Author: psgels

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 17 – After a month absence, Shuurei returns. And more awesome than ever. :)

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari



I’m SO glad that Saiunkoku Monogatari’s back again. And to top things, it returns with one of the best episodes so far. I really loved it!

Remember when Shuurei was on the verge of being captured by Kochou and her henchmen? The story returns from this point. Kochou orders Shuurei to come inside, as there’s someone who wishes for it. She can’t refuse, as it’s a person whose rank is way higher than Shuurei, Eigetsu and Seiran’s combined. Kochou reminds Seiran of the fact that he can’t do anything with his current status, and that he can’t even protect his loved ones. She gives the subtle hint that if he was an officer with authority like Shuuei, he could have done something. Seiran gets this hint, and leaves.

We then see a scene in which the bad guy for this arc has a small conversation with one of his henchmen. He seems to be the one who ordered Kochou to take in Shuurei, and he indeed seems to have set his mind to kicking Shuurei out of the palace. He also seems to have a grudge against Eigetsu. I’m not sure about the reason yet, but I think Yougetsu made a fool out of him once. He also surprises himself over the fact that Reishin would volunteer to act as Shuurei’s sponsor. It seems that he also wants Reishin to leave.

Next, a discussion between Shouka and his younger brother, Kurou. It begins strange, when Shouka reveals that Kurou was the one who gave Eigetsu food and a place to stay after he ended up sending all of his money back to his village. I always thought that Eigetsu was staying in Shuurei’s house, though now it seems that Kurou has been taking care of him. Kurou also seemed to have asked Eigetsu about Shuurei. Apart from this research, he also seems to have been the one to prevent Shuurei from facing a huge amount of harassment, though it’s not yet clear what. He also tells Shouka that he hates him, and he seems to have been the one to throw Shouka out of a certain home. Shouka, however, remains indifferent about this. Not only that, but he also plans to have Shuurei become Kouyuu’s wife. A messenger then arrives, telling him about Reishin who’s been locked up and Shuurei and Eigetsu are stuck in Kogarou. There’ll also be an inquiry about the two of them the next morning. Kurou figures that the two of them are being held to prevent them from being able to attend, so it would seem that they were afraid to come and have fled, making them guilty. Kurou then gets serious, and plans to make use of his power as a member of the Kou-clan. He doesn’t like it when his clan-members are put in difficult situations.

Back when they were taken in by Kochou, Eigetsu secretly gave Seiran the stamp he got from Ryuuki in the previous episode. During this episode, the purpose of this stamp gets explained. If you give a letter that stamp, it will always arrive with top priority. Seiran used this to notify Ryuuki that Shuurei’s been captured. He discusses this with Shuuei, and they both don’t like it. When Ryuuki also finds out that Reishin has been captured and Kurou, who apparently is the proxy head of the Kou clan also has been sighted, he really begins to see that things aren’t going into the right direction. The reason for that, we see later. Ryuuki gets an idea when Kouyuu notifies him with the letter for the petition. He plans to go to Shuurei, though Kouyuu commands him to come back soon with a very evil voice. ^^

Then we see Seiran, who’s paying a visit to Raien, who seems to be a high-ranked official. Seiran asks for the position, rank and authority to wear a sword to protect what’s important to him. Kochou’s plan seemed to have worked.

Shuurei, meanwhile, is getting a bit depressed inside Kogarou, because Kochou betrayed her. Eigetsu then tells her the reason why he wanted to become a government official. It seems that it’s for the money. Eigetsu’s village had one doctor. At times, this doctor wouldn’t be able to handle all of the patients who came to him. If he had money, he would have. The doctor always had a sad look on his eyes when this happened. Eigetsu doesn’t want him to get that look. Some thugs then come to pick up Eigetsu, in order to play around with him a bit. I love the thugs in Saiunkoku Monogatari. They seem to fit perfect, but are clueless at the same time. This becomes clear when they try to feed Eigetsu some alcohol. Eigetsu gets taken away, along with the alcohol. In any case, they also mention something important. The reason why Eigetsu went berserk was because he refused to marry the daughter of the bad guy.

Next up, a discussion between Kourin and Ensei. Ensei seemed to have grown his beard again (he indeed really hates shaving). It seems that the two of them will be arriving early, and Kourin displays the strength of her character. This scene really made me respect her. It seems that Kourin wanted to meet the one she tried to kill, in order to apologize, and repent for her sins. She’s actually willing to take responsibility for the things she’s done.

Back to Shuurei, one of the thugs decided to have a bit of fun with her (being in a brothel, and all). Then, it seems that the thugs managed to feed Eigetsu some alcohol after all, and Yougetsu appears. That takes care of the annoying thugs.

Kochou then arrives at the place. The thugs then command her to summon the guards, though Kochou turns back on them, using her own guards to knock out the rest of the thugs. In a highly intimidating way. Afterwards, Yougetsu tries to hit on Shuurei, but faints before it gets serious. The remaining thug then scolds Kochou, claiming that she betrayed them, after all of the affection his master showed. Kochou then claims to never have been on his side in the first place, and that the guy should really begin to know his place. She also yells at him for doing things to her precious Shuurei. Shuurei then realizes that Kochou just acted, and that she never betrayed her in the first place. What follows is a touching scene in which Shuurei’s extremely glad that Kochou didn’t turn her back on her. It seems that Kochou told her to stay away from Kogarou was to protect Shuurei. After all, if she was seen in a brothel, she’d be in trouble. Kochou also tells her that she acted the way she did because of a request from Shuuei. It seems that the guy really knew what was going on.

Back to Kurou, Kage (the messenger) and Shouka. Kurou has taken drastic measures when he sends out a message to every member of the Kou-clan living in the capital. Kurou’s really getting angry for having his big brother locked up.

Back to Kogarou, Ryuuki explains Shuurei about the ring of the head of the Sa clan. Originally, Sa Taiho had this, though ever since his death, the ring has been missing. The bad guy is trying to take advantage of it. How exactly isn’t known. It seems that if you have the ring, you automatically have status, or something, but that isn’t really explained. He also tells her about t
he inquiry. Ryuuki thinks it’s a good idea to let Shuurei and Eigetsu stay at Kogarou for the night, so that they can head for the palace next morning. There’ll probably be resistance, though he won’t assign any major guards, as he wants Shuurei to come on her own strength. Seiran gets to be the only one to protect her. Ryuuki then grabs a number of papers, which somehow will become a large piece of evidence of that corruption. I think he means Shuurei’s report on her treatment for the last couple of episodes.

What follows is Seiran leaving to check up on Shouka and Kochou bringing Eigetsu to bed. It seems that they knew that the two of them needed a bit of time along. In this time, Shuurei thanks Ryuuki for not going soft on her. The fact remained that when she worked as the queen, she was never told about anything. She was being protected, though now she isn’t. She likes it that Ryuuki treats her as a normal official. Ryuuki then gets notified of a very angry Kouyuu, who alerts him of the fact that half of all work outside of the castle has come to a halt (Kurou’s work).

Back in the palace, Ryuuki surprises himself over all the petitions that arrived. This just shows the power of the Kou clan. The capital is in a state of major confusion. Senior Secretary Kou has been occupying one of the distant residences all by himself (remind me again… who was that?) and has put himself under self-imposed house-arrest. Shuuei then figures that should be going back to normal in a day, if nobody does something about it. The power of the Kou clan is much larger than what Kuro demonstrated and they’re able to do much worse. So, basically, Kurou is telling them to resolve everything within a day. Then, another interesting fact gets revealed. Ryuuki wonders what the bad guy was thinking by going against Reishin. Shuuei then mentions that Reishin hasn’t revealed the public that he’s the actual head of the Kou-clan. And indeed, when we later see a scene with the bad guy, he’s astonished about Reishin’s power. He never imagined it would be this big. Oh, and they also get a note from Ensei, with the message that he’s likely to arrive the next day, in the evening. Ryuuki then orders them to arrive that noon instead. Probably because he wants them to attend Shuurei’s inquiry.

Back to Shuurei and Kochou, Eigetsu seems to have woken up, and the two of them spend the rest of the night working on their report, to get them done before the inquiry begins.

The next day, we see what Kijin was planning with the papers from the previous episode. I have no idea what kinds of papers they were, but they were valuable to Shuurei’s and Kouyuu’s reports, and he slipped in into their work.

Next episode promises to be a big one. I’m glad Saiunkoku Monogatari returned. ^_^

Comedy Review – 89/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Seriously. I’ve seen Comedy for ten times now already, and I’m still drooling. This ten-minute short by Studio 4C really is a piece of beautiful art. Not just the drawings and background, but the story and the characters themselves as well.

Just for the record, it may be named Comedy, but the short itself is everything but a comedy. It’s a story, set in Ireland in the middle ages. The English are about to invade a village, and one of the villagers, a five year old girl, searches for a black swordsman in order to defend the village. The movie is just ten minutes long, so you’d wonder how such a story would fit in such a short amount of time. Well, the creators knew exactly how to use the time given to them, and they somehow managed to do this.

To fully understand Comedy, you should actually watch it at least twice (you’ll understand when you do ;)). The little girl and the black swordsman are surprisingly likable. In only ten minutes, Comedy shows that the two of them have very versatile, strong and interesting personalities. Something most anime can’t even do in an entire season. The little girl, coming up with such an idea and having the bravery to actually execute it (remember, she’s five and the English are about to invade) was extremely cute to see. The black swordsman also was given a friendly side in his obsession with books. The combination of these two characters works surprisingly well.

The character art in this short is unique. Characters have extremely white faces, with black clothing. Their faces are drawn rather messy, though the style this gives off only contributes to the overall quality of the movie. The animation shows that a lot of effort has been put into it. You can especially see this in the action scene. It’s a short one, though it’s extremely creative coordinated. Throughout the entire movie, an operatic voice takes care of the background music. It greatly contributes to the scene, but it also doesn’t drive the attention away from the really important parts.

Still, the fact remains that this short film is short. There is a little bit of background info given about the swordsman, though it isn’t enough. I’d love to know more about him and the little girl. I’d love to see more of this. But unfortunately, that’s impossible. Overall, while there isn’t really any tension or angst in this short, it keeps fascinating me. I just have to see it over and over again.

The Animatrix Review – 74/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, The Animatrix



The Animatrix is a collection of nine short films, all around ten minutes in length. Kid’s Story, Matriculated, World Record, Detective’s Story, Final Flight of the Osiris, Program, Beyond, The Second Renaissance Part I and The Second Renaissance Part II. Each of these films gives an attempt to cover one part of The Matrix, a movie trilogy made a couple of years ago. The remarkable thing about this anime is the fact that both eastern as western producers and directors worked on it. If you haven’t seen the matrix yet, the story basically revolves around the future, in which machines have taken over the world. The sunlight has been blocked and the machines noticed that human bio-energy was an extremely useful source of energy. The machines then put humans in containers, while their minds are permanently captured in The Matrix, or a huge virtual world. There’s no way to tell that this world isn’t real. The Matrix stimulates each of the senses. Every human locked up just believes that that he’s living his daily life in a world similar to ours.

The Matrix itself was really though-provoking, and it’s unsurprising that most of the nine-shorts are so as well. They bring up interesting questions. Also, when you look at the graphical department, The Animatrix excels. Each of the different shorts offers a different art, background and animation style. And each of these styles, ranging from CGI to extremely messy and from black and white graphics to extremely smooth ones, works out great. A lot of budget went into the art and animation, and this clearly is visible, with some great effects.

About the different shorts. The thing is that there are some very good ones, but also some very bad ones. The best of the bunch is arguably The Second Renaissance. It features an extremely interesting, though very shocking explanation about how The Matrix originated. Beyond and World Record also are definitely worth the watch. Beyond features a huge amount of style and symbolism, with an interesting story as well. World Record is extremely intense, with a very interesting main character whose body and soul get the shock of their lives.

Then we’ve also got some slightly interesting shorts. Both Program and Kid’s Story provide some interesting issues with really make you think. They also have some interesting art styles (Program goes back to the old ninja-movies, but with fluid animation while Kid’s Story features extremely messy character art with beautiful background art). While they are interesting, and a good watch, they weren’t really as good as the three mentioned above.

And then we have the rather bad ones. Detective’s story leaves things rather unexplained and moves a bit too fast. While its film noir style was interesting, the negative parts bothered me a bit too much. Matriculated dragged on. Its art was psychedelic, though it took way too long. And the semi-3D art wasn’t really appealing for the eyes as well. The worst of the shorts was Final Flight of the Osiris. While it did provide realistic 3D-characters, it just consisted of people fighting and guns shooting without a purpose. Its failed attempts at drama by providing love interest also totally backfired.

Overall, The Animatrix has its ups and downs. Still, I’m really recommending it if you’ve seen the original movie. Because oft he different styles used, there’ll definitely be a movie which appeals to you.

The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance Part II

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



Okay. That was amazing.

The Second Renaissance Part II has definitely been the best of the nine shorts of The Animatrix. I think this is because of its highly disturbing material. In the previous part, we saw the humans abusing the machines, now we see the machines, taking everything away from the humans, killing most of them off and placing the rest into cocoon-like containers, in order to get their energy. But I never could have imagined that it was this gruesome and intimidating…

We continue where we left off. The robots began to wage war on humans, taking over human territories. Then, the humans came with their most desperate plan yet: sealing off the sky. They used a huge amount of planes, disposing huge amounts of a strange gas into the atmosphere, closing off the earth from all sunlight, the machines’ main source of power. Afterwards, the humans planned to wage one huge war against the weakened machine.

Still, they weren’t weakened enough. What follows is a number of horribly disturbing scenes, in which the machines gradually kill off human soldiers in some rather disturbing ways. Humans didn’t stand a chance. Hospitals became overly crowded. The machines seemed to have studied the humans bodies. After they had won the war, they started experimenting with the surviving humans in order to use the power from the human body. The final cities of the humans were destroyed, and each human was converted into The Matrix.

This short indeed was as awesome as it’s rumoured to be. It’s really been a while since I saw such huge shocking images in anime. Heck, even in regular movies and television. And just when I thought that Beyond was chockfull of symbols. As this is a documentary, the screen is so full of all kinds of references, symbols, analogies, et cetera. Awesomeness.

The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance Part I

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



Very interesting, a documentary. It’s the first time the art style isn’t easy to define. It’s a mix of CGI frames with rather common character designs. Most of the time we see robots doing their thing, and we don’t really see that many humans.

In any case, this documentary explains how The Matrix originated, why the robots took over control and more background information behind The Matrix. It’s a rather gruesome tale, which makes clear that humanity indeed got what it deserved. This film has been split in two, so the last remaining one will end this story.

In the beginning, humans constructed robots, and the robots fully obeyed the humans. The robot design was rather unrealistic, but it does bring over the point. The robots possessed AI, and they were treated rather badly. Still, entire armies of robots kept working for the humans, doing all of the hard, harsh and dirty jobs.

Then, one robot stood up against its master, and killed him and his entire family. Because of this, humans got scared, and tried to dispose of the robots. What followed was a huge war in which the robots were shamelessly killed off in huge masses. People became to hate the machines. With passion. What follows is a couple of scenes showing the graveyards for these robots. It’s not funny when you realize how many of these were dumped. Entire ocean floors were filled with their corpses.

The surviving machines fled, in order to start a nation of their own, somewhere in Arabia. They called their nation “Zero-One”, or 01. They began to live a life of their own, improving their own AI and equipment. They then attempted to coexist with humans, and participate in the world economy. However.

The leaders of the humans, with their power degrading, didn’t feel anything for cooperation with the robots, who still had good intentions at that time. The robots, attempting to be recognized were killed off. What happens afterwards, we learn in the second part of The Second Renaissance.

Yet again, we’ve got lots of symbolism in this movie. The robots have been given a uniform and human-like design, like in most ancient robot movies. It’s not really realistic when you look at today’s huge diversity of machines. But by giving these robots human characteristics, this film does manage to give them a uniformity. Because of this, things don’t get unnecessarily complicated. And it also provokes some sympathy for these robots, like Matriculated tried to do. I’d say that The Second Renaissance managed to do this better than Matriculated.

Huge exterminations, like shown here, have occurred more often in the history of humanity, at times, even more extreme than this one. Most mass murderers never really got their equal payback (Incans vs. Spain, anyone?). This time, however, payback in the most extreme form arrives. Still, the fact does remain that people uninvolved got their payback as well. I guess that’s inevitable.

The question remains whether what the robots did was the right thing. After all, they were heavily abused, and revenge is sweet. Apparently, even for robots. Still, both the humans and the robots were wrong in this case. The humans for abusing the robots, and the robots for going through the extreme measures of locking the humans up. What happened to love and peace, everyone?

The Place Promised in our Early Days Review – 72/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Place Promised in our Early Days is a 90-minute long drama/romance. It features three middle-school kids (two boys and a girl). The boys are building their own airplane, in order to fly to a huge tower. This tower raises from the earth, into the sky with no apparent end. They’re planning to take the girl, who they just met and got interested, along with them. One day, she disappears. The two boys then quit building the plane, go to different high schools and split apart. Three years later, the story continues.

The story has been well written. The key parts always return, keeping this anime on track. It could basically have been done in 30 minutes as well, though this anime chooses for a slow pacing, giving enough space to show characters interacting, and doing the things they usually do. Because the show takes its time, no really rushed scenes appear, and strangely enough, no scenes really drag on, as plenty enough happens on the screen.

The characters also are likable. They receive a healthy dose of character development during the progress of the movie, and the 3-year time-leap shows quite some changes in both of the boys. The approach of and climax itself felt very sincere, ending in a rather predictable, yet somewhat touching ending.

Still, there are a couple of things wrong with this movie. In the end, this movie remains a damsel-in-distress, who has to be saved by the knight. While it has thrown in some creative events which give this concept a couple of twists, I couldn’t help but get annoyed at this fact. At some scenes, it features some annoying technobabble. We see a couple of screens and graphs, which don’t mean anything at all. Some events in the movie also don’t make any sense (why didn’t the tower explode when the girl was still awake?) and the movie leaves an awful lot of things behind unexplained.

The graphics are interesting. Despite being produced in 2005, the creators decided to keep the character art simple. If you combine this with fluid and natural animation, creative and stunning backgrounds and details, the result becomes quite interesting to watch. Overall, the graphics for this movie were very enjoyable to see. Except for one little detail. The creators liked to heavily abuse the lens flares. Every time when the sun goes down, one appears, asking way too much attention by being overly bright, big and centred. The musical score stays original, though consistent through the entire movie. You never really know it’s there, but it does give this movie something extra. When the music stops, it contributes surprisingly well to the scenes.

Overall, this was a good movie, with some flaws. Still, while it was a good watch, it’s nothing really special. Nothing really is outstanding in this movie. In the end, this movie kept me from getting bored, but it also kept me from getting excited.

The Animatrix – Beyond

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



The best art style so far: Studio 4C style! When you combine this with 3D and a big budget, it works out great. Beyond really is a feast for the eyes. Most companies need to understand that there’s more than flashy graphics, 3D, lots of realism and lots of CGI in order to make great graphics. You need to add something special for that. Good Witch of the West understood this, Noein understood this and now Beyond also understands this.

The story this time is about a glitch in the matrix. Somewhere, in an old abandoned house, the laws of physics have been rather messed up. A group of kids and one teenager have discovered this, and are having the most fun they’ve ever had in their lives, playing with these laws. Unfortunately, the men in suits have tracked down this error. They rush into the site with a huge truck, close off the area, take the kids away and repair the error. The children return afterwards, but they find that their playground has been destroyed.

Lots of symbolism in this movie. Take for example, the kid’s playground which gets destroyed. That’s happening at more places in the world. At some places, children can have so much fun playing with each other, while adults can’t see this, and plan to use the playground to build, like, an office. But not only that, you can also link this to animals. At the end of the movie, you see rats, who’ve been living inside the haunted house, fleeing from the men in suits. At the moment, things like these still are a major news item with the rarer animals, like tigers and rhinos.

I also found it interesting that we’ve got a bunch of kids who know about the glitch, and they decide to tell our main character, a teenager, about this. In most stories like these, it’s something that the children only know about. It’s interesting to see someone have fun with children 8 years younger than her, like it’s nothing. Talk about symbolism.

Overall, along with World Record, this has been the best story so far. World record had its very intense plot and very interesting main character while Beyond has its incredibly imaginative visuals and deep symbolism. All that’s left now is The Second Renaissance, which is rumoured to be the best of the bunch (I’ve indeed been saving that one for last, in order to save the best for last. ^^)

Ayatsuri Sakon – 10 – Cat fur looks like hair from a puppet eyebrow

by psgels, posted in Ayatsuri Sakon



This episode clearly shows how incredibly observing Sakon can be. To think that he’d be able to figure things out by right and left-handed. It was a small and simple arc this time, not unlike the previous one with its huge amount of characters and alibis. This time, we had just a small number of characters involved.

In the end, my first feeling was right. Aoki was the culprit. His reasons for acting the way he did, however, remained a pleasant and very entertaining surprise. Remember his band-aids? It seems that he’s been wearing these for ten years. He got these scars in the same fire he lost his daughter. He and his wife had a fight, because she cheated on him. In the end, a couple of candles were knocked over, setting the house aflame. The wife fled to man she cheated with while Aoki rushed to save his daughter. In the end, this fire burned his face and killed her. This wife was none other than Keiko. The other man was none other than Hayami.

Ever since, Aoki has been longing for revenge. He tracked Keiko down and started working at the same place she did. He waited a couple of years before taking his chance. He wanted to kill her loved ones, before he killed her. When he finally got the chance to do the latter, he couldn’t. Sakon then adviced him to turn himself in.

This arc was rather predictable, unfortunately. Last episode, we saw someone with brown trousers enter Hayami’s room. It was either Aoki or Kishikawa. But Kishikawa couldn’t have done it, because it was just too obvious. So it has to mean that Aoki was the culprit. He quickly changed into a suit afterwards. That’s why I like mysteries with lots of characters. It’s much harder to guess who did it.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 21 – Thank Goodness The Shion Arc is Over

by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni



I’ve really got some issues with the way this arc ended. There are so many things that don’t make any sense at all. I kept hoping for this episode to include some unexpected twist. But no. Basically, all that happens is the things I predicted two episodes back.

We first start with the phone call, which is indeed one of Shion’s plans. We then switch to Rika’s and Satoko’s house and Shion freaks out again by the mention of Satoko. We then switch to the basement, and it seems that Shion tormented Mion by killing Satoko. Badly animated as usual. (Also notice that there’s no blood on the floor, even though it’s been gushing out of Satoko? Also notice that Satoko only seems to have one cut on each arm, even though Shion stabbed her multiple times?) Shion also tells Mion that she’ll let Satoko go if she says “I’m sorry” 1000 times. At one point, however, she stops. Why would she do that? In any case, Satoko dies and Shion realizes that she didn’t hold herself to Satoshi’s last wish: to take care of Satoko. Shion then becomes more paranoid by the minute.

We then switch to the next day, when Keiichi and Rena talk to Shion. For some reason, the fact that Rena mentions that Satoko wasn’t supposed to come is left out. It’s strange, as it’s a large plothole. Why did Mion freak out when she heard this? Because her name was mentioned?

In any case, Shion asks thirty minutes alone with Keiichi, and this is where the bad parts begin. First of all, she’s way too calm, if you compare this to her actions before. She actually holds his hand. Shion also tells herself that she couldn’t tell whether she was Mion or Shion anymore, though later in the episode she shows no signs of this statement anymore. Also, did Keiichi pat Shion on the head in the second arc?

Next up, Mion sees Keiichi, rejoices, sees Shion and screams. Shion then drops a rock on Keiichi. Shion’s next sentence: “I plan to kill her after she hears the screams of all the people that died because of her”. I’m sure that we didn’t get to hear this sentence during the second arc. During the entire talk between Keiichi and Shion, Shion’s behaviour just doesn’t sound right if you compare this with when she killed the others. And why did she tell Keiichi about the doll? Keiichi also starts crying. Did he do this in the second arc? In any case, Shion shocks Keiichi, and goes to Mion. It seems that I indeed was right: they’re going to switch places again. Shion will go back to Shion and get rescued, while Mion will return to Mion, get killed and fall in the well.

And now comes the part I really have issues with. Mion makes a confession. She also liked Satoshi, so she confronted Obaba. Obaba then said that the Sonozaki-Family did nothing at all regarding Satoshi. Obaba actually approved Shion’s love for Satoshi, ever since she ripped off her nail.

Why the heck did Mion wait so incredibly LONG to say this to Mion?! She had enough chances for this. Why does she reveal this only now? Couldn’t she just have told Shion the minute she found out, or the minute that Shion captured her? Talk about not making sense, sheesh.

In any case, it’s clear now that the major culprit of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (at this point, probably Takano) also managed to kill Satoshi. What follows is Shion getting shocked and dumping Mion in the well. Shion and Keiichi then get rescued. That night, Shion is really getting paranoid by the curse, and decides to go and stab Keiichi. That means that Keiichi only imagined Shion’s last attack. In any case, Shion returns to the hospital she’s in, climbs over the balconies to reach her room, trips and falls to her death. She has a strange moment in which she apologizes to everyone, before the ground crushes her.

Still, one interesting fact was revealed. Mion told Shion that Obaba looked into things, and it seems that nobody within the village has killed Satoshi. If she spoke the truth in this, didn’t lie and was indeed right about this fact, then Tomitake has suddenly been placed on the list of major suspects.

In any case, I’m SO glad that this arc is finally over. I’m really looking forward to the Rena-arc now. This arc may have been horrible. Shion may have been horrible. But I’ve been dying for a bit more Rena vs. Keiichi. Another good point is that arc six won’t be exactly the same as arc 1 (as with arc 2 and arc 5), as it’ll feature Rena, being placed in Keiichi’s place.