Ranked #45

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Watching Higurshi is like locking a group of happy people in a test chamber, only coming back to find they've hacked each other into a bloody mess. Its horrific, its shocking, and yet a part of you, cannot help but wonder, how did it happen?

The curiosity takes over... and so you repeat the experiment, knowing full well that those cute looking teenagers you just sent are going to end up as bloody pulps. But hey, at least each time they die, you're one step closer to figuring out why they died, it's all good.

Higurashi essentially places you in the role of the scientist. It divides itself into several arcs, each of which begin exactly the same. A teenager moves into a remote countryside village, and befriends a group of sweet fangirls that could have come out right from a harem rom/com. Then, explicably, thing go wrong... very wrong.

The pacing is excellent, the suspence pulpable. You know terrible things are going to happen, but you don't know exactly what. Higurashi would appeal to two types of people. The maglomanics who cackle madly in seeing a happy community descend into the depth of oblivion, and the curious scientist who watched each arc with intense interest... for they want to know exact *why* everything goes wrong (though they can also cackle madly just a little).

The true draw of Higurashi is the mystery. The series will leave you guessing, postulating all manner of reasons why the sweetest girl in the class is now butchering every child in sight with a giant cleaver. Each experiment you run (arc you see) reveals a few more clues, and you formulate a new theory, only to find it shattered by another totally unexpected horror in the very same arc. The beauty of Higurashi is that a mystery of such grand scale, every detail is meticulous, and while every bloody event seems random at first, they all eventually fall into place

Not only are the characters are memorable, and filled with interesting secrets, and unlike school days, they're actually also extreme likeable. This is no small achievements, given that they're portrayed doing everything from ripping nails of off each other to nailing 9 year girls on a cross.

Higurashi is really the pinnacle of a dark mystery. You'll start off the mad scientist, watching those innocents in the test chamber with morbid curiosity. Yet, slowly, that morbid curiosity will be transformed into sympathy, and as you fall in love these victims, that initial curiosity will into turn a genuine desire to figure out whats going on so that they can be saved.

***

As always, I welcome feedback!
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Being one of the few non-anthology horror series out there and, furthermore, being one of the very few that are animated, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (a.k.a. ‘When the Cicadas Cry’) really has little to compete with in its genre and medium.

At the start, you're introduced to Keiichi, a teenage boy who has recently moved to the town of Hinamizawa. This town is portrayed as the ideal place to live. With its friendly neighbors, its disposition that is literally sunny, and its tranquility that is so calming that it is often only broken by the chirping of cicadas, it’s hard not to wonder ‘what could possibly go wrong’?

Unfortunately for Keiichi (but fortunately for us), everything goes wrong. It’s easy to have your suspicions raised after realizing that there is only one school in the town and that the town's residents partake in a bizarre ritual during a festival known as Watanagashi once every year. However, it’s not the festival itself that instills paranoia, apprehension, and fear in the clueless Keiichi as to the trouble he’s now in, but the shady history behind it. As he is told by a fellow town resident, every year for the last four years there has been one death along with one disappearance on the night of Watanagashi. Over the course of the series, the viewer experiences the destruction of what is initially a peaceful and welcoming atmosphere in the alternating perspectives of each of the main characters.

==Characters==

It is shown that Keiichi has already befriended four girls in his class – Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Keiichi is friendly and caring – so caring is he that, even if he were to do something heinous, it would be for the good of others. Rena is a soft spoken and timid girl with a quirky love of rummaging through a junkyard for ‘cute’ things to take home with her…Although this obsession of hers is, unfortunately for her friends, not limited to that area. Mion is the class president and she is a tomboy who hides behind a tough exterior as a way of dealing with her insecurities. Not much is known about the youngest, Rika, so she is the most mysterious of the friends. However, if you pay close attention to the few scenes in which focus is placed on her, you will see that there is more to her than meets the eye. Satoko is best known for setting traps and, specifically, victimizing Keiichi with them. However, despite her overconfident, whiny, and bratty personality, she has a guilty conscience related to her dark past.

The most intriguing supporting character is Takano, a nurse at the local clinic. She is especially good at creeping out the kids with her tendency to pop up out of nowhere and share scary stories about Hinamizawa and Watanagashi. There is something eerie about her and she often leaves the viewers guessing what her purpose in the series could be. The supporting characters do generally play a major role in the progression of the story arcs so they aren’t filler characters.

The characters don’t develop in the traditional way due to the story arcs; there is little chance for them to develop, really. Still, you understand each of them well enough to recognize when they are behaving out of character. This leaves you to wonder why they are behaving out of character and it’s not a case of bad direction. The extreme changes in their morals and rationale aren’t random or just for the sake of getting the plot moving. You see that, under certain conditions, it is just as easy to convince yourself that being inhumane is excusable as it is to recognize that what you are doing doesn’t solve anything. You see flaws in them that we can see in ourselves and it’s often these seemingly inconsequential flaws that lead them (and anyone else) on a path to destruction.

Although this is a psychological horror series, it focuses more on horror than psychology. So, if you’re expecting some profound insight into the characters’ thought processes, you will be disappointed. It carries the stigma that seems to curse most horror movies – It’s difficult to care for a character’s wellbeing because you don’t get to know him or her well enough to feel attached. Still, it’s not so much about the individual characters as it is about their bonds with one another. The focus on friendship later on is a little cheesy and may even have been tacked on, but it does work in context with the plot and they don’t overdose the viewers with too many lame ‘inspirational’ dialogues/catchphrases like some shows do.

On the plus side, you see so many sides to the main characters that it sometimes feels like you’re watching two entirely different people – except they both look alike (this is disregarding the twins…who are almost impossible to differentiate after a certain point). This is what saves them from being generic and forgettable. The character interactions mostly consist of them joking around and playing with one another (they’re kids, after all) when they aren’t making or discussing any theories or revelations that make the plot move forward. There are also implications of romance but, in the end, the romance is contrived almost to the point of being forgettable as it feels like forced and unnecessary filler to add more purpose to the existence of certain characters. To conclude, the characterizations aren’t too shallow but they also aren’t human enough for the viewer to truly care for them, so they’re ultimately acceptable given the show they are in.

==Story==

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’s story progression is an unusual one, disregarding the plot itself. While they at first seem pointless and redundant or just meant to further massacre the viewers’ minds, each arc instead presents new information about the town and new clues that bring you closer to solving the mystery, as well as background information about the characters and their relationships with one another.

One of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’s strengths lies in its entertainment value. Episodes often leave the viewer with a cliffhanger at just the right moment, so it’s hard to not move on to the next episode immediately afterward. Also, it’s fun to watch the minds of characters being toyed around with while predicting whether or not the outcome will be a happy one. There’s something so very amusing about seeing kids and teenagers creep each other out, scream and cackle insanely, attack one another, and, when taking short breaks between all of this, still attempt to grasp onto what little relationship they had with one another in the first place. This alone is funnier than the show’s actual attempts at comedy (not to say they fail or anything). The killings and violence aren’t random either. The victims are almost always people who have some sort of relationship with their assailants and you see what drives said assailants over the edge to commit such acts. Even this aspect of the show isn't redundant; it's actually pretty creative as no two deaths are alike. Also, the foreshadowing is great; it’s not overdone and it never makes it painfully obvious as to what will happen or who is an antagonist. I think we’ve all experienced watching a horror movie which plays overly dramatized music in the background of certain scenes. This usually results in an unnecessarily excessive feeling of foreboding. Thankfully, this annoyance isn’t present in this anime.

I do have a minor complaint which is actually due to the aforementioned story arcs. While I understand that the show would not have as much of a point if it wasn’t for them, this does little to lessen the disappointment felt at the conclusion of one. I’ve heard time and again that it was the supernatural elements that kill the atmosphere as well as the progress that was gradually built from the start of a show, and this series is a prime example of that. This is because, here, it happens over and over again. The series’ biggest drawback is, in the end, one of the things that make it stand out from the crowd – its very manner of telling its story. While the rest of the story arcs do nearly as good a job of maintaining the viewers’ interest, it’s now mainly because they’re confused and eager to understand exactly what is going on. The suspense and horror aren’t half as gripping from this point on because the characters can bypass the situations almost as though they never happened to begin with. It almost kills what makes this show as memorable as it is – the unpredictability that is felt at its beginning. You now know what will happen, even if you don’t know how it will happen. As happy as I was to find a horror series that is actually good when I first watched the show, this did feel almost like a slap in the face.

This is just one negative I’d take away from the show in terms of its entertainment value. I wouldn’t be giving my honest opinion if I didn’t bring it up and I know that there are others who feel similarly.

Despite my previous complaints, the arcs aren’t all bad. It is fun to predict what unfortunate mishaps will next befall these friends and who will do what to whom. I did, after all, praise the series for its creativity and it wouldn't be creative in this way if it wasn't for the implementation of the arcs.

In regards to the violence, there isn’t enough explicitness to the gore to make anyone who is at least a casual viewer of horror films nauseous. It’s initially bizarre to see the brutal side of the show because it contrasts so strongly with the comparably kiddy feel at the start of almost every episode. But beyond that, it’s nothing to feel apprehensive about unless you hate violence to the point of not even being able to watch it animated and/or the thought of seeing kids in such situations bothers you. There is one scene that succeeds so well in building tension that the time spent watching it feels much longer than it actually is. And the irony of it is that it will most likely keep many people from biting their nails as they are watching it. In the end, the show does contain blood and gore but it doesn’t depend on it and that makes it enjoyable for a broader group of people.

==Art / Animation==

The animation isn’t necessarily a letdown aspect of the show but it does have its ups and downs. While the characters do have the typical look you can expect in most anime characters (big bobble heads with big eyes and skinny bodies), it’s certain scenes that showcase how great the artists are at making the characters’ expressions shift quickly and drastically yet smoothly from cute/calm to evil/psychotic/horrified. As for the animation’s low points…well, the characters sometimes have physical features that are a bit off such as a missing nose or there is a disturbing lack of symmetry in general. But is it so noticeable that it kills enjoyment and is distracting? I don’t think so. Most people will get over it even if it did bother them in the first place. And in terms of the character designs, they aren’t over-the-top and they aren’t boring. You will see pretty much every possible hair color in this show.

==Music==

The opening theme is beautifully sung and leaves a strong feeling of curiosity as well as anticipation in the viewer once it’s ended. It’s one of those openings that make marathons easier to get through since it’s something to look forward to before the actual show. The main theme is one of my favorites; it’s almost like a soothing lullaby with a tinge of sadness. It sounds a bit too serene to fit the show’s general atmosphere but it does well to reflect the tragic and dark themes of the story. There are upbeat tracks as well to fit the show’s lighthearted scenes and they can be recycled countless times and not feel torturous to listen to over and over again. However, it is the tension mounting tracks that really stand out.

==Voice Acting==

This is what impressed me most when I first watched Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and it still does. Considering the material they’re given, the seiyuu and voice actors have to be very versatile. There is a lot of crying, screaming, and mad laughter required of the cast and the seiyuu in particular do an amazing job. It’s hard to confidently say who gave the best performance because they all have their shining moments. In short, I’d say this show has some of the best voice acting I’ve heard yet. As for the English dub, I did not watch an entire episode of it (the English dub of the series has yet to be completed, anyway). I did see enough to say that they obviously casted people for their voices rather than for their acting skills. Except for Keiichi’s voice actor who is just ridiculously terrible – I think the guy must have bribed those in charge of casting into hiring him. On a more positive note, his monotone makes it funny to hear him scream. There is no subtlety to the voice acting in general and that makes it even more painful to watch. Shockingly, there is emotion, but that’s only when a character is screaming or laughing; it’s pretty difficult to sound robotic doing that. If you like English dubs, you may still enjoy it, however.

==Conclusion==

Unlike other series out there, it’s best not to suspend your disbelief while watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. It makes it more entertaining in more ways than one. The series fulfills what is expected from psychological horror as it plays with the viewers’ minds and in so many ways. It teaches great lessons too. I think we can all learn a lot from the characters’ stupidity. This is unlike some shows that are pretentious and try to masquerade themselves as being intelligent when they’re not. And what’s more is that it’s hard not to learn something since we see mistakes being made over and over and over again. Even if we knew those mistakes were silly to begin with. And it’s forgivable since it’s entertaining to see people make fools out of themselves.

And, for once, we aren’t the only ones who are laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
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