Welcome to Winter Watch, a look at the latest anime season. Among the many shows being broadcast this season, Another finds itself as the sole horror series in the slate.
Episode 5: Build Limbs
Summary: Kouichi finally unravels the mystery surrounding his class.
Air Date: Feb. 6, 2012
Run Time: 25:00
Warning: This article contains spoilers. We recommend watching the episode here first.
Fed up with the indecision and having to keep Kouichi out of the loop, fellow student Ikuo Takabayashi prepares to spill the beans to Kouichi but suffers from a fatal heart attack he can explain Class 3's situation. The following day, everyone in Kouichi's class begins to pretend that Kouichi doesn't exist and completely ignores him, similar to the story 26 years about the student who allegedly died but was still seen everyday by a classmate. Distraught and confused about what is happening to him, Kouichi seeks out Mei, who also suffered a similar fate at the hands of the class, and she reveals the truth to him:
There is always an extra student, an unidentifiable dead person nonetheless, in the class. Changing rosters or class assignments fails to solve the issue and eventually, the dead student brings enough bad energy into the classroom resulting in a student and one of their family members dying every month. After years of trying to find a way to prevent the constant death, the students and teachers decided to simply ignore one student and act as if they don't exist, which figuratively puts the class count back at a normal level, and prevents people from dying.
After watching this episode, I immediately had the phrase, "be careful what you wish for," pop into my head. Last week, I lamented the fact that nobody would tell Kouichi what the rules were or explain how things have to be in order to prevent death. This week, that question is completely answered to the fullest yet I was left feeling let down. There isn't anything particularly bad or corny about the explanation that Mei gave, but a lot of the supernatural element is completely explained now. I suppose that my real fear is where will the series go now? A mystery where Mei and Kouichi team up like Scooby and Scrappy Doo to track down who the dead person actually is (my money is on Kouichi if we're taking bets)? Will the constant death swirling around the students come to an end now that everyone knows the proper way of preventing it? Neither of those outcomes interests me to be honest with you all, but maybe I'm just reading too much into things.
Verdict
Not a bad episode, but this is the first one that left me tepid about seeing the next. Hopefully, my worries are completely off base and I'm getting myself worked up over nothing.
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- William Taylor ( sickvisionz ) is lazy by nature, procrastinator by trade. You can also find him on Twitter @mrsickvisionz and on Tumblr at In My Lifetime.
I feel that this isn't the real or complete answer and some crazy stuff are going to happen that will twist on the dead person concept. It'll be a interesting revelation if Kouichi is the dead person.
I feel like if David Lynch directed this show it would have turned into Twin Peaks but with kids....which would have been awesome.
I don't think that the supernatural element is completely explained. After all, no-one actually knows what is going on, most of the explanation appears to be guesswork. I like the relationship and interaction between Mei and Kouichi a lot so I'm glad that that seems to be becoming the focus. I'm also glad that the whole episode wasn't just a build-up to another gruesome death. I was worried that that would become a formula for the rest of the series.
This episode revealed that Mei is ALIVE! Damn, even if this is true, I still doubt that Mei is alive. And I feel sad for the guy who manned up to tell Kouichi about this curse that is happening in their class.
All of us think that Kouichi is the dead person. It would be very interesting since he is the catalyst of the curse (if this is true).