Manabu Maejima

Manabu Maejima is a member of 9th Grade Class 3 in 1998 and a student at Yomiyama North Middle School. Though he has no dialogue until "Face to Face," Manabu appears in the opening from this episode.

Plot
Manabu was one of the students who went on the class trip to the shrine, hoping to break the curse. He was present when Izumi demanded Mei apologize to the class, but like most of his peers did not weigh in on the situation. In "Makeup," when Kouichi walked towards the dining hall, Manabu grabbed his leg, begged for help, and told Kouichi of the fire in the dining room. Covered in blood, Manabu had encountered Keiko and just barely managed to escape her crazed onslaught. Kouichi helped him get to safety, but was worried when the dining room exploded, afraid he might have left Manabu to die. Later in the episode Kouichi speculates that Takako had stabbed him. However Takako comes up at that instant, saying "It wasn't me. Probably that old crone."

In "Stand By Oneself," however, he is one of the few students who gets out of the lodge, briefly shown in the rear of Chibiki's car, and survived and in the Yomiyama Hospital recovering from his stab wounds and visited by Yukito, Yuuya, Noboru, Kouichi, Matsuko, and Daisuke.

Appearance
Manabu has short black hair and gray eyes. He is the shortest boy in Class 3-3. He wears Yomiyama Middle's school standard male uniform most of time.

In the novel, Kouichi specifically describes him as being a "baby-faced warrior."

Gallery
Main article: Manabu Maejima/Image Gallery 

Trivia

 * He sits in class in the first rows of seats, second column of desks from the window. On his left hand is seated Izumi Akazawa, to his right is seated Yukari Sakuragi and behind him is seated Junta Nakao.
 * He is ranked A in Another characters ranking.
 * His home address is 9-12 Seitencho Yomiyama City.
 * In the original novel and manga Manabu dies, being one of the "Deaths of August;" he was murdered by Keiko Numata in the novel, and died in the fire at the Inn in the manga. He is one of the few characters from the novel whose status improves, as he survived the anime.
 * He is a kendo club member in Yomiyama North Middle School.
 * His height is 161 cm, making him the shortest male student in Class 3-3.
 * His first name, Manabu, means "to learn."
 * When Takako appears in the inn's main hall, she's covered in blood, a lot of which doesn't appear to be hers. As Manabu and the lodge manager were the only other persons who'd been attacked at that point, it's possible it's his blood she's covered in, suggesting the two were both attacked by Keiko at the same time.  However as Manabu has already been stabbed before Takako screamed so it's very unlikely they were at same place at the same time. And Takako specifically denied stabbing him. Odds suggest that he had crossed paths with Keiko as she left the dining room after setting it on fire.