Synopsis

Not a single student in class 3-3 will acknowledge that one girl exists. Kōichi Sakakibara just transferred to Yomiyama North Middle School after a hospital stay, and he can't figure out why his classmates pretend Mei Misaki, a quiet girl with an eyepatch he met before school even started, simply isn't there. Everyone in class seems tense, like they're following a set of rules no one will explain to him. When he ignores their warnings and starts talking to Mei anyway, the real nature of class 3-3's curse starts to surface, and people start dying. This 12-episode TV series from P.A. Works is set in 1998 and plays out like a slow-burn mystery where the atmosphere does most of the heavy lifting. The school hallways feel wrong, the lighting is oppressive, and the soundtrack keeps you on edge even during quiet conversations. Then the deaths hit, and they're not gentle about it, the gore is sudden and brutal in a way that catches you off guard every time. If you liked Higurashi no Naku Koro ni or Shiki, this sits in that same space where small-town paranoia and supernatural dread overlap. It's got that Final Destination energy too, where you're constantly scanning every scene for what's about to go horribly wrong. The central mystery of why the curse exists and who it's connected to actually has a satisfying payoff, which is more than a lot of horror anime can say. Dark, atmospheric, and genuinely unsettling when it wants to be.