Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 25 – Whoa, Never Thought it Would be This Deep of a Story

Only when this episode started, I finally realized what the meaning was of Rena, being put in Keiichi’s place in the first arc. In the first arc, Keiichi doubted his friends, and killed them. In the sixth arc, Rena doubted her friends, and she’ll probably start killing them if it weren’t for Keiichi and the rumoured “good ending” that this arc is supposed to have.

In any case, if you haven’t read the tips (like I almost did): what Rena told Keiichi last time doesn’t necessarily have to be true. She’s suffering from a disease in which she thinks that she’s being infected by parasites. Takano’s other scrapbooks, who get shown this episode, seem to symbolize this.

We start with Rena makes a phone call with Oishi, in which she tells him her suspicions. This makes Oishi suspect the Sonozaki-family. Oishi then tells Rena about the fact that Takano was supposed to be dead at the Watanagashi. She could have used a fake body, or she could have a twin sister. Either way, it remains strange. Rena hangs up, and a police officer tells Oishi that Kasai is supposed to be looking for Rena. You’d wonder why he was with Shion during the previous arc when it seems that he’s such an important person in the Sonozaki-family. The officer also tells that Rena has disappeared. Oishi is quite pissed because of this delay of information.

Back to Mion and Keiichi, Mion tells him that she moved the body parts from two episodes ago, as there seemed to be a big plan to deforest the mountain. The body parts quite probably ended up right at the bottom of the well. Then, we switch to Rena, and it indeed becomes clear that victims of the mysterious disease have hallucinations. Rena apparently has been scratching her neck too often, and parasites are coming out. Once again, this looks so incredibly fake that it almost becomes scary.

Rena spots a couple of officers, looking for her, so she decides to head to a place where nobody can find her. Even Keiichi, who just happens to run into her right when she plans to leave. Convenient timing. Anyway, the way Keiichi mistrusted Rena in the first arc, right now Rena mistrusts Keiichi. Rena has labelled Mion as the main suspect. She also reveals that she did some research on him, and then it turns out that even Keiichi has sinned in his past. There’s just more than being bullied, like the things shown in the third arc. The dialogue is a bit fuzzy, but if I understood it correctly, he hit little children with plastic guns. Then, when things turned out of hand, he alerted his parents, they cleared things for him and they moved to Hinamizawa. Strange, I never knew that Keiichi’s parents were that rich.

Because of this, Keiichi starts thinking. He’s really doesn’t want to lose his friends in this arc. Even more than in the third one. The day afterwards, he thinks it’s best for him to tell about his past to Rika, Satoko and Mion. Strangely enough, he keeps quiet about Rena. In any case, quite an emotional scene follows. It would have been extremely good, weren’t for the fact that Keiichi’s voice-acting was incredibly garbage. Because of that, the scene was very good, though it could have been so much better.

Rika, Mion and Satoko manage to convince Keiichi that there’s nothing wrong with keeping secrets you don’t want to speak about. Then a very interesting event happens. Keiichi seems to remember his life from the first arc! And what’s more, Rika seems to know about it too! With this, most of the first arc also is revealed, although it’s something that has been clear for a long while. At that time, Rena had the same feeling towards Keiichi as Keiichi has towards his friends right now. The syringe was just an ordinary pen, which seemed to have been the cure for the strange disease. (On a side-note: was Rika carrying a pen as well in the fifth arc? If she was, this mystery would be getting a whole new dimension).

Rika decides to forgive Keiichi for this. But it does raise a strange question. How is she able to remember this, if the cause is not supernatural? In any case, Rika decides to help Keiichi save Rena. Quite an embarrassing scene occurs when Keiichi starts hugging Mion out of the blue. His voice acting turns down, which makes that scene quite touching indeed.

Next up, quite a humorous scene in which Oishi and three other policemen are questioning Mion, her mother and Kasai. What happened to Obaba? Anyway, it really seems now that Oishi and the Sonozaki-family are not on good terms, confirming the fight that Mion and Oishi once had. It seems that the Sonozaki-family never had their eyes on Rena in the first place. Also, none of the murders where the victims were found were committed by them. After all, if they were, the bodies were hidden in the well. It’s also one of the first time to see Mion’s mother actually talk. On a side-note: what happened to her in the fifth arc? Shouldn’t she have noticed Shion?

We close the episode with Rena, leaving town.

Next up, the TIPS for this episode:

Them:
It’s a pretty straightforward one, explaining a bit about Rena’s Alien-theory. She thinks she’s being watched by strange beings, aliens. She runs away, and she starts to scratch. Seriously, the anime shouldn’t attempt to visualize this gore. For some reason, the creators seem to think that showing everything in full detail has the most impact, though there are way better techniques for doing this.

Rena’s Hideout:
Still being translated

Keiichi’s past:
Ah, of course. It was a bit strange that Keiichi’s past wasn’t told in full detail, but apparently, the creators had to cut this part in order to compensate from the horribly long fifth arc. It’s quite a sad and shocking story. You’d wonder why the anime cut that part out. After all, especially the part where the girl was shot in the eye could have been great bait for them to turn into another horribly animated scene. Still, it entirely explains his reaction. It’s probably one of the reasons that he’s so mature for his age. He’s already had the time in which he goofed off like a monkey, and he was so shocked by this that he suddenly started looking differently at life. I wonder what happened to the little girl.

The Reason to Move to Hinamizawa:
This explains Keiichi’s father’s reason to come to Hinamizawa. Wait a minute. Two little girls with long, straight hair? I think we’re missing something here. Just who the heck was playing along with Rika!? And what does this “Arg ouch gaf” mean? Rika!!!!

Last Night:
Wait… what the heck is Rika hiding!? Right here, she’s seen with someone who’ll die along with her. I think that she and her mysterious friend are actually part of the bottom of this mystery. It’s great to hear, as she’s my favourite character. For some reason, this TIP also really begins to make me question whether there aren’t any bits of supernatural events present in Higurashi. It’s also a sneaky anime. It focuses on Keiichi, Rena and Mion, while Rika’s meanwhile doing her own things, waiting to be killed.

It seems that the two of them are actually re-experiencing every single one of the arcs. And every arc, different events happen. Because of this, they hope to run into one arc, which will solve everything. I’m suspecting this to be arc 7. What’s even more surprising is that Keiichi’s performance of today actually inspired Rika, in order to believe that there actually can be an arc, in which things will be solved. Oh god, I am SO hoping for the final arcs to be animated. It won’t seem that the sixth arc will be long enough to solve this problem. I think it’ll only solve the things on the surface, not below. Ah well, this show may have done a lot of things wrong, it did make me want Rika to be saved. Rika!!!!!

In any case, back to the anime. Let’s take a look at the good parts of the individual arcs. The first arc was amazing when Keiichi told a lie, and Rena doubted him. Or at least, Keiichi thought that Rena doubted him. When you’re anxious, and you tell a lie, it’s easy to believe you’re not being trusted. The second arc didn’t really have a great part. It rather had some amusing moments, but nothing amazing came. The good part of the third arc was Keiichi again, who first tried to assassinate Satoko’s uncle in a very amateurish way, making you hope for him not to be discovered and afterwards, he found out nothing really happened. The huge strength of the fourth arc was probably because it delved so incredibly deep in the mystery of Higurashi. Deeper than any of the arcs so far. And I have to admit, so far, the story behind Higurashi seems awesome. The fifth arc had no good points. The strength of the sixth arc was quite possibly the level of maturity, coming from all of the characters.

The moment I started writing the above paragraph, I tried to make some kind of point. Unfortunately, I forgot. And with that, I’m off, hoping for the OVA to be announced soon.