Sotsu is basically fanfic at this point.  But then, given how frankly boring most of it has been with its endless recaps and torture porn, maybe that’s not a bad thing.  It’s always a bit of a spectacle when authors descend into fanfic mode with their own work, as Ryukishi07 is doing here.  A bit unseemly – you feel embarrassed for them, as you should.  But it’s fascinating in a grotesque sort of way too.  As if they’re unhinged and unleashed, as very much seems to be the case with this latest turn.

Let’s face it, we all know this is going to end with some BS reconciliation between Satoko and Rika, and unfortunately that knowledge sucks some of the fun out of even a batshit nuts episode like this.  Even so it may very well have crept into the “so bad it’s good” column, certainly an improvement over just bad.  Pretty much all logic and reason are out the window, and it’s just the two lolis screaming as they find creative new ways to abuse each other.  Mostly Satoko to Rika of course, but at least it was going both ways to an extent at last.

I will say this much – it looked great.  I guess most of the season being recycled footage from Gou left Passione with some money in the tank, because they pulled out all the stops here.  I don’t think of Passione as an elite action studio by any means – just okay most of the time – but this was really handsomely done.  It’s a shame it was all so ludicrous and inane, but again, it was so ludicrous and inane as to be sort of fun.  That all culminates in the scythe vs. bat (damn, Satoko loves baseball) on the rooftop.  I’ll say this for Satoko, she’s a contact hitter.

The real kicker is that this whole overdramatic spectacle is the result of petty adolescent jealousy.  It’s just Satoko dealing with what adolescents deal with routinely, their friends outgrowing them and leaving them behind.  To be clear I feel no sympathy for Satoko whatsoever (though as I’ve noted I never liked her much anyway, in any Higurashi incarnation).  In no way is anything she’s done in Sotsu-Gou justified, and none of it would have been possible if she weren’t psychotic to begin with.  But it’s all so mundane, and that’s what really kicks up the ridiculous factor with this version of the series to eleven.  Maybe that humanizes the story in a way the more consequential versions don’t – or maybe I’m reaching a bit trying to find something nice to say…