I’d sort of forgotten about how this arc (at at least the one it’s a twist on) managed to do something seemingly impossible – make Ooishi even more of a creeper than he already was.  But he is, no question – his abuse of K1 in the schoolyard certainly proves that.  It’s a convenient reminder of how these characters change from story arc to arc, in ways that that are fundamental and not always subtle.  There are external reasons for some of that of course, but our assumptions for how people will behave can’t always be trusted with Higurashi.

Assuming Gou follows the basic pattern of the two major anime adaptations (and assuming my memory is correct) “Tatarigoroshi Tataridamashi-hen” is the last of the setup arcs, the ones that more or less set the table for the canon-plot driven second half of the series.  As such we see Rika once again being pretty passive, for reasons that don’t seem immediately obvious.  Once more we see Keiichi being led down a dark path by one of the girls in his circle, and by his own good intentions.  Satoko’s situation is a nightmare – Teppei certainly is – but there are signs not everything is as it appears to be.

Satoshi is a key to all this of course.  Just where is he exactly?  Is he alive or dead?  Everyone seems unanimous that he shielded Satoko as best he could from the worst her family could throw at her,  but would he really voluntarily leave her to fend for herself?  As usual Mion is the most connected person in the room but where Satoko is concerned, she seems pretty impotent.  Her past attempt to involve child protective services clearly failed, possibly because Satoko may have lied to them in the past about being abused by her real father.  And Chie-sensei fares no better this time around.

We see from the opening moments of the episode that Keiichi is remembering things he should have no memory of.  And we see from the final ones that Satoko is unhinged in a way that can’t totally be explained by Teppei’s behavior towards her.  It’s almost as if there are two parallel tracks playing at the same time here – Satoko’s family drama, and something else just beneath the surface.  That’s pretty much always the case with Higurashi of course, but it never strikes me more unmistakably than it does with this arc (whatever name you give it).