Countermeasures



Countermeasures is the name given to the set of rules put in place by the students of Class 3-3 to protect themselves against the curse. Countermeasures are student-led, rather than being officially sanctioned by the school. The most obvious and drastic of the countermeasures is the practice of ignoring one student for the entire school year, to balance the extra student added by the curse.

Overview
Due to the dire situation of class 3-3, a set of unofficial rules, or countermeasures, have been put in place by students over the years in an attempt to counteract the curse's effects. Countermeasures are managed by one student, though in extreme situations decisions are made as a group; this position is unofficial and is chosen the previous year, apparently at random. Countermeasures do not seem to have any official sanctioning from the school administration per se, but are assisted by the staff in implementation.

Head of Countermeasures
The head of countermeasures is the unofficial name attached to the student in charge of enforcing the anti-curse rules. Due to the high stress nature of the position, it is apparently chosen by draft, though it is possible to volunteer for the role. It is not an official school position (such as class representative) but instead is chosen by the students of class 3-3 sometime before term begins; it was still possible to hold official school posts and be head, as Izumi Akazawa became female class representative after Yukari Sakuragi's death. The head of countermeasures is allowed to have other students assist them in their duties, and in extreme situations decisions are made as a group.

The Shunning
The most obvious and drastic of the countermeasures is the drafting of one student, before term, to serve as the "nonexistent" student, to be ignored by his or her classmates and teachers until the curse either doesn't happen that year, or stops. Due to the harsh nature of this practice, class 3-3 is kept isolated from other classes, most notably taking PE class alone (rather than by gender as is common in Japanese schools), in order to spare other students not in class 3-3 from participating in the shunning. For obvious reasons, the role of nonexistent student is a hard burden to bear, and not a position most people accept willingly.

Effectiveness
The countermeasures are met with varying degrees of success. Sometimes ignoring a student is enough to keep the curse from becoming active, but at least 50% of the time they serve no purpose other than to make life miserable for one student. The countermeasures' main weakness, apart from this, is they require 100% participation from the entire class. If even one student fails to take part in the shunning, the entire plan falls apart. Thus students either unaware of the plan or unwilling to take part jeopardize the entire operation. Furthermore, if a student was unaware of the scheme in the first place, great care had to be taken in explaining the situation without actually breaking the roles and acknowledging the shunned student.

1998
By 1998, the countermeasures had become firmly established as the best hope for class 3-3 to survive the year intact. Izumi Akazawa broke tradition by volunteering to lead countermeasures for her year, and a quiet, withdrawn student named Mei Misaki was chosen to be shunned, a role she filled without complaint. However, a series of bad luck conspired to ensure Izumi could not instruct a new student, Kouichi Sakakibara, in the rules of the curse. Despite a warning from Mei herself, Koichi misunderstood the situation and, in acknowledging Mei's existence, helped the curse gather steam. However, by that point the curse had already claimed its first victim, Misaki Fujioka, so it is debatable whether the events of 1998 were avoidable.

Forced into a corner by her own rules and unable to explain the situation, Izumi took drastic action, instructing her fellow classmates to ignore Koichi as well, in the hopes of curbing the rapidly climbing body count. Unfortunately, ignoring two students was no more effective than one, and after Kubodera-Sensei, the class's homeroom teacher, committed suicide at the start of class one day, Izumi was forced to reevaluate her plan. As it was obvious ignoring Kouichi and Mei hadn't worked, the two were accepted back into the class, though many blamed either for the deaths which had occurred up until that point.

When word came out that one year the curse had abruptly stopped in midterm, Izumi and her delegates (which now included Kouichi and Mei) attempted to gather as much information as possible on the matter. Eventually they learned the curse could be stopped if one killed the "extra" student by "sending the dead back to death."

Unfortunately, this news caused more problems than it solved, as two students took matters into the own hands in an attempt to end the curse. Takako Sugiura became fixated on the idea that Mei was the "other" and instructed her fellow students to kill her, while Tomohiko Kazami determined the extra was Kouichi, though this didn't stop him from murdering several other students in the process of finding him. Though both students eventually met their deaths as a result of the curse, their actions led to the most catastrophic single tragedy class 3-3 had seen, with over half a dozen deaths, including Izumi herself and her two assistants (Takako and Yumi Ogura), two relatives of another student, and the surviving homeroom teacher.

Events probably would've spiraled even further out of control had Mei and Kouichi not finally determined the identity of the real "extra" and put an end to things.

Aftermath of the 1998 Catastrophe
After the events of 1998, it is likely the countermeasures were either thoroughly revised or discarded entirely as ineffective. The knowledge gained by Izumi during her tenure as head of countermeasures was stored in a tape recording hidden in the old school building, explaining how to actually break the curse, but with the admonition to not act alone, but to discuss things with one's friends to avoid making mistakes. This group approach suggests, if the countermeasures themselves persist, the role of head was not filled again after Izumi's death.