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 6: Face to Face
Summary: Kouichi and Mei's relationship grows as the bond over their nonexistence.
Air Date: Feb. 13, 2012
Run Time: 24:40
Warning: This article contains spoilers. We recommend watching the episode here first.
After the revelation about the curse was revealed to him, Koichi and Mei's friendship grows even closer than before due to both of them having been exiled from recognition by the rest of the class. The two of them begin to hang out after school, eat lunch together, and Koichi even begins to fantasize about Mei during class (expressed in a hilarious Pulp Fiction inspired dance sequence). While hanging out in the library, they learn more of the specifics about the Class 3 curse and its remedy from librarian Tatsuji Chibiki. The episode concludes the following day with a teacher from Class 3 brandishing a butcher knife in class and telling the students that the rest is up to them.
Ok, so things didn't go as poorly as I thought they would based off of the previous episode. Rather than turn into Scooby Doo and the Calamity Case of Class 3, the series seems happy to let things go as they are and focus more on Mei and Koichi's budding relationship and, boy oh boy do they make a cute, albeit disturbed couple. I hope that more of them growing closer and closer is to come as I'm now rooting for them to kiss or confess before the final episode.
On a creepier note, this is a horror story after all and I'm going to try my hardest to not turn this into a weekly Mei x Koichi shipping article (although would be great), I've noticed that something odd usually happens whenever Koichi is talking to someone about something related to the Class 3 curse. If it's a phone conversation, the call turns to static and drops. On more than one occasion, Koichi's questioning immediately resulted in the death of a character. The previous episode mentioned that physical records mystically get changed once the dead person enters Class 3 and that their mere presence invites death into the lives of all of the students. Could this static be the curse kicking in? They say that death swirls around all of the students, but every death so far has been the result of someone seeing Koichi or Mei, talking to Koichi, or discussing Mei.
Koichi has been investigated by his classmates and cleared of being dead and Mei seems to be real enough, but there's anawful lot of death swirling specifically around these two. I've still got my money on Koichi though, especially after his call with his father was dropped and next image displayed on screen was the desk with "Who is Dead?" scribbled on it.
Verdict
This episode relieved my fears and on top of that, it gave me a new shipping to cross my fingers for. It was also interesting to see Mei visit the art club and see how much students that are unaware of her banishment look up to her. Another is keeping my interest piqued and I'm dying to see another episode.
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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.
Been a while since I did a double take on a scene.
@Dream said:
The scene makes perfect sense if you pretend that David Lynch is secretly directing this show.
If anything, the Pulp Fiction dance scene right now is my favorite thing I've seen in any anime this year. After five and a half episodes of everything being super creepy, that was a blast of joy. Just brilliant.
The dancing scene was excellent. Even if it's the only bit of comic relief this series has, I'll be satsified. Totally with you on Kouichi x Mei. Man, they're adorable.
I wasn't expecting this show to be great, but following it for the past few weeks. It seems to get better and better.
I was wishing that fantasy was real because I too like Kouichi x Mei.
The curse doesn't kick in by talking to the dead person, but by acknowledging everyone in class. Mei was chosen to be ignored and the curse kicked in when Kouichi broke the rule. Now when ever someone talks to Kouichi about the curse, they are inadvertently acknowledging the person chosen to be ignored. When they see Kouichi talking to Mei, they too are probably subconsciously forced to acknowledge her too. So of course the deaths are involving them.
That dance made me love Another anime even more! I think it has potential to be one of my favorite anime. Love Kouichi X Mei!!!
LOL the dance scene was hilarious!
Mei's mom seems a bit suspicious to me, I wonder if she also has a fake eye since her hair was covering one of her eyes as well.
Okay, I just watched the first 6 episodes and I'm enjoying this one so far. I love how much Mei opens up once Kouichi also stops existing. She's still weird but she does act more like a normal girl now. Not existing together for a school year doesn't sound nearly as bad as by yourself.