she is seemingly hiding. Mei always seems so certain that nothing will happen to her, and is so detached as to almost be a disinterested bystander as the various people get gruesomely killed around her. She doesn't even count Kouichi among the immune, only herself.

It's pretty easy to understand why she wants to stop the calamity: she's the head of countermeasures and she failed at her job, therefore, she feels what is happening is partly her responsibility. Moreover, I doubt seeing her classmates die one by one amuses her. There are two types of people in that class: the ones too terrified to do anything other than hope they'll be spared, and the ones with balls like Akazawa who refuse to sit on their ass and wait for death. Incidentally, Kouichi is even more desperate than her to stop the Calamity, for similar reasons.

If I were in her place, I'd suspect Mei too. It's weird that she happened to go to the same beach as them, and she's always acting so cryptic... In the eyes of everyone save Kouichi, she must seem like the most suspicious person in class.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

I totally think Mei was trolling all right - when she said she was, that is.

You're supposed to play along, dammit.

Originally Posted by sa547

By the next episode:

Spoiler for looking forward to...:

* Izumi really, really needs a hug, as she wails. Looks like a character (or his/her relatives) is about to be killed.

I like how the preview provoked this response:

Originally Posted by Arya

Izumi crying... mmm Naoya, is it your time?

So it seems I'm not the only one who thinks Izumi is merely playing hard to get, eh? That said, I suspect Teshy will stay in the clear for a while yet, for no better reason than that idiots don't catch (their death in) colds.

[Cosmic Eagle]

When the lightning struck and everyone leapt for cover...reminded me of artillery drill lol....

Also, when the heart attack guy showed up, he could as well have been moaning "MISAKI.....MISAKI...."

The sound effects and the music are one of the best aspect of the series. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I hadn't seen a show with such fantastic sound direction in a very long time.

Watch when alone at night. Turn off lights and move your computer to the main hall (or most spacious enclosed area) of your house. That's what the sound is designed for.

[Qikz]

Wow. That makes me so glad my room isn't anywhere near a road. That guy... jesus. O_O

EDIT: One thing I will say is that town is built for a death trap.

Mountain Pass going out of it one side with tight roads and bugger all barriers, then the other side is a really thin long bridge. No escape!

[Dengar]

There's probably a reason why the shrine is in disrepair.

[ninryu]

People are dying again. This time it's even worse - a whole family + a student's brother.
Obviously, we didn't get to find out how to stop the calamity - as if I expected otherwise.

Next episode Ice Queen Akazawa is crying. Can't be fucking good.

[Nihokon]

I KNEW they wouldn't listen to the tape until completion.
I bet the tape can't be completely fixed as well----the most important part will be omitted.

[taichi-kun]

Good episode, so chibiki is an actor.. mmm.... I don't trust him

So the name of the cute girl is ogura yumi and her surname is kumo....

her brother was a hikikomori or a writer maybe

[DragoZERO]

It was before he even left the town!? Oh man. That is... oh man.

I totally facepalmed with that tape. That idiot. I even said idiot before Misaki.

As for this week's deaths... ohh boy. That girl was cute. Well, all of the girls are cute, but yeah.

And the music and sound effects this episode were super creepy. They are upping the ante here.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by taichi-kun

So the name of the cute girl is ogura yumi and her surname is kumo....

Er... no. "Kumo" was my best guess at reading her surname, 小椋, which should actually be read as Ogura, as confirmed by haguruma. That's the difficulty with kanji: they can have multiple pronunciations, depending on the context. Her full name is Yumi Ogura, 小椋　由美, following Japan's convention of putting given names before surnames when written in romanji.

And since we're on the topic of supporting characters, I thought I'd add my admiration for what P.A. Works did with them. While it's remarkable that a minor character like Ayano, who barely had 10 lines in the series, would evoke feelings of sadness and sympathy after her death, I think it's even more remarkable that quite a fair bit is "said" between the supporting cast — if you pay close enough attention.

Take the recently minced Nakao, for example. Plenty of viewers wondered last week why he suddenly joined the beach trip. He didn't seem to have any reason to be with the "main" characters. Yet it was hinted quite a few episodes earlier that he and Sugiura were likely members of the counter-measures team, together with Akazawa. It's further hinted that he and Sugiura were possibly close friends, if not potential boy-girl friends, based on various body-language hints in Ep5. And in this episode, for example, look at how devastated Sugiura seemed in the aftermath of Nakao's death.

Given such unspoken relationships between the trio — Akazawa, Sugiura and Nakao — it becomes less puzzling why the proverbial "redshirt" tagged along: He was there because Akazawa and Sugiura were as well.

It's usually the case in anime productions that background characters are given hardly if any characterisation, but in Another's case, every member of Class 3-3 received a unique design. Yes, I'm aware that some people have complained that they aren't distinctive enough, but I think that is possibly just a case of not paying enough attention. In every episode where Sakakibara's many classmates have appeared, you can in fact identify them based on visual cues alone. Especially when they are in the classroom, you can see the considerable attention that has been taken in ensuring that every student is seated exactly as listed in the officially published roster.

I recall scenes in Ep1, especially, where the camera panned across several scenes of the students simply going about their daily affairs. You could almost tell where the cliques existed, who the energetic ones were, who the shy ones were, who the jocks were and who the bookworms were.

In short, I always get the sense that every character has a background story, that if only there were more air time, we would get to know them better. Be that as it may, P.A. Works has done just enough to "show" them to us, to make us care about them. Well, at least I do.

Perhaps the students were given fuller details in the novel, details that an anime production could very well have just ignored to save time and money. That P.A. Works chose not to deserves praise, I feel.

On that note, I'm forced to wonder: Where's Tomohiko Kazami ( 風見 ), Teshigawara's bespectacled childhood friend? Given his prominent prior appearances, his absence of late has become particularly noteworthy to me.

[Arya]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

So it seems I'm not the only one who thinks Izumi is merely playing hard to get, eh? That said, I suspect Teshy will stay in the clear for a while yet, for no better reason than that idiots don't catch (their death in) colds.

To tell you the truth I hope I'm wrong about Izumi crying so hard for Naoya. And not for Naoya himself, he could die tomorrow
But I also think that he will be around for a while for that reason.

[minhgurluver]

Not sure if everyone noticed this, but in the OP, there are frames of the main characters - the dead ones are straight away replaced by other characters. So in this OP, Nakao has gone, giving the frame to 2 other guys.... I guess they are the next in line? Is that the nurse's brother anyway?
and @TinyRedLeaf... it is indeed impressive that they went out all the way to give character designs to everyone in the class. Give out a really authentic feeling.

[FateAnomaly]

That guy could have written the clue down as well recorded it on tape. That would be much faster to see the important parts. Of course provided the phenomenon allowed it in the first place.

That other guy seems to be pretty unpopular. When the two girls left they only said goodbye to the MC.

When Izumi gave the evil eye to Misaki i just thought that she is jealous that Misaki get to go back with the MC lol.