TV-Series
Description
In 1998, Kouichi Sakakibara transfers to Yomiyama North Middle School, where he joins Class 3-3. Upon arrival, he notices an eerie atmosphere surrounding the class, particularly directed toward a quiet, mysterious girl named Mei Misaki, who wears an eyepatch and is seemingly ignored by everyone. Despite warnings from classmates and teachers to avoid interacting with her, Kouichi befriends Mei, intrigued by her enigmatic presence. As their friendship develops, Kouichi begins to uncover the dark secrets tied to Class 3-3.
The class is haunted by a curse stemming from a tragic incident in 1972, when a popular student named Misaki died unexpectedly. Devastated by the loss, the class collectively pretended Misaki was still alive, creating a delusion that led to strange occurrences. Since then, Class 3-3 has been plagued by a phenomenon where an "extra" student, who is already dead, is unknowingly included in the class roster each year. This presence triggers a series of gruesome deaths among students and their families, escalating in frequency and severity as the year progresses.
Kouichi and Mei work together to investigate the curse, uncovering its origins and the rules governing it. They learn that the curse can be mitigated by identifying and isolating the "extra" student, but this process is fraught with danger and moral ambiguity. As the death toll rises, paranoia and mistrust spread among the students, leading to desperate and tragic decisions. The narrative builds tension through a series of shocking and unpredictable events, culminating in a climactic revelation about the true nature of the curse and the identity of the "extra" student.
The story explores themes of grief, guilt, and the consequences of collective denial, set against a backdrop of supernatural horror. Kouichi and Mei serve as central figures in unraveling the mystery, with Kouichi’s outsider perspective and Mei’s connection to the curse driving the narrative forward. The series maintains a suspenseful tone, blending psychological horror with visceral imagery, and keeps viewers engaged through its intricate plot and well-paced revelations.
The class is haunted by a curse stemming from a tragic incident in 1972, when a popular student named Misaki died unexpectedly. Devastated by the loss, the class collectively pretended Misaki was still alive, creating a delusion that led to strange occurrences. Since then, Class 3-3 has been plagued by a phenomenon where an "extra" student, who is already dead, is unknowingly included in the class roster each year. This presence triggers a series of gruesome deaths among students and their families, escalating in frequency and severity as the year progresses.
Kouichi and Mei work together to investigate the curse, uncovering its origins and the rules governing it. They learn that the curse can be mitigated by identifying and isolating the "extra" student, but this process is fraught with danger and moral ambiguity. As the death toll rises, paranoia and mistrust spread among the students, leading to desperate and tragic decisions. The narrative builds tension through a series of shocking and unpredictable events, culminating in a climactic revelation about the true nature of the curse and the identity of the "extra" student.
The story explores themes of grief, guilt, and the consequences of collective denial, set against a backdrop of supernatural horror. Kouichi and Mei serve as central figures in unraveling the mystery, with Kouichi’s outsider perspective and Mei’s connection to the curse driving the narrative forward. The series maintains a suspenseful tone, blending psychological horror with visceral imagery, and keeps viewers engaged through its intricate plot and well-paced revelations.
Episodes
Staffel 1
1Rough Sketch
Koichi Sakakibara arrives at Yomiyama North Middle School in spring 1998 after a prolonged hospitalization for a collapsed lung. He joins Class 3-3 and immediately notices Mei Misaki,a girl with an eyepatch who sits apart from the other students. Classmates ignore Mei, and the homeroom teacher, Mikami, does not introduce her during the opening roll call. Koichi later encounters Mei in the hospital library, where she speaks about death and the concept of a person existing while being treated as nonexistent. She warns Koichi that he is "getting close to death" but offers no further explanation. The following day, student Kazuma Tomochika dies when an elevator suddenly collapses, crushing him. Classmates inform Koichi that Class 3-3 has a recurring pattern of abnormal deaths and that the class combats this by designating one member as a "nonexistent" person. Mei reveals to Koichi that she is that designated person, the one everyone must pretend does not exist. Koichi realizes the class’s silence around Mei is not random but a deliberate ritual meant to ward off death. With Tomochika’s death marking the first fatality, the class’s fear intensifies, and Koichi commits to uncovering the full truth behind the curse and Mei’s role in it.
2The Imagination
Koichi Sakakibara continues his search for answers about the class’s dark history. He approaches Mei Misaki directly at the hospital where she visits her ill sister. Mei warns him that staying in class 3-3 will bring him closer to death. She does not explain why. Koichi finds a battered audio cassette in his desk. The tape contains a recording from 1972 of a former student named Yuuya Mochizuki. Yuuya’s voice recounts the birth of the class’s curse: a popular student named Ritsuko Sakakibara,Koichi’s aunt, died suddenly, and the class refused to accept her death. They pretended she still sat among them. The recording ends with Yuuya’s scream and the sound of shattering glass. The next day, Koichi confronts his classmates about the tape. They react with visible fear and silence. The class representative, Yukari Sakuragi, breaks down and confesses that they call Mei “the nonexistent one” to stabilize the curse. Tomohiko Kazami warns Koichi to stop investigating, stating that those who dig into the truth die. At home, Koichi calls his grandmother, who confirms that Ritsuko died in 1972 under strange circumstances. The episode ends with Koichi finding a photograph of his aunt’s class, where all students except one have their faces scratched out, leaving the unknown survivor as the sole remaining link to the original catastrophe.
3Bone work
Koichi Sakakibara accompanies Mei Misaki to the school library after hours. They locate old yearbooks and newspaper clippings that document the 1972 death of a student named Misaki. The librarian,Tatsuji Chibiki, gives them a key to a locked storage room. Inside they find a reel-to-reel tape recorder containing a recording from a former student who also carried the Misaki name. The tape describes the curse that began when a popular student died suddenly and the class pretended the death never occurred. Simultaneously, ninth-grade class three holds an emergency meeting to counter the growing fear. Homeroom teacher Tomohiko Kazami delegates the decision to the students. The class votes to form a countermeasures committee and selects one student to become a “nonexistent” person, instructing everyone to act as if that student is dead. They begin implementing the exclusion immediately. Koichi finishes the tape and hears its final warning: ignoring a living person only postpones the calamity. He steps outside to find his classmates already treating one of their own as invisible, leaving the effectiveness of their countermeasure immediately in doubt.
4Put Together
Kouichi Sakakibara and the other students travel to a seaside inn for a class trip. Mei Misaki joins the group despite being isolated from the rest of the class. The students engage in group activities,but tension persists around the curse of Class 3-3. Naoya Teshigawara and others explain the countermeasures: students must act as if the extra person does not exist. Mei gives Kouichi a tape recording from a former class representative that details the curse’s history. The recording states that one student in the class is already dead, and acknowledging that person triggers the calamity. Kouichi listens to the tape and learns that the only way to avoid deaths is to completely ignore the dead person. After the recording, Kouichi confronts the class’s refusal to acknowledge Mei, suspecting she is the extra person. The next day, Sanae Mizuno rides the inn’s elevator alone. A power failure stops the elevator, and Mizuno attempts to exit through the ceiling hatch. The elevator suddenly restarts, crushing Mizuno between the car and the shaft ceiling, killing her. The class receives news of her death, confirming the curse has resumed and leaving Kouichi uncertain whether the countermeasures failed or were never properly followed.
5The Extent
Koichi Sakakibara returns to class after the homeroom teacher Kubodera’s fatal heart attack during the previous episode. Students whisper about the unnatural timing of the death and its connection to the class’s recurring curse. Mei Misaki approaches Koichi in the library and explains that she is directly linked to the original student whose death started the curse in 1972. She leads him to the school’s archive room,where the librarian, Chibiki, shows them a reel-to-reel recording of the 1972 class 3-3. In the footage, a student named Misaki—the original Misaki—sits among the class; shortly after the recording, that student died, and the calamities began. Chibiki details the countermeasure developed by past classes: the class must designate one member as a “nonexistent” person and act as if that person does not exist. The students gather and vote to apply the countermeasure immediately, selecting Mei as the one to be ignored. Koichi refuses to participate and argues against the plan, but the rest of the class enforces the rule by pretending Mei is not present. Mei accepts the isolation calmly and warns Koichi that the countermeasure does not guarantee safety, as deaths have occurred even with it in place. The class settles into an uneasy routine of collective silence around Mei, while Koichi continues to speak with her in secret. The episode ends with the class’s fragile agreement holding, but the unresolved threat of the curse persists, leaving the next death uncertain.
6Face of the Dead
Kouichi and Mei enter the school library to locate records about the 1972 classroom incident. They uncover a student diary describing the death of a student named Misaki and the subsequent deaths that followed. The diary details how the class began a countermeasure: they designated one student as nonexistent to misdirect the calamity. Mei reveals that the current class continues this practice and that she fills the role of the nonexistent student. They search the faculty office and obtain a class photograph from 1972. In the photo,one student’s face appears obscured by unnatural shadow. Mei tells Kouichi she possesses the ability to see the dead, and she identifies that student as the one who originally died. Their homeroom teacher, Mr. Kubodera, intercepts them and admits his younger sister belonged to the 1972 class and died during the calamity. He orders them to halt their investigation, citing the danger of provoking the curse. Despite the warning, Kouichi and Mei continue. Mei presents a recent class photograph and declares the extra person—the one who should be dead—is visible in the image. Kouichi understands that the source of the ongoing deaths still occupies the classroom. The episode closes with the unresolved threat now explicitly located among the living students.
7Cognition
The class returns from the beach trip,and the faculty announces the death of a student who fell from the hotel balcony. Kouichi Sakakibara presses Mei Misaki for details about the countermeasure she mentioned. Mei explains that in 1973, the class of Yomiyama North Middle’s 3-3 devised a method to isolate the extra person: they designate a “leader” and treat that student as if they do not exist, forcing the calamity to target only that decoy. The following day, Tomohiko Kazami and the student council distribute name tags with seat positions, a new seating arrangement, and colored tape to mark lockers and desks. Students must address each other strictly by the assigned seat numbers rather than names. Kouichi notices the deep divisions within the class: some students embrace the ritual with fanatical obedience, while others, like Shigeki Yonemoto, openly mock it. Mei reveals that her left eye, a doll’s eye from her grandmother, can see the color of death around people fated to die soon. She uses it to observe the classroom and confirms that none of the current students show the color, meaning the extra person might not be a student at all. Later, Kouichi discovers a tape recording from the 1983 class’s countermeasure session, where a student’s voice announces that their attempt failed because the “nonexistent” person was not actually the extra. The episode closes with a teacher, Kunihiko Sakuragi, collapsing in the staff room, his face contorted and blood vessels bursting, signaling that the countermeasure has already begun to take effect in a new way.
8Hair Stand
The class travels to a seaside inn for a retreat organized by the countermeasures committee. Students swim and relax on the beach,but Akazawa keeps the group focused on identifying the extra person. Mei tells Sakakibara that she sees a faint color of death around a doll in the inn’s display case. Teshigawara and Mochizuki retrieve the doll and show it to the committee. Akazawa proposes a ritual: each student announces themselves with a personal item they brought from home. During the ritual, a power outage plunges the room into darkness. When lights return, the doll’s head lies on the table, and Yamada’s body slumps against the wall with his throat slashed. The group finds no murder weapon and realizes the extra person must have acted during the blackout. A typhoon traps everyone inside the inn, cutting off outside contact. Akazawa declares they cannot leave until they expose the true extra person.
9Body Paint
After the deaths of Nakao and others,the class accelerates its plan to expose the dead person. Teshigawara and Mochizuki distribute a recorded voice sample from the previous class trip to compare with each student’s voice. The class assembles in the room where the deceased Kunihiko Sakakibara’s desk remains, using it as a focal point for the identification. Each student speaks into a microphone while the others compare the live voice to the tape. The process fails to yield a clear match, but the group notices an inconsistency in the number of participants. Suspicion turns toward individual students, and the atmosphere grows hostile. Kubodera demands that everyone display their name tags, which the class previously marked with a stamp to verify attendance. When Kouichi checks Mei Misaki’s name tag, he finds no stamp, implying she never received the mark. The class interprets this as confirmation that Mei is the extra. Kouichi hesitates but confronts Mei, who calmly asserts she is alive. She directs him to the old class photograph from three years ago, pointing to a figure with an eyepatch similar to hers. The image reveals that a person matching her appearance existed in that previous class, deepening the mystery of her connection to the recurring disaster. The episode closes with Kouichi uncertain whether Mei is the dead student or if the class’s identification method has failed to account for a different anomaly.
10Glass Eye
11Makeup
12Stand by oneself
Cast
- Shouji Kubodera
- Yuuya MochizukiSon Wonil
- Tomohiko Kazami
- Reiko Mikami
- Kouichi Sakakibara
- Izumi Akizawa
- ReikoNaoko Sakakibara
- Kōichi Sakakibara
- Izumi Azakawa
- Tatsuji
- Mizuno
- Naoya Teshigawara
- Yukari Sakuragi
- Mei Misaki
- Tatsuji Chibiki
- Mochizuki
- Yuya MochizukiJuan Balvín
- Tomohiro KazamiAlan Kanaan
- Takako Suguira
- Teshigawara
Comment(s)
Staff
- DirectorTsutomu Mizushima
- ScriptRyō Higaki
- Episode DirectorToshiya ShinoharaFumie MuroiTsutomu MizushimaHideaki KurakawaYukina HiiroTakebumi AnzaiTarou IwasakiHiroyuki HataJong Heo
- MusicKō Ōtani
- Original Character DesignNoizi Itō
- Art DirectorSatoru Hirayanagi
- Animation DirectorJunichirō TaniguchiYuriko IshiiChieko MiyakawaKazunori MinagawaKōsuke KawazuraYuuko YoshidaYurie ŌhigashiManamu AmazakiAsuka KojimaEriko Itō
- Sound DirectorYoshikazu Iwanami
- Executive producerShinichirō Inoue
- Series CompositionRyō Higaki
- StoryboardToshiya ShinoharaFumie MuroiTsutomu MizushimaMasayuki YoshiharaNobutoshi OguraYukina HiiroYuriko IshiiTarou IwasakiHiroyuki Hata
- Unit DirectorYuriko IshiiKōdai Kakimoto
- Original creator
- Character DesignYuriko Ishii
- Chief Animation DirectorYuriko Ishii
- 3D DirectorYoshimasa Yamazaki
- Director of PhotographyTomo Namiki
- ProducerKenji HorikawaShunji InoueTakeshi YasudaEriko AokiSeiichi KawashimaYoshikazu KumataniFumihiko ShinozakiYasunobu MurobushiAmi IshikawaAi MatsukiYūichirō KanesadaJun Fukuda
Production
- ProductionThe Klockworx Co., Ltd.P.A. WorksTOHOKadokawa ShotenLantisNTT Docomo
- Animation ProductionP.A. Works
