Anime review or something #2: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Welcome everyone to another anime review. In this case I’ll write about an anime that I think it’s not enough know and a little underappreciated in some cases because of its immense amount of gore, scenes that aren’t very pleasing and a very confusing way to explain the story in the first season that causes that a great part of the public that starts to watch this anime misunderstand it for an anime of pure violence without meaning at all, however with a fair amount of attention and patience to reach the second season everything starts to make sense, a lot of sense, and specially at the end of this anime it leaves a very beautiful message that everyone who dropped the series were able to know.
Source
This anime I’m writing about is “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni” or by its translation to English “When the Higurashi Cicadas Cry” or a nicer name: “When They Cry”. It’s worth mentioning that this anime is based on a visual novel (A “videogame” that is more about reading than anything else, with some decisions to take as the game goes on. They usually have various endings), this narrates the story of a group of young people that lives in the village of Minamizawa (village inspired on the real location of Shirakawa-go, Japan) and the strange events that take place around the “Watanagashi festival”.
The anime of “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni”, or “Higurashi” for short, consist of 2 seasons and various OVAs that are: “Higurashi” that it’s the hardest to understand season and “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai” that is the second season where the strange events of the anime are explained. The OVA’s are side stories.
One of the reasons that makes it hard for new spectators to watch this anime to its completion (aside of the gore that manages to keep away some of them) is the story that is not explained in a lineal form, but rather with the use or “arcs” with an unconventional twist, at the end of each arc the story and the things that happened disappear as if nothing ever happened and the anime starts again from the beginning.
Usually animes use the “arcs” to separate different instances of problematics that surge throughout the course of the series, however the sequence is lineal and events that happen take place one after the other each marking a difference on the characters or the general atmosphere of the series.
Yes, I know, it’s hard to explain to some and I must admit that at the start I was a little bit confused after seeing that the story ended abruptly jus to start anew in the next episode like nothing ever happened, however for me this only made me more curious as to why that happened.
The series per se in the course of its two seasons covers two sagas divided on four arcs each, the firs saga being the Saga of Questions in which we are presented new characters and their personalities on each arc, a kind of curious but interesting concept because it gives the viewer some time to know each character and how they relate to the rest of the characters and the changes that take place throughout the series.
On the visual area… well, the first season is not very good at that part since it’s very clear that they didn’t put enough effort on the animation looking kind of strange on its original version. They improved it a little from the second season onwards.
About the Soundtrack this anime have some OSTs that gives a great ambience to the series along all of the course and in my opinion it also have some great Opening and Ending themes in which you can really taste the feeling they want to transmit on the series in each of its seasons. I personally think that the Opening themes are the ones that take the major importance because take translate very well the feelings of the series with their sound and lyrics that combined with their animation gives the perfect ambience of mystery; And then there’s the Opening themes of the OVA’s that although they go in concordance with the contents of those seasons they doesn’t have sense on the context of the anime in general. The same can be said about the OVA’s.
Sauce
The first arc “Demoned Away” is the introductory arc of the anime in which we are presented only 3 main characters that are: Keiichi Maebara, Rena Ryuugu y Mion Shinozaki. Everything seems smooth at the beginning, almost looking like a Slice of Life anime that tells the story of Keiichi adapting himself to his life at the village, however, after the night of Watanagashi strange events starts to happen around Keiichi that becomes more and more frightening until reaching the conclusion of the first arc that end with a unexpectedly bloody end.
In the second arc Cotton Drifting Shion Shinozaki, Mion’s twin sister, is presented. This arc follow the relationship between the two. We also see the mysterious events but this time from the night of the Watanagashi revealing a bit more of information about what’s happening, and just like the previous arc it ends with blood.
Already on the third arc Curse Killing we get introduced to a new character, Satoko Hojo, a young girl that’s passing through a difficult situation because of the abuses of her uncle. In this arc we are shown a lot of important things that are indispensable to understand what is happening in the anime, however one doesn’t realize the importance of these until later in the story. And ends in blood.
The fourth arc Time Killing give us a view of the events saw from an external perspective from the characters on the village in the form of a policeman called Mamoru Akasaka that I don’t really remember why he was on the village to begin with but the important thing is that thanks to him we get to know better a very important character in the series called Rika Furude and she’s stablished as the central axis of the story. And blood. And this is the end of the Saga of Questions.
The next one is the Saga of Answers where the characters try to solve the mysteries that take place on the village until the Watanagashi comes, moment in which all of the arcs tend to end.
No ketchup
The first arc of the second saga is Eye Opening in which a lot of the specific details of what’s happening get kind of explained and what is the connection with the village they live in. However is not enough in the slightest to solve things before the closing point, so you can guess how it turns out in the end.
In the second arc Atonement we get a lot of answers that finally starts to uncover the mysteries from the previous arc and giving some meaning to some of the previous events that, even though the look like isolated incidents, we are shown that they have a correlation between them even if the supposed “restarts” of the story try to make you thing otherwise. It’s worth mentioning that in this arc we get the first relatively “happy” ending, however, again the bloody end does not get stopped and we still don’t know why.
And with that the first season of this anime is over, though it leaves more questions than answers, that, even if the final arc give a lot of information it’s not enough to wrap everything up.
Now the second season is the season in which all of the doubts get resolved (or at least most of them), answering everything, from the: why is there a lot of killings after the Watanagashi and also why does the story gets restarted at the beginning of every arc. From there onwards the characters try to stop the grim future that is waiting for them.
I won’t write about the OVA’s because they’re more fanservice than anything else.
Just sauce
And I won’t give you any more spoilers because I really sugest you to go watch this anime because it’s really good, so if you’re able to withstand a Little lot of blood and violence you should consider watching it because not only the story is good and entertaining because of all of the mysteries that keeps you thinking, but also because of the end that is really beautiful. It’s worth watching this anime, it really is.
PD: If you don’t tolerate gore at all keep yourself away from it.
PD2: Congrats to the peple that got the easter egg in this post.
I bid farewell, and until the next post.
Source
This anime I’m writing about is “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni” or by its translation to English “When the Higurashi Cicadas Cry” or a nicer name: “When They Cry”. It’s worth mentioning that this anime is based on a visual novel (A “videogame” that is more about reading than anything else, with some decisions to take as the game goes on. They usually have various endings), this narrates the story of a group of young people that lives in the village of Minamizawa (village inspired on the real location of Shirakawa-go, Japan) and the strange events that take place around the “Watanagashi festival”.
The anime of “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni”, or “Higurashi” for short, consist of 2 seasons and various OVAs that are: “Higurashi” that it’s the hardest to understand season and “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai” that is the second season where the strange events of the anime are explained. The OVA’s are side stories.
One of the reasons that makes it hard for new spectators to watch this anime to its completion (aside of the gore that manages to keep away some of them) is the story that is not explained in a lineal form, but rather with the use or “arcs” with an unconventional twist, at the end of each arc the story and the things that happened disappear as if nothing ever happened and the anime starts again from the beginning.
Usually animes use the “arcs” to separate different instances of problematics that surge throughout the course of the series, however the sequence is lineal and events that happen take place one after the other each marking a difference on the characters or the general atmosphere of the series.
Yes, I know, it’s hard to explain to some and I must admit that at the start I was a little bit confused after seeing that the story ended abruptly jus to start anew in the next episode like nothing ever happened, however for me this only made me more curious as to why that happened.
The series per se in the course of its two seasons covers two sagas divided on four arcs each, the firs saga being the Saga of Questions in which we are presented new characters and their personalities on each arc, a kind of curious but interesting concept because it gives the viewer some time to know each character and how they relate to the rest of the characters and the changes that take place throughout the series.
On the visual area… well, the first season is not very good at that part since it’s very clear that they didn’t put enough effort on the animation looking kind of strange on its original version. They improved it a little from the second season onwards.
About the Soundtrack this anime have some OSTs that gives a great ambience to the series along all of the course and in my opinion it also have some great Opening and Ending themes in which you can really taste the feeling they want to transmit on the series in each of its seasons. I personally think that the Opening themes are the ones that take the major importance because take translate very well the feelings of the series with their sound and lyrics that combined with their animation gives the perfect ambience of mystery; And then there’s the Opening themes of the OVA’s that although they go in concordance with the contents of those seasons they doesn’t have sense on the context of the anime in general. The same can be said about the OVA’s.
Sauce
Warning: The following content may contain spoilers. Proceed with caution.
The first arc “Demoned Away” is the introductory arc of the anime in which we are presented only 3 main characters that are: Keiichi Maebara, Rena Ryuugu y Mion Shinozaki. Everything seems smooth at the beginning, almost looking like a Slice of Life anime that tells the story of Keiichi adapting himself to his life at the village, however, after the night of Watanagashi strange events starts to happen around Keiichi that becomes more and more frightening until reaching the conclusion of the first arc that end with a unexpectedly bloody end.
In the second arc Cotton Drifting Shion Shinozaki, Mion’s twin sister, is presented. This arc follow the relationship between the two. We also see the mysterious events but this time from the night of the Watanagashi revealing a bit more of information about what’s happening, and just like the previous arc it ends with blood.
Already on the third arc Curse Killing we get introduced to a new character, Satoko Hojo, a young girl that’s passing through a difficult situation because of the abuses of her uncle. In this arc we are shown a lot of important things that are indispensable to understand what is happening in the anime, however one doesn’t realize the importance of these until later in the story. And ends in blood.
The fourth arc Time Killing give us a view of the events saw from an external perspective from the characters on the village in the form of a policeman called Mamoru Akasaka that I don’t really remember why he was on the village to begin with but the important thing is that thanks to him we get to know better a very important character in the series called Rika Furude and she’s stablished as the central axis of the story. And blood. And this is the end of the Saga of Questions.
The next one is the Saga of Answers where the characters try to solve the mysteries that take place on the village until the Watanagashi comes, moment in which all of the arcs tend to end.
No ketchup
The first arc of the second saga is Eye Opening in which a lot of the specific details of what’s happening get kind of explained and what is the connection with the village they live in. However is not enough in the slightest to solve things before the closing point, so you can guess how it turns out in the end.
In the second arc Atonement we get a lot of answers that finally starts to uncover the mysteries from the previous arc and giving some meaning to some of the previous events that, even though the look like isolated incidents, we are shown that they have a correlation between them even if the supposed “restarts” of the story try to make you thing otherwise. It’s worth mentioning that in this arc we get the first relatively “happy” ending, however, again the bloody end does not get stopped and we still don’t know why.
And with that the first season of this anime is over, though it leaves more questions than answers, that, even if the final arc give a lot of information it’s not enough to wrap everything up.
Now the second season is the season in which all of the doubts get resolved (or at least most of them), answering everything, from the: why is there a lot of killings after the Watanagashi and also why does the story gets restarted at the beginning of every arc. From there onwards the characters try to stop the grim future that is waiting for them.
I won’t write about the OVA’s because they’re more fanservice than anything else.
Just sauce
And I won’t give you any more spoilers because I really sugest you to go watch this anime because it’s really good, so if you’re able to withstand a Little lot of blood and violence you should consider watching it because not only the story is good and entertaining because of all of the mysteries that keeps you thinking, but also because of the end that is really beautiful. It’s worth watching this anime, it really is.
PD: If you don’t tolerate gore at all keep yourself away from it.
PD2: Congrats to the peple that got the easter egg in this post.
I bid farewell, and until the next post.
It's really a very interesting anime. Many can not understand this anime because of the complex chronology. Many just do not like the drawing because in recent years, the anime is much better. This anime is for an amateur, but thank you for drawing people's attention to such things.
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