After having read Minagoroshi, the seventh chapter, I am done with Higurashi: When They Cry. It's over. My deciding not to read the last chapter is based on the opinion that the end of the seventh chapter is, in my eyes, a good enough ending for the whole caboodle, and my aversion to the whole Takano - Elite Corps. fiasco.

There is much to enjoy in this Visual Novel. There certainly are an assortment of dubious elements to it; for one, it definitely drags on and on and on by ceaselessly repeating information that is pretty much made crystal clear to the reader the first time it is explained.

But, as I just said, there is much to enjoy here. The overall original aesthetic of the game is stunning. The world-building and character studies are impressive. Ryukishi07 has clearly put an astonishing amount of care in the slice of life parts of the story, which are far and away my favorite bits. Certain scenes are just incredible, and I am specially fond of the one scene where Ooishi and the Sonozaki family meet at a restaurant to discuss what's going on with the Takano scrapbooks. The Rika-Hanyuu time loop plot point is lovely, and works incredibly well with the novel's structure and the way and order it's told.

This being said, Higurashi has its fair share of problem as well. First and foremost, the English translation leaves a lot to be desired, at the novel's runtime makes it especially grating. However, this is not my main gripe with the game.

After countless hours of reading, you get to Minagoroshi, and you're dying to know what's really going on with these "Oyashiro-sama" killings. Will it be a superatural being's doing, or will it be the work of the Onigafuchi Guardians under the Sonozaki family's command? Maybe a mixture of both? Or they just might possibly really be fundamentally unrelated incidents? The game, up until this point, has very strongly hinted at them. And the answer is... none of them. It's the combination of a disease endemic to Hinamizawa (not too bad) and the mingling of an Elite Corps that are involved in the matter for political reasons. Come on. This has NEVER been slightly talked about in the goddamn novel prior to this chapter! It's so out of place and such a mood killer that it's one of the main reasons I decided not to read the last chapter. The ending of the seventh chapter is enough, and I don't want to deal with a chapter that potientally goes on and on about military and political stuff, when it NEVER was about it before.

Moreover, there are a few more things about Higurashi that I don't quite like. A sizable chunk of the dialogue present in the game is straight up dogshit; same goes for the decision-making process of virtually every character in the novel. Some plot points and scenes are laughably bad, and some recurring jokes (such as Keiichi's father being a loli artist) aren't funny in the slightest. Come on, who told Ryukishi07 that the BB Gun bit is a good story?

I'll leave it at that, since I'm just building up anger at the ramblings present in this review. I am so disappointed at the content in the Answer Arcs, after having thoroughly enjoyed the Question Arcs.