Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 32

And finally the second season can really get started! Even though the previous arc was not very exciting, the time that focused on Rika’s despair built up perfectly for the current arc. The main focus of this episode was to give Rika hope again to keep trying to change her fate, and it works out greatly. 🙂 The episode begins with the confirmation that Rika indeed has been reborn in the same timeline over and over, and there’s also a new revelation: the Oyashiro-sama in Rika uses Hanyuu in order switch back time. She also isn’t in Rika’s body throughout her life, but only appears at a certain period of time. In this arc it was two weeks before the Watanagashi, in the fourth arc it was at least five years before the current time-period. Rika also doesn’t know who is after her, though he or she indeed is partially the reason why every arc ends up different. Interestingly enough, Rika also claims that on the night of the Watanagashi, a third person will die, along with Tomitake and Takano. Did she refer to herself, and was it just a bad translation, or does a third, unrelated person really die along with them? Anyway, the main character of this arc: Rika. The co-main character is Keiichi. We also see Hanyuu for the first time, and she’s just like a little kid, despite being hundreds of years old. Rika is surprised that she only has two weeks left before the Watanagashi, which is just too little time to prepare. She tests whether Keiichi remembers, but it fails again. I suspect that Hanyuu will be the important side-character for this arc. Interestingly enough, Hanyuu claims that nobody has noticed her, which is in contrast with the tips, where Keiichi’s father did see her. Could it be that Hanyuu only is visible for the first X years of her life? We then switch to the local hospital, where Satoko has just received an injection. She seems to be sick, suffering from a disease. Irie has been working on it to cure her, but it’s likely that she’ll never be healed. Takano is also helping in this. Then we switch to the game at the toy-store, from arc 2. It seems that Rika has been playing this one for every arc, though we just didn’t get to see it. I do wonder, though, why the doll didn’t trigger Shion to freak out in the other arcs. Anyway, something interesting happens here: Rika tells Keiichi that she can predict the future, just like she did with Akisaka. Interestingly enough, Keiichi actually takes her seriously, and tries to help her. He forces the game that has been played to be changed, and he gives the doll to Mion, instead of Rena. This gives Rika enough motivation to try and change her fate again, unlike what she did in the previous arc. Well then, the biggest question of the episode: is the disease Satoko is suffering from THE disease, or another rather nasty one. If we can get the answer about this one, and it turns out to be true that Irie really is trying to cure THE disease, then a lot of questions will be answered. In that case, Irie most definitely knows something, and he has indeed been trying to cure people, and he was killed because he knew too much. This also hints that Takano is somehow involved with him, and that she knows about his research. This episode also yet again shows how close Keiichi is with his friends. H never even questions Rika’s story for a bit, and he actually believes her, just like how everyone was so supportive to Rena when she committed her murder. (By the way, did she still do it in this arc? Sh did it in the third arc, so perhaps she’s been doing it for every arc, though I think that that woman is just like Satoko’s uncle and Shion: sometimes they’re there, and other times, they’re not. I suspect that the real killer has been controlling this. The question remains: why?). One thing I do hope for in this arc is a bigger role for Rena. Both she and Rika are currently my favourite characters in this series, and I’d love to see the mysteries that surround her being solved. Especially the one of why she was being chased in the previous arc, and why she freaked out in the third arc, and turned perfectly normal after that.]]>