i'm not entirely sure how i feel about matsuribayashi. it's ok. i think it's telling that it took me the second longest out of any higurashi chapter to actually finish (about a month and a half), after onikakushi (5 months), which I almost but not quite outright disliked.

It was a Slog. I have a big aversion to stories that are just way too long for their own good, but the thing is up until now I genuinely felt that Higurashi managed to keep things fresh and interesting enough this massive sprawling length never became a detriment. That's not to say Ryukishi isnt way too verbose and repetitive for his own good, but on the whole every instalment felt like a cool and interesting twist on the Higurashi formula with its own distinct atmosphere, without needing to pull crazy genre shifts or resort to gimmicks. Even the unnerving creeping sense of doom of Watanagashi is very different to the tragic descent into madness of Meakashi, for instance.

Matsuribayashi... to be honest, I did not feel accomplished this. For sure, it's a new type of story for Higurashi, more of an actiony conspiracy theory with a dash of politics. But while perhaps new for Higurashi it feels like a fairly generic story in general. Stuff like 'the games club manage to successfully wage guerilla warfare against hardened mercenaries' is easy to criticise on the basis of unrealism - I don't personally think unrealism or being shonen-esque an inherently bad thing, but it feels weird and off for the kind of story Higurashi has been up til now, and especially by comparison seems like a cheap resolution.

Now, I get that this is a deliberate bait and switch in a sense. Ryukishi offers you a psychological horror where you can trust nobody full of the threat of monsters at every turn, and then gradually takes it apart to promote trusting your friends, working together with your community, extending grace even to the monsters. I get the reasons why it's being done, I get there's a thematic point to Scooby Doo-ing it all. But the sticking point for me is that I feel like the story Higurashi turns into is a lot less interesting than the one it began as.

I'm certainly not against these kinds of bait and switches (ask me why Hell Bent from Doctor Who is one of my favourite pieces of fiction ever). But the crucial thing for me is that the story it ends up as should be just as, if not more interesting than what was promised, or at least more satisfying (even if the initial story has more of an allure of deep lore and shocking reveals). But I don't know, I... just don't feel like creepy rural horror mystery descending into action thriller is an interesting turn of events. And ironically even though Ryukishi justifies the switch by saying that Higurashi's worldview is a nonviolent one, it still turns into the kind of story where the primary means of solving problems IS through action (if not actually killing): breaking into the bad guys' base with guns.

Now, with all that said, it's not a bad ending. None of the narrative decisions it makes are bad. It's no Rise of Skywalker, making such actively ridiculous choices the promise of the previous entries is ruined. It has good moments, and Takano is such a fascinatingly sketched character. But I can't help but feel like it's largely an exercise in ticking plot boxes.

And maybe that's just an inevitable result of a finale to a mystery where the mystery has already been revealed, but part of me feels like the entire government conspiracy angle just pushes the stakes too high where the story has no choice but to shift into an action thriller to solve it. Teenagers in a horror story might be able to fight a monster, but how can they fight hardened mercenaries? There's no choice but to shift genres.

But at the end of the day the above is largely a personal gripe. Obviously I feel strongly about this and it diminished my enjoyment, but I get where Ryukishi is coming from enough I hesitate to say This Is A Flaw, and I don't want my criticms to basically just be 'you should have written a fundamentally different story'.

One thing I did think was actively bad tho and tbh has probably seriously hurt my opinion of Matusribayashi is Fragment Connecting. It felt like 90% painstakingly spoonfeeding you plot points you should already know or have been able to piece together. We often hear 'show don't tell' but I genuinely think Fragment Connecting was an example of this gone way too far; some things can be left to casual exposition. Ironically it felt like the anti-Onikakushi; it's even more useless filler but at least this time it's plot relevant! Admittedly I'd imagine this would have been a helpful refresher if you were actually reading the Higurashi instalments as they came out.

The rest of Matsuribayashi is better, although it still feels like it doesn't really pick up til Irie escapes the clinic, and even then the action scenes are kind've annoying (I did like infiltrating the clinic though). But it's fine and servicable.

Aside from that, Hanyuu still feels like a bit of a weak link characterisation wise, especially since Matsuribayashi brings a lot in to weigh on her. She's not bad or unlikeable, but I just... don't feel the same attachment to her I do the others. I think Higurashi's strength on the whole is generally the characters, and I think Matsuribayashi did a great job with fleshing ouit Takano last minute tremendously, but Hanyuu is just... I don't know.

On the whole I would say I enjoyed Higurashi, and I wouldn't say my tepid feelings for Matsuribayashi are enough to drag the rest of it down, but I also don't think I especially love it (tho I still need to read Saikoroshi). Keeping me engrossed enough to sit through one million words and eight arcs is an impressive feat in itself, and I'll always have a soft spot for the characters, but I don't know that this will be something that stays with me. But my feelings about Matsuribayashi are in flux even now so I guess we will see.