Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is an adaptation of a popular sound novel with the same name—it achieved fame and notoriety, despite it’s campy visuals and low-budget programming. When I first started watching it, in high school, my expectations of the show was warped because I had been told that it was a shock-effect, horror with cute girls. I think I was told that there were moe girls ‘randomly’ murdering people and it was ‘edgy.’ Looking back, I wish the series would have been introduced to me as a mystery, thriller with horror elements, or as essentially a character drama. That would have been a more accurate description.
One of my favorite horror movies of all time is Ginger Snaps and, that too, relies heavily on the characterization aspect of the story. I have seen complaints about Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Kai explaining ‘too much’ and the resolution having demolished any sense of mystery in the show had, but I don’t think that’s true at all. While the first season is peppered with breadcrumbs to follow, Kai’s intent is to bring closure to the traumatized characters and what better to given them closure than to explain what the heck had been happening in the previous twenty-six episodes! It’s not even the central cast that gets growth, but the whole town is shown to begin to welcome change to their stagnant community, as the story progresses.
Paranoia and distrust are the key components of the horror elements in the series. Have you ever felt like someone is following you, you feel a bit of unease, but are afraid to turn your head because of the possibility that there’s actually someone there? Do you ever feel as if reality is a terrifying game that the elite have orchestrated, but you have no control of? Have you ever worried that your friendly neighbor might go off the deep end one day and bludgeon you to death? That is the type of fear that Higurashi no Naku Koro ni creates: a fear of the unknown. Similarly to an H.P. Lovecraft story, the consumer is left at the mercy of time and space to ultimately decide the fate of these characters.
The older you get, the more you begin to succumb to the brand of existential fear in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. When I was younger, I couldn’t quite grasp the silent desperation and unease that is pivotal to Higurashi’s atmospheric tango but upon rewatching, more than a decade later, I understood it perfectly. The divisive plot twists are almost as if they are taken out of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho—the nuance of certain details that seem out-of-place slowly intruding the viewer’s mind, you almost experience the deadly Hinamizawa syndrome ALONGSIDE Higurashi’s cast.
Ryūkishi07, the original creator, took a lot of inspiration from Type-Moon’s Tsukihime. He even got permission from Kinoko Nasu to use Ciel’s design for his teacher character, Ms. Rumiko Chie! Shion and Mion were also loosely inspired by Hisui and Kohaku. Aside from character designs, Ryūkishi07 also wrote with the same sensibilities, regarding morality, as his predecessor, *Kinoko Nasu, did: that morality is circumstantial. People who are usually kind will become evil, when placed in dire straights. This train of thought is replicated as far back as Go Nagai’s Devilman (1972) when random civilians began killing each other, upon learning that the demons disguise themselves as humans. ‘Fear is the mind-killer’―a famous quote from the author of the Dune series, Frank Herbert. And, indeed, it is.
*Kinoko Nasu is the head writer of all Type-Moon properties.
*Studio Deen did an incredible job of making the characters have creepy, micro-expressions—an effect that added an uncanny factor the the archetypal ‘*moe’ visual style. The infamous scenes of extreme violence are not scary, as much as they are incredibly visceral. The sound effects that were chosen for the series amplify the viewer’s imagination, in regards to how a certain act of violence must ‘feel.’ It is no surprise that this aspect is excellent, seeing as how the original game uses those effects to create its immersive experience—an example of this is the very first scene of the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni games: Keiichi is reciting a rueful monologue, saying ‘I never wanted things to end this way,’ while there are gut-wrenching, splattering sounds over a black screen. You are left to fill in the blanks on what’s REALLY going on, this formula is even mirrored in the story structure—the clues are so vague, that the reader can quickly jump to conclusions―just like their fictional counterparts in the story.
*Moe is slang for ‘cute’ in anime. Studio Deen is the best animation studio, in my opinion, they have produced a lot of great series, including two of my all-time favorites: Urusei Yatsura and Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū.
This review contains spoilers! You have been warned!
Since the characters are an integral part of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’s réciprocité; below is a very detailed analysis of each character:
— Keiichi Maebara: The *decoy protagonist; the first arc, the *Demoned Away Chapter—is from Keiichi’s perspective as the new transfer student to Hinamizawa’s *small primary school. At his former school, in Tokyo, Keiichi’s teachers thought that he was lacking in intellect because of his test scores. It is later revealed, that Keiichi is actually a prodigy, but it is impossible for him to learn conventionally. After it is discovered that he’s secretly a genius, he is quickly ostracized by his peers—which drives him to release his stress by shooting at children with a BB gun. He quits after he shoots a little girl in the eye with a pellet. This isn’t canonical, but based on Keiichi’s difficulty to learn to like the other students and with social interaction—I interpreted his character as having Asperger syndrome, or at the very least, being on a lesser spectrum of the disorder. After his mistakes made with the BB gun episode, Keiichi then contracts Hinamizawa syndrome and murders Rena and Mion in cold blood.
*It is revealed in the second half of the anime that Rika Furude is actually the protagonist of the story, the central figure of the events occurring in Hinamizawa, and the only one that can put an end to the tragedies that transpire during the summer of 1983. Onikakushi-hen, 鬼隠し編, translated to ‘Demoned Away Chapter.’ Hinamizawa has a small population of only two-thousand residents and their school is a municipal classroom with children from the ages of elementary to high school—if you’ve ever watched Non Non Biyori, it’s the same kind of town setting.
• Despite the grim beginnings for Keiichi’s character, he has a really good cycle of atonement later in the series and in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Kai. He not only is the first character to remember the past timelines, via déjà vu, but he is able quickly adapt well to rural life. He becomes a big-brother figure to the girlsーthough, he becomes TOO protective in *Satoko’s first arc.
*Tatarigoroshi-hen, 祟殺し編, translated to ‘Curse Killing Chapter.’
• Keiichi technically has a ‘harem,’ but Higurashi no Naku Koro ni extinguishes the tired onslaught of sexual tension and uses the subplot to create intrigue about Satoko Hōjō’s missing brother, Satoshi.
— Rena Ryūgū: Similar to Keiichi, she has lived outside of Hinamizawa—but she was a native of Hinamizawa originally, moved to Honshū, and then moved back, because of a pending divorce between her parents, and Rena having violent outbursts at her school in Honshū. Rena and Keiichi are commonly shipped together because of their relatability to one another, as well as their similar thought processes; both being geniuses that are socially inept. The *Atonement arc solidifies their special relationship. It’s a really touching moment to have Keiichi try his hardest to save Rena, after he killed her in the ‘Demoned Away Chapter.’ Rena reaches her arms out to him and says, ‘Believe me,’ right before he bludgeons her to death with a baseball bat. After remembering that scene, he battles Rena on the school rooftop, her *nata clashing against his baseball bat, and they finally come to a tear-filled resolution.
*A ‘nata’ is a Japanese gardening tool that resembles a meat-cleaver. In layman’s terms, it’s a long blade with a hook on the end. Tsumihoroboshi-hen, 罪滅し編, translated as ‘Atonement Chapter’ and Onikakushi-hen, 鬼隠し編, translated to ‘Demoned Away Chapter.’
• Rena is first portrayed as the crazy, conspiracy theorist but she turns out to actually be right about aliens, government secrets, and brain parasites. She seems to have an uncanny amount of perceptiveness for her age, close to the level of Rika Furude. Which is shocking, seeing how Rika is seven-hundred years old.
NOTE: When I re-watched Higurashi no Naku Koro ni in 2019, I thought Rena would be my best girl—because of my obsession with *Yukari Yuzuki, both are anti-establishment and the most likely to be school shooters. Rena actually commits terroristic acts via threats (by planting explosives all over the school), whereas, Yukari lies in the spectrum of social outcast that plays a lot of *FPS games. Weirdly enough, Satoko is now my favorite girl—when I was younger, I sought out the older and more mature characters, like Rika.
*Yukari Yuzuki (結月ゆかり) is a VOICEROID, voice software distributed by AH-Software that doesn’t fit within the main series of Vocaloid. An acronym for first person shooter.
• Rena has a huge Electra complex with her father. She clings to him because of her mother’s betrayal—Mother Ryūgū cheats on Rena’s father, marries the man she had an affair with, and starts a new family… without Rena. After Rena and her father move back to Hinamizawa, she takes the ‘i’ out of her birth name, Reina, and begins writing her name with *katakana instead of kanji. She even collects weird trinkets from the local junkyard—like a statue of *Colonel Sanders—to fill her father’s house with, so outsiders won’t defy the sanctity of their home.
*This was an unusual thing to do in the Shōwa era of Japan—Higurashi no Naku Koro ni takes place in 1983 and the Shōwa period ended in 1989. The KFC mascot.
• Unfortunately, Rena’s father is extremely gullible and hooks up with a prostitute (Rina Mamiya) that lies about being pregnant with his child to con him into marrying her, so that she can take a percentage of his fortune. One look at Rina’s design ought to scream ‘bad news,’ but Rena’s father is somehow oblivious to it—either being too forgiving for his own good or choosing to overlook the red flags because of loneliness. Either way, his ignorance nearly gets his daughter killed and subsequently turns her into a murderer. Without the madness of the Hinamizawa syndrome, Rena is usually a likable goofball.
—Mion Sonozaki (‘Good’ Twin):
• Abel
*Referring to Cain and Abel from the Bible. In the Book of Genesis, Abel commits the first murder, by killing his brother out of jealousy.
• Yáng
*Referring to the Chinese concept of dualism, yīnyáng. Yīn represents coldness, chaos, femininity, and the moon. Yáng represents warmth, order, masculinity, and the sun.
• Blue Oni
*Referring to the red oni, blue oni paradigm in Japanese lore. The red oni is associated with passion, wildness, and defiance. The blue oni, adversely, is associated with serenity, control, and observing authority.
The character for ‘Mi’ (魅) means three and ‘On’ (音) means sound. In Shintoism, three represents the Imperial Regalia of Japan: the sword—Kusanagi (草薙劍), the mirror—Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), and the jewel—Yasakani no Magatama (八尺瓊勾玉). Mion denotes a sense of nobility from its characters; fitting for the Sonozaki family heir. Ironically, Mion is not really Mion’s name. The identical twins swapped names at birth, without their family knowing—so, Mion has retained the title of *older sister, while secretly being the younger of the two.
*Additionally, names are very important in Japan. In CLAMP’s X/1999, whoever adopts the name of ‘Kamui’ (神居) for the Dragons of Earth is destined to become a merciless killer. A Kamuy (‘Kamui’ in the Japanese spelling) is a spiritual or divine being from Ainu mythology. Japanese citizens believe that certain names represent status or, contrarily, bad luck. There’s even a coming-of-age ceremony, called genpuku (元服) where an adolescent can change their name to signify their rise to adulthood.
• Mion has a crush on Keiichi, but feels insecure about showing him her feminine side, so she will often dress up like Shion, and pretend to be her, to reveal this side to him. But, of course, she’s shooting herself in the foot by doing that because he thinks she’s her sister, Shion. Mion’s inner desires are feminine, but she conveys them in a masculine way, and she is tormented by the fact that she can’t be honest about her own feelings. In the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni fanbase, she’s considered a light ‘*tsundere’ because she isn’t as violent as a ‘tsun’ usually is.
*Tsundere is a portmanteau derived from the terms ‘tsun tsun’ (ツンツン, means ‘to turn away in disgust or anger’) and ‘dere dere’ (デレデレ, means ‘to become affectionate’)
• Because of her position as heir, she is forced to go along with the Sonozaki clans’ evil deeds. Antithetically, Shion is sheltered from all of this, but, because she begins to discover all of the Sonozaki’s secrets upon her *object of desire’s disappearance—it completely breaks her. According to Rika, Mion has never succumbed to Hinamizawa syndrome; adversely, it difficult to come across a timeline where Shion is not infected by the virus.
*Shion is crazily obsessed with Satoko’s brother, Satoshi Hōjō, the phrase originated from the French phrase: ‘objet du désir.’
• Mion often uses her worldly guile to deceive criminals, like *Teppei Hōjō. Mion also harbored feelings for Satoshi, but repressed them for Shion’s sake.
*Satoshi and Satoko Hōjō’s uncle.
• Both Shion and Mion are *ojō characters because of their family’s incredible wealth. Mion doesn’t let on about her grandiose upbringing because she knows about the dark underbelly of the elite and chooses to live a humble life. Shion exudes more of the air of a sheltered princess, she even dresses more extravagantly, and has a refined way of speaking.
*Ojō is a term that refers to wealthy, princess-like characters—in anime comedies, they are often boisterous and extravagant. Ironically, Satoko is the only character with the ojō-sama ‘oh ho ho’ laugh, despite being an impoverished orphan.
• Shion and Mion are perfect foils of each other, because:
—they both have an Achilles heel for falling in love.
—they both despise their grandmother, the current head of the family.
—both are socially intelligent and friendly.
—and both are adept at manipulation tactics.
—Shion Sonozaki (‘Evil’ Twin):
• Cain
• Yīn
• Red Oni
The character for ‘Shi’ (詩) meaning ‘four.’ ‘On’ means (音) sound. In Japan, there are superstitions about the number four, because it is a homonym for ‘death’ in Japanese. This name is perfect for her role in the story, seeing as she becomes a mass-murderer—killing FOUR victims in the terrifying ‘*Eye Opening Chapter.’ Shion is revealed to be the most dangerous and psychotic character of the series.
*The fear of superstition is so bad, that is there an Eastern-based phobia revolving around superstitions involving the number four, called tetraphobia. Meakashi-hen, 目明し編, is translated to ‘Eye Opening’ arc.
• Her story begins when a boy named Satoshi, takes a beating for her when she gets cornered by thugs. He then pats her head and it’s ‘love at first sight’ because she is incredibly sheltered. Shion then becomes obsessed with the thought of him and after finding out that he attends Mion’s school, gets her twin to agree to swap places with her, so she can spy on him from afar and, possibly, get to know him.
• After talking to him a little bit, Shion discovers that Satoshi and Satoko are being abused by their aunt and uncle. Shion begins to attribute the cause of Satoshi’s stress to Satoko, even though Satoshi is just worried that he can’t stop her from being abused. One day, Satoko starts breaking down in the middle of class because she’s having difficulty eating and, Shion begins to beat her up; perceiving Satoko wailing as a burden on Satoshi. Satoshi then throws Shion off of her and shields Satoko with his body, in a ‘what the hell is wrong with you’ manner, saying that ‘*Mion’ is no different from their abusers.
*Mion gets blamed for Shion’s violent episode because she is disguised as her.
• Shortly after, Satoshi goes missing after murdering their aunt. Their aunt was likely tormenting Satoko because her husband, their uncle, was sexually abusing his niece. Shion doesn’t know about the murder and assumes that her family, the Sonozaki’s, have murdered him because they didn’t approve of her dating a person from the Hōjō bloodline… when in all reality, it was because HE had killed someone.
• Because of her involvement with Satoshi, the Sonozaki clan forces Shion to use a torture device to peel off three of her own fingernails; one to protect Satoshi, one to protect Mion, and the third to protect her bodyguard, Kasai Tatsuyoshi. The clan once had her go through a torture method, *yubitsume, because she defied her family and ran away to boarding school. The Sonozaki torture chamber would later become Shion’s playground.
*Yubitsume, also referred to as ‘yubi o tobasu’ (meaning ‘finger flying’), is a yakuza method—in a which the person who is being punished must cut off the tip of their left pinky to apologize.
• After the torture, Shion assails Mion for watching while the Sonozaki’s did that to her and accusing her of knowing what happened to Satoshi. Mion showed Shion that she had peeled off three of her own fingernails to atone for what happened to her sister, and admitted that she had loved Satoshi, too. Things calmed down a bit after that, but her family admitted that the third fingernail was not to insure Satoshi’s safety, but her own (suggesting that she should have taken off four fingernails to spare Satoshi’s life)!
• Shion completely snaps after that and begins to go on a self-righteous vengeful, murder spree. She begins with a member of the Sonozaki counsel (a man close with close ties to her grandmother), *Oryō Sonozaki, Rika Furude, and, finally, Satoko Hōjō. Satoko’s death is particularly horrible because Shion prolongs her death, by stabbing into her arms (causing an excruciating amount of pain), but Satoko refuses to cry because she has *survivor’s guilt from Satoshi disappearing and thinks that if she hadn’t cried as much, her big brother would still be around. It sets off Shion that Satoko admits to causing Satoshi heartache, causing Shion to go EVEN MORE axe-crazy, until she stabs Satoko to death. It appears that Shion *ejaculates from the pleasure of killing Satoko, but then starts screaming in despair because she remembers that she had promised Satoshi that she would protect Satoko.
*Her grandmother. The definition of survivor’s guilt: a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder—the victim is tormented that they survived while someone else didn’t, constantly feeling guilt, and wondering why they were the one to survive. This ‘ejaculation’ is up for speculation but I personally didn’t think that the ‘mystery fluid’ looked very much like urine and the way it ran down her thighs looked sexual.
• The ‘Eye Opening’ arc is all kind of messed up. Shion is basically a pleasure maniac who is very, very vengeful because of her desire for Satoshi. What she has for Satoshi cannot be called ‘love,’ but pure obsession. I mean, she barely knew him and there are several signifiers in the series that imply that Satoshi was *not as benevolent as Shion perceived him to be. Shion projected an angelic image onto him because he saved her, though, it’s obvious that she could have easily taken care of herself.
*It’s suspicious that when Keiichi patted Satoko’s head, she had flashbacks of SATOSHI petting her head, then she shoves Keiichi away, projectile vomits on the floor, and begins to sob. Why would she vomit at the thought of Satoshi touching her if he hadn’t sexually abused her? Vomiting from being touched is explicitly a symptom of sexual abuse. It’s possible that their uncle, Teppei, forced him to because Teppei is the worst person in the series, but nonetheless it’s suspect. The episode where Satoko freaks out from being touched is Episode 10: Bond (祟殺し編 其の弐 キズナ).
• Shion’s romanticization of the situation caused her to go off the deep end and fill in the gaps with what had happened to Satoshi, due to her naïveté. In Buddhism, the two primary causes of suffering are desire and avidyā (ignorance). This, in turn, can lead to evil and destruction because of a individual’s misgivings. Devil Homura, from Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica, is another example of desire becoming malevolent. Siddhārtha Gautama, the pinnacle figure in Buddhism, found enlightenment by extinguishing the fires of desire, hatred, and ignorance. The exact opposite of Shion’s progression as a character.
Satoko Hōjō: Along with Rika, Satoko is easily the most pitiable character. When I first got into Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, the message boards were filled with contempt for this character. I didn’t really understand it―I guess because she cried for her brother a lot and was a distressed little girl? I’m sure that many of the people frequenting the forums, at the time, were teenagers that didn’t have a grasp on human suffering. Either way, Satoko is an extremely strong character and is a large pillar in this series’ central theme.
• Satoko Hōjō’s mother and step-father were tragically killed, while protesting, in favor of a dam being built in Hinamizawa—that would later lead to Satoko and her brother, Satoshi, being ostracized because the majority of the town was against the dam being built. Not only that, but the Sonozaki clan were lining many peoples’ pockets to protest the dam’s construction. Satoko came down with the dreaded Hizamizawa symdrome, as a child, and pushed her parents off the dam—paranoid that they were both trying to kill her.
• Satoko constantly lives with the guilt of her parents death, and when Satoshi disappears, her psyche becomes even more fragile than before. She endures the abuse from her uncle because she convinces herself that she needs to prove to Satoshi that she’s strong. He not only *physically abuses her, *sexually abusing her, but is grooming her. It isn’t directly stated what he’s grooming her for, but it is heavily implied that he’s raising her to be a prostitute, like Rina Mamiya.
*Teppei beats her up and ‘throws ashtrays at her.’ When *Keiichi goes to Teppei’s house to see Satoko, her body is covered in bruises—including bruising around her thighs—from that, it seems pretty clear that she’s getting sexually abused; another indicator is how frequently he forces her to skip school. Satoko’s uncle, Teppei, is a pimp. It’s revealed at the end of the ‘Eye Opening’ arc that his mistress, Rina, is working for him as a prostitute.
* Episode 11: Borderline (祟殺し編 其の参 境界).
• In the ‘Massacre’ arc, Satoko is rescued from her horrible situationーthe townspeople band together, put aside their prejudices towards the Hōjō family name, and work to get Satoko removed from that household. Satoko then begins living with her best friend, Rika Furude. It was the best possible scenario for Satoko, but, man, did she have to go through a lot of hardships!
* Minagoroshi-hen, 皆殺し編, is translated to the ‘Massacre Chapter.’
• Unfortunately, in the ‘Disaster Awakening’ arc, Nietzsche’s theory of ‘*eternal reoccurrence’ becomes a theme and Satoko is forced to watch all of her friends be killed—escaping as the lone survivor. In the past timelines, Satoko had SEVERE survivor’s guilt because of what happened to Satoshi and her parents but the amplified events in this chapter cause her to go into a trauma-induced coma. Poor Satoko never gets a break!
*Eternal reoccurrence is a theory created by 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche,
stating that every event that has happened will repeat eternally through time and space.
• Satoko grows a lot in the second season: Kai, and even develops a battle skill—which incorporates *her talent for setting traps. After she braves the horror of Shion’s wrath, she has a similar moment before the *main antagonist, Miyo Takano, points a gun to her head and asks her to answer *which vegetable is green: broccoli or cauliflower. Satoko tries her best to answer the question, even though she knows that she’s going to be killed. Satoko even calls Shion *big sister in the second season timeline, and Shion treats Satoko like her real younger sister—even to the lengths of being more protective over Satoko than her OWN little sister.
*Because of her trap-setting skills, Satoko is often artistically portrayed as a tanuki. Miyo’s fan nickname is ‘death nurse.’ It’s never explicitly stated in the anime, but in the visual novel, both Satoko and Satoshi are color-blind—so, Satoko has difficulty differentiating the two vegetables because they look identical without color. Satoko calls Satoshi ‘nii-nii’ (にーにー) and later calls Shion ‘nee-nee’ (ねーねー) after becoming attached to her.
Rika Furude: A SEVEN-HUNDRED YEAR OLD trapped in an elementary schoolers’ body, forced to relive the same summer of 1983 in an *eternal loop, until she can stop the *Great Hinamizawa Disaster from occurring. To make things worse, she is often *murdered in her attempts to stopped the cursed chain of events. Having to relive the pain of dying and losing her friends has made the Rika, at the start of the story, become cynical and desperate. It is even revealed that when she pats the heads of her classmates, it’s in a condescending way, congratulating them for not getting psychotic episodes!
*Speaking of eternal recurrence. The Great Hinamizawa Disaster is a result of shady members of the Japanese government testing out a biological weapon on Hinamizawa. For some reason, she is often murdered via disembowelment—her bodily dissections has even occurred while she’s still alive! In certain arcs, her corpse is eaten by birds—like a Tibetan Sky Burial.
• An alternate side of Rika is shown in Minagoroshi-hen, when she outwardly proclaims that she wishes, at the very least, she would just survive! With hundreds of years of torment, it’s no surprise that Rika snaps or bitterly lashes out once in a while. She is said to be the reincarnation of the god, *Oyashiro, but she bitterly rebukes the title.
*The town’s deity.
• Despite being in a child’s body, she implied to be an alcoholic and frequently drinks her *Bernkastel wine after Satoko has fallen asleep! Rika usually mimics a child’s high pitch, while speaking, but sometimes breaks character when she loses her shit and reverts to a more womanly inflection, her ‘Frederica’ tone. I commend her seiyū, Yukari Tamura, for so excellently switching between the two voices!
*Frederica Bernkastel is the name of Rika’s witch counterpart in Umineko no Naku Koro ni—notably, the side of her that has completely given up on humanity.
• Despite witnessing the death of her friends over and over again, she hasn’t lost her desire to save them and her bond with them has grown stronger and stronger. Unbeknownst to her, the love they have for each other would be able to reach Keiichi—making him the singularity in the accursed time loop. Because of this, Rika is partial towards Keiichi because he finally broke the cycle, and the feels the most resentment for Shion… for obvious reasons.
• There is a clear change in Rika after the Keiichi ordeal—she finally feels like her seven hundred years of *obfuscating stupidity to try and lead her classmates in the right direction had had a purpose. When you think deeply about Rika’s verbal tics, they’re quite sad, she says ‘pachi pachi’ (‘clap clap,’ パチーパチ) and ‘nipaa’ (‘smile,’ にぱあ) regularly. They are both onomatopoeias, implying that Rika has forgotten how to do these things naturally. Rika DOES smile normally towards the end of Minagoroshi-hen and Matsuribayashi-hen though.
*Due to the conditions of the time loop, she is not able to tell anyone else the truth about the Great Hinamizawa Disaster or the invariable time travel.
Hanyū: A companion deity to Rika, her tragic backstory makes her rail against the notion of self-sacrifice. She was once a human, that was used as a village sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind—Hanyū discovered after death that the pursuit of retribution through human sacrifice is fruitless. She reveals to Rika that she is basically a yōkai that ascended to godhood after death.
• Hanyū has verbal tics that are really annoying, such as ‘au au au’ (会うー会うー会う). Unlike the meaningfulness of Rika’s tics, Hanyū usually makes sounds to grovel after being unhelpful to the main cast—despite her position as DEITY! Hanyū constantly apologizes and urges Rika to give up, when things get rough. Her character is somewhat remedied in the OVAs, Kira and Rei, but even when she is presented to the audience as cute—it’s difficult to forget her role in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Kai.
Miyo Takano: The ice queen villainess that is immeasurably cruel, but easy to sympathize with after her upbringing is brought to light. Her motivation is to carry on her adoptive grandfather’s legacy, that being his research, after everyone has forgotten about him. She then gets manipulated by the government to perform human experimentation on the victims of her virus, the brain parasites that created the Hinamizawa syndrome, and ultimately creates a biological weapon that could theoretically wipe out humanity.
In the end, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is not only an anime achievement—but a literary one, as well. Not many stories are as multi-faceted, atmospheric, and as equally character driven as the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series. A narrative that not only creates a world entrenched in primal fear, but then turns it on its head to subvert the lingering paranoia that the characters’ have come to rely upon. And much like the phenomena of Japanese cicada cries, the summer will come and end with the same frequency. Momentary fear is defeated by the will to survive, life goes on.
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