Ranked #353

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei

Sea-bears and Skylines

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Rei [Rei] is the third installment of the Higurashi series based on the games created by 07th Expansion. Like the game, Rei covers the events after Furude Rika had finally escaped the meandering halls of fate, breaking the cycle of repetition.

Rei serves as more of a side story, giving small view into life after reiterating summer. The first and last episodes of the set OVA's are for purely comedic purposes. Nothing really happens and the only insight we get into any of the characters is that Rena finds Keichii's 'sea-bear' cute. Yes folks Higurashi went there... they implied our brunette buxom wanted Maebara's little friend.

The episodes in-between, 2 through 5 or the Dice Killing Chapter, serve as a more serious side story. Rika one day wakes up in yet another world where everything is seemingly perfect. Everyone she sees is spared of their sin's from previous realities, their souls not torn into shards waiting to be duck taped back together.

It's an interesting setup, but it fails in it's execution. The three short episodes lack any sort of engaging drama, and the story is squeezed down your throat in slabs of monologue. I commend the tale for trying to shade in some background on Hanyuu, Rika's goddess companion, but I didn't find myself caring.

Production

Rei is more of the same. The art hasn't improved much from 2006 when the original Higurashi premiered. The animation was cleaned up a bit, and the colors a bit more vivid. It's somewhat disappointing considering this is an OVA.

The sound work is still the same. The seiyuu remain untouched and the music is largely forgettable. The OP didn't really set an ominous tone like the first two shows did. No special effort seems to have been made in the production of Rei.

Watchability and Enjoyment

The two comedic episodes are hilarious. Funny has always been a part of the Higurashi formula, and it was refreshing to watch an episode focusing on Humor.

Rika's side story on the other-hand is about as engaging as wading through a swamp filled to the brim with molasses compared to the first season. Though it made the fifth episode all the more entertaining. After the dull chapter, the comic finale let me leave the realm of Higurashi with a sweet taste on my lips.

Themes

The Dice Killing chapter, through all it's faults, posed an interesting dilemma: Which world would you pick, one you toiled endlessly to create yourself or a perfect one handed to you on a silver platter. The reality you molded from fate is imperfect but yours, you own it. Which do you keep?

Closing Thoughts

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Rei is a mixed bag. If you enjoy Higurashi's brand of comedy then check out Episodes 1 and 5. I couldn't recommend The Dice Killing Chapter except to the most rabid fans who care to know even the palest of brushstrokes on Hinamizawa's canvas. But if your that crazy your better off getting the sound novels. read more

There are crucial times in our lives when we made the wrong decision and we wish we had acted differently, then, not only us, but perhaps the whole universe would be brought to be different as well.

After finally getting to the end of the "perpetual murders", Rika is riding bicycle with her friends till she gets run over by a truck, which makes Hanyuu transport her to another reality in order to avoid the accident that could result in Rika's death. Yet, this time, in this other world, she cannot find Keiichi, Takano and other characters, while Satoko’s brother and Rika’s parents are still living in Hinamizawa.

Things start to get complicated when the two realities start to overwrite one another and Rika needs to decide which reality she wants to live in: a whitish world or a place stained by blood? The plot is developed in a mystery scenario where everything is bewildering and a vital decision seems inevitable. To some extent, we can say this revives the mood of a visual novel in which every resolution is a conclusive factor for the following narrative.

There isn't enough character development with the exception of Rika, since basically all the OVAs are filled with her internal monologue, or rather her conversation with her other persona, and all the other characters remain essentially the same, even in another reality. Apart from Rika's journey, there isn't much except that kind of special that allows fans to see their favorites characters in comical situations.

The paradigm for the whole story consists of a scenario and its deconstruction. If we examine particular scenes, we will see that there is a considerable variety of them and, moreover, that there are scenarios within scenarios, plots overlapping other plots, stories of small importance as well as large, stories with staying power and narratives that quickly pass, leaving their values and resources to be reevaluated by the following storyline.

First, we are in a humorous plot, then in a disturbing one; to close the cycle, we are presented with another comical plot in the last OVA. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is not about a story of endless murders anymore, rather is about a everlasting cycle of happy and sad moments which we all know very well since it is what life is all about.

As the title suggests (rei=礼=gratitude), while respecting the past, as Rika learned to respect her mother, one must also “kill” his past in order to live the present. Likewise, there’s always an exciting promise that makes us look forward to the future, yet we must never forget to appreciate the here and now. Change is not the aftereffect of exclusively abstract forces, but of real people’s actions in response to their daily lives.

A release from the well-known Studio DEEN, it doesn't stray far from the company’s habitual animated presentation in the previous seasons. Bathed in violent touches, adorable infantile behavior, and a strict adherence to perturbing character development, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is quite comfortable playing to Toshifumi Kawase’s strengths as a experienced director and screenwriter of fantasy and thriller plots.

The background music is virtually the same of the previous seasons ranging from extremely happy to downhearted. Tamura Yukari once again does a good job as Rika, varying from “Nipa!” to a rather scary voice. Nakahara Mai (Rena) just shows to us this time the “I want to take it home” voice (the “it is a lie!” that was so creepy is actually funny now).

The initial row of the opening "Super Scription of Data" is marked by a somewhat dark mood carried by a guitar riff and a continuous beat accompanied by lyrics inspired in a popular childish song “let's make a pinky promise: if you lie, swallow a thousand needles” - childish and creepy at the same time. The beginning of the song is marked by a brooding intensity and a lofty path till is struck by a new tone, a more extrovert type of music, when reaching the chorus. This duality represents what is this series pretty well. Highly dramatic is the grand pause in the vocal before the refrain.

AnNina has a unique vocal touch, permitting every lyric its full significance, whether she is belting it out or whispering it. The ending “Manazashi” is a good example of all of these factors working together wonderfully. The piano announces the row in a quietly lyrical mood. The music projects a mood of gentle contemplation. In violent contrast is its lyric, with its overtones of brutality: “I killed them gently, so that they couldn't feel any pain”.

Peace is the dream and the search, the longing for oblivion. Since happiness is not to be attained in that reality, love leads beyond its confines becoming the ultimate escape. Thus the impulse that generates life is transformed by a magnificently romantic gesture into the destroying passion whose fulfillment is death: as a dreamlike lyrical melody, the music is steeped in poetry. The piercing sweetness of the voice, a melancholic violin soaring high above the harmony, the dark resonance of the piano - the song has a high emotional content: “What have I lost?” while shards fall with the characters within.

The irreparable of our past – this is the real corpse. All the other cadavers may very well be a delusion. All the corpses may be alive somewhere else, all our own previous seconds of life may be existing elsewhere in the illusion of space and time, in the falsity of elapsing. But what we were not, what we did not do, what we did not even dream; what only now we see we ought to have done, what only now we clearly see we ought to have been – that is what is dead beyond all the Gods.

What we've missed definitely holds no sort of expectancy in any kind of metaphysical system. Maybe we could bring what we have dreamed to some other world, but could we bring to another world the things we forgot to dream? These, yes, the dreams going begging are the real corpse. We bury it in our hearts for ever, for all time, for all universes.
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