Another - Episode 7

Another's version of Shinigami Eyes?

Aside from the gruesome suicide and creepy dream, this episode of Another was quite "normal". With the whole "making people non-existent" plan clearly failing, our two protagonists are now allowed to "existent" again. While this is technically a good turn of events, there have been complaints about their prior "non-existence" being the only thing that kept Kōichi and Mei together, allowing them to grow closer to each other in their relationship. Nonetheless, it's relieving to see that Kōichi still values Mei as a really good friend despite starting to befriend the others. As expected, Mei's socially awkward behaviour prevents her from being able to interact normally with others, even though she isn't ignored anymore (though the ignoring might have been the cause of this in the first place). But now, let's move onto the more interesting parts of the episode.

We start off with more information about the curse, specifically about the only year in the past 26 in which it had been stopped midway. All that's known is a class trip in August had something to do with it. With only 5 episodes left, I have a feeling that 1998's Class 3 will end up being successful in stopping the curse, although there may be a few more casualties along the way. Additionally, I'm suspecting one of these casualties to be Mikami-sensei since there were a few close-up shots of her face twisted in fear shown in the episode. Moving on to that short dream sequence, I admit it was "artistic", although I disliked because it contained too much human gore for my liking. Amusingly enough, even the deaths (aside from the teacher's suicide) were less gory than that dream sequence. The reason behind it, though, is valid (Kōichi fears that he is the "extra"; the dead person), so I won't complain about it behind put there.

The climax of the episode came when Kōichi met up with Izumi (and later on, Teshigawara and Yuuya) to discuss the current situation. First off, I'd like to say that Izumi, a.k.a. "Twintails", is the best character of the series, hands down. If she were to die, I would rage... a lot. Anyways, she jokes with him about the possibility of him being the dead person by claiming that his mom might have never given birth to him when she died and that he transferred to Class 3 as a living person. The reaction from Kōichi was definitely priceless, though I can't blame him for believing. However, she does seem confident that Kōichi's not the dead person since his hands are not cold (there's a rumour that dead people have abnormally cold hands). The interesting thing is that she once again iterates her belief that she has shaken his hand sometime ago, even before their hospital meeting. To me, I think she's onto something and that there's more to Kōichi than his clueless appearance. And if that was not enough to make things interesting, Yuuya's sister, the waitress for their table, tells an interesting story later on about a man who was apparently in the Class 3, fifteen years ago, that was able to stop the curse midyear. To top that off, this class was the exact same one Reiko was in. So even without knowing it, Kōichi is already connected to everything in so many ways. What's left is to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

To end off the episode, some more Kōichi x Mei development occurs, resulting in him obtaining her number (his dull reaction was unfortunate, however). Mei also reveals that her doll look-alike is actually modelled after her older sister who was a stillborn (or was she...?). But in the end, the most important thing was that Mei firmly told Kōichi that he is not the dead person, possibly showing him her doll eye to symbolize that she might have to power to see if people are dead or not. However, there's a part of me which questions the validity of that statement. Could it be that she's just guessing in order to relieve him of his concerns? Or could he actually be the dead person - a fact that Mei wants to keep to herself? While the answer to this question won't likely be shown in the next episode due to the arrival of the obligatory beach episode (the music for the preview was so unfitting that it was funny), I'll be looking forward to when the truth is revealed. Lastly, if Izumi were to die later on, it'd be SLIGHTLY less painful if it wasn't during the beach episode.