Another

Ending spoilers ahead (but does that really matter...?)

I laughed out loud at the umbrella scene. Two in the morning, alone, pausing to rewind because I was sure I missed something. Nope. It really was just that absurd. Were umbrellas actually built like weapons in 1998? That was when I realized I was getting something way stranger than a standard horror anime.

The early episodes are a slog. The dialogue circles back on itself forever. Characters meet in hallways to trade the same cryptic warnings until you check the runtime and realize only six minutes passed and nobody actually said anything new. I came close to quitting around episode four. My finger hovered over the remove-from-list button many times.

But the atmosphere kept pulling me back. Interestingly, there's a good degree of silence. They actually let a room go quiet, no soundtrack, just the space between lines stretching out. That's when the Stephen King seeps through. For better or worse, the show loves to pull from King's works. That heavy Shining dread where the environment itself feels infected and every adult has simply vanished from the narrative. The teachers barely exist. The parents are background noise. You're alone in this with kids who don't know the rules.

The deaths themselves are pure slapstick. The elevator, that ridiculous umbrella—it's Final Destination shlock, physics be damned. It plays like pure comedy, which makes for a perfect group watch where everyone can yell at the screen. Just don't come looking for sleepless nights.

I stayed for Mei and Kouichi. Specifically, I stayed for those quiet scenes where he's sitting there talking to her while everyone else pretends she's invisible. No supernatural gimmicks in that moment. Just a girl everyone agreed to ignore, and a boy who keeps breaking the contract.

The class treats her like furniture. They literally walk around her in the hallway. The show makes you sit with how casually cruel that is. The human choice to erase someone because it's easier hurts way more than any of the death traps. Watching Kouichi just... keep seeing her when everyone else looks away. That relationship is really endearing.

The last three episodes completely collapse into chaos. I finished the finale genuinely confused about the pacing—half the class gets brutally wiped out at the inn, and then the few survivors are just chilling in the hospital epilogue like they didn't just slaughter each other. The plot dissolves into nonsense.

That final scene lands perfectly though. Mei finally looks at Kouichi without the barrier of the curse between them. After twelve episodes of her being this ghostly presence, seeing her just be present with someone who refused to stop looking felt earned. I didn't care about the explanation anymore. I cared that these two stubborn kids found each other in all that smoke.

Watch it for the ridiculous deaths. Watch it for the atmosphere when it actually breathes. Mostly, watch it for the intimacy that grows in the cracks of a broken mystery. Everything else is just comedic noise.