Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 23 – Awesomeness


You know? That actually was a pretty awesome episode. After its incredibly weak fifth arc, the sixth arc definitely brings this show back at its original level of high quality. This episode definitely contained some of the best moments in Higurashi.

Still, nothing much regarding the main plot directly happens. Rena kills Rina and Satoko’s uncle, Keiichi, Mion Rika and Satoko find out about this and decide to fully support her. They clean up the bodies afterwards. We then switch to the Watanagashi, in which Oishi smiles with an evil grin and the episode ends. This is all very important to the storyline of the sixth arc, but except for a new perspective on Satoshi, the main story stayed away again during this episode…

…unless you start looking at the changes in personality for each of the characters. Especially Keiichi shows some interesting signs. He was kindof unique in the first arc. In that arc, the disease really got to him and he started doubting his friend, and he ended up killing them. During the second arc, however, we see that he’s suddenly become extremely nice. This continues up to the third and fifth arc, and now as well, in the sixth arc. He just does everything in order to protect his friends. I think it’s because of his history, being bullied and all. He finally made some good friends, and didn’t want to lose them. But what caused him to freak out in the first arc?

Now that I mention it, there’ve been more characters who had one arc in which their personality was totally different if you compare them with the other arcs. In some cases in two of these arcs. Satoko, for example. In arc 3 she shows a totally different side than the ones she showed in arc 1, 2 and 6. The fifth arc lies a bit in between, I think. Rika also acts differently in arc 4 and 5 if you compare it to arc 1, 2 and 3. The different arcs lead to different personalities of the different characters. what causes this?

Anyway, back to Satoshi. When we saw the body at the beginning of the third arc, I began to look for possible victims. It either was Keiichi or Satoshi, though I chose for Satoshi, seeing the things he went through. Now, I’ve been notified that this assumption is totally wrong. It was Rina. (Notice the star tattoo on the corpse?) If that’s the case, what the heck happened to Satoshi?

Regarding that, I’m going back to a theory I got during the first and second arc (if I remember it correctly): Satoshi still being alive. He was saving money for something. He killed his aunt and ran away, using that money. Probably because he wanted to protect Satoko, though he couldn’t face her after what he did. Rika also didn’t mention his name on the list of people to die during the fourth arc, suggesting that he didn’t die at that day. This is even more confirmed by Mion, at the end of the fifth arc, in which she confesses that she never knew anything about Satoshi, and nobody from the village killed him.

The flaws in this theory:
– We still have Tomitake.
– Why didn’t Satoshi kill his uncle? He’d seem worse than his aunt…
– Where the heck is Satoshi right now?

Oh, I almost forgot. We also get to hear a bit of background we didn’t know yet. The garbage dump seems to be the construction site of the dam. The first murder also was supposed to be committed here. And along with one of the culprits, one body part of the victim seems to be missing. Hmm, I wonder where it went.

Another thing I’m wondering: did Rena kill Rina in the previous arcs as well? Could that be the reason she freaks out at times? Because she didn’t have Keiichi and the others near her, who accepted and supported her, even though they knew what she did? Could this be linked to the third arc, when Keiichi killed Satoko’s uncle, after which he found out that he didn’t kill the guy? Could it be Rena’s work? After all, she did tell him she was going for a bit of treasure hunting.

I’m very interested to see what the last three episodes will be about. This episode already proved to be awesome. How will Rena react to all of this? What material will be presented?

Oh, and one more thing: when will the Higurashi OVA be announced?

0 thoughts on “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 23 – Awesomeness

  1. I think the reason that Satoshi killed his aunt and not his uncle is that his uncle wasn’t the one abusing him, he physically abused Satoko in arc 3 but from the tips i think that the aunt abused them mentally more than physically. Teppei was probably more busy working at the time and when his wife died things changed for him.

  2. Wow… that was probably the bloodiest scene in the series, even with the censoring… they seem to have forgotten that when he falls down Teppei’s split head would no longer be under the black space.

    Which makes me wonder how much else was ‘toned down’.

  3. Oddly, I found Ooishi’s arrival at the festival to be the best part of this episode. The pacing of it came off perfectly, just as everything looks like it’s going to work out. That darned, meddling inspector from town…

  4. The different arcs lead to different personalities of the different characters. what causes this?>>>it has been officially stated that the characters always remain the same at each arc,it is just that a different part of their personality is shown.

    I think this arc explains a lot arc3,for example:it’s Rena who killed Rina at the beginning,then the crew moved the body with the “treasure hunt”,then again Rena became paranoid and killed Oiishi and then Rika.

    As for the next episode,it”s filled with lot of revelations but I don’t want to spoil you.

  5. lol this was what i did while watching this episode, eh it was at the part where Rena and the pink haired bitch were talking around the time where the bitch smacked her. “Dude im getting tired of this slut-WHAT did you just smack her, oh-OH OH, wtf HA she just cut you ^^ oh OH THE PIPE, DO IT DO IT, YES XD YES(bitch gets hit) YES (gets hit again) YES (Rena’s done ^^)” yeah OH and when she killed her uncle the only thing i could do was this…O_O… yeah that was just blech owie i felt that in my head, i had a headache after watching that part @_@

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