THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Worst sequel ever.
Reasons:
There are many reasons, but the greatest failure in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai is the way it ends. I've endured tons of episodes, for the sake of finally seeing HOW Rika would overcome her fate. And what did I learn from watching Kai?
1.If you want to overcome your destiny, just set up some overly lame traps, in the forest that can take down even an army.
2. Hire a Chuck Norris(known Akasaka Mamoru here), and make him beat up 7-8 members of Yamainu with his bare hands(ending of episode 22). (This whole 1 vs 8
...
is totally unbelievable on its own, not to mention the fact that Yamainu MUST HAVE HAD weapons with them, so why didn't they just shot down that policeman??????
Beats me.
(edit: oh and he just allowed them to return to their base instead of tieing them up with a rope or something...see beginning of episode 23...funny, how did they get back??)
3. Did you know that, with only 4 people you can take control of an underground base? Well in Higurashi it isn't impossible, even if one of the 4 people is a schoolgirl and another one is a doctor.
But let's talk a bit about the childish traps I mentioned above. As I said it's completely unrealistic that some kids from a village can take down a platoon of trained soldiers. But it's not only that. The other thing that really annoyed me at this part, is the total lack of any tension. Just compare it to the first series of Higurashi and you will see the difference.
Keiichi and the others were hunted by soldiers who wanted to kill them. What would be the normal reaction of people who are surrounded by armed soldiers in a forest? Well, I've never been in such a frightening situation, but I'm pretty sure I'd be scared.
Now look at the face of the characters in Higurashi when they are in the forest with the soldiers. Do they look scared to you? NO
Not only they aren't scared, but they keep on laughing and joking with each other!!! WHAT A JOKE! Totally ruins the tension.
Just 2 concrete examples:
In episode 13 a Yamainu car stops near Keiichi and the others and Keiichi suggests capturing it(baseball bat and a meat cleaver vs firearms.....yeah they have a chance). Mion then says she will drive the car if they manage to capture it. Someone then asks if Mion has a driving license(what does it matter in this situation anyway?), Mion replies something, then Satoko begins to laugh loudly.(meanwhile the Yamainu car is right in front of them packed with people trying to kill them, but looks like these kids aren't interested in such minor things. They're having fun.)
Or in episode 24 when Keiichi and Hanyuu use a loudspeaker to scare away the WELL TRAINED MIGHTY soldiers aaaand THEY SUCCEED! LOL
I hope there aren't any soldiers like these in my country's military force, because if there are, then we are in great trouble.
And of course after this hyperlame "psychological warfare", the kids begin to happily praise each other, laugh at each other and trying to act funny like usually. Well they have every reason to do so right?....I mean they can't be sure how many ARMED SOLDIERS remained in the forest TRYING TO KILL THEM.
I honestly don't get the author's true intention. There are episodes that give me the feeling that this anime is aimed at an older audience because of the gore and cruelty. Yet there are episodes which are so childish, that I would only show them to little kids in the age group of 8-12.
The author took the cheapest solution in everything in this anime.(referring to the childish traps and Chuck Norris...I mean Akasaka Mamoru's fate changing fists)
Same with this whole hallucination thing. Why create a satisfying explanation to the series??? Yeah, just take all the questions that has been raised in the first series and explain everything with hallucination even if it doesn't make any sense sometimes(at least to me). Maybe you think it was a really good twist, OK I know it's just a matter of taste, but for me it looked like the author didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out a fine resolution for the series and ended up with this because it's the cheapest of all.
(
Even you can write such stories. It's really simple......just put every craziness that occurs to you into the first season, then in the second one, just say that all those stuffs were just someone's imagination. It's not that complicated.
)
And as I mentioned there are still things that I don't understand....
In the first series, they mentioned that people keep dying and disappearing ALWAYS on the day of the Watanagashi, and they called this the Curse of Oyashiro-Sama. I found this really cool, because it's full of mystery and stuff and of course I didn't wonder why it's happening always the same day(after all it's a curse).
THEN we found out that the curse is actually a virus(parasites to be more accurate). So I ask the question now.
Why did the killings and disappearances always happened on the same day??
There isn't any mystical curse now. What we have is a virus that activates itself when someone gets stressed, or leave Hinamizawa. Takano Miyo was the one who killed Rika's parents purposely on the day of Watanagashi, so the villagers would believe in the curse and again Takano was the one who killed that photographer AGAIN on the day of Watanagashi for the same reason.
BUT this still doesn't explain the other killings.
That director of the dam project had gone crazy on the day of the Watanagashi and was killed by the workers out of self-defense. Then 1 or 2 years later on the same day the parasites within Satoko's body became active which caused Satoko to push down her "parents" off the cliff. Then year(s) later AGAIN on the exact same day Satoshi's aunt was killed while Satoshi disappeard. What a coincidence.
I can't shake the feeling that the creator of this anime had only one purpose while creating the first series. Complicating things and complicating things and complicating things then suddenly he realized: "OMG this won't make any sense in the second season! Oh well the people surely won't notice minor failures, if I make the story really overcomplicated and put in this hallucination thing." (This whole dying-on-the exact-same-day stuff was only included to make the story scarier and to raise the mystery level, after all it doesn't make any sense if it's not a curse.)
Reminds me of the series, Twin Peaks.
Characters: (YEAHH! Here comes the fun part.)
Keiichi:
One of the thing that annoyed me in Keiichi is him being a total pushover. No matter what kind of contest he takes part in, he sucks always. Card game in Episode 1...he lost , eating contest....he lost, fight against Rena with Water Guns....it was a draw!!!!(holy ****) , fight against Rena on the top of the roof of the school...he lost, zombie tag in the school....he lost, playing a card game again when Hanyuu was a newcomer....guess what...HE LOST AGAIN. And like the rest of the characters, he was always acting cheerful even there was no reason for it and was totally unrealistic given the situation he were in.
A quick question: How many times Keiichi gave courage boosting speeches thorughout the series.
A: 1 B: 2
C: 3 D: Dunno the exact number, but if I have to guess than it's between 10000 and 20000(a little exaggeration doesn't hurt, does it?)
Yup you're right the correct answer is D. Congratulation.
Seriously, it was so annoying to hear Keiichi's blabbering about friendship after the 500th time.........."Never give up..You can't give up..You will make it beacuse we're here with you blahblahblah." Basically he always repeated the same thing, but he used different words each time he gave a speech, so it won't be THAT annoying.
Usually I don't mind such blabberings in any anime, but here they were sooo forced and repetitive. By the time I reached episode 17-18 I could foretell when will be another Keiichi speech with 95% accuracy.
Rena and Rika: (aka Kana, Kana?? and NIPA!)
Rena's personality was virtually non-existent. IMO she was only included in the series because she is so kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii with her constant "kana, kana" and "I' ll take her home!!". In the beginning I DID find her cute(and freaking psycho too) but this feeling quickly changed to ..........bah I don't know how to describe it without using vulgar words......let's say I don't like her anymore.
As for Rika....NIPA! So dull.....and why is she speaking with 2 voices? Looks like some kind of splitted personality so I used google.com to search around a little bit and I found out that the other, more serious voice Rika has, belongs to Frederica Bernkastel... you know the witch from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni(episode 5). Someone even said this (of course it's not confirmed officially and it DOES sound lame IMO):
"Frederica is the combined form of the mental states Rika had in each of the alternate Hinamizawas"
Yeah right, and I'm Santa Claus. Someone reads too much fan fiction here.
Oh and Rika's/Frederica's behavior is really irrational sometimes. If I wanted to warn Akasaka that his wife's life is in danger then I'd probably say
"Hey dude, your wife is in danger so leave Hinamizawa go back to the hospital immediately before it's too late."
and not
"Akasaka! Go home to Tokyo! You should hurry along home to Tokyo.(and here comes the best part) Otherwise you'll seriously regret your decision."
WHAT THE HELL??(she was even smiling like some kind of evil mastermind)
Why coudn't she just be more concrete?? It's like Rika/Frederica knew that she was starring in a horror anime so she was supposed to act scary in front of the viewers.
As I said, the creator of this rubbish.....I mean anime, wanted to scare the viewers with everything he had whether it makes sense or not.
Satoko:
Not much to say, I liked her laughing most of the times. Until it became annoying as well.......
Mion:
My favorite girl of the series. It's not like she was THAT special, but at least she didn't have annoying catchphrases or unrealistic personality. She was normal and that's a big deal here.
and finally Hanyuu:
First she was the queen of pessimism - Hauu. Then in the final episodes she suddenly became a real badass and announced that she was a god - Hauu.
Maybe it's just me but if someone said the word "god" to me, the image of Hanyuu would be the last thing that'd pop up in my mind. Hauuuu.
Lol I've just remembered another "interesting" stuff about Rika so let's return to her for a moment. Previously I was talking about, unrealistic behaviors, wasn't I?
So let me ask you a question. What'd you do if you were in Rika's place? How'd you gather allies in order to defeat the Yamainu. I mean, everybody'd think you went nuts, if you began to talk about parasites and infinite time loops suddenly, without backing them up with proofs.
IT'S SO OBVIOUS that the easiest way to make the others believe you is to predict something that will happen in the near future and then everyone will believe your story when they see you're prediction is right.
The same way Rika did in episode 6 of Kai.......in episode 6 of Kai......
........after being in the time loop for at least 100 years, she realizes something totally obvious. No comment.
And another funny thing occured to me while I was writing......this is related to the final episode of Kai, when the Banken arrives(you know that special combat unit).
Takano asked the leader of Yamainu why didn't he keep fighting and the leader replied that the banken is a special combat unit so they didn't have any chance to win against them.
Well I think the correct answer would have been this:
" How could we have any chance against trained soldiers, if most of our people were defeated by a bunch of kids?"(oh and most of them were girls)
I don't want to waste more time with this review so I'll stop here. I could lament all day why this anime is so bad, but it'd be pointless.
It's a sad thing that the once great Higurashi became a total joke.
Thank you for reading this.
Aug 2, 2009
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
(Anime)
add
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Worst sequel ever. Reasons: There are many reasons, but the greatest failure in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai is the way it ends. I've endured tons of episodes, for the sake of finally seeing HOW Rika would overcome her fate. And what did I learn from watching Kai? 1.If you want to overcome your destiny, just set up some overly lame traps, in the forest that can take down even an army. 2. Hire a Chuck Norris(known Akasaka Mamoru here), and make him beat up 7-8 members of Yamainu with his bare hands(ending of episode 22). (This whole 1 vs 8 ... |
