Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

I was fearing that this episode would be rather dull, and indeed, everything I predicted happens. We’ve got Shion phoning Keiichi. Then she holds a long, though pointless interrogation with the village elder after which she indeed threatens Rika. During this episode, not a lot of things happened, and the things that did happen were very stretched. When you combine this with the fact that I practically predicted everything which would happen, and the interrogation with the village chief was not only pointless, but featured Shion in her usual emo-mode about Satoshi, and it indeed makes the episode rather dull.

Except for one point!

Rika was amazing during this episode! She really is my favourite character of this anime, and with a good reason. First of all, when Shion threatens her, she claims that entering the shrine doesn’t necessarily mean death. People are kept away from it because of the torture-devices. That’s a different reaction than you’d expect when you take the council members of the previous episode into account. Rika also claims that she can hear Oyashiro-sama’s voice in her head.

Then the awesome thing: Shion never phoned Rika in the first place. Shion decided to use Rika as a means of finding out whether she really was connected to Oyashiro-sama. Rika then noticed that Shion was under influence of the disease. That’s why she came to the Sonozaki-residence. She pretended that she needed some soya, though in fact, she attempted to cure her with the syringe, in the same way Mion and Rena did in the first arc, and Irie in the third arc.

As this method has never worked, it also doesn’t here. Shion then injects the liquid in Rika, and she doesn’t look too good afterwards. She then grabs a knife, when she hears that Shion plans to torture her. Then, she decides to kill herself, to prevent her from being tortured and interrogated. Even though we saw that scene before at the second arc, it still remained so sad for her.

This indeed proves the theory that the syringe is meant to cure the paranoid actions of certain persons. Whether this is a disease or normal paranoia, it still remains unclear, though it isn’t as simple that there’s just a demon inside Shion’s body, as you need more than just a syringe in order to remove a demon. I think Rika was suffering from the nasty side-effects of this medicine. I can imagine that the feeling it gives isn’t pretty. She then begins to have the same delusions as the disease, though I think that that’s supposed to be temporarily. It’s long enough, though to make her conclude that she knows something that nobody else should know, and if Shion just tortures her before she kills her, she’d better put herself out of her misery immediately.

I think that Takano is our major suspect here, like Cos mentioned. She was supposed to be dead, even before the Watanagashi started, so she’s definitely hiding something. Irie, seems to be the one who has developed the antidote. Mion, Rena and Rika seem to have discovered this, and secretly told him that they’d help him.

I’m also wondering why the creators decided to make this episode so incredibly slow. It means that the next episode will have incredibly high pacing. After all, so many things still have to happen. Shion has to torture Mion, kill Satoko, go emo when Keiichi’s on the ladder, phone Keiichi, explain to Keiichi and Rena, take Keiichi to the underground prison, throw a rock on Keiichi, attempt to torture Keiichi, shock Keiichi, flee and kill herself. Still, I’m interested, as each of the arc’s endings revealed some kind of major plot twist. That also has to happen.

Overall, Rika was awesome, but apart from her, this episode was rather dull. Especially Shion and her endless whining about Satoshi.

Okay. So Rena has a machete, Mion has a gun, Keiichi has a bat, and Shion appears to have an electrifier. In any case, Shion really freaked out during this episode, it seems that the disease finally got to her. Still, this episode explained so many things about the second arc. I think that every problem which only appeared during that arc and that arc alone is solved this way. Except for one thing: Rika. How did she know what Shion was doing and why did she stab herself to death? In any case, I’ll talk about this later. First, the summary.

We start with where we left off during the previous episode. The phone rings, and Mion picks up, still holding Shion. The caller remains unknown, though he informs her about something. Mion then tells him to silence everyone and hangs up. Mion then tells Shion that Tomitake and Takano have died. Takano was found stuffed in a barrel somewhere in a far away mountain, apparently burned. Tomitake used his own hands to tear away his throat. Still, I still think that Takano killed him, and stuffed him away in her car. Then, she dumped him somewhere and somehow found the need to drive to a faraway mountain. In there, something happened to her in which she ended up in that barrel, burned.

Mion then blames Oyashiro-sama, in a very serious look. Then, Shion electrifies her, along with Obaba. Then the OP rolls, and we get to see the same scene we saw at the beginning of episode 16. Mion then gets stuffed in the underground prison. Shion then questions her a bit, and Mion starts acting like her normal self again. She’s obviously surprised at Shion’s actions.

Mion then tells Shion that she doesn’t know what happened to Tomitake and Takano. I’m not sure if she’s lying or not. Shion then asks whether the string of murders, otherwise known as Oyashiro’s curse, really had the purpose as the Distinction for the Dam War. Mion considers it a possibility, though she neither confirms nor denies. Still, I don’t think that that’s the reason. After all, why did Rika and her family have to die?

Mion also reveals an interesting fact. Despite the fact that she’s the next head, she doesn’t have any power at all. She only acts as a spokesperson for Obaba. Obaba still decides everything. Mion also believes that there’s another person than herself who’ll be inheriting her true position. This is quite an interesting piece of information. Mion isn’t as powerful as we thought she was.

Mion then really gets surprised when she finds out that Tomitake and Takano have violated the festival shrine. The way she reacted couldn’t have been a lie, I think. She also then considers it natural that because the two of them entered the shrine, they were bound to be killed. However, Mion does mention the fact that there were four people who snuck in. Nobody could’ve told her that. It’s either basic reasoning, or she could be hiding something as well.

Shion then gets upset when she finds out that Mion’s suggesting that Shion is going to disappear and heads for Obaba. She appears to have died, which is only logical. After all, old woman -> delicate body -> dies easily. Especially from such a shock. Shion, however, isn’t happy with it, and starts to edit Obaba’s face with a whip. In the usual badly animated way. It didn’t work really well. Shion then hears some footsteps, suggesting at the same presence she felt before, and the same presence Keiichi felt when he set off to kill Satoko’s uncle.

Shion then returns to Mion, to question her about the location of the infamous well from the second arc. It’s where the corpses are dropped when the torture has finished. She also shows Obaba’s dead body. Quite a shock for Mion. Mion then suspects that the reason for Shion’s acting is Satoshi, which is quite accurate. Shion then explains to her that it was the fact that Obaba lied to her about letting Satoshi go which made her act the way she did.

Later, Kimiyoshi, or the village elder, seems to give a phone call to the Sonozaki-residence. Shion picks up, pretending to be Mion. At five O’clock, there would be an emergency-meeting by the village council, and Obaba had to attend. Shion then tells him that Obaba isn’t feeling too well, and that she’ll be coming in her place. She hangs up. Kimiyoshi, meanwhile, heads for his proctologist for an unpleasant meeting.

Kasai then phones. Shion then tells Kasai about that she snuck in the shrine during the festival, along with Tomitake, Takano and Keiichi. Kasai then finds it very hard to stay on Shion’s side. It seems that entering the festival shrine seems to be a far worse crime than she thought. Then, Shion plans her next step. It seems that she wants to find out who Oyashiro-sama actually is, and she’s planning to use Keiichi as bait for this.

The next day, Shion decides to talk to Keiichi personally. It was amusing to see Keiichi’s attempts at lying from a third person. ^^

Shion gets pissed off when she finds out that Mion asked him the exact same thing during the night of the Watanagashi. We saw it during the second arc. Shion leaves, Rika jumps on Keiichi and Mion starts asking a couple of suspicious questions. In any case, Shion intended to do this in order to seed Keiichi with doubt and fear of his surroundings.

Shion then heads, still dressed up as Mion, for the festival shrine for the town council meeting. The village elder speaks first, with a looooong greeting. Then the subject of the Watanagashi-murders gets brought up, and the air gets a lot tenser. The village elder then asks Shion whether Obaba has mentioned anything, and then Shion shows that she can act at times. Still, she definitely gets nervous.

Shion talks about the fact that the curse occurred yet again because someone entered the festival shrine. Surprisingly, this is new to the town council. Of course, it isn’t sure that everyone of them didn’t know about it, as it’s very easy not to get noticed during this, but I’m believing for now that the entire town council didn’t know about it.

The reactions of the members of the town council are far worse than I imagined. It seems that it’s really a heavy taboo if you enter the festival shrine. Even the town elder screams to curse them. Shion then reasons that the person who connects Obaba with Oyashiro, and the one who’ll inherit Obaba’s position are present in the room. Still, I don’t get her arguments…

Then, when Shion starts to talk about Keiichi and herself as the ones who have violated the shrine, everyone suddenly turns emotionless. She then tells that Shion has already been taken care of, while Keiichi still runs free. Then we turn to the end of the meeting, where Shion invites the village elder to come to her house. Se tells him that Obaba wants to speak to him, concerning Shion.

The village elder then, however seems to show sympathy for Shion. Shion’s happy to learn that he’s on her side. That is, until he starts talking about Satoshi. As Satoshi’s parents tried to sold the village out, Satoshi didn’t deserve to be forgiven. Then he tells Shion something interesting. It seems that she never repented for Satoshi in the first place. It wasn’t as I predicted. The fact that guards had to cut off her third fingernail still was enough to repent for the third person, though that person isn’t Satoshi. It’s Shion herself. Satoshi never was mentioned in this.

As predictable, Shion then loses it, probably with the disease helping her a bit. She starts cursing the three houses, and she electrifies the village elder as well.

Okay, the second arc explained (at least, I hope. With a bit of help from Memento’s summaries):
The first episode basically covered Keiichi realizing that Mion and Shion were twins. In the beginning, he thought that Mion just was making things up, though he proved to be quite wrong (*interesting note: both Mion’s as Shion’s part time jobs were never mentioned again after this arc. Strange*). At first, I thought that both of them were in love with Keiichi, though I was wrong. Mion’s in love with Keiichi, and during episode 5, Shion was just teasing Mion, by making her moves on Keiichi. Keiichi only reminded Shion of Satoshi when he patted her on the head. Something he didn’t do during the second arc.

Then the second episode. During Rika’s performance, Shion takes Keiichi to the festival shrine. Takano had invited her to come along, and she thought that she might get some clues about why Satoshi went missing. She was too scared to go alone, though she figured that when she was with Keiichi, she’d be okay.

After the visit, Tomitake and Takano head for the river shore, Shion leaves after she wonders what the banging sound was. Now it seems that it’s the one she’s searching for. Quite possibly, it’s all happening in her head, because of the disease. Rena, Mion, Satoko and Rika run into Keiichi. Mion then decides to take Keiichi to the riverbank, while the others head for other directions. When the two are alone, Mion gets creepy and asks if he met Shion that night. If Mion really didn’t know that the two of them have entered the shrine, then I think that she saw Shion take Keiichi and leave. She didn’t decide to go after them. As she’s in love with Keiichi, she probably thought that Keiichi and Shion were planning to do some naughty things deep in the forest. That’s why she turned so gloomy at that point. She couldn’t take that Keiichi didn’t have eyes for her.

The next day, Keiichi runs into Mion again. At least, that’s what he thinks. The night before, Shion went berserk, killed Obaba and locked Mion away. Then we get to see the scene we saw during this episode, in which Shion drops some suspicious hints regarding the festival shrine. This also explains why she suddenly knew that Keiichi entered the shrine: because she’s been there herself. This is probably the thing that triggers Keiichi’s disease.

Then we turn to that evening. Shion has just killed the village elder, and she decides to continue to use Keiichi as bait. Therefore, she makes him meet up with Oishi. Oishi then wonders if Shion is Shion or Mion, and Shion excuses herself. I think that, from Shion’s perspective, we’ll indeed see her get nervous like that during the next episode. In any case, Oishi tells Keiichi about the status of the Sonozaki-family.

That evening, Shion calls again, in an attempt to put even more fear into Keiichi. She tells him about the deaths of Tomitake and Takano, and the fact that two deaths require two people demoned away. Keiichi then really begins to lose it, and Mion has her mission accomplished. The way we saw it at the end of the sixth episode, it seemed like Shion had lost her hope in Keiichi, so she hang up. In reality, she was probably smirking with a satisfying smile.

Okay, next up is the third episode. In class, people are talking about the village elder. He left a meeting, being held in a shrine (the Furude-shrine) and disappeared afterwards. Now we know that Shion indeed killed the guy.

Then, the only unexplainable thing in this arc happens: Rika. I like how everything is kept mysterious about her. I also realize that I left out one very important detail about this conversation: when Keiichi saw Rika, she looked beaten up, and she was crying. For some reason, Rika knows about Keiichi who entered the Shrine, and she starts her cryptic conversation.

I do have a theory, though. The fact remains that Shion hates the three main families, for their hate towards Satoshi. I’m positive that she’s planning to dispose of them. That’s the reason she wanted to kill Rika, but not Satoko or Rena: because Rika’s a member of one of the three main houses.

Now, what if Shion, dressed up as Mion paid Rika a little visit, right before Keiichi saw her? What if Shion hit Rika on the ground, and told her about Keiichi? What if that was meant as some kind of warning? Not only would this be extremely sad, this would fit perfectly in the story. Shion has already proved to be quite dangerous, so I really can see her attack the poor Rika. Afterwards, Rika decided to give Keiichi a couple of cryptic hints, after which she went to Shion, and stabbed herself to death. I really can’t think of any way why she would do such a thing.

Okay, next up: Shion calls again. She tries to bring more and more fear into Keiichi, by mentioning the village elder. She puts up an act, in which she tells Keiichi that she told the guy that she snuck into the shrine, while in fact, she killed the guy at that time. This makes Keiichi suddenly get worried about Rika. I think that this was all planned by Shion. She actually went to Rika, in order to warn her, so that she’d talk to Keiichi. Then, al she had to do was kill Rika and make Keiichi believe it was because of the curse.

In any case, Keiichi calls Rena, who begins to play for detective. Shion then steps in her Mion-role and the three head for Rika’s house. Shion then finds a ladder, and Rena goes to the main house of the Furude-family in order to get somebody with a key. Meanwhile, the topic of conversation gets brought to Satoshi again and, not surprisingly, Shion loses it again and lets the disease take over again like she always does when the guy gets mentioned.

Then Rena arrives with the key, and they head inside the house. Shion then plays even more with Keiichi’s mind, when she tells him that Rika disappeared because of Oyashiro-sama. It’s quite effective, though Rena comforts Keiichi.

Then we turn to the next morning, with Keiichi and Rena again. Rena mentions the fact that Mion had troubles waking up, though I think Shion was on the verge of losing it when Rena contacted her, so she decided not to respond, and make it seem like she disappeared. Then, Rena comes with her surprisingly accurate theory. Another reason why I’m really wanting this arc to end. I’m really looking forward to see Rena in the spotlights again. She’s got a really interesting character.

Anyway, Oishi then runs into the two of them. He wants to have a little talk to Keiichi, so Rena leaves. Oishi then tells him about the village elder, who went to visit a proctology clinic and got involved in a traffic accident afterwards. Keiichi then realizes that Shion was the one who killed the guy. I never EVER thought, at that point, that Keiichi could actually be RIGHT in his reasoning…

Oishi also mentions that he knows that Keiichi, Shion, Tomitake and Takano have snuck into the festival storehouse, because of some rumours which have been floating around. That’s quite logical, as it was Shion herself who spread them. Oishi then reveals that Shion’s been missing. This too, is quite logical as Shion has been continuing to pretend to be Mion, in order to not get too suspicious. I guess, that in order to do that, she had to disappear herself. Oishi then tries to search to a nonexistent link between something that Tomitake, Takano and Shion did do, while Keiichi, the only survivor, didn’t. It seems that he’s on the wrong tracks on this one.

That evening, Shion decides to call again. At this point, I think that something happened, which made her quite unsure, and which was the reason for her to pretend to oversleep. She sounded quite desperate at that point, and most definitely not aware from the fact that Keiichi heard that she’s actually missing. I think that at this point, she’s really beginning to break down. This is only strengthened when Keiichi comes with the fact that he knows that she killed the village elder. That definitely was something she didn’t plan for. After all, she didn’t know about the village elder’s proctological problems. More proof that she went crazy follows as she starts calling in a really scary and maniacal way.

Finally, episode 4. It starts with Keiichi confessing to Rena. It seems that she also figured out about what went on. Her detective skills earlier indeed showed that she’s able to easily figure out such a thing. Especially if countless of rumours are floating around. The two of them decide to go to Mion. Then Oishi runs into them, and Rena finds out that Oishi plans to use Keiichi as bait, in order to get permission to search the Sonozaki residence. Keiichi’s often used as bait, isn’t he?

In any case, the two of them reach the house and Shion opens. Keiichi apologizes and Shion acts like she doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to blow her cover after all. Then, Rena mentions Rika’s death, and more especially, Satoko’s death. Like I said before, Shion wanted to kill Rika. She never wanted to do anything to Satoko, though she came along anyway. Satoko then found out about Shion’s complot (probably by seeing a dead body somewhere) so Shion was forced to kill her as well. Shion doesn’t like the fact that Rena found out about this, no doubt she feels very cornered. The then tells a bit about the history of Hinamizawa-village. Shion also mentions the three bikers from the fifth episode. When I first saw this, I thought that it was Mion who worked at the restaurant. In the end, it seems I was wrong.

Shion then mentions the demon carved in her body, and it actually seems that she was the one with the tattoo, not the other way around. You’d wonder how she got it. I’m suspecting that it’s something she got in her youth. Remember that she told about the harsh way she was treated in the sixteenth episode? Also, Shion believes that there’s a demon in her body, though I think that that’s just the disease. Remember, during episode 17 when Shion mentions that the demon inside her was born? It was just Shion who convinced herself that she was acting weird. She had to blame something, so she blamed the demon, not aware of the disease.

Shion then confesses that she was either directly, or indirectly involved with each of the Watanagshi-murders. This is just a lie. Shion answers how she thinks Mion would have answered. She thinks that Mion was involved with each of the murders, so it’s quite logically that she’d say such a thing.

Then, Shion asks Rena to have thirty minutes alone with Keiichi. Shion holds Keiichi’s hand a bit, and then tells him that she actually loved him. Probably because he reminded her of Satoshi. Keiichi then replies with the message that Mion will always one of his best friends, no matter what happens. Quite funny, if you consider that he’s talking to Shion.

Shion then takes Keiichi to Mion. It seems that she performed quite some gruesome tortures on Mion, which turned her insane. I guess that in the end, the only thing of Mion which remained was her love for Keiichi. That’s why she was so incredibly glad to see him, and freaked out when she saw Shion. What follows is Shion dropping a large stone on top of Keiichi’s head and tying him up on some kind of torturing device.

When Keiichi wakes up, Shion tells Keiichi the story that Mion was supposed to be freaking out after Keiichi gave the doll to Rena. That’s very nice. But it’s all a lie. Keiichi then asks three things of Shion: forgive Shion, give Mion’s body back and let him go. He adds the last one when Shion wonders why he doesn’t care for himself at all. It now becomes logical when Shin claims that she can’t forgive herself. And giving Mion’s body back also is a bit impossible, as it was never taken over in the first place. It’s also interesting that right before Shion tries to drive the first nail into Keiichi’s finger, she hesitates a bit. Keiichi still reminded her too much of Satoshi. (On a side-note: don’t you find it ironic that Shion chose the same torture that Satoshi had to endure for Keiichi?)

Then, Shion hears the police, and she’s forced to stop. She electrifies Keiichi as well, hides in the well and then kills herself. Probably because of the dead bodies. I guess we’ll know this reason in two episodes. The next day, Keiichi begins seeing things because of the disease, and then he stabs himself. Mion, meanwhile has really lost it and jumped from the top floor of the hospital.

While reading back at my older posts, it seems that I forgot one important detail, which got mentioned at the end of the eight episode, and which messes up everything: Takano actually died before the Watanagashi. This means that Takano either grabbed another body, and made it look like she was the one who died, someone pretended to be Takano, or something’s really messed up here… O_o

This means that Mion really didn’t commit any of the murders in the second arc. Still, I don’t think she’s totally innocent when it comes to the main story. After all, she did get into a fight with Oishi. She did freak out during the third episode of the first arc. She did get into a fight with the first Watanagashi-victim.

I also realized something, for the first time this episode. Shion may be actually on the trail of catching the real criminal. The real criminal may be the one who’ll really be the successor of Obaba. With a bit of luck, this person actually was the one to spread the disease, commit the Watanagashi-murders, get involved with Tomitake and Takano’s death, killed Rika, disposed of Oishi and let the volcanic gas escape. Okay, there may be different persons behind all of these events, but somehow I’m feeling that there’s only one person. I have no idea who it is, but the only things I know for sure is:
– The person is a member of one of the three great houses. Otherwise, this person wouldn’t have been able to succeed Obaba.
– The person is on good terms with Rika. I think that that’s the only way to explain the fourth arc.

I think that at one point, Shion’s going to give up on her mission of making Keiichi the victim, in order to lure out Keiichi. I think that at one point, she realizes that Oyashiro-sama’s curse is just a legend, brought to life because of some coincidences. Every year, one person went missing while one person died. During the fifth year, this had to be adjusted when two people died, in order to make the curse sound right again. Of course, the balance was bound to be disrupted when Shion went on and killed four other people.

Overall, whoa… this really is my largest post EVER, aside from the montly summaries, perhaps. The second arc suddenly became clear after this episode, though one fact remains. I hate Shion. She remains such an annoying character. Ah well, it only has me longing for the sixth arc more and more. And let’s hope for an additional OVA containing the final two arcs of Higurashi. ^_^

Okay, so I was wrong. Six arcs it is, then. This arc will contain a massive six episodes, while the sixth arc will close the series with the last five episodes. The seventh and the eighth arc will then very likely come in some sort of OVA, even though it hasn’t been officially announced yet.

I’m not too happy with the fact that this arc will consist out of six episodes. Shion does remain my least favourite character, and this episode once again proved this. While it did have some funny moments, Shion was just utterly boring. Too much time is spent on her, and her feelings to Satoshi. One episode, okay. But this is just getting too much.

In my opinion, there’ve been three moments at which Higurashi no Naku Koro ni really shone. The first was Rena during the second and the third episode, which was also what originally made me fall in love with this series. The creators really projected her as a unique, evil character. Then, ten episodes later, Keiichi gained my respect while he killed Satoshi’s uncle, only to learn that it never really happened. The third was the fourth arc. That arc really was amazing, focused on Rika and her prophetic abilities. Perhaps the anime should’ve focused at small arcs, instead of the big ones.

Ah well, at least the sixth arc will get better again, when Rena finally comes into the spotlight again. She’s been away for quite a while, it’ll be good to see her back, with all her schizophrenic glory.

Until then, we’ll have to do with Shion. The episode begins with Shion questioning Oishi about the psychopath who killed Satoshi’s aunt. By the time that the police arrived, he was already dead. He clearly was manipulated into this in order to cover up for the things Shion and Satoshi did. Oishi then mentions Oyashiro as the culprit again.

We then switch to the OP, after which we see Shion in the library, trying to figure out what happened to the victims of Oyashiro-sama. She did manage to realize that each of the victims was on bad terms with the Sonozaki-family, though Takano interrupts her. She then explains Shion about the rumours about Oyashiro-sama which have been floating around. About one person dying and one disappearing. This, of course, is total nonsense, as Rika revealed that also some people who were missing turned out to be dead. It’s no more than just coincidences which have been noticed and inflated by certain people.

Takano also reveals something interesting: she’s researching about Oyashiro-sama’s curse, and the ancient, forgotten history of Hinamizawa. Takano tells her the things she told Keiichi while in the temple in the second arc. That’s why she didn’t get scared just as Keiichi when she heard it.

That afternoon, Mion comes to visit Shion. At that moment, Mion isn’t affected by the disease, and she starts apologizing about what happened. Shion accepts, though she gets furious when Mion wonders where Satoshi went. Shion’s probably affected by the disease at this moment. Mion reveals that she knows nothing about what happened to Satoshi. Though I think that the disease made her do something, which she forgot afterwards. Mion still remains on the top of my list for the suspects who could have killed Satoshi.

Shion then discovers that Mion actually endured the same torture she did, in order to bring her and Satoshi together. Though he disappeared afterwards. I have no idea which parts of these were acted. In any case, a year passes, until we move to the beginning of the second arc, but now from Shion’s perspective.

I was a bit disappointed to see that the things which Keiichi already saw weren’t shown again, but actually just skipped. I would have loved to see such a thing, though apparently, something’s about to happen which requires three whole episodes, while the second arc just took two of them.

The good part, however, is that some actual funny scenes are shown. It starts with a deja vu from episode 16, in which Shion encounters those three punks yet again. I still love the way they talk. ^^ Then Keiichi comes to show off, and you can indeed see the difference from him to Satoshi. This also was a scene which wasn’t shown in the second arc.

In any case, the fact that Keiichi meets up with Shion at the restaurant isn’t shown. This means that Mion actually was the one who met him there, and she was the one who brought him the lunch. Ever since, Shion started trying to get between the two of them, in a funny way. ^^ Still, Keiichi keeps reminding Shion of Satoshi. The fact that she reacted so differently in the third arc was because Keiichi didn’t pat her on the head like that. That’s why she acted differently, and I have a strange feeling that that scene was supposed to come in the fifth episode as well, but it was cut out for some reason.

In any case, Mion indeed loves Keiichi. Because of this, we know for sure that she indeed was shocked when Keiichi yelled at her in the second arc. This also shows that the disease took over and she started yelling about Oishi, and it also shows that the fact that she hid needles in the ohagi could never have been true. Of course, most people already knew this, but it’s good to have some confirmation. It also must’ve been very hard for Mion to see Keiichi so extremely serious towards her during the third arc.

Mion then tells Shion about the doll Keiichi gave to Rena. Shion then comforts her and they have a very cute conversation. ^_^ Shion, however gets more and more reminded of Satoshi. We then switch to where Mion and Shion are both fighting over Keiichi. Mion has a very evil look on her face when Keiichi pats Shion on the head, in a good way. Shion, however, has other thoughts, concerning a certain yellow-haired boy.

When Shion’s alone, she whines a bit more about Satoshi and the usual. Shion then gets the feeling that she’s being followed. (Interesting fact: remember when Keiichi had the feeling he was being followed in the eleventh episode?) That night, the Watanagashi takes place. Shion then runs into Tomitake and Takano. Takano reveals then that she spends a lot of time in the library, and that the two of them are going to break in the shrine. It then gets confirmed that it was indeed Shion who went with Keiichi into the shrine, and the reason for why she did it.

It’s strange, in the second arc, Shion was very calm, but now, she looks everything but calm. She also hears strange footsteps coming from somewhere. Keiichi and Takano don’t seem to hear it. I’m suspecting that the disease is messing with Shion at that moment. That evening, a party is being held in the Sonozaki-house. Mion and Obaba play as host, while it seems that Shion drank too much. And that at that age.

That night, when everyone’s left, Shion overhears a conversation between Mion and Obaba. I’m not sure whether Mion has taken control over the Sonozaki-family yet, though Obaba’s way of talking suggests that she hasn’t. In any case, Mion’s talking in disease mode again, and they discuss a certain male who has angered Oyashiro-sama’s anger. For some reason, the police are looking into it, which seems to suggests that it’s more than just breaking into the shrine. Mion then suspects that Takano has something to do with it.

It’s very interesting that the male name doesn’t get mentioned. It could be either Tomitake or Keiichi, but sneaking into a shrine couldn’t be something you’d call the police over to investigate. Shion, however, seems to think otherwise and immediately concludes that Mion’s getting angry over the fact that she snuck into the festival shrine. Shion then has a flashback of the sixteenth episode, at which Rena explains why Satoshi felt that he’s being followed. It’s being a sign of Oyashiro-sama, that you’re being followed, that someone’s spying on you. At that moment, Shion looks behind her and sees Mion.

This actually explains the first phone call between Shion and Keiichi. Shion then informs Keiichi about Tomitake and Takano’s death. It seems that she gets terrified by Mion after the cliff-hanger, and then she hears about the fate of the twosome. As she highly believes in Oyashiro-sama’s curse, she immediately believes that there are two deaths this time, which has to mean that the two of them have to disappear. She then tells this to Keiichi, who also believes it.

It seems that the last three episodes will really be explaining what happened dring the second arc. Let’s recap a bit, shall we?
– Tomitake and Takano head to the river shore. Afterwards, something happens which probably involves Takano killing Tomitake and stuffing him inside a car, only to end up getting killed herself.
– The next evening, Shion invites Keiichi, in order to make him meet up with Oishi, so that he can tell him a bit about the Sonozaki-family. I think that Shion decided to trust Keiichi after what happened to her after this episode’s cliff-hanger. I think that she believes that Mion will do her no harm if she’s with Keiichi.
– Later that night, Shion makes her first phone call and tells him about the two deaths.
– The next day, Keiichi learns that the village chief has disappeared the day after the Watanagashi.
– Rika comes to Keiichi, letting him know that she’ll protect him from something that probably gets clear after this episode’s cliff-hanger.
– That evening, Shion calls Keiichi again, and she tells him that she was the reason for the disappearance of the village chief. We’ll probably see if that really is the case at the end of the next episode.
– Keiichi and Rena realize that Satoko and Rika are gone.
– Mion lets the disease inside of her take control, almost shaking Keiichi off a ladder in a badly animated way.
– Keiichi hears from Oishi that Shion’s been gone. What happens after the cliffhanger should give us some clues about why this happened.
– Either Shion or Mion phones Keiichi.

The fact remains that things didn’t happen as they seem, during the second arc. We have to take into account the beginning of the sixteenth episode, in which Shion has overpowered both Obaba and Mion. This gives us two options for the eighth episode:
– The Mion we saw was actually Shion, pretending to be Mion.
– Shion did try to overpower Mion, but in the end Mion proved to be too strong for Shion, and Mion severely punished Shion for this in disease-mode.

I think I’m going to go for the second option after all. If the Mion in the eighth episode indeed was Shion, she would have mentioned Satoshi, which she didn’t. Instead, she was tortured by Mion, because of the fact that Mion was the head of the house and Shion had committed a crime. While she was tortured, Shion began to compare Keiichi with Satoshi more and more, until she eventually started to believe that they were the same, hence her reaction when Keiichi saw her.

I have no idea whether this is true or not, but the fact remains that either Mion tortured Shion, or Shion tortured Mion. If that’s indeed the case, one of the next three episodes will most definitely be covering this subject, I’m guessing for either the fifth or the sixth. I’m urging everyone, including myself, to watch these three episodes on an empty stomach.

Another thing which I noticed is that ever since the third arc, there’s been less and less focus on the disease, which makes people get extremely angry. The third arc did feature Keiichi angry a couple of times, but it never was as bad as Mion in the second arc, or Rena and Keiichi in the first arc.

Overall, the episode did have some cute scenes, but the fact that it centred around Shion made this episode rather dull. The next episodes suggest that the series will be focusing more on the mystery-department, instead of Shion’s love whom I don’t care about anyway.

Memorable Moment: Mion, getting annoyed by Shion. In the non-disease-way.

I have one advice for the people who are planning to watch this: watch it during the afternoon. I watched it late in the evening, and I’ll probably have a hard time sleeping. The disturbing scenes took another turn for the worse during this episode. Honestly, this was the first time in anime ever in which I couldn’t bear to watch some scenes, apart from some horribly bad anime, perhaps.

In any case, I’ve spoiled myself a bit with Wikipedia, about the contents of each of the arcs. The current arc will be the second arc, but now in the perspective of Shion, which should give us the answers to the questions from the second and the third arc. The next arc will show the answers from the first arc, in which we see the same arc, but now in Rena’s perspective. I’m looking forward to that arc. Keiichi and Rena make a good combination. The seventh arc will then solve the fourth arc, and all of the questions involving the main plot as well. As in, the reason why people act weird, Rika’s death and the volcanic gas. There wasn’t any information about the eighth arc, so I’m really wondering what it’ll be about. I also don’t think it’ll appear on the anime. OVA?

In any case, this episode was nice in the fact that it provided some nice and interesting material. The fact remains, though that it focuses on three of my least favourite characters: Shion, Mion and Satoshi. I didn’t feel anything for the characters at all. Also Mion’s torture scene only disgusted me, though I didn’t feel along with the characters. Ironically, the best moment of the episode was in which Rika displayed even more of her foreseeing abilities.

We start the episode with Shion still feeling down from the previous episode. Mion then gives her a call with the message that Satoshi called her, in order to apologize to her. Mion found it better if Shion was the one to listen, so she told him that she’d call him back, and she hung up. Shion then goes to call Satoshi. Both parties apologize to each other. Satoshi claims that he’ll never forgive the people who put he and his sister in the situation they’re in now. This actually is very interesting, as he mentions that these people may be very close to her, though she isn’t one of them. This suggests that there was an external party who assigned Satoko and Satoshi to live with their aunt and uncle. You would expect the Sonozaki-famly to do such a thing, though that means that Mion was directly involved. Unless Satoshi believes that at the time that the Sonozaki-family moved, Mion had nothing to do with that decision. Still, if it isn’t someone from the Sonozaki-family, then who was it?

Satoshi then reveals that he’s quit his job, and that he’s achieved enough money for his goal. I always thought that this money was meant as money to survive for a while, after he fled from Hinamizawa after killing his aunt. Satoshi also reveals that Satoko’s on the verge of losing it. After that, we have another interesting revelation. As it’s the night before the Watanagashi, Satoshi has made his plans, though he needs Satoko out of the way. Therefore, he asks Shion to take care of her during the Watanagashi.

How did Mion know about this during the third arc? This gives us some heavy clues that Keiichi made a call to Shion, instead of Mion, back then. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known. And so far, Shion hasn’t been crazy enough to tell Mion about it. Unless, of course, this scene was omitted later in the episode. After all, during the Watanagashi, Shion pretends to be Mion, while Mion’s nowhere to be found. Shion could have told her there. That or Mion and Shion like to swap mobile phones.

Anyway, Satoshi asks whether Shion believes in Oyashiro-sama’s curse. Oyashiro-sama is said to curse all those who leave the village and run away. At least, according to Satoshi. Satoshi also reveals that he did have plans to run away from the village, though he gets cut off by his aunt who happens to get home.

We then switch to the evening of the Watanagashi, in which a suspicious Satoshi walks in the forest with a suspiciousbat, walking towards a suspicious abandoned closet with a suspicious look on his face. If I had to summarize this scene in one word, it would be “suspicious”. He then looks at the closet, and drops the bat. Meanwhile, we see Rena, Rika, Satoko and Shion pretending to be Mion at the Watanagashi-festival. It probably is Shion, as the arc remains focused at her, not at Mion.

Then there follows a very nice dialogue between Rika and Satoko. Satoko’s feeling so down that she doesn’t feel like doing anything. Rika tries to cheer on her, though that doesn’t really work. What follows is Rika acting awesome again, by predicting the murder of Satoko’s aunt. Okay, she predicted the end of all of Satoko’s pain. If you look at it one way, this is true. Her aunt gets killed, her uncle moves away and she gets to live with Rika. Another reason for Rika to be happy. ^^ On the other hand, though, the fact that her brother left isn’t exactly happy.

Then we see the scene in which Satoshi’s aunt walks up to a certain suspicious closet. She mentions the fact that Satoshi talked about it, and that it’s quite useable for sale. Then we see the silhouette of someone who looks like Satoshi, with the same voice as Satoshi, bashing Satoshi’s head in with something that looks a lot like a certain baseball bat.

Meanwhile, a member of one of the three main families rushes to another member of the three main families, and tells them that something horrible has happened. He also tells this to Obaba, who isn’t surprised about it. Her reasoning is the fact that if it happened three times, it’ll happen a fourth time. This could suggest that another murder happened, though it can be something else as well.

The police meanwhile has found the body of Satoshi’s aunt. It wasn’t buried or anything, he just left it for anyone to see. I guess that he didn’t have the superb planning skills of Keiichi. The next day, Shion hears from Mion that Satoshi’s uncle was killed. There are no clues of the culprit. Mion also gives the real proof that she does not like Ooishi, at all, when she talks negatively about him, in a normal way. In any case, Shion immediately believes that Satoshi really did kill his aunt.

Shion then, dressed up as Mion once more, runs into Satoshi. Surprisingly, he has yet to run away. His eyes don’t look too healthy. It seems as if he hasn’t slept in ages. Satoshi is looking for something to give Satoko for her birthday. His eye has fallen on a huge stuffed toy. Shion eventually makes him put it on reserve, so that nobody else can buy it, because she finds him so indecisive. Satoshi then thanks Shion, by patting her on the head again. He then looks extremely shocked when he sees Oishi.

Oishi seems hungry for questions as usual, and he attempts to question Shion and Satoshi about their alibis. Shion then shows again that she has an incredibly impulsive personality, as she quickly makes up a couple of lies, and even goes as far as revealing that she really is Shion, instead of Mion. She really can make up lies as good as Keiichi.

Satoshi really begins to look hopeless after her story. He’s really getting spaced out. Oishi then decides to take both of them to the police station for questioning. Mion advices Satoshi to keep talking about the alibi she came up with. Still, Satoshi isn’t angry to Shion for lying to him. Anyway, back at the police station, Mion gets to leave before Satoshi does, due to individual questioning. Seh then sees that the Estate, otherwise known as the guys who freed her in the previous episode, have been waiting for her. Kasai, the guy who did the main talking in the car at the beginning of the previous episode, however, seems to be missing. The estate then takes Shion to the Sonozaki Main house, in which Mion waits for her.

Mion then reveals that Obaba is in an outrage. She’s waiting in the Underground Shrine under the Sonozaki-house. It’s obviously Shion’s first time in here, so she’s surprised by all of the torturing devices which are lying there. In the middle of the room, Obaba is sitting, looking extremely pissed at her. Still, she doesn’t say the reason. She only says that Satoshi has something to do with it, and she marks the Houjou-family as a bunch of people with filthy, traitor’s blood. Probably because of the fact that both Satoko’s parents were in favour of the Dam, because of their jobs. I guess this also solves the Second Watanagashi-murder: Obaba arranged for someone to push the both of them off a cliff. This indeed seems right with the fact that Mion was involved in all of these murders.

Shion then decides to get impulsive again, when she openly mocks the Sonozaki-family and pledges her trust into Satoshi. Obaba then mentions Satoshi’s huge mistake, though she doesn’t mention the fact that he killed his aunt. After Shion’s rant is over, Mion displays how much influence Obaba has had on her, when she’s even willing to torture her own sister, with a straight face. Mion then says to Shion that both Kasai as the owner of the restaurant where she works are in the room next to theirs. As Shion has three people which she’s indebted to in the village, she has to remove three of her fingernails in order to repent for the two of them and Satoshi, otherwise, something’ll happen to them. One interesting thing which Mion mentions is the fact that Satoshi has yet to do anything to them. This seems to clash a bit with Obaba’s opinion.

Let’s ignore the following disgusting scenes, now shall we?

What follows is Kasai and the owner of the restaurant remaining unharmed, though the message Shion gets is to forget about Satoshi Houjou. When she goes to the toy shop, the stuffed animal is gone. Satoshi did manage to buy the stuffed animal after all, after Satoko’s birthday. It makes you wonder about the date, doesn’t it. It basically means that Satoko has had to endure some horrible birthdays, a few days after the Watanagashi, and its murders.

She then runs into Irie, who also finds out that she’s Shion, and not Mion. Oishi then runs into them. He seems to know about what happened in the Underground Shrine. He then takes Shion to the police station again, for another interrogation. Not because of the death of Satoshi’s aunt, but because of the disappearance of Satoshi himself. It seems that he disappeared one day after his aunt was killed. Later, Shion hears from Kasai that the real murderer of Satoshi’s aunt has been caught. It wasn’t Satoshi, it was a psychopath, trying to copycat the bizarre deaths. Then the episode ends.

Okay, this is what I think happened to Satoshi:
– He told his aunt about the closet, and that it was in good condition to be sold.
– He then walked to the closet, carrying the baseball bat and waited for his aunt to come, in order to bash her head in.
– He was planning to do this all along, and part of the plan was to run away afterwards. In the end, he couldn’t do the last part, so he stayed, hoping that nobody would discover him.
– When Mion had to repent for the three persons she was indebted to, she had to *** for each person she was indebted to. She ***-ed the first two on her own will, though she couldn’t do the third ***. Guards had to do it, against her will. (I’m trying not to mention the disturbing stuff with too much detail)
– Because of this, the first two, Kasai and the restaurant owner were let go of, and they remained fine. But because Shion didn’t have the guts to *** the third ***, she didn’t repent for Satoshi.
– Mion then kidnapped Satoshi, in order to perform the Watanagashi on him, put him in a plastic bag and dump him somewhere in a river.
– The Sonozaki-family then found an idiot, who they manipulated into thinking that he was the one who murdered Satoshi’s aunt, in order to cover up for the things Shion did, and make their name look good.

This theory, of course has some flaws:
– Why was Obaba so angry over Satoshi?
– Why was the murder of Satoshi’s aunt not supposed to happen? After all, Rika foresaw it. It had to happen. Still, why didn’t Rika foresee Satoshi’s death? Does performing the Watanagashi on them make them immune for it? Or because it wasn’t decided?
– Why did Satoshi drop his bat?
– How come the bat is perfectly fine in the first and the third arc? You would expect Satoshi to throw it away somewhere, not store it in his locker.
– Why do the creators remain cryptic about this? It could be because of the added mystery, but they also can be trying to divert the attention from something else.

In any case, I still find this theory better than the one in which a psychopath killed Satoshi’s aunt, while Satoshi was doing something bad something elsewhere. Because if it did happen like this:
– Why did Satoshi invite his aunt to look at the closet in the middle of the forest?
– Why did Satoshi head for the closet with a baseball bat in his hand and with an angry look on his face?
– What else happened for the fourth time?
– Why was Satoshi scared when he saw Oishi?

Okay, so the events of what happened during the fourth Watanagashi-murder are clear now, I believe. I think we’ll fast forward to the next Watanagashi for the next episode, or another event worth mentioning. In any case, the first two episodes were dedicated to explaining a bit about the third arc, I think the last two episodes of the arc will explain a few things about the second arc. Mainly who did it, and why she did it.

Memorable moment: Rika in prophet-mode again.

Aaack! Only now, when the new arc begins, I realize just how incredibly awesome the fourth arc was! Not because of the tension, but its content. And especially its main characters. Now that the anime’s taking a whole different focus, I suddenly realize something.

I miss Rika as a main character! I miss Akasaka, I miss Oishi. The three of them formed a perfect combination of main characters. Only now I realize this. When the anime takes a focus on some of the lesser parts of ths story.

During this arc, the main character gets to be Shion. Her supporting character will be Mion and the victim will probably be Satoshi. The arc focuses on the fourth Watanagashi-murder: Satoshi killing his aunt and running away. It explains why Shion reacted the way she did in the third arc and it indeed shows that Mion and Shion like to change roles, and that they’re actually quite friendly towards each other. I guess the disease put an end to this in the second arc.

The fact remains that I dislike it when Shion, Satoshi and Mion are put in the places of main characters. The previous arcs showed this. They work perfectly as side-characters, though right now, they’re just boring. I also didn’t really like it when this arc has already been listed for four entire episode. I so hope that they can at least do something to surprise me. They made a good start, near the end of the episode, though it’s full of flaws. Everything just was way too rushed. Shion’s outburst came from nowhere. At least the creators managed to build up quite well with Keiichi. It also seems that the emotional face distortions are back. They weren’t as bad as in the previous episodes, but they never were at the first episodes of the arcs.

Still, Pani Poni Dash managed to confirm something with its Mushishi-parody. The production of an anime still goes on after the first episode aired. After all, Mushishi aired a season later than Pani Poni Dash, and the creators still managed to include a parody in the last episode. This gives us clues that the seventh arc of the game might very well also be displayed. I’m so hoping that the eighth arc will make it as well. After all, it exists for a reason, and something tells me that Rika’s playing a big role in that one. I wouldn’t want to miss that one.

Still, we have to do with Shion, Mion and Satoshi right now. This episode didn’t teach us any new things. It just confirmed a few. For example, Shion indeed loved Satoshi. Satoshi indeed looks an incredible lot like Keiichi, except for his hair color, which confirms why Shion clinged to Keiichi in the fifth episode. Satoshi used to pat everyone on the head, which explains why Satoko freaked out in the tenth episode.

Overall, this arc could have been enjoyable if it aired before the fourth arc did. All it did now was make me feel nostalgic towards it. I’m a bit too demotivated for a summary, forgive me. The beginning of the episode also showed that Shion is up to something. But did that happen in the past or will it happen in the future?

Memorable Moment: The language of the three punks.

This was an awesome episode! I really love this arc, mostly because of the fact that the entire arc has no fake emotional face distortions. Don’t get me wrong, these can be great at times (Simoun, for example, makes great use of them), but the low budget of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni just makes them incredibly fake.

Anyway, before the arc started, I was fearing that this arc would be the same as the third arc. After all, Satoko and Rika are just perfect to be such victims, versus the antagonistic portrays of Rena and Mion in the first two arcs. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out that Rika would be portrayed as a prophet. The effect this had really was awesome, and Akasaka proves to be a worthwhile main character.

We start with the kidnapping of the son of the minister being solved. The son is getting very sick because of some reason. It’s got something to do with a scar the guy has which he got in a car accident. Therefore, the kidnappers ask for Irie to drop by. He then notices something very strange, though we never know exactly what.

Oishi and Akasaka meanwhile are exploring the same area, as the boy’s wallet was found. Still, the wallet was found very conveniently. Everyone who goes through the district by car. The villager who found the wallet just happened to be sick, and he just happened to relieve himself right next to the wallet. This certainly means that one of the villagers wanted the grandson to be found.

Akasaka also manages to see a glimpse of Rika before they head in the district. What was she doing there? Then they drive into Irie, who just came back from the kidnappers. He tells them about the hide-out, which would mean that he doesn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping. This is strange, as four years later, he was leading the same people into Keiichi’s house in an attempt to cure him. This suggests that he became involved with Hinamizawa somewhere in these four years.

When the kidnappers notice Oishi and Akasaka, they attempt to flee, though in the end, they fail. Still, the kidnappers did show a good fight against the two of them. They had a very precise aim with their guns. This suggests that Keiichi’s vision of the guard trying to overrun him was indeed just imaginary. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have missed with the car.

The two kidnappers manage to flee in the end and the grandson gets saved. Still, Hinamizawa wins in the end, when the dam construction is cancelled. I think that the kidnappers have done more things like this, which made the kidnapping the final straw. I think there’s a good chance that the Sonozaki-family pulled some dirty tricks. It’s almost like they wanted the grandson to be found. After all, the head of the Sonozaki-family was pretty serious when she found out about Akasaka. I don’t think that she could not foresee the fact that he and Oishi were able to find the kidnappers.

Afterwards, the story turns towards Rika, and this is where the real awesomeness begins. Akasaka tries to call his wife, but every phone he runs into has its wires cut off. Then he runs into Rika and he suspects her of being the one who cut the phone wires. Rika neither confirms nor denies. Though she does mention the fact that only sadness awaits him if he calls.

Akasaka then takes Rika to her home (after all, it’s evening). Rika then reveals that this is the evening of the Watanagashi. The festival is a lot different than on the previous arcs, as we just see a bunch of guys drinking, laughing and screaming. Rika then takes him to her favourite spot again, and she reveals quite some interesting things.

She actually predicts each of the Watanagashi-murders. She also reveals that she’ll be killed in a couple of years, as it’s already been decided. She reveals more, though we have to wait till later in the episode for that. We then return about five or six years later. Oishi managed to survive the volcanic gas and he has retired. He now lives in Sapporo. Akasaka decided to meet him, in order to confirm a couple of things.

Akasaka also has understood Rika’s words. During the night of the Watanagashi, she tripped off some stairs in the hospital and died. Remember what Rika said in the previous episode? She said that he’d better return immediately to Tokyo. If he did that, his wife would be saved, as she’d be doing something else than walk off some stairs. And even if she did trip, Akasaka would be there to save her. That’s also the reason why Rika cut the telephone wires. She knew that Akasaka’s wife died, so she didn’t want him to feel sad. But why? Why did she warn him?

Oishi then tells Akasaka about how Rika was killed in the way we saw it in the previous episode, and about the volcanic gas. Keiichi is nowhere mentioned. Akasaka then reveals Rika’s predictions about the Watanagashi-murders. The next Watanagashi would mean the death of one of the dam opposers. I guess I was wrong in assuming that this arc dealt with that murder, as it actually happened one year after. The next Watanagashi, Satoko’s parents would be pushed off a cliff. The next Watanagashi, Rika’s parents are to die (interesting note: Rika doesn’t say how). The next Watanagshi Satoko’s aunt will have her head bashed in and be killed. The next Watanagashi, or a few days after, Rika will die.

Rika, however, didn’t know who was behind it. Everything is part of a plan, though she doesn’t know whose plan it is. Rika only wants to live happily, along with her friends. I guess that that means why she was so protective of Keiichi in the second arc.

Rika’s prophecy actually reveals quite some interesting things we didn’t know yet. The first victim appears to be the dam construction manager (I could’ve sworn I heard this before, but whatever). His body will be dismembered and one of the murderers will still roam free. After the previous episode, I thought that this would be Rika, but her role will be an entirely different one. Out of all the other possible culprit, Mion seems most obvious, as Oishi revealed that she got into a fight with him during the third episode and she is, along with Keiichi, the only one of the Higurashi-cast who has murdered. Still, the body was dismembered, cut into six pieces. Mion’s style is performing the Watanagashi on them. And after all, just because she got into a fight with him, that doesn’t mean that she’ll automatically kill him. Though for now, I’ll believe her to be the murderer, due to lack of other suspects.

The second murder: Satoko’s parents. They were indeed murdered, by being pushed off a cliff. It was no accident at all. The body of her mother must’ve drifted into some unknown place, or the murderer had plans with that, and removed it. Still, the reasons for the murder remain unclear.

The third murder still remains shrouded in mystery. Rika’s parents will be killed. Her father will die because of a mysterious illness and her mother will commit suicide. Why, how, which and what still remain unknown.

The fourth murder will indeed involve Satoko’s aunt being bashed into the head. It indeed suggests that Satoshi had a little fun. Still, Rika does not mention Satoshi at all. Could it be because he never died, or because he didn’t die at a Watanagashi. I’d go for the latter, as the previous arc showed his dead body, Watanagashi-ed.

The fifth murder, and the most interesting one, will be Rika’s own. It seems that during the first arc, she also was killed in this way. In the second arc, Mion disrupted this prophecy by murdering Rika herself, and dumping her into the well, along with the others. For some reason, Mion didn’t want to wait for Rika to get killed near the shrine, and she wanted to kill her personally. After all, Satoko wasn’t supposed to come after her, as revealed in the eighth episode. I don’t believe that Mion was the one who killed Rika in the other arcs. Perhaps Shion has something to do with it?

The interesting thing remains that Rika only mentions the murders in which Keiichi was not involved. The fact that Rena, Mion and Keiichi die in the first arc never gets mentioned. The fact that Satoko, Mion and Shion die in the second arc never gets mentioned. Satoko’s uncle in the third arc never gets mentioned. Perhaps Keiichi’s role in this is even bigger than we originally thought.

During the second arc, Rika also willingly goes to Mion in order to be killed. Another theory would be that she wanted to disrupt the plan of the bad guy by getting herself killed in another way, as she saw it as a good chance. She failed to do this in the other arcs. (Wild theory: what if Rika’s death is directly related to the volcanic gas? What if Rika needs to die before the gas can be released? After all, the press could be hiding something).

Also, I’m very surprised that Oishi managed to survive the volcanic gas. The fact that he ran off in the third arc could suggest that he found out about it, and attempted to flee before it erupted. Ever since, he’s kept quiet about it, and so, he even doesn’t tell it to Akasaka.

Still, Hinamizawa has lots of secrets. Why did Rika know about the murders? She could’ve heard them from the Sonozaki family. The Sonozaki family could be hte culprit, though Rika told Akasaka that she didn’t know who was behind it. This would suggest that the Sonozaki family wasn’t behind it. Still, how did Rika know about Akasaka’s wife? Okay, she could’ve phoned the hospital she was staying in. But first, how the heck did she know the phone number. And second, how did she manage to predict an accident? I am so trying to believe that we’re dealing with something not supernatural here, though Rika’s case is totally leaving me in the dark right now.

Overall, I really liked this arc. It was really refreshing to see no Keiichi, Rena, Mion, Shion or Satoko appear, and make the arc just focus on one of my favourite characters: Rika. Oishi also improved a lot. I actually liked him and Akasaka was a very good protagonist. Especially because he wasn’t a pubescent male, or something like that.

Whoa… I knew that this arc was going to be unique, with no Keiichi as main character, but I never thought it would be this unique. I absolutely loved it. You see, this arc plays four years before the other three arcs. Keiichi’s gone, Rena’s gone and Rika’s even cuter than she was before. With a bit of luck, we’ll also see a flash of Satoko and Satoshi in the next episode. This arc will probably explain the first of all the murders. I wish I could be able to remember who the victim was, though I’m ashamed to say that I forgot. And the great thing is that nobody seems to have written it down. -_-

In any case, this probably is the first time since episode one that this murder gets mentioned. All of the other arcs kept silent about it, for some strange reason. The mysterious victim was cut in six pieces by a pickaxe (ouch), with one of the murderers still roaming free. It’s only now that I realize that Rika was the murderer. She was the one who murdered for the first time. It’s also very interesting that she didn’t commit this murder alone, though she was the only one who managed to not get caught. I wonder who the other murderers might’ve been…

In any case, the previous arcs showed us a very bloody or gory scene right before they started. This arc just shows about the same guys we saw in the third episode, trying to run Keiichi over with their mini-van, kidnapping a little boy. Meanwhile, the radio tells about three people who were arrested because of violent acts against the Hinamizawa Dam Project. Things were a bit bloody, judging by the newsreader. The boy who gets kidnapped is the son of Cabinet Minister Inukai, by the way. The dam was probably his father’s idea.

The OP rolls, and the real episode begins. We then see our main character for this arc: Akasaka Mamoru. He really looks like an old version of Keiichi with black hair, though thankfully, his personality is different. He’s been sent out to investigate whether Hinamizawa’s got something to do with the son of the Cabinet Minister who’s been kidnapped. It isn’t very likely, so he’s sent out alone, as every possibility needs to be investigated.

Akasaka also has a wife, who’s highly pregnant. She’ll probably have her baby when he’s in Hinamizawa. Once inside Hinamizawa, he heads for the local police station. There he hears the first rumours about the dangers of the Onigafuchi Last Defence Alliance, or the group who opposes the dam construction. Then Oishi shows up, and he gives him a bit of a tour around Hinamizawa. He also tells Akasaka about the three main families, and the Sonozaki-family.

Oishi then shows a bit of interest in the investigations Akasaka is conducting. I guess that he’s of course interested in what he can find out, so he can use it in his own research. Oishi’s willing to introduce Akasaka to a Mole in the Sonozaki-family as well. After Oishi left, Akasaka decided to go undercover, and have a local villager guide him around. He’s planning to pretend to be a leisure photographer, who wants to see a bit of the neighbourhood.

When he reaches the meeting point with the guy, he runs into a four-year younger version of Rika. (So cute ^^;) Then the guy arrives, and Rika decides to tag along with the two of them. When she hears that Akasaka’s planning to take photos, she compares him to Tomitake. It’s very interesting to see that Tomitake’s been visiting Hinamizawa for over 4 years now. I guess that that gives him enough time to meet up with Takano. Still, Rika did give him a good nickname. After all, we all know what happens to Tomitake in the end (*wink wink, nudge nudge*).

Then, while Akasaka keeps taking photos and Rika asks a few questions, Akasaka says the most stupid thing you can ever imagine. He tells about his wife, who’s having a baby right at that moment. What idiot abandons his wife for a leisure-trip at a time like that!? Rika also noticed this (you can see that in her expression. Smart girl, especially considering that she’s so incredibly young. And cute. ^^;)

The guide then offers to take Akasaka to the place with the best scenery around: the Furude Shrine, Rika’s home. Only then it becomes clear that Rika also is a member of one of the three big families in Hinamizawa. When the threesome arrives at the Furude Shrine, a very touching scene follows. The Furude Shrine also appears to be the centre of the anti-dam movement. The guide automatically thinks that Akasaka’s an activist as well, though the latter corrects the former. Akasaka then comes with an incredibly politically correct speech, in which he thinks that it’s better to get yourself involved in politics if you want something, instead of just fighting back. Rika then totally smashes this statement in the ground, when she asks him how he would solve an issue like that. She indeed managed to see the flaw in modern-day politics. ^^

Rika then takes him to the place with the beautiful scenery, after which we also get signs that Rika’s infected with the disease as well. She then warns Akasaka to go away. She’s also certain that the dam project will soon be gone, no matter what. It’s already been decided.

That evening, Akasaka meets up with the mole, right after a meeting of the three big families. Mion and Rika also were present. Mion was paying attention, though she never said anything, while Rika was busy drawing a picture of her along with Akasaka. ^^ We also got to see Mion’s mother. She’s also one of the characters whose hair has unnatural colours. (That’s one of the major flaws in anime. The main characters seem to be the only ones with obscene hair colours). We also get to see Mion’s grandmother, the current ruler over Hinamizawa. (Was she still alive in the previous arcs?)

The end of the meeting, it became clear that Akasaka’s mission had been discovered and the Sonozaki Family indeed was the one to kidnap the Cabinet Minister’s son. Akasaka doesn’t really like the things he hears. The next morning, Oishi gives him a call. It seems that the Minister’s wallet has been found at a certain place called Takatsudo, a fairly deserted area, not mentioned in the previous arcs. Oishi’s willing to bring Akasaka there, though he does put on a knife-proof vest as precaution. The episode ends with Oishi offering one to Akasaka as well.

This arc will probably end with the first murder. Still, that does leave one murder and one disappearance without any attention: Rika’s parents. Before I saw this arc, I was expecting that it would cover the death of Rika’s parents, how her mother committed suicide and her father died of the mysterious illness, but as this arc plays long before the two of them die, we’ll probably get left in the dark about this. One of the answer-arcs will probably solve it.

I still have no clue about the nature of the disease. This arc clearly shows that the disease can go to sleep after it’s been active. It indeed seems that heavy emotions are the trigger for the disease to get active, but in that case, why didn’t Rika kill herself when her parents died? Or did Satoko manage to save her just in time before she freaked out? In any case, Rika getting under the control of the disease really happened. It was not in Keiichi’s mind, as he was totally somewhere else at that moment. I also don’t see Akasaka for being caught with the disease as well.

We also finally get to see the same mini-van as in the third episode. At that time, it tried to hit Keiichi, when the driver saw he failed, he ran off. I think it appeared again during the end of the fourth episode, though I’m not sure. In any case, it does suggest some sort of link between the Sonozaki-family and Irie (as the minivan seems to be under the control of the Sonozaki-family). What kind of connection might that be? Before I can really speculate about this, I need to know whether Mion’s grandmother was still alive, and the leader of Hinamizawa and if she was, Mion’s influence on this.

Differences with previous arcs:
– The previous arcs Keiichi as main character, one of the girls as opposing character (Rena, Mion and Satoko), and one of the side-characters who played a major role (Oishi, Shion and Irie). This arc had Akasaka as main character, Rika as opposing character, and Oishi again as the side-character with the important role.
– This arc plays during the dam-opposition (does that mean that everything that happens here, happened with the previous arcs as well?)
– Rika’s gotten even cuter.
– This is the first arc in which we see nothing about Keiichi and Rena, possibly Satoko as well.
– In the first arc, Oishi was concerned. In the second arc, Oishi was cheerful and more business-like. In the third arc, Oishi was evil. In the fourth arc, I’d describe him as helpful. Eager to learn valuable information from Akasaka.

Overall, I loved this different episode. Rika was omega-kawaii, and it really is great to see an episode without Keiichi. I can’t wait to see the next episode. ^_^

Memorable Moment: Rika calling Akasaka Tomitake #2 (You think she was trying to give him a subtle message? ^^)

Too bad. Keiichi’s voice-acting so did not match with his facial constortions. He looked so fake in this. On the other hand, Satoko was awesome when she started yelling. About the episode: I liked it. It wasn’t as good as the previous two, though it was very enjoyable indeed.

The game, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni consisted of eight arcs, if I’m not wrong. Four question-arcs and four answer-arcs. Right now, we’re being treated with the four question arcs. We’ve only got one of them left, in which Rika will stand in the attention. This’ll probably take till episode seventeen. What follows are the four answer-arcs. I’m wondering whether the creators will decide to show all of them, or just two.

Anyway, about the episode. We start with Keiichi, lyin in his bed. He’s obviously extremely confused, after what happened in the previous episode. He then grabs a hand axe, and heads for Satoko’s place. When he heads out, he thinks he sees something behind him, though there’s nobody there. He himself thinks that it’s Satoko’s work.

He heads for Satoko’s house, and then notices that Satoko’s uncle’s bike isn’t there. The door is left open, and the tv is left on. Keiichi then searches for Satoko, and he hears something in the shower. It then seems that she’s been in the shower since the entire night, counting till 10000. When Keiichi asks for the reason, she mentions something about her uncle. Then Keiichi goes berserk in a few very fake scenes. That’s the problem when you’re low-budget. Scenes like these don’t work. Still, I have to say that Satoko was just too sad.

Keiichi then attempts to bring Satoko to the clinic. She’s getting better and better, one thing I liked about this. When Keiichi goes to investigate, he sees that Irie’s killed himself. Oishi’s also vanished without a trace. When Satoko hears this, she’s terribly shocked. Though, she manages to recover after this. These scenes were greatly excecuted. Satoko then asks Keiichi to bring her to Rika’s house, in order to borrow some clothes. Keiichi manages to get more paranoid by the minute, by the way. The fact remains that both Takano as Oishi as Irie died, after Keiichi wished thim dead. This makes him think that he’s the reason behind these deaths. He then also confesses Satoko about what he did to her uncle. Satoko tells him not to mention it, though the disease has spread enough for Keiichi to not notice it. Satoko then leaves, in order to pick up her stuff.

What follows is Keiichi, who notices Rika’s dead body behind the shrine. It’s being eaten by crows, so he screams in a very fake way, and attempts to chase the crows away with the axe he’s wielding. This axe then gets covered in blood. When Satoko sees Keiichi wielding a bloody axe right next to Rika’s dead body, she breaks. She then runs away and Keiichi follows her. They end up at a bridge narrow drawbridge.

Satoko mentions that she used to see Keiichi as her new Nii-nii. Keiichi tries to convince Satoko, but this doesn’t really work, since the idiot forgot to throw his axe away. When he finally realizes this, Satoko calms down a bit. Though, she still thinks that he murdered Keiichi. She gives Oyashiro the blame, as she knows that Keiichi wouldn’t hurt anyone.

She then tells about something that happened when she was young. She used to play along with Rika, and then she ended up inside the shrine on accident. While trying to get out, she broke Oyashiro0s statue, though Rika was seen as the one who did it and punished severely. This has made a huge impact on Satoko, especially her parents disappearing, her aunt dying and her brother running away only strenghtened this. She now views those as a devine retribution for the things she did back in the shrine. This was a great moment, though I’m wondering something… what the heck was a chibified-Keiichi doing right next to Rika? And why the heck did they look of the same age? O_o

Satoko then tells Keiichi that she really was glad that Keiichi got transferred, and now she breaks when she finds out that the only hope she had left has als obeen posessed by Oyashiro. She then pushes him off the bridge, and he falls a loooong way down in the river which lies behind the bridge. What follows is the usual conclusion of the arc. In the first arc, this was Oishi who read the report about the things Keiichi had been doing. In the second arc, it was Keiichi who recovered along with Rena after what happened in Mion’s basement. The third arc shows a couple of unknown people, watching the local news about something that happened in Hinamizawa. Guess what? Poisonous vulcanic gass erupted from somewhere, killing off the entire Hinamizawa Population. Except for one person: Keiichi.

Did you see that one coming? Keiichi, ending up as the only survivor of Hinamizawa? It makes perfect sense, though. A fall from a bridge like that hurts a lot, though you don’t nessecarily die from it. Because Keiichi was unconcious at the time when the gas erupted, so he didn’t breathe in as much as the other residents of Hinamizawa. That’s why he stayed alive.

So, let’s take a look at the total death count:
Keiichi: 1,5 (We don’t know if he really died at the end of the second arc. It was probably the disease again, though he could have killed himself at that time. Only time will tell).
Rena: 2
Mion: 3
Shion: 2
Rika: 2
Satoko: 2

Isn’t this interesting? If it turns out that Keiichi didn’t die at the end of the second arc, he’s been the main character with the least number of deaths on his name. You might wonder whose body it was which appeared at the beginning of this arc. It’s simple. It’s Satoshi. It seems that Mion somehow ran into him after he killed his aunt, and gave him some treatmens he didn’t really like. It seems that Satoshi indeed had every intention to run away, though Mion had other plans.

The best thing about this episode is probably the huge amount of questions it managed to introduce. It seems that there’s so much more than just the disease which is claiming its victims. Poisonous gas roams around, people are killing each other, people are disappearing, and all these events have been influenced by the things that Keiichi did, with the only exception of Tomitake and Takano’s deaths.

For example, what caused Irie’s death? Was he so much in love with Satoko that he couldn’t bear it and committed suicide? Or does it have something to do with his part as a director? And how did Oishi disappear? Are their deaths linked in some way? Ddi they both have something to do with Satoko? Or could Oishi have been the one to set the vulcanic gas free? After all, this all happened two days after the Watanagashi. In the first arc, Keiichi was busy fleeing from Rena and Mion at that time, while in the second arc, Keiichi was having strange phone calls with Shion.

Another thing that remains a mystery is the following: what happened to Satoko’s uncle? There are two possiblilties: Keiichi did kill the guy, though Satoko’s disease imagines that he’s still with her, or Keiichi never killed the guy, and he suddenly went out on his scooter, leaving the tv on. Both of these theories have got their holes.

Also, what happened to Mion and Rena? Weren’t they supposed to go on a treasure hunt? What happened afterwards? What did they find? Or were they the ones who set off the vulcanic gas? And why did Mion kill Satoshi in the first place (I’m assuming now that she’s the only one who can perform the Watanagashi). And who was the one who killed Rika? And why? Why did the murderer put Rika in such an obvious place?

Rika was just too sad in this episode. She’s an incredibly strong character, as she manages to recover fastly after what happened to her in the shower. She also gets shocked when she hears that Irie’s dead, though she behaves normally afterwards. Though when she realizes that Keiichi has been posessed by Oyashiro, she breaks. It seems that when he transferred, she clinged to him, and she turned him into her raison d’être. When such a thing betrayed her, she broke.

Differences with previous arcs:
– The vulcanic gas never escaped in the previous episodes.
– In the first arc, Keiichi wanted to flee. In the second arc, Keiichi wanted to understand. In the third arc, Keiichi wanted to protect.
– Keiichi isn’t going to move.
– It’s the first time Oishi disappears.
– We see the drawbridge for the first time in the third arc.
– Mion and Rena didn’t attempt to cure Keiichi from his disease, like they did in the first arc. In fact, their part in this arc was very small.
– For the first time, Keiichi wields an axe, instead of a bat.
– The second arc is so far the only arc in which Keiichi actually got help. It seemed like Mion would be helping Keiichi during this arc, though she gets out of the picture after the second episode.
– Each arc also focuses around one side-character. In the first arc, this was Oishi. In the second, this was Shion, and the third had Irie.
– In the first arc, Rika stays alive. In the second arc, she commits suicide. In the third arc, she gets killed.

Another thing I’m curious about is Rena. And more importantly her behavior in the first episode of the third arc. At that time, it was clear that she was under the disease. Though it stopped there. The Watanagashi-murders were mentioned, and she went berserk. Though after this episode, these never were mentioned again. It’s like she got cured. Why and how did she get cured?

During the entire episode, I sat on my chair with a big smirk on my face. It was so amazingly written, so many brilliant opportunities were taken, this episode was just utterly incredible. It’s easily the best episode of Higurashi yet. Thank god the series managed to pick itself up again, after a kindof weak start.

The main reason behind the awesomeness of this episode: Keiichi getting paranoid. It was so awesome to see his reaction when he started to realize that his whole plan backfired. That’s the beauty of Higurashi: its amazing number of incredible plot twists. At some times, it manages to forget this, though this episode totally made up for it.

We start with the flachbacks from the previous episode, with Keiichi killing Satoko’s uncle, burying him and running into Takano. The OP rolls, and we start with the real episode. But not before the usual sponsor-image is shown, showing Oishi and Keiichi, in the rain. I really dislike it when the sponsors are shown in this way, as it immediately spoils a part of the episode. Why can’t they just show a bunch of fanart?

In any case, Takano mentions the fact that if the body isn’t buried properly, stray dogs may pick up their scent, and dig the body up. Keiichi then mentions that the bicycle in the back is Tomitake’s. Takano, however, tells him that it’s her own bike, which Jirou picked out for her. Once she drops Keiichi off at his house, she tells him that they hadn’t met during that evening. It takes Keiichi a while to figure out what she means. Keiichi isn’t really tactless, as it’s clear that the two of them have both killed someone, and they’re kindof in the same boat. Takano tries to remain subtle, though Keiichi’s too paranoid to notice this. This reaction ticks Takano off, and we see her annoyed for the first time in the anime.

Then Takano takes off, and Keiichi wishes her to fall under the curse of Oyashiro. He then hears a splash-like sound from behind him, though the source of this splash remains unclear. The next morning, he wakes up late, and rushes to school. To his surprise, Satoko’s come as well, instead of mourning over her uncle. When he enters the classroon, the fun really starts. Rika, Rena and Mion are talking like Keiichi actually WAS at the Watanagashi! Brilliance! Rena was also too cute when she started talking about the stuffed doll. ^^;

Seeing Keiichi react to this was just brilliant. He’s got no idea what happened, so he starts asking around for his own actions, and behaves very weird in the eyes of others. Satoko, meanwhile, is incredibly gloomy. When Keiichi talks to her, she breaks down in tears. He then gives subtle hints about what happened at the last episode, and, GUESS WHAT, her uncle didn’t disappear at all. He even gave Satoko her most horrible treatment ever. Satoko was so sad at that moment, and seeing Rika comfort her was just too cute.

Anyway, Mion and Rena are starting to wonder about the things that Keiichi said, making him only freakier and freakier. Rena then suggests a treasure hunt with him and Mion. Keiichi tells Rena, however, that he’s got a cold, so he can’t come. Rena then suggests him to go to the clinic. It then seems that Keiichi has learned, as he actually goes promises to show her the receipt. Rena then replies in disease-mode, and she walks off.

Keiichi then gets on his bike, and goes back to school. He then checks whether Satoshi’s bat is still where it was before he took it at the previous episode. Well, it isn’t. He then goes to the clinic, because he promised Rena and he then runs into Irie. Keiichi asks him what he’s been doing during the night of the Watanagashi, and of course, he thinks that Irie begins to suspect him. Irie, however, acts just calmly, though Keiichi doesn’t seem to notice it. He gets more paranoid by the minute, and ends up confessing his murder to Irie! Hehe.

Irie then thanks him for saving Satoko. A strange reply. Keiichi also tells him that Satoko told him that later, it appeared that Satoko’s uncle didn’t get killed at all. Irie then gets some coffee for Keiichi in order to calm down, though then Keiichi overheards Irie talking with another doctor about adding some isomytal and brovarin to his drink. I’ve got no idea what kind of stuff that might be, but Keiichi doesn’t really see this as a good thing. More theories on this later in this post, as it actually explains quite a few things.

In any case, Keiichi doesn’t like this, gets a freaky voice, and then he hears about Takano being found, being burned again. Nothing on Tomitake was said. Keiichi then blames himself for killing her, because he wished for her to fall under Oyashiro-sama’s curse.

That evening, rain falls, and Keiichi makes his way to the place he dug the hole in, in order to check whether the body was buried properly. While he’s in the middle of digging, Oishi and a couple of other officers run into him. This isn’t the kind Oishi, more like a sadistic Oishi. Oishi then makes Keiichi dig up whatever he was planning to dig up. When Keiichi has no more stamina for this, one of the officers took over the digging work. Oishi, meanwhile, abuses Keiichi. Then, the fun part begins, as the officers seem to have reached rock bottom. No body. >:)

Keiichi’s reaction to this was just great. There are two theories which could explain what was going on:
1: Satoshi decided to visit the Watanagashi, while pretending to be Keiichi. He then had some fun with Rena, Mion, Satoko, Shion and Tomitake and gave Rena a huge stuffed animal. Keiichi, meanwhile beat Satoko’s uncle with a bat and buried him, though he forgot to make sure whether the guy was dead. This was not the case, and he managed to get out of the hole. Satoko’s uncle then covered the hole again, and made his way to his own house again, blaming Satoko for this, and beat her up like crazy.
2: The previous episode never even took place. Keiichi did get the idea of killing Satoko’s uncle, he did grab the bat and put it in the wooden shed next to the school. He then called up Satoko’s uncle, who in his place came to school. Then, Keiichi just abandoned the plan and headed for the Watanagashi, in which he had fun with everyone like he was supposed to be. The disease then made sure that Keiichi imagined that he never even went to the Watanagashi, and committed the murder instead. Satoko’s uncle, meanwhile, was extremely pissed that he had to come for nothing, blamed Satoko for this, and beat her up like crazy.

Both of these theories have strong points and weak points, though I’m inclined to believe in the second one for now, as it also explains some things which happened later at the episode. The scene in the clinic, for example. Keiichi confessed everything to Irie, and even told him that Satoko’s uncle seemed still alive afterwards. The doctor then attempts to put certain stuff in Keiichi’s coffee (the isomytal and bovarin). Originally, I thought that the other doctor warned Irie about the fact that this stuff would cause outbursts of mistrust and derangements. Though that’s not true. It causes drowsiness. And this drowsiness causes the sudden outbursts of mistrust and derangements.

This explains quite a lot. What if the syringe from episode four also contained the isomytal and bovarin? What if isomytal and bovarin are actually the cure to the disease? It also explains that Irie indeed knew about the disease, and he was about to save Keiichi in both the first and third arc, weren’t for the fact that he ran away at both times, leaving a couple of nice souvenirs in the first arc. Still, there are still a few things wrong with this theory. For example, why did the isomytal and bovarin have to be injected in the first arc, while they could have been just swallowed in the third arc. This could, of course, have been because at the end of the first arc, the disease had hit a more severe stage than during this episode. Then, another medicine was needed because the bovarin and isomytal weren’t strong enough, though this medicine isn’t able to survive the digestive processes in the stomach of the victim before it could enter in its blood, unlike isomytal and bovarin. If this was the case, it would also totally explain the ohagi from the third episode! Remember when Mion and Rena brought Keiichi some ohagi for lunch because his parent were away? Remember that he found a needle in it, and spit the junk back out again? What if there was some isomytal and bovarin put in these ohagi, in an attempt to cure Keiichi? In that case, the disease tried to protect itself, by making Keiichi imagine that there was a needle inside of them. Still, there’s one mystery at which I can’t find an answer. If Irie knew about the disease, why didn’t he call it by its name, during his conversation with the other doctor?

I also wonder what happened with Takano during the Watanagashi. She entered the temple, along with Tomitake. It isn’t clear whether Shion was with them at that time. She was at the Watanagashi in any case, though we don’t know for how long she remained with Rena, Mion, Rika and Keiichi. In any case, afterwards they went to the riverbed, and watched the scenery a bit. Then something happened which made Tomitake strangle himself with his own nails, right in front of Takano. I think she probably made him do it. Then, she used either her own bike or Tomitake’s bike in order to do something, she stuffed Tomitake’s body in the trunk of her car, and headed somewhere. She then ran into Keiichi, and she took her along with him. When she dropped him off, she drove off again. Then, she either killed herself by drenching herself with inflammable liquid and set it to fire, or she ran into someone she’s not on good terms with, who drenced her in inflammable liquid and set her on fire. As you can see, there are a lot of questions left in this, though I think that each arc is meant to reveal a bit more about the adventures of Tomitake and Takano every time.

Another thing I’m curious about is Rena’s treasure hunt. What was she referring to? Did they plan to go to the junkyard again, or does this have something to do with the plot? And why was Oishi just hanging around at the place where Keiichi thought he buried Satoko’s uncle? Someone must’ve warned them about the way he was acting, so who could it be?

Differences with previous arcs:
– Only Tomitake’s body was found in the first arc. Both Tomitake and Takano’s bodies were found in the second arc. Only Takano’s body was found in the third arc.
– The link between the Watanagashi-murders and disappearances is never mentioned during the third arc.
– In the first arc, Mion and Rena tried to use ohagi to cure Keiichi, but it didn’t work. In the second arc, Irie tried to use coffee to cure Keiichi, but it didn’t work.
– Oishi’s a heartless bastard in the third arc. This does show a lot about his character. He treats the key witnesses with respect, in order to find out what they know. However, if he doesn’t need them, he treats them in a total different way. That may indeed be the reason why he got into a fight with Mion (see first arc).
– Did it rain during the night after the day of the Watanagashi in the first and the second arc? It did in the third.

Overall, this episode was just totally awesome. The best Higurashi-episode yet. I’m hoping for even more awesomeness in the final episode of the arc, though it might fall victim to the fake, over the top, distorted emo-faces that plagued the fourth episode of the series. Let’s hope it won’t!

Cos was right. This episode was much better than the standard which Higurashi managed to set. We finally have an episode at which we have tension, but the animation doesn’t go over the top. I absolutely loved this. The creators finally realize that Higurashi’s brilliance lies in the subtle details, and not in the fake-emo-distorted images. Emo-distorted images do help, of course, in fact, they work really well, but not if they’re so fake as in Higurashi. Thank goodness the creators learned in this episode.

Satoko’s put into recovery after what happened at the previous episode. Mion, Chie and Keiichi are surprisingly the only ones who stayed with her until the evening. Then the episode already begins good when Keiichi gets one of the craziest ideas ever: kill the uncle himself. The entire episode’ll focus on this aspect, nothing more. This episode also confirmed some thoughts I’ve had for a while: Higurashi’s episode get more and more focused on one subject. The anime is way more episodic than it was at the beginning of the show, at which all kinds of events just went through each other. There are good sides, and bad sides to this. The bad side is the predictability. Though the good side is that they can really give the viewer the chance to live along with the plot. This especially worked well during this episode.

When he’s at home, he asks his mother some subtle questions about the perfect mystery. As she’s a lover of mystery novels, she gives him some nice inspiration for his plans. If nothing happens, nothing starts. Keiichi tries what most killers who don’t want to go to jail try as well: conceal the body as good as possible.

Keiichi then goes to school, and for some reason, he goes to Satoshi’s locker, as he assumed that a baseball bat would lie in there. It did, just like in the first arc. (Apparently, Keiichi likes to use baseball bats as a weapon). He then makes some preparations, and phones Mion to ask her to take Satoko to the Watanagashi. He lies to her, in a very similar way Satoshi did back then. It’s much like Keiichi’s phone-conversations with Shion in the second arc. Keiichi now also realized what I predicted during the previous episode: the drug addict who killed Satoko’s aunt was actually Satoshi himself. Of course, this could just be a wild idea of Keiichi.

Another interesting theory about Satoshi’s disappearance, which would explain Satoko’s behavior at the end of the previous episode is the following: Satoko was actually the one who killed Satoshi in some way, though she now sees that as a huge mistake. When Keiichi reminded her of Satoko, she remembered the fact that she killed him, and went berserk, and kept on apologizing.

In any case, Satoshi and Keiichi were very much alike, which would hint at the fact that he indeed did kill his aunt. Still, I believe there’s more than just that. After all, otherwise they wouldn’t just announce this this early in the series. The next day, the Watanagashi starts, and Keiichi grabs a shovel. He then heads to a place in the mountains, and begins digging a hole. While he digs the hole, he gets flashbacks of his own past. It’s the first time we see such a thing.

The flashback does explain why he managed to think of such a plan. Keiichi’s horrible with theories, though when it comes to practical knowlegde, he’s incredibly smart. That would explain all his theories in the first arc. It seems that he was really hated back then, and people started to bully him, putting dead rats in his desk, etc. That’s why he got transferred to Hinamizawa Village and met the others. It suddenly becomes clear why Keiichi’s mother and father are away for such a long time. They live in Hinamizawa because of Keiichi being bullied. Still, why does he move away again in the second arc? In any case, the fact that Keiichi was bullied does explain why he’s so eager to protect Satoko, with the disease only making this worse.

Then we get our first reference to the title of the anime: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, or when the cicadas cry. In other words: in the evening. Anyway, right before sundown, Keiichi grabs Satoshi’s bat, and gives Satoko’s uncle a call to lure him out. Satoko’s been in custody by the police, so he needs to come to the police office. The plan almost goes wrong when it appears that the guy doesn’t know where the police office is. ^^;

Keiichi, meanwhile waits for the guy, and hits him down with a metal bat. What follows is probably the best couple of scenes from Higurashi yet. Keiichi chases the guy, and beats him to death. He buries the body with the shovel (interesting note: Keiichi had prepared a hole for the guy, but he couldn’t find it anymore). Rain starts, and Keiichi’s incredibly happy that he did it. Though I think that everyone would be, after that much adrenaline poured through your body. (another interesting note: this was probably the first time in anime ever that the main character commited a murder, and had to cover up for it in such a way ^^). In any case, I just loved this. Especially when Keiichi beat the guy down with the club. Finally a paranoid scene which doesn’t look too fake. (It’s probably because he didn’t talk or laugh at that moment).

In any case, Keiichi’s mission is accomplished and he heads home. Still, he almost collapses. Then, Takano runs into him, in her car. Without Tomitake. This provides some very interesting theories when you compare it with the previous arcs. He tries to find an excuse for being in the middle of the rain with a shovel, though it doesn’t work. Luckily, Takano doesn’t mind, and she takes him with her. Keiichi’s bike gets left behind, and in the car, Keiichi sees something like a wheelchair lying on the backseat. Takano then asks Keiichi whether the corpse was properly burried. >:)

In any case, let’s take a look at Takano, shall we? She just went to the temple, along with Tomitake, there she saw something, the two of them left and headed for the riverbank. Then something happened which caused Tomitake to strangle himself with his own nails and now Takano has his dead body inside the trunk of her car, and she’s planning to dump the body somewhere. Interesting theory, no? Still, there are a lot of questions unanswered. Like, did Takano kill Tomitake, but make it look like he killed himself, or did the guy really kill himself? I would say the former, as Takano has a big grin on her face for the entire time. Still, what was her reason to kill him? And what’s with the wheelchair? And how did she end up burned to a crisp in the second arc? And what was Shino’s role in this? Did she go into the shrine as well, without Keiichi? (interesting note: it did NOT rain at the end of the Watanagashi during the first and second arc… what’s up with that, can Keiichi also influence the weather?).

The fact also remains that Keiichi did leave some traces. The hole he dug, for example, either still exists, or was found out about after he left. He didn’t conceal the second hole he dug properly, as the ground was not totally even. Furthermore, he left his bike near the scene of the crime and even though it’s 1982, detectives must have had at least some tricks to find out about the murderers.

I think the best part of Higurashi remains at the parts at which Keiichi lies towards his friends, and then immediately gets pwned back and brought into incertainty. It might be something personal, as I’ve got a problem with lying myself, though these scenes were just absolutely incredible to see.

Differences with previous arcs:
– Satoko’s uncle did not visit in the first and second arc, otherwise she must’ve been absent for a number of days as well, at which she wasn’t. This does mean that something happened which made her Uncle return to her.
– Keiichi does not attend the Watanagashi, and he never enters the shrine.
– We never see that Rika participates in the Watanagashi.
– Mion and Keiichi talk over the telephone this time, instead of Shion and Keiichi.