Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu

Full Sotsu Review from the perspective of a longtime When they cry fan.

Where do I start?

*Warning* Heavy spoilers ahead!


Story 1/10

The biggest disappointment to my parents since me. Everything was handled poorly and with sub par quality.
...
Higurashi is a story about friendship. Cringy as it may be that's what Higurashi always has been. I will go into methodical and surgical detail dissecting why Higurashi SotsuGou is the worst iteration of its series, a horrible sequel and a horrible stand alone.

The first Arc of Sotsu is Onikaashi. Focusing on our favourite girl Rena Ryuugu. You know what else focuses on Rena? That's right, Tsumiboroshi. Onikaashi is nothing but a poor man's Recap of Tsumiboroshi, without any of the good stuff included. We already know who Rena is, we already know how she works, Onikaashi adds nothing to the character. These 3 episodes can be skipped without any consequence. Let's not forget to mention the fact that most of this is made out of recaps. The experienced WTC fan gets no information of any worth from this.

Second Arc is Watakashi. Focusing on Mion. This is a poor man's version of Meakashi. Hands down. None of Mions character is expounded on. It just makes her a another version of Shion. The possibilities for L5 Mion were endless, none of that was made use of. What we did get was Rika getting shoved down a toilet (the funniest scene of this show NGL) and more recaps. It's also worth noting the inconsistent nature of L5 in Sotsu here, because in the Original Series the drug Takano had, would drive you into a L5 induced death in a few hours, not days. It's a weird retcon, that I'm not sure should exist within the series, since it causes contradictions in previous arcs. Food for thought.

Tatarikashi, More Recaps baby! You get a recap, and you get a recap! Everybody take this recap and shove it up your - alright alright, I'll calm down. Honestly though, you should have some questions when the show redeems a child abuser (and a possible rapist) and then goes one step further and has a child faking abuse for the lols. Satoko manipulates Keichii hard in this ep. She has zero empathy for her friends. Funnily enough, Satoko starts feeling regret when she kills Teppei, why she didn't feel any guilt when she injects her friends is beyond me, so don't ask me. Either way she bashes K1. Then it reveals that the Teppei Hallucination thing we saw in Gou never happened (This was the only part we couldn't answer after Gou) I STRONGLY believe that this scene only exists to throw people off and make people think that a deeper mystery exists where it doesn't. It actively comes off as an underhanded and manipulative.

Then everything goes to hell. Alright alright get this. Rika remembers that Satoko was the big bad BECAUSE - She has someone else's memories! How? WHY? Who knows, it never happens before and it doesn't happen since. Its a Deus ex machina. The plot literally came to Rika. If this is not bad enough. The big suspenseful moment from the end of Gou - the Gun scene. Ends with Satoko shooting Rika - it sucks. The major buildup from Gou, the perrenial Cliffhanger ended just like that, once again this feels like underhanded storytelling.

Cue the next ep. Rika and Satoko go supah Seiyan! (This is not a witch Battle btw, to read Umineko if you want to see how that really looks like.)
PS - It's nothing like this. Mainly because Witches don't ever fight up close. Never. Not even Lambda and Bern.

They fight some more across different Fragments. Then finally Rika and Satoko end up in a bridge. With the McGuffin Sword in Rikas hands. Rika throws it into the river. Hanyuu gets it. Cracks Eua's horns, turns her into a Loli, sends her back to whence she came (a black cloud, probably Lambdadelta)

Rika and Satoko come to an agreement. Rika leaves to St Lucia. Everybody is happy. Satoshi wakes up. They play dear you just to give you the middle finger one last time before you go and it's over.

Don't wonder how Satoshi got up when he was in a medically induced coma, the series doesn't respect its own rules anymore.

This is pathetic storytelling. Much of the story revolved around a McGuffin Sword that literally turned into a Deus ex Machina at the end. Let's not forget that Satoko gets her neck cut with the McGuffin Shard and nothing happens! The story doesn't respect its own rules, why should we? If we can't trust the story to pay respect to the rules that it itself laid down, how can someone trust the story to be consistent. The 5 loop until death proclamation that Rika did, and Satoko ending up in a world without Rika, were unfortunately badly planned attempts by Passione to up the stakes. To create tension and excitement.

The mirror world references Passione put in are the same, poor attempts to create excitement within a shallow story.

If that wasnt enough insults, Higurashi Mei, Higuashis Gacha game, explains some of the finer details in the Gacha game of all things.

Hopefully by now you can understand how bad SotsuGou's story is . However I only scratched the tip of the iceberg. The sins of SotsuGou's story are so terrible that I can write a book about it, and still have a lot left to say. However for our sanity, it's best we move on.


Artstyle 6/10

Whether you prefer the rounded Artstyle that this shares with Mei is fully up to you. I won't go into detail here because this is based on taste and nothing else. Although personally I would have preferred Alchemist's Character designs to appear. Since they maintain a good balance between Ryuukishis original designs and traditional anime character standards.


Music 3/10

The DEEN Higurashi Anime is well known for its stellar use of music. Using a combination of VIsual Novel and Original tracks, it handles this perfectly.

Sotsu on the other hand, has no good music to call it's own. Much of the OST becomes background noise. I can't name one price of the OST that I like. It's really unfortunate.

Dear You is a song that is supposed to represent the bonds between the cast, in the context of SotsuGou however it comes off an insult when its the send off to a story that featured little of Mion, Keichii and Rena, along with the fact that Satoko actively kills and harms them.

Dear You ~ SotsuGou ~ is the last sad moans of this Anime. Doing it's best to hang in to relevance.


Animation 4/10

This is another place where SotsuGou struggles in. DEEN used dynamic camera angles, positioning to deliver a more fluid animation experience. Sotsu on the other hand mostly used shot -reverse shots which get boring. The actual character animation also leaves a lot to be desired. Character Animation was something DEEN struggled with sometimes as well, but unlike what DEEN, Sotsu can not fall back on its dark backgrounds as a clutch.

For their credit Passione used some of the budget for the big DBZ and Naruto crossover scenes at the end. So that's commendable at least. Good job Passione, give yourself a pat on the back.


Characters 1/10

Rika Furude

You know that this is bad when Rikas VA is confused about what's going on. In the original VN. Rika was the one who was emotionally dependant on Satoko. Not here however, because in SotsuGou 'le tables have turned on ye'. Satoko for some reason can't live without Rika. Why? How did this happen? Who knows? Don't get me wrong, Rika and Satoko were always close but Rika is the one who has a panic attack when she doesn't get Satoko, not the other way around.

Let's not forget that Rika ignores everything that happened in Matsuri. Her lesson there was;

'Waiting for things to go her was pointless. If she wanted to win, she had to roll up her sleeves and actually work for the future she wanted'

In SotsuGou she proceeds to ignore everything going on and gives random cryptic advice to K1. What happened to Rika? Eua must have taken some of her brain cells because nothing else can explain this. HECK, the idiot waits until Nekodamashi to check on Takano, ON TAKANO, the person that's supposedly gonna kill her and everybody she loves.

In the original one of Rikas goals was a world with EVERYONE she cared about all her friends and didn't want a world without them. Rika here decides to screw everybody else and stay with Satoko.

This is peak character butchering. Rika was only passive when she had given up, however in SotsuGou she's like that from the very beginning.


Satoko Houjou

The biggest tragedy (or comedy) of Sotsu. Satoko is a character with a fairly good understanding of others and someone who is capable of empathizing with even the worst of people. Here however she's turned into a one note evil girl with zero redemption (they didn't even try)

Let's look at what SotsuGou tells us about Satoko;
- Has no problem with killing her friends, not only Rika.
- Can forgive Teppei for abusing and hurting her and Satoshi but cant forgive Rika for some reason.
- Knows about all of Rikas loops but cant sympathise with why Rika might want to leave Hinamaizawa.
- Only felt Regret qhen killing Teppei (lol) but not her friends.
- Has no qualms about injecting innoncents like Akasaka and old man Kimiyoshi.
- Tricks K1 and screws him over in Tatari.
- Injects Mion, the most neutral and stable person in the group. For no reason than the lols.
- Rolls around in the ground laughing like an idiot.
- Falls victim to Euas goading.
- Kills her own regrets in Tatarikashi.
- Dodges sword strikes with the speed of a ninja? how? Who knows?
- Has no trauma for Teppei or Takano but somehow is traumatised by a BOX. Bloody hell if a box punch is all it takes, why is she not kneeling over for Rena. Who packs a meaner punch?
- Undergoes zero redemption or development.
- Gets forgiven by Rika with zero consequences.

The Eagled eyed reader might have noticed something interesting.
"Hey Coulomb, why doesn't Satoko or Rika have any character development?"
Because they don't. The show didn't give them any.

What's really tragic is, that Miotsukushi, an alternative ending arc did more for Satoko in two screens than Sotsu did in two seasons!

Hopefully overall you can realise how bad Satoko's characterisation is.

The WORST part about Satoko and and Rika is that they never resolved their conflict by themselves, the club basically stepped into force them back together. It's poor writing.

Overall 3/10

Not worth your time. Read the Manga for a better experience, but avoid the anime. If you are a new fan watch the 2007 Original + Kai, I gurantee my life, that it will be magnitudes more satisfying than this. That is all.


In Retrospect ......

"When they cry, I laugh." - The Messiah, Ryuukishi 07. (I'm not sure if he actually said this I just think it's relevant)

Higurashi and even Umineko had a theme of protecting children. Preserving childhood. However SotsuGou completely turned this message on its head , and gave us something else. Doesn't this entire thing make Ryuukishi 07 a bit of a hypocrite? I can accept many things - but when you start redeeming child abusers and rapists that's where I draw the line. In many ways I think death of the author is applicable here.

BT, bless his soul. He was more important than you would think. Higurashi originally was planned to have Irie as the villain, however BT felt that it was a bad idea so he made Ryuukishi change it. BT is no longer with us, and I wonder if anyone at 07th expansion atleast try to keep Ryuukishis ideas in check.

Ryuukishi is a man of many ideas, and by his own admission is someone who gets influenced a lot ( he wanted to make Keichii fight aliens in Tsumiboroshi because he had watched an alien movie) so why he doesn't have anyone to 'filter' his ideas I beyond me.

Higurashi Mei still exists, and ironically has a better story than Sotsu. There's also Ciconia. However since it's reception has been poor even among WTc fans, I wonder where thing will go next.

Higurashi is 07th expansions most popular series. Umineko only has a faction of it's popularity, and Ciconia is virtually unknown. Was it worth harming your most well regarded series for no reason other than money?

It's honestly best if each WTC remains separate. Connected universes may be cool, but in regards to WTC it just causes more issues than it's worth, and probably will hamper Ryuukishis creativity. They should never be connected.


Have a good day, and don't forget to rate SotsuGou with your respective rating.

Edit :

What REALLY screws with me about Sotsu is the simple fact that

Satoko didnt even TRY asking Eua to heal Satoshi. She didnt even CONSIDER it.

If your ever needed proof to show that Satoko is a one note caraceture of a half assed Yandere whose entire universe revolves around Rika and ONLY Rika this is it.

Do NOT watch this series. Whether you’re a fan of the Higurashi series or have never watched it before, do whatever it takes to avoid this at all costs.

The idolized Higurashi franchise, being part of the 07th Expansion series, is well-known for its blend of intriguing murder mysteries, conspiracies, and gripping horror / thriller vibes, juxtaposed befittingly with comedic lighthearted slice-of-life moments. Seven years after its last installment, the acclaimed creator Ryukishi07 was apparently either under some complicated contractual obligations or was in desperate need of easy revenue. So he decided to drop a new project advertised as a remake, except it turned out to ... be...an actual sequel. Countless nostalgic fans jump on the bandwagon in anticipation and delight for what this new installment has to offer. Instead, what we got here is a near-perfect epitome of what happens when one milks their own acclaimed and renowned franchise to the bone. While I’m not the biggest fan of Higurashi myself, I had my share of due respect for the original series. So when I look at this abomination and the previous season known as Gou, all I can really think was...what in the actual god damn hell was Ryukishi07 thinking? I heard people praising and defending this new installment with overly conceited and convoluted explanations; I bought none of that nonsense, and neither should you or anyone else.

Higurashi Sotsu is the sequel to the events in Gou; interestingly enough, the name of the two combine to make the Japanese term “Sotsugou”, meaning “graduation”. Regardless of whether or not that was intentional, this sure wasn’t the commemoration ceremony anyone expected or wanted. To start off, it’s stated as a followup to Gou, but it’s essentially more like a tweaked recap. Most of Sotsu consisted of reiterated content of what we’ve already seen in the original series and in Gou, with only slight differences. All the arcs progress in a similar way and all the answers are presented upfront with without any sense of mystery whatsoever. There’s no mystery. There’s no sense of intrigue or engagement. In fact, it quickly become a boring and inept cycle. The slight deviations aren’t changing the fact that we’re essentially experiencing the same damn thing over and over again. Focus may be shifted at times; sometimes to Rena, sometimes to Keiichi, sometimes to Mion. One of the fortitudes of Higurashi is that it’s able to highlight its characters in a reasonable way to make their arcs feel well-earned and impactful. None of that is present here in Sotsu. Everything feel recycled excessively to the point where nothing matters. The arcs finish void of emotion and progress. The one venture with giving some form of redemption to the likes of the initially despicable Teppei Houjou, Satoko’s abusive uncle and foster father, didn’t matter much in hindsight, if at all.

The only thing that we need to know is that one single revelation (if you want to call it that): Satoko is now the villain of the series. I can’t comprehend the need to make her the bad guy. What exactly did she do in the original series that would warrant or foreshadow her actions in Gou and now here in Sotsu? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her reasoning to be antagonize and torture her friend Rika is so silly in context when you step back and realize what it is: that fact that Rika broke her promise to spend time with her in high school. The audacity to make this the main plot device and excuse for Higurashi’s version of the Endless Eight is astounding. Satoko thinks that her former friend should suffer a century’s worth of looping endless torture and mindless suffering, all because she overlooked a single vow between besties. This isn’t clever or engaging writing, this is just a silly and contrived interpersonal drama filled with heaps of misery porn. To add to the bedlam of ridiculousness, Satoko has those supernatural looping powers similar to that of Rika, given to her by some randomly inserted literal god character named Eua, whose looks and design are an obvious straight rip from the Umineko sister series. Her sole reasoning to enjoy observing the suffering of others inferior to her. Her motives and role to the story are so vague and muddled, only serving to add some fake sense of mystery to her, when she’s ironically just a mere engine to fuel the repetitiveness and recycling of the conflict. Seriously, what’s the deal with the need to add one-note pompous antagonists like this? If anyone has remembered how the original concluded its narrative impressively, you can despair now. Gou and Sotsu wasted away all of that. Nearly everything from the main story arcs is recontextualized. All of Rika’s efforts and development from before this unnecessary edition is essentially done away. There were no improvements or positive implications; instead, we’re given new issues instead. And as if to add more salt, Ryukishi07 decides to have a climax in the form of….a Dragonball Super battle? A ripoff of Naruto vs Sasuke? Seriously, I kid you not, everything gets truly tossed out the window from the top floor for the sake of magic battles and roid-rage clashes through loops and timelines that would make the likes of Beerus and Itachi shake their heads in disbelief. When the dust finally settles with your typical Hollywood epilogue, it's as if everything is simply back to normal; one can only ask if this was any bit worth the effort. If this was somehow a ploy to connect Higurashi with Umineko, then why go through all this pointless trouble to begin with? If anything, that would only serve to further adulterate the context of Higurashi as a whole.

The art of Gou and Sotsu is absolutely atrocious. I understand that Studio Deen wasn’t the best back then and especially not now, but they were still able to capture the enticing, thrilling, and dreary tone and atmosphere of the original story. Here with Gou and Sotsu, we got Passione, a studio who’s only known for making shows heavy with fanservice, which include the likes of the infamous Interspecies Reviewers. The overly bright and flashy modernized color palettes make the animation look stiff and cheesy. The Monogatari-like character designs are too fickle a combination. The thing is that the Monogatari series does have mystery and suspense as well, but it doesn’t focus so much on horror aspects like the Higurashi series does. Akio Watanabe’s Shaft-born style just doesn’t mesh well with the more melancholic identity and tone of the latter. Instead it makes the characters look goofy, dumpy, and hard to take seriously, like they’re the typical gag characters right out of a pure ecchi slapstick comedy. I’m not gonna lie, Gou and Sotsu would’ve come off more like a completely original show if you pretended to be blind. With all those saturated color gradients and highlights courtesy of Passione, it looks like something right outta Anime PornHub. Even with the most violent scenes, body parts and organs straight up look like spilled candy and blood genuinely could’ve been mistaken for fruit juice. It can still look unnerving to most people, I’m sure...cause I can agree that spilled food can look disgusting with the given conditions. Jokes aside, Passione’s aesthetics are far more befitting for a hentai show than a series driven by serious tension, drama, and mystery like Higurashi.

I’m not gonna say too much about the music and sound design. The opening theme is hilariously unfitting. I don’t really understand the reasoning to choose some random dubstep-esque soundtrack for a series like this other than some unspecified business reason. The ending theme and the insert song at the final episode aren’t anything special and quite forgettable, but at least they somewhat fit. The background music is mediocre at best; the only time the sound gets good is when they reuse tracks from the original. The voice acting department is really a struggle here, with Yuki Tamura at least making a valiant solo effort to channel Rika’s emotional beats.

The character department took the biggest blow in Sotsu. Back in the original story, the ensemble cast of Higurashi had a great sense of bonds due to their numerous interactions and shared growth. As much as I never really liked them, their ability to link to each other is so commendable and impressive and functioned as a main engine for Higurashi’s story more often than not. But in Gou and now especially here in Sotsu, all those positive and respectable aspects of the characters are snatched away, as they are merely reduced to toys for Satoko to mess around with during her plot for revenge. Defiled and desecrated, they’re turned into robots made to kill each other endlessly. For what? Why exactly do they deserve this? Why is Ryukishi07 undoing his beloved characters like this? While all of this is happening, Satoko continues to be the irritating cartoon level villain. Again, what’s with the random decision of making Satoko the bad guy in the first place? You’d think it would show a methodical descent into madness for her, but it doesn’t. Despite all those times she does something utterly awful to those close to her, she shows no signs of letting up or changing in any notable way like showing remorse or anything. Meanwhile, that Eua character is merely there to find pleasure in her observation of how twisted Satoko and nothing else, only acting when someone tries to intervene. Rika herself is tragically regressed to a stale typical “queen bee student” archetype and does nearly next to nothing about Satoko’s jealousy-driven actions until she finally decides to put the plug, which unfortunately simply leads to that ludicrous showcasing we see in the penultimate episode. Something else about Rika also really bugged me: why did she bother dragging Satoko along to the same school in the first place, only to end up breaking that promise, anyways, as stated earlier? I can only see this as another ridiculous plot convenience to start up Satoko’s malicious actions in the first place. It’s funny how the only remotely decent character work here involved Teppei of all people, and yet even that little development is a mere detour with minimal purpose. Everyone else cannot be considered characters at all, they’re just there to be moved as the plot demands it. Ryukishi07’s character writing here has truly fallen off the deep end here in Sotsu, and the series pretty much loses the strongest aspect of the story.

For my personal enjoyment, it’s safe to say that I absolutely hated the experience. As stated before, I wasn’t a fan of the original Higurashi to begin with, but Passione’s installment has been disgraceful to behold. I stuck through Gou and Sotsu to see if any decent revelation or development would turn up, but for the most part, it was a snoozefest at best. At the very least, Gou did have a few interesting things to observe at the time, but I got none of that here in Sotsu, on the other hand. Words couldn’t properly describe how infuriating it was to see Satoko channel her inner Scooby-Doo villain on a regular basis. Repeatedly. Over and over. Many times I lost my temper and many times I shook my head and laughed in disbelief. Not once did I feel fear or suspense, only disgust and some laughs...not from the lighthearted slice of life humor, but more from the derpiness of the bright, and flashy violent scenes. I personally don’t see how people can get easily creeped out by something like that. When it finally reached the point where Ryukishi07 had essentially ran out of ideas and went for some shounen-style battle, I was completely besides myself.

Like the Gou season, Higurashi Sotsu is an obnoxious cash-grab sequel that should’ve never existed in the first place. Riddled by ridiculous plot devices, redundant and repetitive plotting, utter disrespect of its characters, and a complete lack of purpose, it was one of the worst things I’ve ever watched in recent years. All it did was violate and disregard so much of the impressive groundwork that the original series by Studio Deen established with much care. It is completely worthless and added nothing beneficial or substantial in value to the 07th franchise. If you’re a fan and truly care for the Higurashi series, please stick to the original series by Deen and steer clear of this blasphemy. Otherwise, it’ll have you feeling extremely frustrated, dismayed, and betrayed in the end.

At this point in history, I can say that Higurashi is a masterpiece in the true sense of the word. A UNIQUE story, told in a PHENOMENAL way. As a kind of puzzle, of which initially, we only have one piece, and as time goes by, each piece begins to accumulate, and to be placed in the right position, to arrive at the truth.
The basic plot, albeit simple, and in principle suggests a simple slice of life, transforms and develops into something extremely larger, full of mysteries, Gorgeous characters, exciting moments and just as many moments of pure suspense.
This and more, is Higurashi, a ... story, which, even if it takes place within a large time loop, located in the village of Hinamizawa, manages to convey many messages to the viewer.

I recommend watching the entire anime, but also to recover the original material, the visual novel in fact, and also the manga. Because, even if they are three different media, in these you You will find the story you already know, reproduced with different details than other media, even substantial changes of certain points in the story, which make the world of Higurashi, Even more vast and immersive, even if it is wonderful.

This review will not be spoiler free, so please watch Gou and the current 4 episodes of Sotsu before reading this.

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni: Sotsu is sequel to Higurashi Gou, and technically the 5th season of the anime installments. After having a bait and switch with Gou, and resulting in a mixed bag of reactions throughout the entirety of its run: Sotsu had a big role to fill in terms of story, characters and engagement. It had to managed to bring in and lure those fans that didn't seem to really enjoy Gou, while also satisfying fans that loved it but are hoping for ... deeper, meaningful connections with other 7th Expansion properties (Umineko and Ciconia). It also had to make the series make more sense for those that watched the series under the impression it was a remake.

We are currently 4 episodes into Sotsu, so has it managed to deliver so far?

Not... really.

I am personally a very big fan of Higurashi and Umineko, and I absolutely loved Gou. Making a series that is both a remake and a sequel is absolutely genius, and equated to a very fun ride. We had so many new reveals for the mystery that seemed to be unfolding, as well major plot twists in its last arc such as Satoko being the reason for the new loops. Eua, who is a carbon copy of Featherine, was a massive twist that no one expected. The season was an absolute blast, and I currently have Gou sitting at a strong 9.

However, Sotsu, so far, has managed to be a bit of a disappointment.

Its first answer arc in Oniakashi we already knew a fair bit amount from the trailers and stuff hinted in Gou's last arc (Satokowashi-hen), but there was still room for some new introductions and story beats. Instead, it was filled with a lot of recap scenes, some instances of plot convenience, and ambiguity that an answer arc shouldn't be giving us. Satoko ends up using H173 to inject Rena, but the way that this is set up is incredibly odd.

Rena has a moment where she gazes off, but then suddenly decides to leave the club early and go to the nurses office. This makes sense, and a lot of viewers expected a confrontation between Satoko and Rena. Instead, we are met with a scene where Rena is asleep in the nurses office, and Satoko injects her with H173. This is... ridiculously convenient, and feels like bad writing in all honesty. The dominos set themselves up too perfectly for this to happen, and without Rena waking up at that.

The next major instance is Rena reacting differently to the injections than Tomitake did. Tomitake clawed his throat out a few hours after being injected from the disease, but Rena manages to survive almost an entire week. Sure, H173 could function differently depending on the host, but it is a strange writing choice to take something that has two to three seasons worth of foundation and suddenly change it.

Oniakashi is then topped off with the biggest question of that entire arc (Rena vs Keiichi) not having a complete answer. We don't know if Keiichi hallucinated, we don't know how Keiichi survived a bunch of stab wounds AND didn't bleed out, and we don't know how Rena died from getting hit in the head by an alarm clock. We don't really know how any of this resolved.

The entire first arc of Sotsu was just set up in a way that was both unsatisfying and very frustrating for quite a bit of fans of the series, as there are many things that didn't feel like Higurashi in it. Of course it did bring some benefits, such as a Rina redemption and more background on Rena's family. Which these were indeed nice additions and helped flesh out the arc a bit more, but it does not make up for its shortcomings.

Today we started the answer arc Wataakashi-hen, which is the answers for probably the biggest question arc in Gou which was Watadamashi-hen. The first 3/4's of the episode were phenomenal. We found out something massive regarding Hanyuu, Eua and the fragment world, and we got some extremely important scenes for Satoko. But then... once again, we got back to recaps. I understand that the recaps are there to fill in the audience as to what is happening, but Sotsu only has a 15 episode run time - showing recaps means things will likely be very rushed towards the ending. However, this wasn't really my issue with this episode.

My issue was Satoko injecting Mion. I personally believe Mion getting level 5 of the Syndrome would've been a very cool thing to see indeed, but the way that it happened was extremely unsatisfying. We see Mion at a vending machine, bent over, and Satoko holding the injection. Then it cuts away, and we see the group together but the syringe on the ground empty. This scene coupled with the ending scene of Watadamashi (with Mion having scratch marks) means Mion was indeed injected, which is honestly extremely ridiculous.

How on Earth did Satoko manage to inject Mion, without Mion noticing. Rena was asleep when she got injected, and she still winced when the needle went into her - while she was ASLEEP. Mion is fully awake, there is no way in the world she would not notice a syringe going into her body and pumping fluids in her. I know some people are trying to suggest that maybe Satoko spiked her drink, but this makes even less sense. Why would Mion pass her drink to Satoko and then take it back, and when in like the span ofa few minutes would Satoko pour the stuff into Mion's drink. There is so much grey area here that if this doesn't get elaborated on, this is going to be a major plot hole. I originally thought it was due to the influence of Eua on the world, and that maybe she was manipulating things but that seems to not be the case due to comments made by Ryu.

This whole review might come off as nitpicking, but these are really important moments - these injection scenes are the entire reason these arcs happen. The fact that they are happening in really overly convenient ways is ridiculous. Higurashi is a series known for tight-nit writing and its thoroughly thought out story telling, and nothing about these scenes feels tight-nit or thought out. And these scenes are only the worst offenders from this season, there are plenty more issues.

Could Sotsu turn around, explain all of these things and get better? Yeah. Has Sotsu still been enjoyable besides a lot of the things I pointed out? Yeah. Its just there currently are a lot of small things, that if you think more about will snowball into bigger things.

TL;DR
Sotsu so far has been underwhelming. There are many instances of things that are very convenient and feel like cop-outs, many instances of already existing footage being reused, and wacky inconsistencies with past knowledge of other seasons. The series has still managed to be at least enjoyable for majority of the time, but there are really some underlying things that could make the later part of this season suffer.

Higurashi Sotsu is currently schedule for 15 episodes, which means we have 11 left. Wata is supposed to be 3, Tata is supposed to be 5, and the ending arc is supposed to be 4. Realistically, this is not enough time to wrap up the story that they currently have laid out. If they continue to not explain things and hold recaps in, I am genuinely afraid for the rest of this series as a major fan of Higurashi.

For those who have not watched this show yet, this anime is based on popular digital novel created by and amateur (refered as 'Doujin' in Japan)writer.

Unlike other anime series, this one splits itself into several stories(arcs). Each arc consists of about 2-5 episodes. All episodes tells the story of main characters(some side characters) encountering different/same/similar events in small countryside village called 'Hinamizawa' (This feels like parallel universe setting, after each story ends, good or bad they go back in time and start again but this time something else happens with new characters, and more mysteries are created or answered).

First few episode of each arc are ... done average to near horrible (Personal Experience: I almost decided to stop watching the series after half way through the first episode,,,thank god I didn't!). It's probably due to the way they made it very 'comedial' and some of the ways characters talk, and also how they look.

However, real excitement usually starts from around mid-second episode. Everything will change dramatically! There are plenty of mystery you can try solve in each story (Later episodes reveals the answers to the mystery, so I recommend watching them in order, it is also hard to solve the mystery with anime version due to lack of details in the story compared to the original novel).

Voice acting is very well done, Mion/Shion Sonozaki are personal favorite characters, but everyone else does good job of making the overall warm/dark feel of the atmosphere!

I highly recommend this animation for people who likes mystery, suspense, violence with interesting plots and twists.

*Added - The same author of this series has released new digital novel called 'Umineko no naku koroni (Umineko - Japanese Gull/Black tailed gull)'. 'Umineko' is not a direct sequel to 'higurashi', but has similarity to higurashi. It has better character settings in term of 'realism' (People are a lot more believable), more serious (less jokes that was less appearing to 'serious story' seekers, and still contains a lot of gore. If you understand Japanese, I highly recommend all mystery loving people to read the novel!

After the finale of Higurashi Gou I was very excited to see the crazy places where this plot would go, boy I was wrong. What we ended up with was 13 episodes of recaps of plots that we have already repetitively read and seen 4 times but with a poorly written antagonist shoved into it. And when you finally get past the recaps you might believe that you'll get rewarded with the good ryukishi plot you came for but that never happens, nothing but pure rubbish.

I have not been this disappointed in a long time. I expected better from Ryukishi.

Without love, it cannot be seen.

Massive spoilers for Higurashi to follow after the next paragraph. If you want my advice, whether you like the series or not, go watch the new one.

I love this show to the bits. I despise this show to the bone of my soul. Higurashi Sotsu is both the best and the worst anime I have seen in 2021 (and 2020 counting Gou). It is both utterly brilliant and completely insulting, both paying great respect and developing the characters 20 years on in nuanced and intricate ways as well as shitting on them from a great height. It loves the ... audience and hates them. It is both incredibly frustrating and incredibly gratifying on a weekly basis. It is both these things at the same time. However, because of this there is no good way to reflect this in my score; simply taking the average and giving a 5 is disingenuous and implies the show is mediocre (when it really isn't). Thus, I will apply the same method Ryukishi07 used in Umineko : To misuse Schrodinger's Cat and to construct a Cat Box.

There is one thing you can't deny going into Gou/Sotsu. In that it is a complete wild ride from start to finish. While the original VN (and Umineko and Ciconia) were works that are to be taken seriously, I cannot see Gou/Sotsu as anything but a black comedy. They hired a comedy director for goodness sake. And from the interviews, the deliberate grindhouse aesthetic chosen for the violent scenes do support this view. It's moments like the club members playing in a river as Satoko violently stabs Rika in the throat with a blunt fork, or Keiichi and Rena playing knifey-clocky, or that beautiful beautiful Gilligan Cut with Akasaka and Rika, that make me laugh uncontrollably. Unironically, Higurashi has been the best comedy of the whole year, unintentional or not, but I'm willing to give some credit in this department. Just some.

Gou/Sotsu (Sotsu especially) is what I'd call the accumulation or the perfection of the art of schlock. It is complete madness from a creator who may or may not have genuine distaste for his work, and who takes the chance to laugh at both himself and the audience for going through in this mess. For that, I respect R07 for going through with this vision. Even if he may completely mock me for enjoying Gou/Sotsu.

To begin dissecting why I think this show deserves both a 1/10 and a 10/10 score at the same time, let's look at characters. Or less charitably, character assassination. Before moving on, I want to stress that I like Satoko's new change in character. Her new personality makes sense and is a natural progression of how her character would evolve after the events of Saikoroshi, and tying her to Lambdadelta or Vier from Umineko/Ciconia respectively makes sense on both a design and plot front. Likewise with Rika. Rika has always been a terrible person even in the VNs, so her stubbornness and selfishness are likewise, natural progressions of her character arc from the end of Saikoroshi, and a bridge to her later alter ego as the cynical and cruel Frederica Bernkastel. No, character assassination refers to everyone else (apart from Teppei). Keiichi, Rena, Mion, Shion, even dear Mr Delicious and some of the adults. That is something I can't easily forgive R07 for. Shion (the one without the tattoo) got the worst of it though. Just her overall patheticness in Watakaashi genuinely made me angry. I just can't fathom why the previously craziest Yandere of the entire series is reduced to a crying mess in front of a slow moving non-threathening Mion. Teppei on the other hand is the (third) biggest winner in terms of character growth though. I can't believe R07 made me actually feel sympathy for him 20 years on. Though in hindsight he pulled the same stunt back with Rosa too, but Teppei here seems genuinely remorseful and because of that, you do end up pitying him.

Now to tackle the plot. Oh boy. While I did like Higurashi as a VN for its atmospheric mystery horror, I will freely admit it eventually relied on a Deus Ex Machina to resolve its plot. Nothing relating to the main themes of trusting your friends ever helped Rika find out the identity of her killer. If we're going with the Eua is Ryukishi07 analogy, we can see one of the first and clearest deviations is that the sheer concept of a Deus Ex Machina is mocked in its entirety for Gou/Sotsu. And that includes Hanyuu of course, which can also be seen as a stand-in for R07 in his earlier days. As a writer, I personally find his longer works (Higurashi, Umineko, Rose Gun Days, and to some extent Higanbana) to be excellent, but at the same time his shorter works or his manga ventures are just terrible (I don't wanna mention Iwaihime ever again, or Loopers). So how does Sotsu fall in this regard?

For an author who once championed the philosophy of actively trying to solve a mystery even if you're off the mark, and who deliberately didn't give explicit solutions to Umineko in Episodes 7 and 8, preferring the viewer to come up with the solutions on their own, it is incredibly disheartening to have most of Sotsu be repetitive recaps of Gou with the most obvious solutions shown in excruciating and unnecessary detail to the viewer. It is tiring and the absolute lowest point in the series for me. It is dead obvious as to the Who, How, and Why of Oni/Wata/Tata, but we really didn't need to see Satoko slowly stalk her victims and inject them and then once more following the victims as they cause havok. It is so dull and so much of the footage from Gou is recycled. At least when Haruhi did it they reanimated many of the scenes. Here though? By my estimate only 40% of Sotsu is new material, and that includes the final 2 episodes which are past the recap point. And yes, it took 8 whole months for the story to continue. And yet, in spite of this flagrant reuse of content, I ended up going through the same motions at Eua, laughing heartily at every single scene Satoko does her spooky red eyes in. It's awful but in the best possible way. Or maybe that's the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in. It is instances like these where I wonder if R07 has contempt for his fans, just stringing us along on this seemingly neverending year-long journey where you do get to feel like Rika being stuck in her endless loops.

It is also through Higurashi that I have to come to a hard realization, that the original VN's plot isn't that good. It is entertaining and I was emotionally moved, yes. But in doing so I had to ignore plot holes and the Deus Ex Machina that completely destroys the whole story in order to provide a happy ending. At the tail end of Matsuribayashi, R07 asks the viewer a graduation question, which to paraphrase is "Is there a way for there to be a happy ending for everyone?". Gou/Sotsu on the surface seems to try to answer that, but in doing so it establishes connections, that weren't there in the first place, to the greater WTC series, Umineko and the still-yet-unfinished Ciconia, with Satoko being the lynchpin that holds this House of Cards together. While this does turn Satoko from my most disliked character into my most loved, the consequence of this is that I have put greater importance on the meta-narrative stringing these series together rather than the individual stories themselves. And in retrospect I can't enjoy the original Higurashi on its own without connecting it to the greater meta-narrative. How it all comes down is still in the air, since the final (?) part of the puzzle is still unreleased.

Much like with Satoko and her conflicting love and hatred for Rika, I too am in a similar position with Sotsu. The ending to Sotsu reinforces my love AND hate for what has become of Higurashi as a new version of you plays in a beautiful scene as everyone gets a happy ending at last...and yet it also reinforces how R07 refuses to provide an explicit connection to his other works. I mean, if you're gonna establish a "cinematic universe" of sorts, why not just go all the way and spare us this grief.

To conclude, there is no easy way to judge Higurashi Sotsu on its own merits. One mustn’t forget that even the original Higurashi has been rereleased several times with several different new arcs penned by different authors and Ryukishi himself, all of varying quality, none matching the original 8 arcs in quality, so in that sense, Gou/Sotsu excel marvelously on that merit alone. BUT, as I had stressed so many times before, it comes at a cost of diluting the original message and spirit of Higurashi in line with connecting it to the greater WTC Series, of which includes an unfinished product. It is both incredibly frustrating and charming at the same time. A myriad of oxymorons in a sealed box. You will never know what you’re gonna get, and the truth is always concealed. All inside a cold uncaring catbox.

Now everyone, join me in praying for Ryukishi to stop giving excuses and continue writing the rest of Ciconia.

1/10

The one represents DAIICHI NO COURSE.

Higurashi Sotsu is a miserable experience. It's a huge troll of an anime in the worst of ways. It respects neither the intelligence nor the time of its viewers. The first 13 episodes of this 15 episode series are glorified recaps. Recaps which add little to no new relevant plot information that couldn't be assumed by having watched the end of Higurashi Gou.

To those unfortunate enough to want to know then end of the story after watching Gou, it's best to just skip to episode 14 of Sotsu.

This show is has the genre labels horror and mystery, but the only horror to be found is ... in the viewer's slow realization that the massive amounts of time spent watching Gou and Sotsu were entirely pointless, and the biggest mystery is how anyone could ever enjoy this.

So... Gou happened and we're half through sotsu and only now we're back to the same point from which the halfway point happened in gou. It's very rare to talk about a show thats pacing is obliteratingly slow.

I have to praise studio passione on the utter balls they have. They managed to stretch the content as thin as possible and make 39 epsiodes out of 12 episodes worth of animation.

The art style is still really unfitting (and not in a "Subversive" way), though it does have a scene here and there where they actually try something interesting. But for the most part, it is literally ... the exact same as the previous season.

Sound is like the previous, not too bad, except i hate having to listen to satoko so much, and oishii for the most part i'm not a fan but I have to commend the performance in his "big moment". OP sucks again as it comes off as a generic action horror song and I don't really care for the ED.

For characters I'm just gonna talk about satoko and some of her victims briefly. Satoko is just annoying, like... I get it... she's evil... you dont have to spend half this season explaining every detail of what she did... just show us the oishii one and we get it. The victims of the curse I feel were to quick to be paranoid, like it would be a much better idea, if it went more in depth on there descent into madness rather than just satoko poppin them and going crazy pretty much instantly.

The reason I keep watching is mostly because of morbid fascination with how they'll rope the other ryukishi series into this and how it will drive sales from crackpot newtypes who still think this story is deep rather than just being "dang, these kids are psychos"

This anime made me wish I was 11 again because it reminded me of childhood classic "happy tree friends"

-Hilarious black humor
-Comic amounts of blood and simplistic gore
-Predictable plotlines
-Everything is spelled out for you by one-dimensional villain so just turn off your brain and enjoy
-Fights that remind me of another childhood classic, "dragonball z"
-antagonist with relatable goals "I don't want to study school is hard"


... Last but not least, if I was 11 again I wouldn't even know the original Higurashi and umineko so I'd smile and laugh watching this, instead of crying myself to sleep and becoming suicidal

also, reminder that the author's only job for the past 20 years was writing edgy fiction and shiposting on imageboards and it shows

When no one expected it, 07Ryukishi returned to Hinamizawa for a new anime storyline. Everyone thought he was over and done with, considering the original Higurashi spanned 8 visual novels, nearly 40 manga volumes and 50 anime episodes, and that’s before you factor in the spinoffs. Running at 39 episodes long, the new anime is more substantial than a typical 1 to 2 cour series. For the purpose of this review, my thoughts refer to both Gou and Sotsu.

Unlike the earlier anime adaptations, this one was co-written by Ryukishi himself. Character designs were by Akio Watanabe, best known for his work on the Monogatari anime ... franchise. And returning composer Kenji Kawai has once again come to lend his talents to the music score. The music is not the best, but it’s not the worse either, especially at the end. The visuals are not the best ever, but at the very least, this new anime from Passione looks better than the Deen anime productions of old.

Speaking of technical aspects, the Japanese voice cast is still ace after all these years. Rika is still my favorite Yukari Tamura performance after all this time. Also of note is that Funimation did an English dub. Uncontroversial opinion: the English dub is as good as the original Japanese. How ironic. The first Higurashi anime’s English dub is quite possibly the worst dub that’s not by 4Kids or Sentai Filmworks in existence. Higurashi Rei and Sotsu? Everyone, even the moe girls, sound just as good as their originals. Michelle Rojas sounds EXACTLY like how Mion sounds in my head when I read the manga, for example. This is a show I can watch in either format and enjoy.

As such, if you’ve seen the score I’ve given, you’ve no doubt formed some thoughts about me. Conversely, I have some thoughts on how the one time an anime sequel is good, everyone shits all over it. Sure, it has 4.5/5 stars on Funimation, but all I hear, from both casual viewers and longtime fans alike, is that Gou and Sotsu sure did suck alright. They just plain sucked! People have seen anime that sucked before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!

Before I continue this apologetic, let me quality myself. Since my last review here was way back in December of 2015, Higurashi has gone up in my personal ranking. It is equal to Ryukishi’s own Umineko in my eyes now.

I should also mention the following: Higurashi and Umineko changed my life. They are only two of three works of fiction to have ever changed me on a fundamental level. (The third being that Star Wars had a huge impact on me as a child.) Ryukishi is also my favorite living author of narrative fiction. And let it be known that Higurashi and Umineko are my favorite works of fiction. (If you thought my review of Castle in the Sky was glowing, well, I’ve seen The Sun shine.) I say all of this now because if any of you think I’m too biased to properly review Gou and Sotsu, you may leave. If you think my merely liking Gou and Sotsu makes you want to PM me and call me a million variations of The R Word, that is your right. My purpose is to convince those who love Higurashi but avoided this new anime project because of the constant complaints from Real Fans™ about it that they should reconsider. Think of this review as a spoiler free reason to return to Hinamizawa.

It's hard to talk about the plot of Gou and Sotsu without spoiling anything. Suffice to say, a new mystery has arisen, and bloodied bodies are piling up once more. Things seem to be the same as before, yet they’re not. How could this be? Why must tragedy play out once more?

Here is the one flaw I found: Gou and Sotsu did not change my life. This could just be that I’m at a point in my life where I can no longer learn anything significant from a work of narrative fiction, but Gou and Sotsu didn’t have the life-altering messages that Tsumihoroboshi-hen, Minagoroshi-hen, and Matsuribayashi-hen did. Gou and Sotsu are “only” as good as Meakashi-hen was for me, which, by any measurable standard, is phenomenal. Still, if failing to live up to an impossibly high standard makes Gou and Sotsu the shittiest shit that was ever shat out of a butt, then fine, the constant criticisms make sense in that regard.

However, let me print a quote from Ryukishi’s own Umineko, “Without love, it cannot be seen.” Many of the Real Fans™ I see bashing Gou and Sotsu are, like me, familiar with Umineko. I wonder if we even saw the same show. I saw an intense character study, one full of pathos, a story where people grow older and move on to new things. Sometimes, that creates friction, even amongst those with the strongest of bonds. Sometimes, people drift apart not because of things like politics or a change of careers, but just…time. People you knew as kids might not be good friends of yours anymore. People you respect as an adult probably would’ve gotten on your nerves as a kid. People you idolize might have selfish desires, desires that go against your own wishes. This is life. This is reality. Sure, Higurashi presents this in the form of a story where little girls with huge eyes get massacred in brutal fashion, but Higurashi does something very, VERY few works of Japanese popular culture do: reflect reality. This is humanity. It’s not always pleasant. Many victims of abuse grow up to become abusers themselves. Those cute girls you look up to might not stay that way forever because that’s life. And, if I’ve learned anything from talking to people on the internet, it’s that whenever anything reminds people of something that makes them uncomfortable, their first instinct is to attack it. That, too, is reality.

Viewers these days are too literal. There is a difference between what a person literally says versus the actual meaning of what is being said. Much like with the ending of the Umineko visual novel, viewers are once again mis-interpreting Ryukishi’s message. There are no plot holes. No one is out-of-character. The mystery is not the point. If you focused on the actual message of Gou and Sotsu as opposed to your immediate reaction to something occurring that you didn’t theorize would happen when news first dropped of a new Higurashi anime, you would know this.

I publish this knowing full well that my reputation could permanently tank in this community. That’s fine. I already left behind the anime/manga community, so to speak, years ago. I only came back here because I’m trying to create a miracle. I hope this text, however unlikely, convinces fellow Higurashi fans who skipped Gou and Sotsu to give it a chance. While Gou and Sotsu didn’t have the same impact on me like Tsumihoroboshi-hen did, maybe it will for someone else. For me, that is enough.

Good tidings to all of you. Excel. Be kind to each other and yourselves. Bask in the miracle that is your existence. Thank you for reading. Have a pleasant day.

As I watched the final episode of this season, I felt I could relate to something one of the characters said:

"I tire of this." -Eua (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu, episode 15)

Going into Higurashi Gou, I decided to watch through the first three seasons made by Studio Deen (that being Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei). I'll write a review for Gou shortly after writing this one, but I will say, when I finished Higurashi Gou, I at least felt that there were ... some very interesting ideas at play. I'm sorry to say that I felt the complete opposite as I watched through Sotsu.

First of all, the animation this season was less than subpar. Much of it was reused, and any of it that wasn't reused was fairly ugly and far too saturated to look at. Many animation choices were questionable as well, namely the incredulous amounts of blood during kill scenes. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, especially for action shows with shounen pacing, like Jojo, but here it's just a hindrance. Blood gets spattered to such a degree that rather than being grossed out, scared, or horrified by a scene, I end up laughing in disbelief. In other words, this anime no longer classifies as part of the "horror" genre in my book.

Second, this anime is just downright boring. In Gou, the first half of the season consisted of a "retelling" of the arcs that happened in the first season of the original Deen series, but with a good number of changes to create a new mystery. In Sotsu however, we actually have to sit through the same exact arcs AGAIN, but through a different character's perspective. Unfortunately, the amount of changes we see in these 13 long episodes could've been summed up in only 2 short episodes. Believe me when I say, sitting through these episodes is more tedious than sitting through Haruhi Suzumiya's "Endless Eight". And let me remind you that this season was only 15 episodes. If you want to watch this season, be prepared for 13 episodes of waiting for a change of pace. Furthermore, the payoff that you get from the last 2 episodes is miniscule in comparison to the conclusion of the original series.

The last two episodes, without spoiling anything, could be summed up pretty easily. If I could describe it in one sentence, it would be along the lines of, "Two children have a badly animated shounen battle while two other children fight over who's going to give up first". Figuring out which pair of children is which will be the hard part if you're watching this for the first time, but I promise you that it's one of the most boring conclusions I've ever seen for a long running series like Higurashi.

Anyway, after sitting through this dumpster fire, I can avidly say that it was a waste of my time. I think I'm going to give up on any future "When They Cry" adaptations and just start reading the VNs. I hear they're pretty good.

This is possibly the greatest anime ever made. I'm a long time fan of Higurashi since 2006 so my expectations for this story are extremely high. Yet somehow this show not only delivered but surpassed all my realistic expectations and just blew me away. Never before has an anime story had such great buildup and payoff in the end.

I was excited getting into Gou with it going down a neat new story direction and expanding upon the Higurashi universe further. Sotsu is a continuation of the saga that Gou set up and revisits a lot of the murders from the previous season from a fresh ... new perspective. Even though we have seen these events in some form from the previous season, Sotsu puts fresh new twists and shocking reveals so there is never once a dull moment. And it all feels so gloriously rewarding with the payoff we get in the climax. As a fan over the whole scope of Ryukishi07's works and not just in isolation to Higurashi, this work is near masterful..

My only complaint about this anime is that the art an animation are just average and don't do anything that amazing. Still, when the only complaint about the art and animation is that it is standard, I'm really trying to reach when coming up with aspects this anime actually did wrong.

The sound and characters are all up to WTC's traditionally high standards for such. The OP and ED were amazing performances and always got me hyped for the show. The music used during the final conflict was chilling and gave me goosebumps.

Overall this anime is a rare masterpiece. It has far exceeded all my expectations. 10/10 will watch again.

The beginning concept of Higurashi isn’t that original — a boy moves to isolated, rural town and slowly discovers things are not what they seem. But it’s a “classic” story setting for a mystery anime, as opposed to one that’s “overused.” Higurashi is also impressive when you consider how it blends perfectly a bunch of genres that don’t usually go together. It’s a harem/ horror/ mystery/ drama/ comedy/ psychological anime that even has some slice-of-life. The detail and originality of the Higurashi story is splendid, with puzzling mysteries, exploration of the “curse,” and the way the world resets with each arc. I’d say more, but ... I’m avoiding spoilers.

Now let’s take a look at the content and how it’s presented in Higurashi. I don’t know of any other anime that does such a good job of combining stories of lighthearted fun and comedy with stories of disturbing violence and suspense. When things are peaceful, I feel like I’m right there with the characters having fun with them. The cute, funny, and weird quirks, reactions, and interactions are highly entertaining. The humor will at least bring a smile to your face. Higurashi‘s presentation of suspense and creepiness is right on-point. The violence is just as horrifying as it should be (and believe me, it’s not over-the-top compared to some of the graphically violent anime out there.) Also, the show knows how to deliver good, interesting drama.In Higurashi‘s first season, thought-provoking themes and motifs are not immediately obvious because of all the gore and insanity. Some are there, though, and they’re fairly powerful. (Still, the second season does better with incorporating meaningful messages and themes.) These include friendship and faith in friends, betrayal, atonement, misunderstandings, cause and effect, young love, obsession, character psychology, and determination.It would be a great understatement to say the seiyuu cast is great; they are basically perfect in this show. I’ll mention some here. Soichiro Hoshi voices male lead Keiichi, and I’m surprised he doesn’t have more roles since his acting was all-around on-point. He played the MC of Gundam Seed, and I know him best as Gino from Code Geass. Satsuki Yunkino plays Mion and Shion Sonozaki; she is probably best known for voicing Kagome in InuYasha and Otae in Gintama. The range of Yukino’s voice from sweet to scary is impressive, as is the volume and power she can put into shouts and laughs. She’s a veteran voice-actress who really gets into her characters.

Rena Ryuuguu’s seiyuu is Mai Nakahara, another bright talent, and exceptionally great with playing characters that have a menacing side. She’s been in many anime I haven’t seen, but I know her Luvia in Fairy Tale, Nagisa in Clannad, Watashi in Humanity Has Declined, Mai in Mai-Hime, Yukinoshita’s older sis from Oregairu, and Nanami Yasuri in Katanagatari. The seiyuu of Rika Furude is Yukari Tamura, whose voice is usually adorable and high, but has a great range of pitch/ tone etc. She’s most famous for voicing Suzuha in Steins;Gate and Nanoha in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Other fantastic VAs include Yuu Kobayashi (as Satoshi), Miki Itou (as Miyo Takano), and Hirotaka Shimazawa (as Detective Ooishi).In my opinion, the characters in Higurashi deserve another full 10/10, but many other people consider them difficult to relate to because of the insanity most of them suffer at one point or another. As well, it’s difficult to gather a detailed picture of the characters’ personalities from just one watch of the series; to understand them and love them as much as I do requires re-watching many times and analyzing many behaviors and lines spoken. Because of these potential difficulties, I gave the characters category a 9/10 rather than 10/10.

Other than anything mentioned above, the characters in Higurashi are presented and expanded on perfectly. The development and growth of characters is well-paced, spread throughout the episodes. It’s great how you learn a little more about each of the characters in each arc. There is adequate character growth/ maturation within the arcs, but of course, it doesn’t really carry over to the next world. Even if you can’t relate to them too well, I believe you’ll find that Mion, Shion, Satoko, Rika, Keiichi, and all the others are engaging and entertaining characters.

It’s getting very difficult to resist writing tons of text about the characters I love, why I love them, and their stories. Anything like that would include spoilers. So I must stop myself nowOh, this isn’t fair. I want to give you examples of so many things I love. Things like favorite character, favorite arc, a quote I like, an enjoyable funny moment or joke, a sad moment that spoke to me, or my favorite scenes of characters going crazy. But almost all of that involves spoilers. Well, maybe not. Let’s see. My favorite character is Shion Sonozaki, and second-favorite is Rika Furude. My favorite arc in season one is “Meakashi-hen,” or “Eye-Opening Chapter.” It runs from episode 16 to 21. Something funny I love is Satoko’s villainous ojou-sama laugh. It’s perfect.

The sad, powerful, and crazy moments I want to talk about all give spoilers, though. I did have a quote in mind, but it won’t make any sense to you unless I explain the situation (would mean giving spoilers) or unless you’ve already seen the show/scene. Well, I’ll leave it here anyway. I like this quote because reveals a lot abut Shion’s personality and motivations.

(Minor spoilers)

I am a real fan of this franchise, even if know that Gou was not the best sequel, I am still like it because has the same vibes as the 2006 original show.
But when we talk about Sotsu I would really like to say the same, but no.

Satsu starts strong with the story of Rena, which was left out of Gou, but then we a lot recaps episodes with almost no new information about the main plot. Just some scenes about Satoko and how she got a gun. We also get tiny information about Eua's character, but nothing really relevant.
13 episodes after comes ... to the resolution of the main conflict in just 2 episodes and were the biggest disappointment. Higurashi was an anime about mystery and thriller, but the "final battle" is a "shounen final battle". 15 episodes for nothing. they just can put the last 2 episodes in Gou and we got almost the same anime and save money.

I was expecting some mind games between Rika and Satoko. Ultimate disappoint.

In other topics, the animation and sound are decent, but even the most outstanding production can't save this trash.

I tend not to write reviews, and yet here I am again writing a review for the second season of the Higurashi reboot. I don't even know where to begin anymore. At first I was just frustrated at many components of Gou and Sotsu, but now I'm just utterly defeated. I haven't even seen the final episode yet as of this review, but seeing as how completely and thoroughly Sotsu has destroyed the legacy of Higurashi, I don't feel like waiting another week only to voice the same opinions. Before this review turns into an incoherent rant, let me attempt to try and bring some ... order to my thoughts.

Im only gonna cover the characters and mix in criticisms of parts of the story, otherwise there will just be far too much to say. The only conclusion I have is that Higurashi Sotsu is an excellent character assassination of figures from both Higurashi and Umineko, almost as if it was intentional. I'll try to briefly cover the biggest offenses below:

Featherine (or Eua or whatever her name was in the anime) is The Witch of Theatergoing, Drama and Spectating. Out of the countless stories she has witnessed and manipulated, for whatever reason she acts like Satoko's little cat and mouse game is some sort of high art and among the best of them all, which really shatters her image as a refined and cultured being who has seen all of history yet still looks for new entertainment. To add to the destruction of her image, she laughs patronizingly nearly every time she is on screen, in a way she would likely chide her servants for doing. The writers use her to explain the concepts that might be a little too complex to the viewer instead of letting the not so subtle themes be shown rather than told to the viewer, and in doing so they dumb her down as well.

Anyway, next is Satoko. Satoko...Yeah. 13 of the 15 episodes of this season are essentially recap episodes of the Gou season before it ever actually returns to the cliffhanger they left off with. The only difference is that they are instead told from Satoko's perspective, except instead of teaching the viewer anything, it is overexplaining a plot element that was never strong enough to carry the show. Satoko's role in all the new crimes is not news to the viewer by this season. So instead of revealing any new information like the typical Answer arc of an 07th work would do, Sotsu shows us the completely unsympathetic efforts of Satoko as she crafts plans and carries out cruel torture of her closest friends, all because, and I'm quoting Satoko herself here, "I hate studying". If you got to this season you know the whole Saint Lucia's ordeal, but yeah, she is willing to destroy the lives of her friends and does so sadistically because Satoko is now the cute little fanservice loli yandere workhorse that is supposed to justify this anime existing and carry the plot.

The last character I'll bother discussing is Rika. Perhaps this criticism is too harsh, but given that she is someone who has hundreds of years of life experience and sagely wisdom, and has solved countless crimes in Hinamizawa (although she rarely lived through them), it takes her two seasons to figure out who the killer is, and even then its not through her own deduction but because of a poorly written plot convenience. This is part of the biggest problem I would say this season had; the complete lack of any payoff.

There's absolutely no sense of triumph or excitement when Rika reaches the truth, as there is when the protagonist of any mystery work finally solves the mystery. Nothing new happens until the 14th episode of the season, and there's only 15 in total. But rather than redeeming any of the problems or issues, episode 14 is the murder weapon that finally kills the Higurashi franchise. Even among the people who have been enjoying this season, I have been hearing wtfs and comments about dissatisfaction. It doesn't even feel like Higurashi anymore. Without spoiling anything, all the tropes of a shounen anime are thrown in, and a dragon ball style battle ensues spanning multiple quickly cut fragments with tons of determined anime screaming, unnecessary loli gore porn, flying through the sky and battling with nonsensical energy auras... I don't even know what to say. The final fight makes no sense anyway, as the anime has previously said that if Satoko dies before Rika it basically nullifies her power, but now they act as if the only way to kill a looper is with the specific weapon Rika was told about. The anime is clearly aware of both of these statements, as Satoko is always careful to die after Rika, and both of them battle over control over the weapon, but it somehow overlooks the fact that Rika doesn't even need the weapon to kill Satoko, not to mention the fact that Satoko doesnt want to kill Rika permanently but still tries to kill her with the looper killing weapon anyway.

Sotsu has done everything wrong, both as a Higurashi successor and as a story in general. It feels the need to show every single detail of Satoko's plots, rather than trust the audience to understand that she is masterminding the plots. The motivation of the main antagonist, who is the main focus of the season, is not only remarkably shallow, but completely unsympathetic and really takes you out of the story, as it is in no way believable. The constant debriefing sessions Satoko has with Featherine are also just another way of padding runtime, recycling plots, and giving exposition or explaining how characters are feeling instead of actually having any feeling at all.

Higurashi Sotsu is not horror, its not mystery, its not suspenseful. It isn't really Higurashi at all, and if you watch this season I'm sure you'll agree by the end too. But even if you stop comparing Sotsu to the original Higurashi, you're left with nothing really. The show takes too many leniencies with explanations that can only come from the original to be considered a standalone. But if we ignore this and consider only the substance in front of us, the story Sotsu tries to tell is still just a long, drawn out attempt to make a lackluster story and unremarkable writing into something that resembles a coherent one, and sacrifices everything that could otherwise make it enjoyable along the way.

Why have you done this to us Ryukishi?

This anime was just recaps from the previous season... which was already recycled material from the original higurashi.
The plot is downright nonsensical and all the characters you loved in the original Higurashi are either irrelevant or have butchered characterization (remember Rika caring about her friends? the writers sure don't, she'd kill them all if it meant being with her gay lover Satoko).
Oh, but it has an umineko reference at the end, wow! I guess ruining higurashi was worth it then. Jesus christ.
Do not ever watch this. It's up there with Mayoiga as one of the worst anime I've ever watched. I pity the poor ... unaware souls that picked up Higurashi with this entry, because it also spoils the original, making that one too, unwatchable.

I loved the original Higurashi anime and VN, so I was extremely excited when they announced a new anime in the franchise. I didn't care if it was a remake of the original or a new story arc like Higurashi Outbreak. I would have even been fine with a lighthearted comedy spinoff similar to episodes 1 and 5 of Higurashi Rei. Instead what we got was a "sequel" that straight-up mocks the original story and performs a complete character assassination on many of its beloved characters.

I'll give a spoiler warning here, but since this anime is so irredeemably bad that nobody should watch it, I ... don't think it'll matter.

What baffles me is that Higurashi Sotsu points out its own story flaws through character dialogue. When Hanyuu cries, "Please stop! Why are you making Satoko do these awful things?", that is the exact thing that goes through the audience's mind while watching this show. Satoko is one of the most sympathetic characters from the original Higurashi. She's a victim of domestic abuse and bullying. Her brother has disappeared and she has panic attacks. But despite all that she puts on a brave face most of the time and plays with her friends like nothing's wrong. It's hard to make a character as selfless and mistreated as her the bad guy, but that's exactly what the idiots behind this anime decided to do. Meanwhile her uncle Teppei, the objectively most despicable character from the original gets a redemption arc that nobody asked for. It's sickening how they try to make us sympathize with a literal child abuser while making his victim the bad guy. Talk about tasteless and contrived.

Another thing that sucks about this show is how boring and repetitive it is. After you find out Satoko is the villain, which on its own is likely the single dumbest Shyamalan-esque plot twist I've seen in any media, there is no mystery or suspense. They just replay clips of Rika and her friends getting murdered over and over again that we already saw during the first season. Only this time it cuts to Satoko with an evil smile. Speaking of which, here's a fun drinking game: take a shot every time Satoko pretends to be sad or upset in front of the other characters, and then five seconds later flashing a psychotic smile to the camera. It gets really obnoxious really fast. We get it, she's the bad guy. Rubbing it in our faces doesn't make it any less dumb.

Really the only new information we get in this season is how exactly Satoko got access to a gun, the virus and the knowledge how to mess with Rika. But since it's still so hard to accept the level of stupidity required to make Satoko the villain, all of these scenes are just boring and meaningless. We cannot relate to her motivations at all, so watching her elaborate planning is just tedious.

I mentioned earlier how the characters themselves point out how stupid the story and character motivations are. The most insulting example of this comes in the last couple episodes where nothing happens except for Rika and Satoko fighting non-stop. Rika points out that it's crazy how Satoko's whole motivation behind killing her friends over and over again is basically that "she hates studying". And yeah, that's very much what it all boils down to. 39 episodes of senseless murder and betrayal, and it's all because Satoko didn't like studying and wanted to stop Rika from going into a prestigious school where Satoko herself couldn't keep up.

So yeah, Satoko wants to stop Rika from going to a different school and basically uses timelooping in order to bully her into staying in Hinamizawa. This is the main problem that sums up why nothing about this anime is even remotely enjoyable. The villain is a previously likable character who turned evil for the pettiest reason. How is it entertaining or interesting to watch a character kill her own friends she loved and cherished, just because she has attachment issues? Also, whatever happened to Satoko seeing Keiichi as her surrogate older brother? Or how about Shion as her protective older sister? Those relationships are barely even touched as Satoko is just uncharacteristically obsessed with Rika now. I get that they're best friends, but best friends don't treat each other this way.

Furthermore, it's also weird how Rika wants to leave Hinamizawa so bad. You'd think that she'd want to stay with her trusted friends who helped her defeat Takano. In the original series, Rika is constantly referring to worlds without Keiichi "hopeless", so it's out of character for her to just leave and forget about him.

Anyway, Satoko tries to justify her actions by pointing out that Rika didn't do enough to support her when she struggled at the prestigious school. Not only is this still a petty reason to hold a grudge, it's also objectively false. There were many moments when Rika offered help, but Satoko simply refused it and kept insisting that she'll always suck at studying. You'd think that Satoko would use her timelooping skills to overcome her educational obstacles instead of planning how to creatively murder her friends, but I digress.

And to be fair, Rika very uncharacteristically just forgot about Satoko soon enough and just started hanging out with her new snobby friends. That's more evidence of character-assassination on her part. She would never just leave her struggling friend alone that easily.

Speaking of leaving friends alone, it's weird how Keiichi, Rena and Mion get basically forgotten when Rika and Satoko went to the school. You'd think that they would stay in touch more after all they've been through together. But they're like "oh, you're going to a different school? Cool, I guess I'll see you around". No teary farewells or anything. And when the gang does reunite it doesn't have any kind of emotionally satisfying payoff. It's like "hey remember when our friendship and teamwork ended a 100-year timeloop of constant death? That was cool". All the relationships in this anime are so soulless.

The new Higurashi is not scary, interesting or even "so bad it's good". It's not a good mystery because the biggest twist is complete nonsense. It's not a good drama because the characters are awful for no good reason. It's not for newcomers, because it expects you to have seen the original. It's not for fans because it ruins previously lovable characters (namely Satoko and Rika), redeems the worst possible character (Teppei), and sidelines other fan favorites (Rena, Mion, Keiichi). It's annoying and frustrating to watch characters we've seen pull through impossible odds together being so cold to each other for no good reason. Avoid this terrible show at all costs.

I had the pleasure of watching the original higurashi when I was in my early twenties and the combination of the art style plus the story was an experience that goes far beyond these two recreation series. It makes me sad that anyone who gets into the higurashi storyline watches these two abominations prior to actually seeing what higurashi is really about. You don't get a sense of dread and terror from these remakes, despite them literally recreating every single bit from the original with slightly better art, if you could call it that.They also hardly explored the 2nd seasons Arc with Takano, whom was ... the main villain all along. The very reason Rika had to suffer so much, but Satako was somehow able to watch 100 years worth of her best friends suffering and we're supposed to pretend it was this evil "witch" Satako based on how they ended the series, not the real Satako, whom made those heartless decisions. I think the art style delivered in the original gave Higurashi its notoriety. The same studio that did Konosuba as far as I can recall, who also did the original Higurashi, did the series justice. I think they were a perfect fit for the original series. The saddest thing to me was watching the final episode look like a Naruto wannabe remake with Sasuke and Naruto punching each other until their feelings reached one another. We spent the entire series watching remakes of what we already knew for basically this episode alone, episode 15. I still cried at the end because I love these characters and everything that drew me to Higurashi in the first place. I really hated it when Satoko snapped her fingers as if to return to her original self because that in itself broke my heart. I don't understand why they took the direction they did with this story, why the main cast (Keichii, Mion, Rena, Shion) cut out of so much of this series just for such pointless recreation and melodrama. If you're watching the remakes for the first time maybe it makes sense to you, but for somebody who grew up on the original Higurashi story and fell in love with it, it's really hard to say anything positive about the finale of this series. I highly suggest everyone to to watch the original two series and get a real feel for what Higurashi No Naku Koro No is about.

There were two things that made the original Higurashi so good: Mystery and Despair. The constant confusion and anxiety formed by each loop were strangely delightful to experience and it constantly kept you engaged, wondering how is this connected to this, why is this happening, etc. The second part is the despair, the violence, the suffering, the dark stuff some of us enjoy a lot. It wasn't only the gruesome gore and deaths themselves, some of the events that aren't bloody are terrifying as well, like one of the arcs where satoko is the last one alive in Hinamizawa after the "gas" eruption, who is ... forced to deal with that reality right after watching a murderous Keichi fall to his death. It's so horrifying and it's so good. Yet Higurashi isn't just a gorefest or a sadist's generic entertainment, because throughout it's entire runtime you are under the impression that these horrible things are happening for a reason and the mystery of it all gives the story its substance.

Now let's look at the new Higurashi, I think it's fair to judge both Gou and Sotsu together since they're like two parts of the same story. As much as my score doesn't imply the following: I found Gou to be entertaining enough. Granted it wasn't as good as the original but the same sense of mystery and despair was there, and I didn't mind the big twist at the end and Rika's and Satoko's story in the academy. Yet unlike the original Higurashi, the more episodes that passed the harder and harder it was to go along with the nonsensical clusterfuck this show had become.

Granted, the original Higurashi also had some hard to believe elements like the virus, Rika being a carrier, demons from the past, the looping mechanic itself and the sea of fragments. Yet all of these are tastefully implemented in the story and they just barely manage to pass your bullshit radar. Gou is fine as well but shit gets too nonsensical with Sotsu.

Suddenly there's another deity, both deities have powers which are unexplained, Satoko has special looping abilities, there is a looper killing swords, satoko fights herself in the sea of fragments and kills herself, you have no idea if this is metaphorical to her killing her old personality or literally she killed another version of herself. The grand finale of episode 14 which made me drop the show has satoko and Rika going Goku and flying around, fighting each other.

What made Higurashi so horrifying was that mostly everything that happened made sense, there were substantive reasons for the horrific things the characters are going through. Yet the main reason in Gou and Sotsu is that there's a new deity and she's bored so she just makes Satoko torture Rika. Not only does this make everything seem pointless and arbitrary, it's also boring because the mystery is gone. Right from the moment Satoko pulls out her gun on Rika the mystery pretty much dies down. Sotsu is just a recap that we didn't need that barely adds anything to the story. We just sit and watch everything we already know happened play out, it's boring and a lazy way to fill runtime. Yet we sit through it because we want to know how it's gonna play out, what will Rika do when she figures it out, and well she just goes DBZ super power mode and fights Satoko like I'm watching a parody of Higurashi.

The suffering is pointless, the recap is pointless, this new Higurashi is pointless and it taints the original story so much that it's insulting. Whether you're a new or an old fan, stay away from this one.