Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – SOTSU is running out of time to show it has a reason to exist. Which is another way of saying, to prove that there’s any reason to watch it. I didn’t watch all of it this week, mind – I’m not going to sit through another viewing of something I hated the first time. There was a lot to skip over, but I kind of expected that going in. Thankfully there was some original stuff with Eua and Hanyuu but it wasn’t exactly compelling. And I can’t be bothered to care who the hell Vier is.
Effectively, then, we’ve reached exactly the same point we were before the start of “Satokowashi-hen”. And it took 13 episodes to do it. It’s hard not to look at Sotsu, then, as a crass and cynical exercise in padding the bill. Or, alternatively, a kind of creative masturbation for an audience. Either way in hindsight the whole thing comes off as rather pointless and disrespectful to the fans, even if the whole Teppei redemption arc was (almost accidentally) a worthwhile addition to the Higurashi canon.
What now? I mean, they could recap Satokowashi I suppose – which would be an exercise in unintended comedy to be sure. I actually liked that arc and it’s not a guro fest like much of Higurashi can be, but I’m just so tired of being jerked around – enough already. If indeed the plan is to wrap this all up in two episodes (since that’s not enough time to fully recap Satokowashi that seems likely) that surely has to start now, which might actually make the final two episodes worth watching. Especially if they’d aired at the end of Kai, where they should have.
