This review contains spoilers
author’s note: this analysis will only be covering the four chapters of the initial higurashi when they cry series - onikakushi, watanagashi, tatarigoroshi, and himatsubushi. the remaining four chapters, the “answer arcs”, will receive their own right up under the page for higurashi when they cry kai. please be advised that as of the time of writing, i have only played these first four chapters, and as a result, conclusions drawn or predictions made may not reflect my final views of higurashi when they cry in its entirety.
an additional note - this piece comes with a content warning for topics including abuse, trauma, death, and sexual misconduct, both in context of the fictional work and within the context of the author’s real life experiences. please be advised, should those topics be uncomfortable for you to read or partake in discussion about.
“o! the dead! 27 people / even more, they were boys
with their cars, summer jobs / oh, my god... are you one of them?”
- sufjan stevens, "john wayne gacy, jr."
heat rises from the ground in waves, thickening the air and blurring the horizon. the afternoon’s dry scent of grass and foliage. the wanton laughter and excitement of children living out dog days, wrestling, screaming, giggling, sharing secrets, telling stories - a tiny, forgotten slice of their world seemingly cut out of the cloth of modernization remains their kingdom. 1983; a revolutionary shift in culture, a new change of scene. let the children lose it, said bowie a decade prior. these are their days and this is their sprawling, rural dominion. i remember my summers. i remember the feeling of those middle school years, going to beaches and boardwalks and campfires with my friends. i remember the feeling of my first attractions, of kicking myself about things i said to those people with faces and names i can no longer recall, tossing my nokia flip phone - my first - around and waiting for a text back on that terrible signal and hoping my data would last the weekend.
any way you slice it, those days seem natural, comfortable and desirable from any outsider’s perspective. indeed, i find myself looking back at those aspects of that time with a smile while writing this. but context, as always, defines everything. while all of these things are true and i am capable of siphoning fondness and nostalgia from the memory, when the camera zooms back - i was in a living hell. by that age range - say, 13 - i’d experienced a great deal of death and loss, some firsthand. dcfs had made regular appearances in my homes, there had been explosive arguments in both of my parents’ houses, some turning physical. hands and words and neglect had been used against me as a child enough to call a regular occurrence. addiction and its results were every bit of a piece of my developmental years as learning my times tables. by the last visit i can recall taking with friends to those places, where i must’ve been around 14 - about the age of higurashi’s main cast, i’d been sexually abused at least twice by people i trusted. i felt betrayed by institutions that the government had told me would fight to protect me and my brothers. friends couldn’t do much but offer safe havens for temporary stay and hope for the best.
in my 20s, i consider these summers a double-sided coin. i don’t reject one half of that reality in acceptance of the other. often, i feel as if these different compartmentalized sections of my past - to borrow from the grateful dead, these attics of my life, exist in different planes of existence from one another. but part of recovery from trauma, part of equanimity with oneself, is the acceptance, love, and patience with the person you’ve been and the places you’ve been - and to find unison by tying all of those strings together. upon learning that the sole writer and creator of this series, ryukishi07, was a social worker prior to leaving in order to tell this story, the pieces all began to click, and i shared a much needed, heaving, cathartic sob of release alongside higurashi’s third chapter. for the first time in this medium, i feel directly spoken for, understood, loved, apologized to, heard, and fought for by a work of art on this intimate a level. i’ve experienced many titles i hold dear that i appreciated and knew the subject matter to be well-researched, sensibly handled, and passionately discussed. this may be the first i’ve seen where i truly believe this to be a story the author needed to tell, enough to lay down his career and push to make that happen. i’ve described higurashi as “a collection of cries for help”, and that extends beyond fiction. these cries are likely those of children, of families, ryukishi knew, worked with, and felt for. this is living testimony of people like us.
here is our cry for help.
i didn’t have a hinamizawa growing up. my childhood was spent away from the rural sprawl and the vast expanse; just the opposite really, most was spent in and around the bustle of the city or in low-income neighborhoods. but there remains solidarity in the background. we felt firsthand growing up the effect of the affluent and capable vying for leisure over equity. when the game would make the off-hand remark about hand-me-down p.e. uniforms or thrift school clothes shopping, i had to smile because that’s the world i knew well, too. it’s a weird time to reflect on. middle school is a strange period; kids are learning things about themselves, about others, about ‘adult things’ in the world, and conversation about it tends to lean into the comical to avoid discomfort. the higurashi cast reflects this from some of the first conversations in the game. i definitely grimaced at some of the more crass bits of dialogue but in the grand scheme it’s more relatable than i feel it is expository. i wasn’t even popular in school at that age but i found solidarity with kids goofing off and just not really knowing what was going on. going with the flow and learning as we figured out how. higurashi reflects that inquisitive age, with all of its embarrassments, in an earnest way.
the aesthetic direction of the game hammers home that era and those sentiments. i’m of the firm belief that the original art and music is the way that higurashi should be seen and heard, because every bit of its personal charm, handmade expression and amateur auteur bursts to life in a way so much more endearing and captivating than the re-releases’ “cleaned up”, standardized presentation. the voice acting work included in the sound novel release completes the picture, with the most passionate and powerful performances i’ve ever heard in a video game, across the cast. it’s the buzz in the microphones, it’s the jpeg artifacting around the complicated hair sprite work, it’s the hand-airbrushed photo backgrounds, the mp3 quality soundtrack that truly piecemeals together the authentic 2002 experience that higurashi embraces and dilapidated equally. higurashi outright requires and demands its context - lodged in the midst of key’s iconic run of air, kanon and clannad, alongside the blossoming mind bending shift towards meta and surrealist writing coming from works like tsukihime and ever17. in order for higurashi to become truly timeless, you must accept it and consider it as being exactly from its era, with all of the patchwork handcrafted humanity that took it there. there is perhaps no atmosphere in gaming as heady, surreal, and uneasy as hinamizawa’s. the shrill singing of the cicadas, the warm afternoon glow, and the lynchian pacing of keenly awkward line after line. the feeling never quite lets up.
and it’s through these imperfections and because of the odd sprite clipping and engine pauses and clipping audio peaking that an effect that could not be replicated intentionally by a modern counterpart occurs. somewhere in onikakushi, the group i’m playing with expressed this uneasy feeling that something lurks within the game itself. in ways, higurashi truly begins to feel like a living being, or at least, the vessel for something much angrier, saddier, and grief-wracked - a host for a bellowing beast scratching at the walls of the game window and begging to be heard and understood. the feeling never quite goes away, even with the shift away from psychological horror in later chapters to lean into societal/political power-vaulting and intense melodrama. higurashi oftentimes leans into sensationalist, breakneck moments and twists, but everything remains grounded, logical, and heartfelt at the core, so what could in a lesser story become jarring feels like a natural symbiosis within its context. on a similar note, where many works influenced by higurashi would prefer the route of “x character initially appears to fill x anime character stereotype but this is actually lampshaded and not true at all because of x circumstances, and when said circumstances are revealed, x character drops these traits and reveals a ‘true’ personality”. this isn’t subversive writing - at least, it’s not smart subversive writing. ryukishi doesn’t abandon the idea of who his characters are at face value, rena remains rena, mion remains mion, satoko and rika are very much themselves - but it’s the complexity with which they’re built upon that makes those foundations so strong. their seemingly archetypical first impressions become cornerstones of their personality and their dependencies as people. when rena lashes out in protection of rika at keiichi, of course it seems natural. of course mion has complicated feelings about her responsibility to her family and her never-ending comparisons to shion - of course it drives her mad that the results of her ‘go-getter leader’ backbone keeps the boy she loves from noticing her. and of course… of course there’s a reason why satoko vies so hard for the attention she does. no wonder she finds joy in being noticed. of course she flourishes in the environments where she gets to be the one provoking a little bit of light-hearted fear. juxtapose those children against the adults that permeate these first few chapters - the adults are every bit as interesting, fulfill the same “stereotype of the genre that’s actually the cornerstone and foundation for something much grander”, but when it’s just these characters in the spotlight, or better on their own, it’s like a completely different world is playing out with different morals and perspectives. hell, there’s an argument to be made that ōishi is higurashi’s most complex, enticing, and interesting character. every bit the shit-eating pig he comes off as at first - and every bit more come the events of say, chapter 3, but it’s still unclear what his agency in everything is, what his beliefs are, and why he’s so intently involved. irie, takano and tomitake remain key figures and if himatsubushi is anything to go off of, i get the feeling there’s an entire story of their own on the horizon. there isn’t anyone here to just fill up time or support a gag. one of the strongest casts in fiction that i’ve come across.
it’s in chapter 3: tatarigoroshi where my opening statement really comes into play, though. it’s here where satoko’s home life becomes the focal point of the story, and where everything about curses and rituals and yakuza and multigenerational sociopolitical powers is all stripepd away and the focus is given to higurashi’s most tragic character. it was around wrapping up chapter 2 where i learned of ryukishi’s history in social work. as satoko’s story unfolded and her life under abuse and neglect became clearer, this is when higurashi’s pinnacle emotional resonance began to take hold. for once, the feeling i got wasn’t just that the creator of a game like this knew about the subject, but that he really knew it on a serious, intimate level and needed to express that somehow. i shed tears for satoko. i shed tears for myself.
keiichi’s development and prophetic transformation come chapter 3 was a hellish spiral to observe. i’ve heard ryukishi compared to dostoevsky before, and this is the first time i truly see it. the comparisons to crime & punishment here are evident; the spiraling mind of a man turned to murder. chapter 2 may’ve been a look into a villainous mind (from our perspective), but this is something new entirely. keiichi is morally justified by his (and my) perspective in his actions, but the slippery slope out of sanity and into post-humanism is a mortifying one to endure. when all is said and done, the inevitable end of chapter 3 may be anticipated, but the depths to which it goes and the manner in which it plays out - in no small part thanks to the largely unsettling final sequence of “keiichi’s” final interview with text overlaying text and utter silence only bled out by radio static - could only be described as truly uncanny and haunting.
i tend to disagree with complaints about higurashi’s pacing - especially considering some of its contemporaries. i found most of the slice of life sequences pretty enjoyable, and some to be among my favorite moments of the early game. i look to watanagashi’s game tournament as an example of one of the highlights. tatarigoroshi’s baseball game led to some pretty amazing character moments from keiichi and satoko. hell, the only episode i didn’t love was the second of watanagashi, just because the perverted humor was a little too much for even my 70s-90s comedy manga raised ass to not get a little annoyed with. i think tatarigoroshi’s pacing remains the best of the four, and from what i understand the slice of life is reduced heavily moving forwards - and i think that’s a good thing. the sol content really benefited the pieces of the story it was there for, and i wouldn’t take it away. these characters wouldn’t have nearly the attachment and foundation they do if those sequences were gone. they feel like friends known intimately and passionately. that makes the chapters’ back halves as effective as they are.
i’ll save my analysis of higurashi’s use of the visual novel medium to tell its story until my group’s completion of chapters 5-8, but i have a working theory about what’s actually going on here, and i haven’t really found anything within the question arcs to disprove it. if i’m right about where this is going, i’ll be happy to talk at length about why i feel higurashi may’ve superseded the need for adaptation, and why i feel it is so integral that this story must be told in exactly the way this visual novel does it. for the meantime, before my theories are set in stone, here’s what i can say. background in the history of the medium here is crucial to siphoning every bit of higurashi’s post-genre approach that one can. it helps to know the formula of the multi-route visual novel, the structure of branching paths and that ultimate reward of a ‘true end’. although my thoughts and predictions generally leaned closer to true than not throughout the questions arc, i never felt above or on top of higurashi’s mystery - i never felt i understood more than i should from the author’s perspective. conferring with my playthrough’s small audience has led to some wild, intensely passionate discussion and we’re all chomping at the bit to see the payoff of the answers arcs. was it worth sitting through onikakushi three times before getting to move forward across various playthroughs? i only loved it and appreciated it more each way through. i can’t wait to be able to view, discuss and analyze the full picture. see you when i wrap up higurashi when they cry kai. as it stands, one of my favorite video games of all time, and hell, one of my favorite and one of the most personally effective pieces of fiction i’ve ever engaged with.
an additional note - this piece comes with a content warning for topics including abuse, trauma, death, and sexual misconduct, both in context of the fictional work and within the context of the author’s real life experiences. please be advised, should those topics be uncomfortable for you to read or partake in discussion about.
“o! the dead! 27 people / even more, they were boys
with their cars, summer jobs / oh, my god... are you one of them?”
- sufjan stevens, "john wayne gacy, jr."
heat rises from the ground in waves, thickening the air and blurring the horizon. the afternoon’s dry scent of grass and foliage. the wanton laughter and excitement of children living out dog days, wrestling, screaming, giggling, sharing secrets, telling stories - a tiny, forgotten slice of their world seemingly cut out of the cloth of modernization remains their kingdom. 1983; a revolutionary shift in culture, a new change of scene. let the children lose it, said bowie a decade prior. these are their days and this is their sprawling, rural dominion. i remember my summers. i remember the feeling of those middle school years, going to beaches and boardwalks and campfires with my friends. i remember the feeling of my first attractions, of kicking myself about things i said to those people with faces and names i can no longer recall, tossing my nokia flip phone - my first - around and waiting for a text back on that terrible signal and hoping my data would last the weekend.
any way you slice it, those days seem natural, comfortable and desirable from any outsider’s perspective. indeed, i find myself looking back at those aspects of that time with a smile while writing this. but context, as always, defines everything. while all of these things are true and i am capable of siphoning fondness and nostalgia from the memory, when the camera zooms back - i was in a living hell. by that age range - say, 13 - i’d experienced a great deal of death and loss, some firsthand. dcfs had made regular appearances in my homes, there had been explosive arguments in both of my parents’ houses, some turning physical. hands and words and neglect had been used against me as a child enough to call a regular occurrence. addiction and its results were every bit of a piece of my developmental years as learning my times tables. by the last visit i can recall taking with friends to those places, where i must’ve been around 14 - about the age of higurashi’s main cast, i’d been sexually abused at least twice by people i trusted. i felt betrayed by institutions that the government had told me would fight to protect me and my brothers. friends couldn’t do much but offer safe havens for temporary stay and hope for the best.
in my 20s, i consider these summers a double-sided coin. i don’t reject one half of that reality in acceptance of the other. often, i feel as if these different compartmentalized sections of my past - to borrow from the grateful dead, these attics of my life, exist in different planes of existence from one another. but part of recovery from trauma, part of equanimity with oneself, is the acceptance, love, and patience with the person you’ve been and the places you’ve been - and to find unison by tying all of those strings together. upon learning that the sole writer and creator of this series, ryukishi07, was a social worker prior to leaving in order to tell this story, the pieces all began to click, and i shared a much needed, heaving, cathartic sob of release alongside higurashi’s third chapter. for the first time in this medium, i feel directly spoken for, understood, loved, apologized to, heard, and fought for by a work of art on this intimate a level. i’ve experienced many titles i hold dear that i appreciated and knew the subject matter to be well-researched, sensibly handled, and passionately discussed. this may be the first i’ve seen where i truly believe this to be a story the author needed to tell, enough to lay down his career and push to make that happen. i’ve described higurashi as “a collection of cries for help”, and that extends beyond fiction. these cries are likely those of children, of families, ryukishi knew, worked with, and felt for. this is living testimony of people like us.
here is our cry for help.
i didn’t have a hinamizawa growing up. my childhood was spent away from the rural sprawl and the vast expanse; just the opposite really, most was spent in and around the bustle of the city or in low-income neighborhoods. but there remains solidarity in the background. we felt firsthand growing up the effect of the affluent and capable vying for leisure over equity. when the game would make the off-hand remark about hand-me-down p.e. uniforms or thrift school clothes shopping, i had to smile because that’s the world i knew well, too. it’s a weird time to reflect on. middle school is a strange period; kids are learning things about themselves, about others, about ‘adult things’ in the world, and conversation about it tends to lean into the comical to avoid discomfort. the higurashi cast reflects this from some of the first conversations in the game. i definitely grimaced at some of the more crass bits of dialogue but in the grand scheme it’s more relatable than i feel it is expository. i wasn’t even popular in school at that age but i found solidarity with kids goofing off and just not really knowing what was going on. going with the flow and learning as we figured out how. higurashi reflects that inquisitive age, with all of its embarrassments, in an earnest way.
the aesthetic direction of the game hammers home that era and those sentiments. i’m of the firm belief that the original art and music is the way that higurashi should be seen and heard, because every bit of its personal charm, handmade expression and amateur auteur bursts to life in a way so much more endearing and captivating than the re-releases’ “cleaned up”, standardized presentation. the voice acting work included in the sound novel release completes the picture, with the most passionate and powerful performances i’ve ever heard in a video game, across the cast. it’s the buzz in the microphones, it’s the jpeg artifacting around the complicated hair sprite work, it’s the hand-airbrushed photo backgrounds, the mp3 quality soundtrack that truly piecemeals together the authentic 2002 experience that higurashi embraces and dilapidated equally. higurashi outright requires and demands its context - lodged in the midst of key’s iconic run of air, kanon and clannad, alongside the blossoming mind bending shift towards meta and surrealist writing coming from works like tsukihime and ever17. in order for higurashi to become truly timeless, you must accept it and consider it as being exactly from its era, with all of the patchwork handcrafted humanity that took it there. there is perhaps no atmosphere in gaming as heady, surreal, and uneasy as hinamizawa’s. the shrill singing of the cicadas, the warm afternoon glow, and the lynchian pacing of keenly awkward line after line. the feeling never quite lets up.
and it’s through these imperfections and because of the odd sprite clipping and engine pauses and clipping audio peaking that an effect that could not be replicated intentionally by a modern counterpart occurs. somewhere in onikakushi, the group i’m playing with expressed this uneasy feeling that something lurks within the game itself. in ways, higurashi truly begins to feel like a living being, or at least, the vessel for something much angrier, saddier, and grief-wracked - a host for a bellowing beast scratching at the walls of the game window and begging to be heard and understood. the feeling never quite goes away, even with the shift away from psychological horror in later chapters to lean into societal/political power-vaulting and intense melodrama. higurashi oftentimes leans into sensationalist, breakneck moments and twists, but everything remains grounded, logical, and heartfelt at the core, so what could in a lesser story become jarring feels like a natural symbiosis within its context. on a similar note, where many works influenced by higurashi would prefer the route of “x character initially appears to fill x anime character stereotype but this is actually lampshaded and not true at all because of x circumstances, and when said circumstances are revealed, x character drops these traits and reveals a ‘true’ personality”. this isn’t subversive writing - at least, it’s not smart subversive writing. ryukishi doesn’t abandon the idea of who his characters are at face value, rena remains rena, mion remains mion, satoko and rika are very much themselves - but it’s the complexity with which they’re built upon that makes those foundations so strong. their seemingly archetypical first impressions become cornerstones of their personality and their dependencies as people. when rena lashes out in protection of rika at keiichi, of course it seems natural. of course mion has complicated feelings about her responsibility to her family and her never-ending comparisons to shion - of course it drives her mad that the results of her ‘go-getter leader’ backbone keeps the boy she loves from noticing her. and of course… of course there’s a reason why satoko vies so hard for the attention she does. no wonder she finds joy in being noticed. of course she flourishes in the environments where she gets to be the one provoking a little bit of light-hearted fear. juxtapose those children against the adults that permeate these first few chapters - the adults are every bit as interesting, fulfill the same “stereotype of the genre that’s actually the cornerstone and foundation for something much grander”, but when it’s just these characters in the spotlight, or better on their own, it’s like a completely different world is playing out with different morals and perspectives. hell, there’s an argument to be made that ōishi is higurashi’s most complex, enticing, and interesting character. every bit the shit-eating pig he comes off as at first - and every bit more come the events of say, chapter 3, but it’s still unclear what his agency in everything is, what his beliefs are, and why he’s so intently involved. irie, takano and tomitake remain key figures and if himatsubushi is anything to go off of, i get the feeling there’s an entire story of their own on the horizon. there isn’t anyone here to just fill up time or support a gag. one of the strongest casts in fiction that i’ve come across.
it’s in chapter 3: tatarigoroshi where my opening statement really comes into play, though. it’s here where satoko’s home life becomes the focal point of the story, and where everything about curses and rituals and yakuza and multigenerational sociopolitical powers is all stripepd away and the focus is given to higurashi’s most tragic character. it was around wrapping up chapter 2 where i learned of ryukishi’s history in social work. as satoko’s story unfolded and her life under abuse and neglect became clearer, this is when higurashi’s pinnacle emotional resonance began to take hold. for once, the feeling i got wasn’t just that the creator of a game like this knew about the subject, but that he really knew it on a serious, intimate level and needed to express that somehow. i shed tears for satoko. i shed tears for myself.
keiichi’s development and prophetic transformation come chapter 3 was a hellish spiral to observe. i’ve heard ryukishi compared to dostoevsky before, and this is the first time i truly see it. the comparisons to crime & punishment here are evident; the spiraling mind of a man turned to murder. chapter 2 may’ve been a look into a villainous mind (from our perspective), but this is something new entirely. keiichi is morally justified by his (and my) perspective in his actions, but the slippery slope out of sanity and into post-humanism is a mortifying one to endure. when all is said and done, the inevitable end of chapter 3 may be anticipated, but the depths to which it goes and the manner in which it plays out - in no small part thanks to the largely unsettling final sequence of “keiichi’s” final interview with text overlaying text and utter silence only bled out by radio static - could only be described as truly uncanny and haunting.
i tend to disagree with complaints about higurashi’s pacing - especially considering some of its contemporaries. i found most of the slice of life sequences pretty enjoyable, and some to be among my favorite moments of the early game. i look to watanagashi’s game tournament as an example of one of the highlights. tatarigoroshi’s baseball game led to some pretty amazing character moments from keiichi and satoko. hell, the only episode i didn’t love was the second of watanagashi, just because the perverted humor was a little too much for even my 70s-90s comedy manga raised ass to not get a little annoyed with. i think tatarigoroshi’s pacing remains the best of the four, and from what i understand the slice of life is reduced heavily moving forwards - and i think that’s a good thing. the sol content really benefited the pieces of the story it was there for, and i wouldn’t take it away. these characters wouldn’t have nearly the attachment and foundation they do if those sequences were gone. they feel like friends known intimately and passionately. that makes the chapters’ back halves as effective as they are.
i’ll save my analysis of higurashi’s use of the visual novel medium to tell its story until my group’s completion of chapters 5-8, but i have a working theory about what’s actually going on here, and i haven’t really found anything within the question arcs to disprove it. if i’m right about where this is going, i’ll be happy to talk at length about why i feel higurashi may’ve superseded the need for adaptation, and why i feel it is so integral that this story must be told in exactly the way this visual novel does it. for the meantime, before my theories are set in stone, here’s what i can say. background in the history of the medium here is crucial to siphoning every bit of higurashi’s post-genre approach that one can. it helps to know the formula of the multi-route visual novel, the structure of branching paths and that ultimate reward of a ‘true end’. although my thoughts and predictions generally leaned closer to true than not throughout the questions arc, i never felt above or on top of higurashi’s mystery - i never felt i understood more than i should from the author’s perspective. conferring with my playthrough’s small audience has led to some wild, intensely passionate discussion and we’re all chomping at the bit to see the payoff of the answers arcs. was it worth sitting through onikakushi three times before getting to move forward across various playthroughs? i only loved it and appreciated it more each way through. i can’t wait to be able to view, discuss and analyze the full picture. see you when i wrap up higurashi when they cry kai. as it stands, one of my favorite video games of all time, and hell, one of my favorite and one of the most personally effective pieces of fiction i’ve ever engaged with.
Nfu fu fu
bzz bzzz bzzzz bzzzz bzzz
Pretty well put together mystery. Each chapter gives slight clues to work with on slowly figuring out some parts of the mystery, but nothing is ever so huge or obvious you can make any deduction with absolutely certainty, and I think that’s the goal mysteries should strive for.
Additionally some of the narratives for the individual chapters are quite middling, with slow pacing particularly in the early to middle portions, but each Question Arc chapter is less about attempting to be their own complete narrative and rather fulfill a specific purpose in the mystery and the overarching narrative of all the chapters.
Also Hello! from the original soundtrack fucks so hard idk why they’d replace it in the steam release…
Additionally some of the narratives for the individual chapters are quite middling, with slow pacing particularly in the early to middle portions, but each Question Arc chapter is less about attempting to be their own complete narrative and rather fulfill a specific purpose in the mystery and the overarching narrative of all the chapters.
Also Hello! from the original soundtrack fucks so hard idk why they’d replace it in the steam release…
Quando eu comecei, eu realmente não tinha experiência nenhuma com mídias de terror, e meu contato com obras de mistério é praticamente mínimo, higurashi talvez tenha sido meu primeiro contato com tudo isso, e talvez eu tenha pegado um pouco pesado comigo mesmo.
Todos os capítulos tem uma estrutura semelhante. A primeira metade aborda a vida pacata de hinamizawa, conhecemos Rika, Rena, Mion e Satoko. 4 Garotas de idades diferentes mas todas fazem parte do nosso pequeni ciclo social na cidade. Cada uma é bem característica e única, de seu próprio jeito.
Nesse tempo nós exploramos cada uma delas melhor, temos mais contato, com aquela cidade e nos incluímos no mundo, sempre brincando de brincadeiras infantis.
Eu como ocidental não entendia elas muito bem, mas ainda era um momento de imersão, em que eu me via rindo e me divertindo, me colocando cada vez melhor naquele lugar.
Em conversas com meu amigo sobre esse jogo, eu errava de maneira recorrente a pessoa do Keiichi, ele era o protagonista, mas eu sempre me colocava na pele dele, sempre me identificava diante das situações, a um ponto de por um momento falar que aquelas garotas eram MINHAS amigas.
Higurashi faz um excelente trabalho em te colocar naquele mundo, sejam em artes, dublagem, e direção de áudio. Sério, eu não consigo escutar cigarras da mesma forma mais kkkkkkk.
E destaque pra dublagem que é extremamente expressiva, com destaque pra Statsuki Yukino dubladora da Mion que teve o dobro do trabalho, e ainda sim fez tudo com excelência.
A segunda metade é onde o mistério começa, sinto que o jogo me retira daquela vida pacata, a sensação de estranheza pós os eventos do watanagashi me deixavam desconfortável, com medo, nervoso, e ansioso.
E isso tudo, é claro, também é sentido pelo protagonista.
Parecia que o jogo me colocava contra a parede pra me fazer pensar. Discutir e pensar sobre esse mistério, tomou de mim boa parte dos meus dias. É difícil tomar atitudes, seja pro jogador e pro keiichi, era um sentimento de desespero e pedindo pros dias anteriores voltarem, era realmente difícil de lidar com tudo.
Eu não tenho as respostas, e mesmo assim já considero when they cry a obra da minha vida.
Pois idependente de como essa história termina, sinto que no final acabei fazendo amizades verdadeiras, as quais tentaria o meu máximo pra ajudar, quando lia, me colocava de maneira profunda naquele mundo, e por um momento eu de fato era o Keiichi.
Por um momento era difícil distinguir o que é real e o que não é, o que é possível e o que não é, o que é mágico e o que não é.
Da mesma forma o jogo me colocava a mesma carta na minha mesa, e me questionava as mesmas coisas.
A resposta está na mão do ser humano?
Ou no final isso tudo é realmente obra de oyashiro-sama?
Em que mundo a resposta desse mistério está? Eu não vou descansar até descobrir.
10/10
Todos os capítulos tem uma estrutura semelhante. A primeira metade aborda a vida pacata de hinamizawa, conhecemos Rika, Rena, Mion e Satoko. 4 Garotas de idades diferentes mas todas fazem parte do nosso pequeni ciclo social na cidade. Cada uma é bem característica e única, de seu próprio jeito.
Nesse tempo nós exploramos cada uma delas melhor, temos mais contato, com aquela cidade e nos incluímos no mundo, sempre brincando de brincadeiras infantis.
Eu como ocidental não entendia elas muito bem, mas ainda era um momento de imersão, em que eu me via rindo e me divertindo, me colocando cada vez melhor naquele lugar.
Em conversas com meu amigo sobre esse jogo, eu errava de maneira recorrente a pessoa do Keiichi, ele era o protagonista, mas eu sempre me colocava na pele dele, sempre me identificava diante das situações, a um ponto de por um momento falar que aquelas garotas eram MINHAS amigas.
Higurashi faz um excelente trabalho em te colocar naquele mundo, sejam em artes, dublagem, e direção de áudio. Sério, eu não consigo escutar cigarras da mesma forma mais kkkkkkk.
E destaque pra dublagem que é extremamente expressiva, com destaque pra Statsuki Yukino dubladora da Mion que teve o dobro do trabalho, e ainda sim fez tudo com excelência.
A segunda metade é onde o mistério começa, sinto que o jogo me retira daquela vida pacata, a sensação de estranheza pós os eventos do watanagashi me deixavam desconfortável, com medo, nervoso, e ansioso.
E isso tudo, é claro, também é sentido pelo protagonista.
Parecia que o jogo me colocava contra a parede pra me fazer pensar. Discutir e pensar sobre esse mistério, tomou de mim boa parte dos meus dias. É difícil tomar atitudes, seja pro jogador e pro keiichi, era um sentimento de desespero e pedindo pros dias anteriores voltarem, era realmente difícil de lidar com tudo.
Eu não tenho as respostas, e mesmo assim já considero when they cry a obra da minha vida.
Pois idependente de como essa história termina, sinto que no final acabei fazendo amizades verdadeiras, as quais tentaria o meu máximo pra ajudar, quando lia, me colocava de maneira profunda naquele mundo, e por um momento eu de fato era o Keiichi.
Por um momento era difícil distinguir o que é real e o que não é, o que é possível e o que não é, o que é mágico e o que não é.
Da mesma forma o jogo me colocava a mesma carta na minha mesa, e me questionava as mesmas coisas.
A resposta está na mão do ser humano?
Ou no final isso tudo é realmente obra de oyashiro-sama?
Em que mundo a resposta desse mistério está? Eu não vou descansar até descobrir.
10/10
(9.5) Ryukishi é dono do meu rabo
edit: se um dia ja duvidei de ti... me perdoe. Higurashi é mt especial slc, td q o Kai adiciona/recontextualiza pros arcos do Questions é só do caralho.... FODASE É KINO TBM
edit: se um dia ja duvidei de ti... me perdoe. Higurashi é mt especial slc, td q o Kai adiciona/recontextualiza pros arcos do Questions é só do caralho.... FODASE É KINO TBM
10/10
Higurashi When They Cry is one of the best experiences I have had the pleasure of consuming. I learned several life lessons from her writing. I was sad, angry, moved by each character, its story and its development. I will never forget the friends I found within these characters and how each of them taught me things about life and friendship that I will carry with me for my whole life.
Higurashi When They Cry is one of the best experiences I have had the pleasure of consuming. I learned several life lessons from her writing. I was sad, angry, moved by each character, its story and its development. I will never forget the friends I found within these characters and how each of them taught me things about life and friendship that I will carry with me for my whole life.
Going to keep this brief as I've only finished the Question Arcs of Higurashi, and I think it would be unfair to review what is essentially half a story, but I have some brief things I want to say.
This story has some lows in it, as anything as lengthy as this would have, and it can be very pulpy, but I am greatly enjoying my time with it. The main cast is obviously the main draw, and by the time of Chapter 3, everyone feels wonderfully fleshed out. I will admit the fourth chapter is a little dry, even for me, but I still had a good time with it. I think most of all, I'm ecstatic for the Answer Arcs now, as I hear that is where is most of the meat of this horror classic is found. But for what I've gotten so far, I really enjoy it so far, and with Chapter 3, I definitely gotten used to loving it. I'm looking forward for when I inevitably say I just do love Higurashi.
Also as I was reading this Silent Hill f got announced and it was like the ultimate jumpscare with Ryukishi07's involvement LOL.
This story has some lows in it, as anything as lengthy as this would have, and it can be very pulpy, but I am greatly enjoying my time with it. The main cast is obviously the main draw, and by the time of Chapter 3, everyone feels wonderfully fleshed out. I will admit the fourth chapter is a little dry, even for me, but I still had a good time with it. I think most of all, I'm ecstatic for the Answer Arcs now, as I hear that is where is most of the meat of this horror classic is found. But for what I've gotten so far, I really enjoy it so far, and with Chapter 3, I definitely gotten used to loving it. I'm looking forward for when I inevitably say I just do love Higurashi.
Also as I was reading this Silent Hill f got announced and it was like the ultimate jumpscare with Ryukishi07's involvement LOL.
Onikakushi : Disturbing but fascinating... Very well-written texts and top-notch sound design. The creepy and frightening atmosphere is cleverly conveyed through the writing style itself. I am extremely curious to see what happens next since Ryūkishi07 has set up the interweaving of a hallucinating number of threads: power (political), group persuasion (crowd psychology), hallucination (psychiatry), curse (religious), micro-social balances in Hinamizawa (symbolic interactionism), legend (anthropology), Japan's attitude to war and modernization (history). All this with only a dozen characters and a restricted geographical framework, but for a hundred hours of reading.
Watanagashi : The monstrous duality... Higurashi is above all a dive into the abyss, true depth psychology. The villain, the antagonist, the monster... Artifact of an individual carried away by Evil. Perhaps these categories take us away from the essential...
Tatarigoroshi : With Dostoevsky, Ryukishi07 is one of the only authors that was brave enough to fully venture into the conquest of the monstrous duality. Keiichi and Raskolnikov, two young men premeditating a murder they deem legitimate and necessary. And so they plunge, deeper and deeper into the abyss... But no crime escapes punishment; otherwise, it would be perfect (Keiichi and his mother even make explicit mention of this).
Watanagashi : The monstrous duality... Higurashi is above all a dive into the abyss, true depth psychology. The villain, the antagonist, the monster... Artifact of an individual carried away by Evil. Perhaps these categories take us away from the essential...
Tatarigoroshi : With Dostoevsky, Ryukishi07 is one of the only authors that was brave enough to fully venture into the conquest of the monstrous duality. Keiichi and Raskolnikov, two young men premeditating a murder they deem legitimate and necessary. And so they plunge, deeper and deeper into the abyss... But no crime escapes punishment; otherwise, it would be perfect (Keiichi and his mother even make explicit mention of this).
This review contains spoilers
Quiero darle 5 estrellas muy fuerte porque Ryukishi es un puto genio, pero después del desastre que es el capítulo 8 y lo importante que es se me hace imposible.
Para resumir rápido:
Los personajes son una pasada, me encantan todos.
La presentación del misterio es una barbaridad, es una masterclass de dosificación de la información.
Hay escenas que no me voy a sacar de la cabeza en la vida, los picos de la historia son una bestialidad.
Todo tiene un carisma acojonante, uno de mis momentos favoritos del capítulo 8 fue la parte después de acabar los fragmentos (que son de lo peor que me he cruzado en mi vida con diferencia por muchísimas razones) y volver a ver a esos personajes que tanto quiero hacer y decir sus tonterías.
Me gusta muchísimo la última Staff Room con Ryukishi, posiblemente ha sido lo que más me ha gustado del último capítulo, sobre todo porque comparte mi forma de ver las historias en general, me ha sacado una sonrisa muy tonta.
Soy una persona que piensa que una historia no es más que un "ejercicio" donde se intenta que todo compense. Muchas de mis cosas favoritas tienen fallos, muy gordos algunos, pero me los compensa con otras cosas. Al final, veo las cosas como una balanza, y me gusta mucho ver las cosas así, porque no te acabas centrando en un solo detalle. Poniendo de ejemplo a Final Fantasy XIV (no se me ocurre otra cosa ahora mismo, lo siento) me gustaría explicarme un poco.
En Shadowbringers, una de mis cosas favoritas hasta el día que muera (aunque todo esto puede aplicar para cualquier expansión del juego menos ARR), te pueden mandar a hacer la cosa más buena que has visto jamás y de repente mandarte a ver a un pollo y tener que dar un paseo gigante. Está haciendo algo muy simple que hace cualquier buena historia, que es manejar con algo de destreza una curva de interés, pero podrías decir que falla en como lo hace por lo estúpido que es lo que te manda a hacer. Aún así, me compensa perder una hora haciendo de recadera, porque tras esa hora de recadera va a venir una cinemática o cualquier cosa que me va a tener al borde de la silla y llorando, y me alegro de haberme relajado tanto en esa hora. ¿Se podría hacer mejor? Obviamente sí, pero como me compensa tanto me da exactamente igual.
Después de haber dado la chapa con el MMO que va a ampliar su prueba gratis dentro de poco para también tener Stormblood, puedo decir lo que quería y que se me entienda algo.
Higurashi está equilibrando esa balanza hacia el lado positivo todo el rato. Por cada parte pesada, acabas leyendo algo que es increíble, o cada vez que piensas en los primeros capítulos que no compensa tener las escenas de Slice of life, Ryukishi te sorprende con la maestría que tiene en esos capítulos para escribir terror y hacerte sentir muy mal. Pero el final no compensa y la resolución del misterio tampoco, se siente sacado casi de la nada y la magnitud de las cosas siento que se le va demasiado de las manos. Además de que el plan final a pesar de estar chulo, es muy ridículo para la magnitud de lo que te están presentando.
Sin embargo, es un clásico con razón y es un must si te estás interesando en lo que son las VN. Puedo entender perfectamente la razón por la que a una persona leer esto le puede cambiar la vida y por qué es un trabajo tan querido.
Dicho todo esto, espero que Umineko esté a la altura de lo que promete todo el mundo o voy a imitar a Shion (o Mion más bien, es un lío saber como llamarla) en el final de Meakashi.
Para resumir rápido:
Los personajes son una pasada, me encantan todos.
La presentación del misterio es una barbaridad, es una masterclass de dosificación de la información.
Hay escenas que no me voy a sacar de la cabeza en la vida, los picos de la historia son una bestialidad.
Todo tiene un carisma acojonante, uno de mis momentos favoritos del capítulo 8 fue la parte después de acabar los fragmentos (que son de lo peor que me he cruzado en mi vida con diferencia por muchísimas razones) y volver a ver a esos personajes que tanto quiero hacer y decir sus tonterías.
Me gusta muchísimo la última Staff Room con Ryukishi, posiblemente ha sido lo que más me ha gustado del último capítulo, sobre todo porque comparte mi forma de ver las historias en general, me ha sacado una sonrisa muy tonta.
Soy una persona que piensa que una historia no es más que un "ejercicio" donde se intenta que todo compense. Muchas de mis cosas favoritas tienen fallos, muy gordos algunos, pero me los compensa con otras cosas. Al final, veo las cosas como una balanza, y me gusta mucho ver las cosas así, porque no te acabas centrando en un solo detalle. Poniendo de ejemplo a Final Fantasy XIV (no se me ocurre otra cosa ahora mismo, lo siento) me gustaría explicarme un poco.
En Shadowbringers, una de mis cosas favoritas hasta el día que muera (aunque todo esto puede aplicar para cualquier expansión del juego menos ARR), te pueden mandar a hacer la cosa más buena que has visto jamás y de repente mandarte a ver a un pollo y tener que dar un paseo gigante. Está haciendo algo muy simple que hace cualquier buena historia, que es manejar con algo de destreza una curva de interés, pero podrías decir que falla en como lo hace por lo estúpido que es lo que te manda a hacer. Aún así, me compensa perder una hora haciendo de recadera, porque tras esa hora de recadera va a venir una cinemática o cualquier cosa que me va a tener al borde de la silla y llorando, y me alegro de haberme relajado tanto en esa hora. ¿Se podría hacer mejor? Obviamente sí, pero como me compensa tanto me da exactamente igual.
Después de haber dado la chapa con el MMO que va a ampliar su prueba gratis dentro de poco para también tener Stormblood, puedo decir lo que quería y que se me entienda algo.
Higurashi está equilibrando esa balanza hacia el lado positivo todo el rato. Por cada parte pesada, acabas leyendo algo que es increíble, o cada vez que piensas en los primeros capítulos que no compensa tener las escenas de Slice of life, Ryukishi te sorprende con la maestría que tiene en esos capítulos para escribir terror y hacerte sentir muy mal. Pero el final no compensa y la resolución del misterio tampoco, se siente sacado casi de la nada y la magnitud de las cosas siento que se le va demasiado de las manos. Además de que el plan final a pesar de estar chulo, es muy ridículo para la magnitud de lo que te están presentando.
Sin embargo, es un clásico con razón y es un must si te estás interesando en lo que son las VN. Puedo entender perfectamente la razón por la que a una persona leer esto le puede cambiar la vida y por qué es un trabajo tan querido.
Dicho todo esto, espero que Umineko esté a la altura de lo que promete todo el mundo o voy a imitar a Shion (o Mion más bien, es un lío saber como llamarla) en el final de Meakashi.
The overarching story is unsatisfying, but many of the individual episodes are still good and worth experiencing. Unfortunately, its hard to properly experience those few good episodes without reading the rest of the story as well which puts me in a bit of a dilemma when it comes to recommendations.
Probably give it a shot, but don't force yourself to continue if its not worth it. Just read it one episode at a time.
Probably give it a shot, but don't force yourself to continue if its not worth it. Just read it one episode at a time.
pues ya esta ahora me mato
me ha cambiado la vida amo a mis amigos creo en los milagros vivir es bonito y me gusta mucho el verano
My fingers still hurt
what the fuck
Higurashi is at its strongest when it is concerned with trauma, both on a personal and a communal level. When it understands the effects trauma can have on someone, and when it dearly wishes to find some way out of the cycles of violence that can so often cause traumatised individuals, groups and generations to, knowingly or unknowingly, condemn others to trauma also. Whilst these are words that don't always apply to Higurashi on a broader level, in its exploration of these themes Higurashi feels both mature and astute; there are so many moments when someone's reaction to the trauma they've experienced or are experiencing feels painfully, heartbreakingly, incisively on-point.
This element of Higurashi is so successful in part because Ryukishi has a deep empathy for his characters. He has an unwillingness to wholly discard someone for their misdeeds, and a deep desire to look inside people and see what makes them tick, what makes people choose the paths they do, and wants you to understand this also. There's one particular instance where I can't bring myself to be onboard with his hardline approach of "hate the sin and not the sinner", and this approach feels to me incongruous with the fact that there are characters in the story that are just wholly irredeemable (Satoko's uncle, for instance), but it's hard to deny there's something compelling about how much Ryukishi cares, and him asking you to try and care just a little bit more too.
Beyond all of this, Higurashi is concerned with generational divides, small village cultures on the edge of being wiped out by modernisation and a fury at the heartlessness of bureaucracy and how it leaves people to drown, with paranoia and fear and the kind of deep, unrelenting love that would have you tear apart everything for someone, with hope and despair and miracles. Higurashi is also concerned with friendship, and despite "the power of friendship" being one of the most worn out and uninspired themes for anime, manga and (I assume) visual novels it actually manages to make such a deeply impassioned plea towards this that I was just entirely hooked in by Higurashi's beating heart.
These are the highs of Higurashi, but it is also ultimately an often-uneven experience. There is a small amount of content here that is indefensible, and which I'm shocked I don't see more condemnation of. Basically any scene set in Angel Mort is just a lock to star creepy sexualisation of teenage girls played up for humour and treated as just completely acceptable, multiple side-character adults in the story make occasional creepy comments along these lines also, and a key character, Irie, is obsessed with the idea of putting one of the game's youngest characters in a maid outfit and marrying her. This content accounts for maybe 3% of the game if I had to guess, so a very minor amount, but it's all just wretched. It's so bizarre too because elsewhere Higurashi is able to render its women with remarkable depth, taking common character archetypes and ultimately subverting just about every expectation you enter with about them in ways that feel natural and which let you really understand how each character ticks by the end of the story, and yet despite this it just can't consistently Be Normal about them at all and just has to have its creepy moments. A couple of the Angel Mort scenes genuinely made me feel a bit ill to read and I would not blame someone for just refusing to read Higurashi because of this content.
More broadly, Higurashi is also desperately in need of a harsher editor at points. Higurashi's eight chapters combined are over one and a half million words long, or longer than reading the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy three times over, and took me 100 hours to finish (which I gather is faster than most people, even). During my readthrough I had multiple extended breaks, which is partially just that my life has been busy this past year, but partially that Higurashi has a habit of stretching out its slice-of-life scenes, confused metaphor-laden inner-monologues and moments of hopeless despair far beyond their point being effectively made. My final break from Higurashi lasted four months, only for me to discover upon my return that the final chapter, beyond a certain point, starts to descend into what feels at times like third-rate fanfiction, and it left me wishing that Ryukishi knew how to communicate his story a little bit more succinctly rather than stretching things on beyond the point where all the intrigue had been quelled and all the questions answered.
A mixed bag, then, but one with a lot to say and a lot it believes in, with an amazing sense of mystery, and some lovable characters that have a lot more going on that you first suspect. Wildly imperfect, at times exhausting or even just reprehensible, but fascinating and with a lot of heart behind its horror. I can't say that I would ever recommend Higurashi, but I did get a lot from the experience.
This element of Higurashi is so successful in part because Ryukishi has a deep empathy for his characters. He has an unwillingness to wholly discard someone for their misdeeds, and a deep desire to look inside people and see what makes them tick, what makes people choose the paths they do, and wants you to understand this also. There's one particular instance where I can't bring myself to be onboard with his hardline approach of "hate the sin and not the sinner", and this approach feels to me incongruous with the fact that there are characters in the story that are just wholly irredeemable (Satoko's uncle, for instance), but it's hard to deny there's something compelling about how much Ryukishi cares, and him asking you to try and care just a little bit more too.
Beyond all of this, Higurashi is concerned with generational divides, small village cultures on the edge of being wiped out by modernisation and a fury at the heartlessness of bureaucracy and how it leaves people to drown, with paranoia and fear and the kind of deep, unrelenting love that would have you tear apart everything for someone, with hope and despair and miracles. Higurashi is also concerned with friendship, and despite "the power of friendship" being one of the most worn out and uninspired themes for anime, manga and (I assume) visual novels it actually manages to make such a deeply impassioned plea towards this that I was just entirely hooked in by Higurashi's beating heart.
These are the highs of Higurashi, but it is also ultimately an often-uneven experience. There is a small amount of content here that is indefensible, and which I'm shocked I don't see more condemnation of. Basically any scene set in Angel Mort is just a lock to star creepy sexualisation of teenage girls played up for humour and treated as just completely acceptable, multiple side-character adults in the story make occasional creepy comments along these lines also, and a key character, Irie, is obsessed with the idea of putting one of the game's youngest characters in a maid outfit and marrying her. This content accounts for maybe 3% of the game if I had to guess, so a very minor amount, but it's all just wretched. It's so bizarre too because elsewhere Higurashi is able to render its women with remarkable depth, taking common character archetypes and ultimately subverting just about every expectation you enter with about them in ways that feel natural and which let you really understand how each character ticks by the end of the story, and yet despite this it just can't consistently Be Normal about them at all and just has to have its creepy moments. A couple of the Angel Mort scenes genuinely made me feel a bit ill to read and I would not blame someone for just refusing to read Higurashi because of this content.
More broadly, Higurashi is also desperately in need of a harsher editor at points. Higurashi's eight chapters combined are over one and a half million words long, or longer than reading the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy three times over, and took me 100 hours to finish (which I gather is faster than most people, even). During my readthrough I had multiple extended breaks, which is partially just that my life has been busy this past year, but partially that Higurashi has a habit of stretching out its slice-of-life scenes, confused metaphor-laden inner-monologues and moments of hopeless despair far beyond their point being effectively made. My final break from Higurashi lasted four months, only for me to discover upon my return that the final chapter, beyond a certain point, starts to descend into what feels at times like third-rate fanfiction, and it left me wishing that Ryukishi knew how to communicate his story a little bit more succinctly rather than stretching things on beyond the point where all the intrigue had been quelled and all the questions answered.
A mixed bag, then, but one with a lot to say and a lot it believes in, with an amazing sense of mystery, and some lovable characters that have a lot more going on that you first suspect. Wildly imperfect, at times exhausting or even just reprehensible, but fascinating and with a lot of heart behind its horror. I can't say that I would ever recommend Higurashi, but I did get a lot from the experience.
Truly a masterpiece. A confusing, mind binding, beautiful work that I can’t stop reading. The suspense is thrilling, the horror is crafted a million times better than whatever the fuck the survival horror genre is doing, and the mystery, while having all the clues laid out in front of you, allows you to theorize so much on what is going on Hinamizawa and what is truly happening. Also I’m happy the SoL content was cut in Ch. 4.
stop sexualizing the minors please god
That's it. It's over. All done. That's a wrap. We're through. No more. Gone. Bye bye. See you later. Don't talk to me. The end.
This review contains spoilers
It's not just a horror visual novel where they all suffer.
Higurashi has some of the best, most dread inducing horror scenes I've ever seen in any horror media- visual novel or no. Ryukishi07 uses the storytelling of unreliable narrators as an avenue to make his audience understand the full force of the mental distress the characters are experiencing. Without us recognizing it, we're sympathizing with Keiichi while he murders his friends. We're sympathizing with Shion while she kills her grandmother. We're sympathizing with Rena while she's killing two people. Higurashi, ultimately, is a story of understanding. Higurashi devotes itself to the simple lesson "when you're going through something and having extreme thoughts, talk to someone about it" and operates with it on such a complex, relatable, and emotional level. It subverts it's horror elements and, despite the grizzly experiences the characters go through, pursues a happy ending. I couldn't think of a better outcome for this story. To say "they made a miracle happen and got a happy ending" is such an optimistic and pleasantly childish way of describing a horror story- but it operates well with the series. Because they are children. Because there's nothing wrong with children finding happiness, no matter their background. Because children shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to be happy. Because children should be allowed to have miracles.
Good fucking vn.
Higurashi has some of the best, most dread inducing horror scenes I've ever seen in any horror media- visual novel or no. Ryukishi07 uses the storytelling of unreliable narrators as an avenue to make his audience understand the full force of the mental distress the characters are experiencing. Without us recognizing it, we're sympathizing with Keiichi while he murders his friends. We're sympathizing with Shion while she kills her grandmother. We're sympathizing with Rena while she's killing two people. Higurashi, ultimately, is a story of understanding. Higurashi devotes itself to the simple lesson "when you're going through something and having extreme thoughts, talk to someone about it" and operates with it on such a complex, relatable, and emotional level. It subverts it's horror elements and, despite the grizzly experiences the characters go through, pursues a happy ending. I couldn't think of a better outcome for this story. To say "they made a miracle happen and got a happy ending" is such an optimistic and pleasantly childish way of describing a horror story- but it operates well with the series. Because they are children. Because there's nothing wrong with children finding happiness, no matter their background. Because children shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to be happy. Because children should be allowed to have miracles.
Good fucking vn.
muğla daha aksiyonlu 07 hırbosu seni
This review contains spoilers
before anything else, let me make clear that i loved higurashi. i say this because i wanna start by talking about the parts of it i really, really don't like.
i'm not super deeply embedded in weeb culture compared to some of my friends, so i probably don't have the best vocabulary to discuss this. i don't really take issue with "raunchy" jokes as such. but there's this incredibly formulaic thing going on here where half the "lighthearted," characters-just-hanging-out-having-fun moments are shot through with not only bizarre ritual fetishistic objectification of young girls set to jaunty clown music, but also lampshading it as obviously just perverted jokes that nobody could treat seriously. i hate it. it's family guy to me. it's south park. it's rick and morty. it's bad! and the worst part is it's not even true to how teens joke around! almost instantly at the beginning of chapter 1, like the first thing mion says to keiichi is a dick joke and that one, to my mind, absolutely lands and succeeds at establishing their relationship. it feels true to life. most of this haha-otaku-love-sexual-harrassment-but-also-would-never-actually-do-it shit just doesn't; in fact, it actively detracts from otherwise likeable characters by cramming them into a weird caricature of awkward creepy sex comedy that falls about as flat as when life is strange is trying to sound cool and hip.
with that out of the way: higurashi is fucking incredible. as an umineko veteran i knew what type of thing to expect, but in many aspects i feel like this is actually a better story -- although still underpinned by the same principle of radical, universal compassion for its characters, to the point of discomfort and well beyond; and with the same attention to the interconnected failures of societal institutions -- family, tradition, law enforcement, medicine, education, the military -- that combine to produce everyday, heartrending, personal tragedies all around us. if anything, higurashi is often a little bit too optimistic about the liberal democratic state and society, and that's a wild thing to say considering how keenly and thoroughly it observes their flaws. but at the same time, its optimism about the possibility of doing good within society as it actually exists, even despite its flaws, is essential to its ethical stance and its beauty, and a useful counterpoint to the doomerism and defeatism that's so popular today.
while the metaphorical/metatextual layer is on the whole real damn good, there is sometimes a sense of overproduction of meaning; it's very appropriate considering the extremely well-deployed theme of paranoia as a disease of overinterpretation, a trust-eroding pathogen trivially exploitable towards cruel and reactionary ends, but to my mind there are elements of this story, especially later on, that have to carry too much potential meaning. for instance: note how hanyuu becomes at once an aspect of rika's mental state, semi-player avatar, sacred scapegoat, the long shadow of history, and even the embodiment of takano's half-understood christianity -- that's a lot of heavy semiotic lifting to do for a character introduced at the very tail end of the story! there's no way every single aspect of that can possibly pay off in a satisfying and harmonious way. it's impossible for me not to feel that in the end, it's a little bit too contrived.
this is something that umineko will also explicitly address: in order for a certain kind of reader, who can be to some degree identified with hanyuu, to have the narrative they want, it's necessary to break the laws of causality, call upon the power of magic, and the aid of other genres of stories than the one that keeps ending in disaster. if it's just a bunch of kids against vast social forces that they can't even fully see the shape of -- well, we all know how that keeps turning out, again and again and again. but at the same time, this moves the conflict to the supra-textual level, and it's there that victory is possible: in a battle between stories that cause pain and isolation, and those that nurture hope, trust and the will to fight. nothing's gonna be solved just with the intervention of gritty cop drama guy ooishi or his gritty yakuza counterpart kasai. everyone is necessary: rena, a heroine straight out of a psychological-realist mid-20th century novel, horny but earnest boys' manga protagonist keiichi (both of them mirroring satoshi, who mirrors raskolnikov), modern gothic antiheroine shion, idealistic and practically socrealist village teacher chie, spy thriller character tomitake, absurdly larger-than-life martial arts movie hero akasaka, etc etc etc. in the end, they're all indispensable in order to understand this world and make a better one. all of these genres and characters have their role to play; none of them is the whole truth on its own, but none of them should be completely disregarded. peaceful protest only matters if we also know how to wage guerrilla warfare.
i know this is a very abstract view of the story; it's not the only way to enjoy or understand it, and even before everything is put together, many chapters have a stark, honest, heartbreaking beauty to them. ryukishi07 is, in particular, very good at conveying extreme emotional states in the first person. none of the pain is cheap or inevitable or instrumental; no character is either unworthy of consideration or free of flaws. this ethical stance alone would be enough to consider higurashi extremely good. it's a deeply thoughtful, emotionally affecting and genuine story that i'm very thankful to have experienced.
i'm not super deeply embedded in weeb culture compared to some of my friends, so i probably don't have the best vocabulary to discuss this. i don't really take issue with "raunchy" jokes as such. but there's this incredibly formulaic thing going on here where half the "lighthearted," characters-just-hanging-out-having-fun moments are shot through with not only bizarre ritual fetishistic objectification of young girls set to jaunty clown music, but also lampshading it as obviously just perverted jokes that nobody could treat seriously. i hate it. it's family guy to me. it's south park. it's rick and morty. it's bad! and the worst part is it's not even true to how teens joke around! almost instantly at the beginning of chapter 1, like the first thing mion says to keiichi is a dick joke and that one, to my mind, absolutely lands and succeeds at establishing their relationship. it feels true to life. most of this haha-otaku-love-sexual-harrassment-but-also-would-never-actually-do-it shit just doesn't; in fact, it actively detracts from otherwise likeable characters by cramming them into a weird caricature of awkward creepy sex comedy that falls about as flat as when life is strange is trying to sound cool and hip.
with that out of the way: higurashi is fucking incredible. as an umineko veteran i knew what type of thing to expect, but in many aspects i feel like this is actually a better story -- although still underpinned by the same principle of radical, universal compassion for its characters, to the point of discomfort and well beyond; and with the same attention to the interconnected failures of societal institutions -- family, tradition, law enforcement, medicine, education, the military -- that combine to produce everyday, heartrending, personal tragedies all around us. if anything, higurashi is often a little bit too optimistic about the liberal democratic state and society, and that's a wild thing to say considering how keenly and thoroughly it observes their flaws. but at the same time, its optimism about the possibility of doing good within society as it actually exists, even despite its flaws, is essential to its ethical stance and its beauty, and a useful counterpoint to the doomerism and defeatism that's so popular today.
while the metaphorical/metatextual layer is on the whole real damn good, there is sometimes a sense of overproduction of meaning; it's very appropriate considering the extremely well-deployed theme of paranoia as a disease of overinterpretation, a trust-eroding pathogen trivially exploitable towards cruel and reactionary ends, but to my mind there are elements of this story, especially later on, that have to carry too much potential meaning. for instance: note how hanyuu becomes at once an aspect of rika's mental state, semi-player avatar, sacred scapegoat, the long shadow of history, and even the embodiment of takano's half-understood christianity -- that's a lot of heavy semiotic lifting to do for a character introduced at the very tail end of the story! there's no way every single aspect of that can possibly pay off in a satisfying and harmonious way. it's impossible for me not to feel that in the end, it's a little bit too contrived.
this is something that umineko will also explicitly address: in order for a certain kind of reader, who can be to some degree identified with hanyuu, to have the narrative they want, it's necessary to break the laws of causality, call upon the power of magic, and the aid of other genres of stories than the one that keeps ending in disaster. if it's just a bunch of kids against vast social forces that they can't even fully see the shape of -- well, we all know how that keeps turning out, again and again and again. but at the same time, this moves the conflict to the supra-textual level, and it's there that victory is possible: in a battle between stories that cause pain and isolation, and those that nurture hope, trust and the will to fight. nothing's gonna be solved just with the intervention of gritty cop drama guy ooishi or his gritty yakuza counterpart kasai. everyone is necessary: rena, a heroine straight out of a psychological-realist mid-20th century novel, horny but earnest boys' manga protagonist keiichi (both of them mirroring satoshi, who mirrors raskolnikov), modern gothic antiheroine shion, idealistic and practically socrealist village teacher chie, spy thriller character tomitake, absurdly larger-than-life martial arts movie hero akasaka, etc etc etc. in the end, they're all indispensable in order to understand this world and make a better one. all of these genres and characters have their role to play; none of them is the whole truth on its own, but none of them should be completely disregarded. peaceful protest only matters if we also know how to wage guerrilla warfare.
i know this is a very abstract view of the story; it's not the only way to enjoy or understand it, and even before everything is put together, many chapters have a stark, honest, heartbreaking beauty to them. ryukishi07 is, in particular, very good at conveying extreme emotional states in the first person. none of the pain is cheap or inevitable or instrumental; no character is either unworthy of consideration or free of flaws. this ethical stance alone would be enough to consider higurashi extremely good. it's a deeply thoughtful, emotionally affecting and genuine story that i'm very thankful to have experienced.
no words i could write could say more than just reading this yourself would. a masterpiece without a shadow of a doubt, these answer arcs are gonna rock my socks off, i know it.
All together these 4 individual "Question Arcs" work so beautifully together to help you learn not only about the characters but about the town itself. The long run time 100% is an aspect of that as well. I'm unsure if the various adaptions would be able to do the story justice if you didn't have the time to get to know these characters. I am unsure of what the "answer arcs" have in store for me, but I can't wait for what Ryukishi07 cooked up.
This is a review of the entire question arcs, i made one for each chapter so if you want my screaming individual opinions go there.
Higurashi When They Cry Question Arcs is a new experience for me, even if i did play some VN before, nothing was like these. To me, the first 4 arcs are basically horror stories, but after advancing through the series, they are not scary because of the horror elements (even though it's pretty amazing how much of an immersive experience they are), it's in the title: question arcs. Humans like do racionalize things, when you can't you will be scared. It's impossible for me to experience the story again with the same feelings, because i now know everything, so they are at the very core a big maze of mysteries for the author to challenge you with, and that's where the game is.
The story itself is made of a lot of pretty high moments and very bad lows, the slice of life it's important so you can care about the characters but i do think it's too much sometimes.
There is not much to talk without spoilers, so what i can say is that if you like mystery stories, to have an immersive experience enviroment, read it. Ryukishi did a very good job and you will not left dissapointed, just be aware that your finger will hurt a lot.
Higurashi When They Cry Question Arcs is a new experience for me, even if i did play some VN before, nothing was like these. To me, the first 4 arcs are basically horror stories, but after advancing through the series, they are not scary because of the horror elements (even though it's pretty amazing how much of an immersive experience they are), it's in the title: question arcs. Humans like do racionalize things, when you can't you will be scared. It's impossible for me to experience the story again with the same feelings, because i now know everything, so they are at the very core a big maze of mysteries for the author to challenge you with, and that's where the game is.
The story itself is made of a lot of pretty high moments and very bad lows, the slice of life it's important so you can care about the characters but i do think it's too much sometimes.
There is not much to talk without spoilers, so what i can say is that if you like mystery stories, to have an immersive experience enviroment, read it. Ryukishi did a very good job and you will not left dissapointed, just be aware that your finger will hurt a lot.
Since reading Higurashi, I've started so many sentences with "You know, there's a thing in Higurashi about this". It's got a little of everything. If you're just looking for a Horror story, you will probably be disappointed with it, but if you're up for a seven-course meal that covers all kinds of tastes and textures, there is a lot to love here.
"Higurashi? Awesome, we all love Higurashi. The process of reading it? Be honest now." -My friend Toby
peak fiction
NEVER stop fighting for your golden ending
NEVER stop fighting for your golden ending
Escrevi e reescrevi essa review mais do que posso lembrar pôs não há palavras em minha mente que consigam expressar o que senti ao jogar essa pérola, mas depois de tanto refletir cheguei a conclusão de que Higurashi é mais sobre a jornada do que sobre a solução, tudo que passamos, tudo que construímos, tudo que aprendemos foram executados de forma espetacular, Ryukishi07 conseguiu não só criar um universo maravilhoso, mas também personagens impecáveis ao ponto que me falta palavras para expressar meus sentimentos, Higurashi não só me acolheu como jogador, mas sim como membro do clube onde eu me senti livre para aproveitar cada gota de liberdade, cada gota da infância, cada pequena gota de inocência pôs todos os jogos que jogamos juntos, todas as punições que sofremos juntos, todos os momentos que rimos, choramos, nos divertimos, brigamos e sorrimos, todos foram tão especiais para mim que estarão guardados dentro do meu coração para todo
sempre.
sempre.
very strong horror writing/atmosphere, but has its flaws