Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei (Higurashi: When They Cry

The infamous series of unexplainable murders in Hinamizawa have been solved and the chains of fate have broken due to the efforts of Rika Furude and her friends. Rika believes she has finally obtained the normal and peaceful life she desired with her friends; however, she is proven wrong when the wheels of fate begin turning once again after an unfortunate accident.

Rika suddenly finds herself in a "perfect" world, the constant cycle of brutal killings having never taken place, where all of her friends are content and satisfied. Not wanting to abandon the world that she fought so hard for, she learns she must destroy an essential "key" to get back. But can Rika abandon the faultless world she is given the chance to live in, after all of her battles have brought her this far?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:	Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei: Saikoroshi-hen, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri: Hajisarashi-hen
Prequel:	Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
Sequel:	Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou

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Characters & Voice Actors

Furude, Rika

Main

Tamura, Yukari
Japanese

Ryuuguu, Rena

Main

Nakahara, Mai
Japanese

Sonozaki, Mion

Main

Yukino, Satsuki
Japanese

Maebara, Keiichi

Main

Hoshi, Souichirou
Japanese

Hanyuu

Main

Horie, Yui
Japanese

Houjou, Satoko

Main

Kanai, Mika
Japanese

Sonozaki, Shion

Supporting

Yukino, Satsuki
Japanese

Takano, Miyo

Supporting

Itou, Miki
Japanese

Ooishi, Kuraudo

Supporting

Chafurin
Japanese

Houjou, Satoshi

Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Matsuda, Keiichi

Producer

Okamura, Takema

Producer

Oomori, Hiroyuki

Producer

Fukao, Satoshi

Assistant Producer

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Opening Theme

"Super Scription of Data" by Shimamiya Eiko

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Ending Theme

"Manazashi" by anNina

Reviews

Jan 10, 2022

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A series of OVAs that have two comedy focused episodes, one pretty good and one just okay, and three episodes of an epilogue arc to Kai which is good in concept but somewhat weak in implementation.

*Note: This review has minor spoilers for Higurashi and Higurashi Kai.*

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is a five episode OVA series that is somewhat of a sequel to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, though with only the three episodes in the middle actually serving as the sequel. These three episodes feature Rika arriving in another timeline where things are essentially perfect and all of the tragedies that ... befell the cast of Hinamizawa in all the other timelines simply never happened.

As such, it’s a look at how the cast was shaped by their experiences and how they could have ended up completely different people without them. In doing so, it also explores themes such as the value of having gone through suffering because of the growth that it can produce. It also touches on the concept of how because people are essentially who they are because of their life experiences, if the exact same person goes through completely different life experiences they are a completely different person, and thus if one were to choose the characters from one timeline of life experiences, that would be essentially rejecting the characters from the other timeline of life experiences. It also further fleshes out the lasting damage that going through countless timelines had on Rika, especially in regards to her relationship with her mother. It also felt like we got to see more sides of Rika as compared to the previous seasons, which essentially further cements her as the real protagonist of this series if there was any doubt after Kai.

The general subject matter and content it wanted to contain are solid enough in concept, but I think execution was somewhat lacking. It played way too fast and loose with the rules regarding Rika’s reincarnation and different timelines that had been established so far in order to push the plot in the direction of what was needed to for the themes it wanted to touch on. Still, if it had handled the themes well enough this would have felt warranted, but in the end I felt it only handled them decently well. The climax felt like it was essentially skipped over in some sense which felt kind of awkward in terms of pacing. Instead it went straight to an epilogue that felt pretty much like an overtly heavy handed infodump that tried to outline and explain why what occurred made sense and was justified with a heavy reliance on essentially stating that the problem that Rika was dealing with was one that humans weren’t meant to be able to consider. I feel this is a complete cop out however, as having the courage to fight fate was a core theme of the series up to this point with it being explicitly referred to in a conversation right before this, and thus the message here feels completely inconsistent with that. Thus, in the end I really have no clue what this OVA series was trying to convey.

The other two episodes, the first and fifth episode, were completely different. They were completely random comedy oriented episodes that story wise make no sense and clearly aren’t connected with anything else beyond having the same characters, though with their personalities exaggerated for humorous effect. The first episode is the standard anime pool episode pretty much. The fifth episode is a weird as hell episode where due to some weird magic Rena ends up falling in love with a string of people.

I found the first episode pretty hilarious in how the absurdity slowly escalated from the level of the slice of life sections in the previous seasons to extreme absurdity at the level of outright parody and thus overall I found the episode pretty great. The fifth episode was a bit more grounded while also having a few completely ridiculous elements, but in the end while it did have some humorous portions overall I didn’t find the comedy in all that great and thus found the overall episode only so-so. Though one of the reasons for that is likely that a pretty decent portion of it involved mahjong, which despite my best efforts I’ve only been able to gain a very minimal understanding of, so those that have a better understanding of mahjong may find it more appealing.

In terms of art, the art style and designs are still solid, and there’s a straight up pool episode so there a bunch of new designs on that front which are pretty good. The art quality and animation quality felt noticeably improved in the first four episodes, though there was a very noticeable drop in quality in the fifth. This may well have been intentional for comedic purposes, but I don’t think it landed all that well and thus mostly just felt like it was lower quality. The OP and ED were both decent in terms of audio and visuals, but not as striking or memorable as the OPs and EDs in previous seasons. The soundtrack also didn’t really stand out and wasn’t all that memorable.

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Mar 23, 2021

projectma

Mixed Feelings

Okay, so, for the second half, it was pretty good. Well, it was fine. I didn't mind it. It was Higurashi, so I'd take what I could get.

But what the actual hell was that fanservice? Literally disgusting, I hated it. All the characters are 14 or younger. I can handle the little bit of fanservice in the main series, but I absolutely despised it here. I know any series like this is bound to have fanservice and that Higurashi has it in other parts of the series as well, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I'd almost say it's not worth watching ...

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Nov 15, 2012

WhiteBakemono

Not Recommended

Anime: Higurashi no Naku koro ni Rei

Title: Lost all faith in this series.

About the Anime: Several months have passed since the horrific events in Hinamizawa came to an end. Little by little life returns to normal, with Rika and her friends doing their best to put the past them and mend their old wounds. All seems to be going well until one day tragedy strikes again as Rika is unexpectedly involved in a bloody traffic accident that shatters her short-lived peace. As she wakes, she finds herself thrust back into the nightmare summer of 1983, and sets out to once again correct Hinamizawa's twisted killing ...

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Poll: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Gar_Logan - Aug 19, 2009	245 replies	by KingOfMAL »» Mar 19, 11:40 AM
Poll: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Katsuki - Jun 12, 2009	186 replies	by Destroyer31 »» Oct 12, 2023 12:41 AM
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei [Visual Novel Discussion] waalex11 - Apr 14, 2023	1 replies	by Ricedumpismyname »» Apr 15, 2023 9:56 AM
Poll: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) phinix_down - Feb 14, 2009	190 replies	by --bee-- »» Jan 2, 2023 1:21 PM
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