I wish my memory of all this was better, but it’s just been too long and too many hundreds of anime in-between for me to remember all the details with Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I know this much, this was not exactly how things played out in the original anime of “Onikakushi-hen”. At least not this early in the story. Among the things that struck me as different:
- I don’t remember Rika telling Keiichi to trust Rena, and implying that it was he that was suffering from Hinamizawa Syndrome (though of course she didn’t say that).
- I definitely don’t remember the Irie Clinic being “remodeled”. Does this imply that Takano is not directly involved as a villain? Given her disappearance (which is also new) that seems possible.
- Rika and Satoko being killed in “normal” fashion struck me as different too – at least at this point in the story. Certainly by Rena (as was implied).
- On an unrelated note, how the hell did Keiichi survive being stabbed like 90 times , especially with no one around to find him and call for help?
Put it all together and some things are very out of alignment, though whether aligned with “Onidamashi-hen” I have no idea. I suppose Rika thought that Keiichi was suffering the initial effects of H.S. and was trying to get him through it, but that seems to have been a miscalculation on her part. Maybe Satoko was fully lost to H.S., and tried to kill Rika, directly resulting in what happened there? As far as the business with the clinic I have absolutely no idea what that’s supposed to imply.
There’s another possibility here of course, which is that Keiichi is succumbing to Hinamizawa Syndrome and his extreme paranoia caused him to believe that Rena was trying to kill him. That might also explain how he could gave survived, if things didn’t actually go down as he remembers them (and maybe he even stabbed himself). You can’t trust the POV narrative in Higurashi, we know that from past experience – sometimes what we’re shown is actually the paranoid delusions of the point-of-view character. Which casts the behavior of the nurse at the end in doubt.
Oh, well – not knowing is part of the fun with Higurashi, though the problem is that even within the individual arcs/routes the unreliable narrator effect is a constant companion and you can’t trust what your eyes are seeing. Start combining them – or adding new ones altogether – and there’s a risk of all this degenerating into a cascade failure of confusion and incomprehensibility. Not that we’re anywhere close to that yet – more in the realm of not knowing what the hell is going on. Which isn’t a bad place to be with Higurashi, I suppose…
Anchen
October 23, 2020 at 11:59 pmYup, not knowing is definitely fun. I also did not expect this episode to end this arc at all. I thought with the pacing we would get another episode or two to further align it timing wise with Onikakaushi-hen. I think relatively speaking the end of episode 3 for Gou was around the same “time” as the end of episode 2 of the original, with Oiishi’s call. So when things went rapidly south here, I was fairly surprised.
My initial guess is it’s possible that both Rena and Keiichi are suffering from the syndrome, with Rena probably having the worse of it thanks to intervention from Rika. While it is possible it is *all* delusion for Keiichi, there’s several details that Rena seems to be doing that Keiichi doesn’t really seem to have any reason to have a delusion of. The scratching of the neck, the comments about her father and happiness,, the moments we are shown Rena being spooky-eyed that Keiichi apparently didn’t even see or register, all seem to be pointing that she is having legitimate issues herself.
We can also immediately see the weird filter that happens after Keiichi enters in the ktichen, that could certainly be just for dramatic effect but I feel like is his syndrome kicking into high gear so the entire scene/fight after I think has to be taken with an extreme grain of salt.
Some weird tidbits that I am not sure are relevant at all are that when Rena initially knocks over the clock that Keiichi later uses as a weapon, it reads 20:10. Then the clock is shown later after the fight seems to be over it is 20:24. Not sure if that is significant at all but maybe something with that passage of time might be a clue. The other thing that is suspicious is what is wrapped/appears injured on Keiichi when he wakes up in the hospital. Basically head bandages, and a neck brace. Although I wonder if the neck brace is actually trying to stop him from scratching his neck? He also doesn’t seem like he is being held as a murder suspect for Rena. He’s getting visitors, and it doesn’t seem like Oiishi is asking him questions like he is a suspect. So what really happened to Rena and the fight aftermath? I wonder.
And that’s not even getting to Rika and Satoko which to me is even wilder and out of left field. I’m really interested if Rika will have a little opening scene next episode on what happened/what went wrong or if we jump straight into the next arc.
Yann
October 25, 2020 at 11:33 amNot sure what rock I was under all this time but I’d never heard of Higurashi, and I know nothing about it… I totally hated the first episode (the extra kawaii genki lolicon voices feel like chalkboard scraping to me, only worse…) but I persevered due to your enthusiastic reviews.
Now? I definitely like it better… But this episode was more of a big WTF for me. I had no idea shit was gonna hit the fan so hard and so fast!
I just really hope we get an explanation as to why he didn’t die after being stabbed in the chest 20+ times.
Guardian Enzo
October 25, 2020 at 11:45 amROFL. I don’t consider myself a huge Higarashi fan – a dilettante at best, and I like it rather than love it – so I’m surprised my posts have had that effect. Nevertheless it is fun, though I could see how the seiyuu performances (which are wholly unchanged from the original adaptations) could be a bit off-putting for the uninitiated. I would say the acting style is quite deliberate, and seen as part of the series’ overall vibe.
If you know absolutely nothing about it, the stuff that happens in this ep is pretty confusing. “Gou” may be taking things in an original direction even the VN vets haven’t seen, but it still assumes a certain level of knowledge of the franchise. As a sort of mid-range veteran (a dilettante, as I said) I think the most explanation for how Kei-chan could possibly have survived being stabbed 90 times is that he wasn’t actually stabbed 90 times. Higurashi logic aside (though it’s certainly relevant) that’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Kim
October 26, 2020 at 8:18 amI’ve been rewatching the original series
I never considered myself a big Higurashi fan but it’a been fun to revisit and I really don’t remember much of anything
I did kind of think the stabbing scene in this episode was a bit over the top/almost comical even for Higurashi standards but I am interested to see where this will go and how things will change from the original
Though this ending also made me sad because Keiichi tried to listen to Rika to trust Reina and it still turned out badly like there was no good option here.
Guardian Enzo
October 26, 2020 at 11:18 amThe motto with Higurashi (including the acting) seems to be “too much is never enough”.