The problem was that it took half the series for the show to actually focus on these elements. Instead it started out as generic, less-than-scary horror. Everyone’s obviously afraid of something but won’t tell the protagonist what it is! There’s a mysterious girl no one seems to know about! The protagonist is especially curious about her! Random shots of ‘creepy’ dolls (I’ve concluded that Mei being pale was to make her look similar to the dolls and thus add to the red herring of her coming across as unnatural)! It tried to build tension by leaving us in the dark and wondering just what Kouichi’s unknowingly triggered, but that fell flat because it was obvious that everyone already knew what was happening. Sometimes tension can exist because you know, or think you know, what’s going to happen and don’t want it to. If everyone knows what’s going on it’s a much better way to go.
But for that to work you need to care about the characters and what’s going to happen to them, which, moreso than the weak beginning, was the series’ greatest weakness. No one who died deserved it, but we’re given no reason to care about or get invested in most of them – in some cases we didn’t learn so much as their name until after their deaths (and in some cases not even that!) – so while Sakuragi’s death may have at least been a bit of a shock, simply because it’s possible to not see it coming rather than because there was any reason to be worried about her, beyond that almost every death was just ‘whoops, there goes another one.’ It wasn’t even made clear in the opening episode that they actually were trying to do something to stop the curse, which made their unwillingness to tell Kouichi anything annoying – I know it’s something any fifteen-year-old would be afraid to face, but c’mon, your classmates’ lives are at stake! In Mei’s case she was reluctant to speak up because she was grieving for someone who was not only her sister but her best friend, and acknowledging that it happened would mean admitting that Misaki’s death is probably just the beginning. As I’ve said before, it’s not an airtight justification, especially given what’s at stake, but it’s at least understandable. It’s implied that similar reasoning is behind most of Class 3’s early actions, and to be fair, once Kouichi talked to Mei telling him about the countermeasures did become kind of moot, but we don’t actually see much evidence of how anyone was thinking, which would have made things more believable.
The second half of the series, though, was a definite improvement. Once it dropped the main horror trappings and focused on how the situation was affecting everyone and the questions it raised, as well as the efforts of a select group of characters to actually get to the heart of what was going on, it became a lot more interesting. There were still a few communication issues, especially Kouichi & co. not sharing their findings with everyone and Mei not revealing that she already knows who the extra person is. However, in the former case their desire to involve as few people as possible in the hopes of sparing the rest was, again, understandable, and since it was made clear the others were scared enough to become reactionary and prone to scapegoating it’s obvious that saying something wouldn’t really have helped. Relatedly, all Mei had to offer was her word, which those who were already predisposed to dislike probably wouldn’t have believed anyway. The final resolution ultimately relied a little too much on coincidence, but most of that was stuff that could’ve been fairly plausibly uncovered by investigation and it did mitigate the real deus ex machina that was Mei’s left eye, so personally I wasn’t terribly bothered by how things worked out.
Also in the second half, some of the characters started to become more fleshed-out or at least more interesting. I know I’m happy that my early certainty that Mei was a ghost proved to be wrong, because once that was shown to be untrue she quickly became my favorite character in the series (as if that wasn’t obvious by now). She had some good principles and was strong in her own way – even if she says it was because she’s used to being alone, volunteering to become non-existent was selfless of her, and she held up better than most of her classmates. But at the same time there was still a sense of sadness about her that made you want to reach out and be her friend. Or maybe that’s just me because I was also less-than-social at her age and can relate to that side of her. Regardless, it’s certainly how Kouichi felt about her. He started out as a bland everyman meant to stand in for the audience and seemed to be doing most of what he did because Plot, but in the second half he was shown to be compassionate, level-headed, and driven by a desire to undo what he’d unwittingly caused. The two of them were easily the best part of the show, and I really liked how their relationship was handled. They mostly acted like friends (they never even made it to a first name basis), but they had obvious chemistry and did numerous gestures – warning the other away from something dangerous or upsetting, holding hands when fleeing danger, Kouichi putting himself in harm’s way to protect Mei – that made it clear they cared for each other more deeply than that.
They weren’t the only ones who get more interesting, although they were the best of the bunch. Akazawa’s desire to stop the curse was creditable and she was something of a counterpoint to Kouichi by showing a similar motive to his own, only her desire to save everyone ended up making her cling to a specific interpretation of events instead of thinking about things rationally. Her death, at least, was meaningful and had a bit of tragedy to it. Honorable mentions go to Teshigawara and Mochizuki; neither was very developed, but they seemed like alright guys to hang out with. As much as I’ve been rambling otherwise characters don’t need to be fully fleshed out to be interesting or likable (although it certainly helps), and those two were the latter, which was enough for me.
On the technical side of things, the animation was consistently solid and had a good color palette and suitably dim or overcast lighting, complemented by the slightly worn-down look of the school, which gave it a subdued atmosphere that fit the tone of the show while keeping the characters and locations normal-looking (oddities of Mei’s appearance notwithstanding). It was a good contrast between an otherwise normal setting and the completely non-normal events that occurred. Sound-wise, I’m still not sure what the deal with the happy-sounding end theme was; it worked at the very end because it had just enough of an undertone of sadness that it helped give a feeling of relief that it was all over, but otherwise it was kinda mood whiplash, especially when it started playing right after someone died. The opening theme and its dark and ominous visuals were also fine for the first half but didn’t work so well when the show stopped trying to be straight-up horror and went more in the direction of a psychological thriller (assuming there’s a difference, but I don’t feel like wrangling with semantics right now). That mechanical ‘vrum-vra’ sound that played a couple times gave a very ominous feel whenever it was used, but its’ about the only background theme that stands out to me. The voice acting was good, I suppose; nothing stood out to me as particularly bad or silly at least, so that’s about all I can really say.
I’m not actually sure why I decided to watch this show in the first place, and I almost dropped it after episode 4, when the poorly-done horror reached something of a peak for me; fortunately it got better. Once it hit its stride it was carried by an overall interesting premise and some likable characters; it’s just a shame it didn’t use the beginning to better effect by developing more of the characters instead of trying, and failing, to be scary. I know in the second half I looked forward to each new episode and don’t feel like I wasted my time watching it. So yeah, it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but it was still interesting.
Final Score: 7/10
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