Another - Episode 5

I'm starting to find Mei to be slightly moe

Blogger's Note: It's that time of the semester again, when assignments and midterms just keep on piling up. Reviews may (most likely will) be posted slowly. I'll catch up during my reading week (Feb. 20th - 24th). Until then, please bear with the delays and thank you for reading~

Lots of previous theories and speculations of mine went straight down the drain at the conclusion of this episode. Although the death scene in this episode was mediocre (I've read that it reminded someone of Death Note), the interesting and plot-advancing dialogue made up for it. Many questions were answered by Mei, which causes some suspicion to rise as to how she seemingly knows about everything that's going on. The direction of the story from here on out seems to now be much clearer. However, how Kōichi digests this new information may determine whether he and the rest of his classmates escape Class 3 alive.

One of the commonly recurring questions before the airing of this episode was the truth behind Mei's existence. Is she actually non-existent? If so, why is Kōichi the only one who can see her? The answer to this turned out to be more plausible than I expected. Firstly, knowing that Mei actually does exist makes everything a bit more believable. I mean, seriously, if she didn't exist, what would it look like when she interacts with surrounding objects (e.g. doors, chairs, desks, etc.)? Secondly, the class' reason for ignoring her actually makes sense, assuming that one believes in curses. Lastly, it seems like Mei is just your ordinary introvert who just happens to have a doll's eye under the eyepatch of hers. Assuming that she's not hiding anything, I would say that her observation skills are superb as she is able to analyze all that is happening in Class 3. The new question now is how big of a role will she play in Kōichi's future.

The one thing that confused me in this episode was the explanation of the curse. From what I can understand, there is apparently an extra student in the class who no one knows the identity of. And because of this "extra", the curse of Class 3 starts working, killing off one person a month. The only way to stop this is to supposedly "pretend" that there's one less student, explaining by Mei was ignored (why it was her is a different story). But since Kōichi did not do so, the curse has returned again. And so, the rest of the class decides to ignore him. Now that may seem to make sense and all, but what I don't get is what happens once someone in the class dies? Doesn't the number of students decrease by one, thereby levelling the numbers? Or does an extra "dead-but-not-dead" student take their place without anybody knowing (which I find to be extremely weird). Whatever the case may be, it'll probably be up to Kōichi and Mei to figure it out. Unfortunately, time isn't on their side as the deaths will continue piling on until they do something.

Personally, I really enjoyed this episode of Another. I was starting to lose some hope thinking that every episode would just result in a Final Destination-esque death scene, with barely any plot-advancement. Luckily, I was proven wrong by this episode. While I don't mind seeing my fair share of deaths to signify how deadly the curse is, overusing them may cause the audience to be desensitized, ultimately resulting in the decrease of entertainment; a death every two episodes on average sounds like a good rate. With that being said, I can't wait for the next episode!