Talk:Kouichi Sakakibara/@comment-397235-20140820020502/@comment-397235-20140821015709

Not so in Another, unfortunately. In the anime, in addition to Takako and Yumi, who both suffered psychotic breaks, and Tomohiko, who went on a murderous rampage, Aki and Kyouko weren't especially bothered by the curse and were still victims therein, as was Makoto (though he was killed by stupid, and is one of the few I don't feel all that bad for). Conversely, Matsuko, Sayuri, Noburo, and Naoya (oh God Naoya), who all to varying degrees did panic survived. Likewise, in the manga, those killed at the Inn were never people who were especially disturbed by things (Shigeki is never shown, Junta just stands around and looks confused, Manabu was nice enough to take Naoya's place so he could be in the picture, and outside the boys Takako seems to have been Mei's only friend; Izumi did go ape shit and made it out).

So with this it's less a matter of keeping your cool and more a matter of being lucky.

Of course, your theory holds true for the movie: the ones who were willing to kill their classmates (Naoya, Takeru, and Izumi) all met their ends, while the ones intent on keeping everyone else calm (Kouichi, Mei, Yuuya, Tomohiko, and Takako) all survived.

On the one hand, I think the movie's view is a little too simplistic (I've always figured the most important message in Another isn't about not losing your head, but about trusting your friends); on the other hand, it being dumb luck is depressing in and of itself, since you can be a frigging saint and still bite the big one.

Of course, then again, death isn't known for being fair, and there's not exactly an appeals process.