Talk:Mei Misaki/@comment-397235-20140821031317/@comment-397235-20140822045652

I plan (or had planned, not sure we'll get that far) with the Westernization I've decided to say "To Hell with it" and start writing (I'm not proud of this, but I can't help myself). The last section would be (or would have been) called "We Are All Alone" or "Stand Alone" or some other play on the series finale's title.

When Kouichi gets called by Mei in the burning Inn, she basically repeats what she's said to him earlier, explaining how everyone is, in the end, alone, and how that may be better for everyone if she stays that way. Kouichi begs her to tell him where she is, and she finally relents, but adds he's going to wish he'd listened.

Kouichi finds her outside with the pickaxe, and at first things sound like she's going to kill him because he's the Extra. But then she says she just wanted him to understand, and if he weren't here he wouldn't have to remember this. "I'll carry this alone from here" she tells him.

Kouichi shakes his head and tells her she's wrong, and not everyone has to be alone (we'd get a nice, lovely montage either of them together, or the others stumbling out of the Inn into the snow; I've not decided which would be better artistically). He tells her life is all about finding the right people to be with. Then he says some things are best done together, takes the pickaxe, and kills Reiko with it. You wouldn't see her until this point, because she's stunned, but right before he kills her, she looks him in the eye and begs him "Please..." to which he says his standard "Goodbye, Reiko" (actually, "Goodbye, Lily" because Westernized names) and kills her.

Now, a little background: one of the first scenes between Reiko and Kouichi is a phone conversation they have, wherein Reiko learns Yousuke managed to forget Kouichi's birthday (not out of malice, just negligence). She's furious at first, but Kouichi manages to calm her down. Mollified, and realizing as satisfying as it would be to ream her brother-in-law out, her nephew needs her more, Reiko tells him to remember the good things, before adding: “Home is where people love you. And I’ll always love you, okay?”

A few days later he and Mei and his friends are talking when his grandmother says she's just spoken to his father, who's planning to come get him, and wants to know how much more time Kouichi would like in America. Kouichi looks at his friends, remembering her words. Then he tells his grandmother to say not to bother, because he's not going back.

The last actual scene would be the whole "Do you think it's over?" scene, but tweaked (because there's more) so Mei responds either with "For us" or "For now." After that, you hear the tape recording, but every member of the main cast who's still alive has contributed something to it, based on the things they either got right or fucked up their year (Izumi, for example, says something to the effect of "Have a heart," Yumi's is something along the lines of "Stay together," Takako gets Naoya's "Talk it over with your friends" line since Naoya says something about protecting each other, and Kouichi ends it with ends it by saying, if they follow all these rules, they'll have no regrets).

The series itself would've ended a couple years later, with Kouichi and Mei standing on a hill overlooking the rebuilt school (having burned it down themselves their senior year). Mei is trying to spot the Dead One. After a few tense minutes, she turns to Kouichi, her usual blank look on her face. He asks her, again, but this time with concern, if it's over. She pauses for a minute, then smiles. "Yes."

I'm sure you're probably tired of hearing about that, but it gets back to what I mean about the central theme for Another being: it's all about loneliness, and standing together.

As for Mei being alone, I couldn't do that to any of my characters.I subscribe to the school of thought put out by a writer whose name I cannot, at the moment, remember (it seems like there's an award named after him, which is really bugging me):

"Torture your characters as much as you can, but in the end, let them go."

Throughout the course of the life of one of my favorite characters I've ever written, Douglas Harding (he was also the first character I created 100% from scratch, though he's changed a lot since his initial introduction):

His mother goes insane and murders his father as a result of the OtherWorldly cult they both subscribe to when he is three. She then attempts to kill him and his one year old sister, believing them to be demon spawn (not realizing the demon-baby was born to the woman her husband had an affair with).

Twelve years later, his entire town goes insane and despite his best efforts to protect his friends, someone he grew up with is murdered just to get his attention, another friend dies in his arms, his own foster-father tries to kill him only to have a heart attack and die on the spot, he's left to die by the girl he's got a crush (Tara) on twice, is almost killed directly by her a third time at her psychotic older sister's request, and by the end of that year is one of a handful of survivors in his entire town. A large portion of this he blames on the demon child, who he isn't aware is his half-sister, Molly.

He's forced to move in with his foster sister, her dickish husband, and his niece (Kate), along with the girl who nearly killed him (who was orphaned the previous year and has nowhere else to be). Throughout the course of that year one of their other classmates, Harrison, learns more or less what happened to them, and tries to use his natural charisma and Tara's own uncertainties to open a portal to the OtherWorld, sacrificing Molly in the process. He intervenes on her behalf, in the process of which he's forced to kill still more of his friends and classmates before finally managing to get to Harrison, only for Tara to try and nearly succeed in killing him again. He manages to work things out and by the end is on good terms with Molly and her boyfriend, Daniel, whom he's known for years, though the can only truly settle things by erasing Harrison from existence entirely, which more or less resets reality and puts everyone back at square one.

The next year, hunters from the cult show up to kill Molly and release her energy upon the world, merging their world with the OtherWorld. Douglas gets sucked into this again, and over the course of the worst day of his life, their entire city is destroyed by a flood, his brother-in-law goes insane and kills his foster-sister before Douglas kills him, he successfully kills one of the main hunters, only to have their leaders vow revenge and decide to break him by killing everyone he cares about.

His best friend is decapitated by a monster, Kate's boyfriend (who's also one of his friends) explodes on him due to another creature, Tara has a temporary mental break and is killed by Molly's pet monster (the Miasma; think the Smoke Monster from Lost) before Molly can stop it. By the time Douglas reaches Tara, he can't even cry for her, he's that played out. He knows what killed her and goes after Molly, still unaware of their connection, and shoots Daniel when he intervenes on Molly's behalf. Douglas gets attacked by a monster stag beetle which breaks several of his ribs while the other two escape, but even that's not enough to kill him, since he's running more or less on rage now. Daniel is killed in a fight as a result of his wounds, and Molly is left alone when Douglas finds her again, and tries to kill her, only for his gun to blow up in his face and partially blind him. He doesn't give up that easily and keeps attacking, but ends up being partially fed through a meat grinder. Molly, who knows who he is to her, pulls him out and explains things in an effort to make him feel better, but it only shows him how much he's fucked things up, and he dies horrified by his actions, having failed everyone, even though Molly at least gave him forgiveness.

Douglas ends up in another plane of existence, however, and through sheer force of will manages to escape back to his reality (along with most of the others who've been killed at this point; it's a long story) and helps turn the tide, though in the end the only thing which can make things right is to erase Molly from existence. The last scene is of everyone standing around a few days before their graduation, commenting it feels like something's missing, but being unable to place it.

The moral of that long winded story is I don't like taking everything from a character and leaving them with nothing. Douglas loses everything, but manages to get most of it back (he still loses Molly, which is especially devastating as his memories reasserted themselves following his death, meaning he knows who she is at that point and everything they've been through). Of course, Molly doesn't get an especially happy ending, but she does get what she wanted: safety for her friends, who she basically gave up her existence for.

So I don't like the idea of leaving Mei alone and forsaken, by faith and by man, oh Lord if you hear her, please hold in Your-Anyway, that just seems harsh.

I think this one may've gotten away from me a little. Sorry.