Yeah, I’m pretty much lost now.  I mean, even in the original this chain of events gets pretty confusing.  Now we’re dealing with a rejiggered mashup of different Higurashi shards ultimately resulting in what’s probably a new variant, so even if my memory was good enough to remember all the details from almost a decade ago I’d still be swimming upstream. The main consolation, as I noted last week is that the gap between viewers like me and hardcore ones is a lot smaller this time around – no one knows exactly what the hell is going on.

After the madness which closed the “Onikakusi/Onidamashi” arc last week, things are back in comedy slice of life mode.  But that’s the norm for Higurashi, which has always incorporated the reset button into its narrative structure (more elegantly interwoven with the plot than in most VN adaptations, I’d say).  This time it’s a gaming event at the local hobby shop, where the club members take on the other locals interested in that sort of thing.  All well and good that, Though Keiichi is having a considerably harder time of it than his clubmates.  Eventually he bribes the chibisukes kicking his ass at whatever game that is by pimping out Satoko and Rika, which is sort of disturbing if this series were more serious than it is.

The doll, of course, is important – even I remember that much.  And the perpetual X factor is you have Rika, who’s aware of what’s really going on in Hinamizawa, trying to circumvent disaster at every turn (always unsuccessfully, pretty much).  She engineers Keiichi giving the doll he receives as a thank you gift to Mion (who gets shafted).  If indeed that was Mion at the tournament, because “Watanagashi-hen” features the other X factor – the “Y factor” if you will – of Shion, Mion’s twin sister.  These two have a way of pretending to be the other, though we can usually tell which is which if we pay close attention.

I feel pretty confident it was Mion waitressing at Angel Mort, and that she pretended to be Shion because she was embarrassed to be seen in that role.  I’m also pretty confident that it was Mion posing as Shion who brought Keiichi a bunch of food (seriously, this kid’s parents are flighty as hell) because she was too embarrassed to admit she was doing it herself.  But Shion has a considerable backstory of her own, not delved into yet, and in the original “Watanagashi” I remember her impersonating Mion (there are reasons why) more than the other way around.

So – did we see Shion in this episode at all?  Which sister was it at the end who came to Kei-chan’s defense when he was getting roughed up by the bikers (in Japan, most biker gangs are actually the type of folks who organize recycling days and such, but poetic license and all)?  And how confident was Rika that she was meddling in the affairs of the sister she intended to meddle with during the doll scenario?  Because if she got that wrong it could easily make things worse, faster.  That’s the thing, though – even if Rika has the right Sonozaki, the act she takes to try and prevent tragedy is sometimes the event that triggers it.  For now it’s just a matter of waiting it out, as Higurashi will provide us some (a few at least) answers, but only when it’s good and ready.