The final episode was pretty straightforward. Or should I say, everything in this final episode which didn’t involve Rika was pretty straightforward. But I’ll get to that later. First, the conclusion.
Rena didn’t run away, like the previous episode suggested. She went to the school, held all of the students hostage and planned to blow the place up if the Sonozaki-family wasn’t arrested. She doubts all her friends in the process, and delivers some serious injuries to Mion. Oishi also showed yet another side of himself, while he tried to use Keiichi in order to calm down Rena. It was a pretty nice episode, but it did have its flaws.
Flaw #1: Rena set a time bomb, to go off at 7:00 pm. Over the course of the episode, Satoko helps Keiichi to find this bomb, Keiichi rushes to the place and manages to disarm it with only one second left. Seriously, I thought that the creators knew better than this.
Flaw #2: As this is the final episode, it had it coming that it would end up in a clash between the two main characters. Pretty touching, but annoying at the same time.
Anyway, the fact remains that Keiichi didn’t get cured, Shion didn’t get cured, but Rena did get cured. In the first arc, Rena tried to embrace Keiichi, though that didn’t work. During this arc, Keiichi tried to remind Rena of the happy times gone by. And that managed to convince her.
Okay, now to the really good stuff: Rika. She’s finally beginning to see that in order to solve the mysterious tragedy, she has to come in action as well. I think Keiichi really gave her courage. When Keiichi and Rena are fighting, she also reckons that Keiichi might just find an exit. Still, in the end, he didn’t. Rika and her mysterious companion still are stuck in this “endless June”. Though I think that Rika now really is beginning to get serious. The last sentence of the episode really proves this. The seventh arc is promising to be awesome, but in order for that to work, some kind of OVA or second season does need to be announced. But as for now, I’m pretty confident that this’ll happen. After all, the creators did include these scenes at the end of the episode, suggesting that there is more to come. I’m so hoping that I’m not wrong in this.
The TIPS:
Only one tip to come with this episode: The Demon’s Script. It tells about Akasaka, and it also reveals that the fourth arc happened before the sixth arc as well. It reveals exactly what was in Takano’s scrapbooks, and it also reveals that the day after the events of the current episode, the “volcanic gas” appeared again. It indeed is some kind of cover-up story, due to the onigafuchi marsh which has been covered in concrete to supposedly stop the outbreak of volcanic gas, though Takano’s theories also don’t seem that trustworthy.
Oh, and one scene I really liked is when Rena was talking with Oishi on the phone, while Keiichi was contacting another police officer. Very nicely executed.
(Oh, and a small note: I’ve decided to not write a review about this anime yet. Even if there isn’t going to be another OVA, a fan-translation of the seventh arc in the game is going to be made, and I’ll probably end up playing it. As things are now, Higurashi is horribly incomplete, and I don’t want this to negatively influence my views. For now, I’m putting Higurashi on Hiatus, instead of completed.)
With everyone second guessing themselves on the morality of translating games, for all we know the Higurashi project may never get done… but it’s good to know there’s the possibility.
Higurashi was the one anime that really made me think this much besides the .hack ones but still. Higurashi really has been one of the best in my opinion.