Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 24 – Many answers, many questions

After two episodes in which the main storyline was rather ignored, Higurashi suddenly returns with an episode full of revelations and explanations. Rina’s now out of the picture, so that Rena can concentrate on other things, and she once again proves her detective skills.

The Watanagashi is over, and Tomitake killed himself again, while Takano’s fate hasn’t been much better. For some reason, Oishi just wants to question Rena about this. Later, Rena takes out some of Takano’s scrapbooks, and reflects back to the time when she acquired them, which really gave another twist to this story. They both were in the library, one of Takano’s favourite places. Takano tells Rena that she’s been investigating the chain of bizarre deaths. She actually predicts that it’ll happen again for the current year. Heh, the irony.

Rena then tells Takano about her own experiences with Oyashiro-sama. Surprisingly, she actually encountered him, when she moved away from the village. It’s supposedly a taboo of Oyashiro-sama, and some bizarre events happened afterwards. This included the conversation between Rena and her mother, we saw in the previous two episodes, and her infamous rampage at school, in which she smashed down all of the windows. Rena claims that a lof of bad things happened, and she did a lot of bad things herself out of desperation. I’d love to get more information about this. In any case, when she started cutting her own wrists with razorblades, Oyashiro appeared in front of her, and told her that the only way for her to survive is to return to Hinamizawa.

In any case, Rena finally looks at the scrapbooks, and they reveal quite an amount of interesting things. Afterwards, she informs Keiichi about this. A quick rundown:
– The legend of Oyashiro-sama is the following: The demons would emerge from the Onigafuchi Marsh and attack the village. But Oyashiro-sama intervened, calmed the demons and gave them human-form, to allow their co-existence within the village.
– This actually is a cover-up story. Onigafuchi-marsh actually is the home of a couple of disease-harbouring parasites. Whenever you get infected by a parasite, you go berserk. There indeed was some kind of disease going on.
– The taboo of Hinamizawa was to never leave the village or let any outsiders in. This is in order to stop the disease from spreading to other areas.
– Oyashiro-sama is some kind of doctor. It somehow attempted to “cure this contagious disease”. Note the “contagious” part of this sentence, and the fact that there’s a certain member among the cast of Higurashi who coincidentally happens to be a doctor.

– In the end, all he could do is make the rules to never let anyone out or into the village.
– A strange one: it seems that the parasites can only survive in Hinamizawa because of the temperature and climate. Why try so hard to prevent it from spreading when it won’t happen anyway?
– In any case, when an infected host tries to leave the area, the parasite produces strong symptoms in order to prevent this.
– Right now, it’s common for people to walk in and out of the area. That’s because Oyashiro-sama’s plan worked. Also, back in those days, whenever a person would go berserk because of a parasite, that person was caught and killed along with the parasite (*coughWatanagashicough*).
– The result was that only the people who could live with each other without any problems would live on.
– The Watanagashi seems to have had the purpose of eating the intestines of the berserked individuals. This creates a vaccine, to increase the resistance of the villagers.
– Currently, there are some fanatical worshippers of Oyashiro-sama who are trying to bring his belief back. Of course, when the fact that a bunch of parasites were behind his creation, it wouldn’t do them too good. That’s why they erase everyone who comes close to knowing the truth.
– An interesting one: the ultimate goal of the worshippers is to release the parasite all over Hinamizawa.
– Remember the guys in the van from episode 1? They now seem to be following Rena.

These answer so many questions. But unfortunately, for every question they answer, they bring up ten new, almost impossible to solve, questions. First, the things that we do know.
– The culprit seems to be one of those fanatical Oyashiro-sama worshippers. He or she is the one to succeed Obaba, and probably is the true leader of Hinamizawa. Because of this, he’s been able to use the same guys we saw in the Fourth arc, when they kidnapped the little boy.
– While a lot of people may have been infected by the parasites, not a lot of people actually went berserk. The most cases we saw involved the disease who was partially awake, as in a lesser state. Think of Keiichi in the third arc and Rena in the third and fifth arc. Only three people actually went berserk and started attacking people. Rena, after she left Hinamizawa. Shion, probably because she lived in a place other than Hinamizawa. And Keiichi, in the first arc. I’m still trying to figure out what caused him to believe that he had to leave the village. If I had to take a guess, it’s when he read about the string of bizarre deaths. Somehow, he unconsciously told himself that it would be better to leave the village, in order to be safe.
– Remember the end of the second arc, in which Keiichi sees Mion, giving him the nail-treatment? That happened after he heard that he was going to move. (*wink wink*)
– The end of the third and fourth arc also are explained. The fact that a bit of volcanic gas was just a cover-up story. In those cases, the plan of the bad guy actually worked, and the entire village went berserk because of the parasite. Keiichi was the only survivor because he was unconscious in a rather isolated place in which the disease nor the berserked villagers didn’t reach him. There has to be a reason why this didn’t happen in the first, second and fifth arc. It might be because both Keiichi and Shion murdered someone important. (Mion?)
– Irie and Takano never were culprits at all. They actually tried to stop the bad guy’s plans. Irie did this by developing a cure for the disease, while Takano tried to find out his identity and the background behind Hinamizawa.
– Tomitake’s death also is explained. He tried to leave the village, was infected by a parasite, the parasite didn’t like this and the disease activated, making him strangle himself.
– Takano probably was killed because she knew too much. Keiichi was being followed by the men in the van because they spotted him while in disease-mode.
– Remember Oishi and Irie disappearing in the third arc? Could that be because they knew too much and had to be annihilated?
– Remember in the third arc and the fifth arc, when Keiichi and Shion had the feeling they’re being watched? *points at guys in van*

Now, the questions,
– What’s up with Takano? Why did she act so suspicious in the Third arc. How come she was alive after her dead body had been found in the second arc?
– Who could the culprit possibly be? It can’t be Takano, as she tried to uncover the plot. It wasn’t anyone from the Sonozaki-family, otherwise it wouldn’t match with the fifth arc. It has to have some connection with Rika, in order to explain the fourth arc, and it must have some sort of connection with the three main houses.
– How did Keiichi catch the disease in the first place? Did he catch it from Rena?
– How come Irie was working together with the bad guy’s henchmen?
– Why did Rena contact Irie in the first arc, while she didn’t do this in any other arcs?
– Something I just realized: since when did Rena know how to perform the Watanagashi? How come Rina’s body has had to endure the Watanagashi? Could it be that she needed some vaccine herself, and decided to use Rina’s body for this?
– In what way did Oyashiro appear in front of Rena?
– Why did Takano have to enter the shrine?
– What’s Rika’s connection in all this?

Oh, and on a side-note, this probably is the third time I’ve seen people cutting their wrists in anime in a short time. The others being Night Head Genesis and Narutaru. Overall, Higurashi tried too hard, without delivering any substance. I think it was too keen on delivering some gore that it ignored other things, so once again, that scene looked a bit fake. Night Head Genesis gave a good attempt, but it was a bit laughable. Narutaru did it in a good way, though. It didn’t really have to show any gore in order to make any impact. The heavy breathing was enough for this.