Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu Episode 11 Discussion

SkyhighCFC said:


"Oh someone enjoys something that I don't? They must be retarded/don't have my insane IQ!" s

Chargecoulomb said:
Maybe it'll be 24 eps? That seems to be reasonable.

But I can already feel series fatigue setting in for viewers.

These 11 EPs have to be some of the most wasteful anime EPs I've ever seen. They could have started with Tatari and we would have missed nothing - even with that they could have covered this evil Satoko and Keichii stuff within ONE Episode.

The op shows Rika and Satoko facing off, 11 EPs in we've seen none of that.


Anybody who's gonna be watching Sotsu in the future, I'm gonna be recommending to skip all the Rena and Mion EPs. Completely pointless, and add nothing to the series.

Lyree said:
you're retarded too if you don't get what I mean and twist my words like that.
It's not about enjoyment.
It's about not understanding what the og higu is all about. Cause it's not about mindless, cheap gore.

Chargecoulomb said:
Maybe it'll be 24 eps? That seems to be reasonable.

But I can already feel series fatigue setting in for viewers.

These 11 EPs have to be some of the most wasteful anime EPs I've ever seen. They could have started with Tatari and we would have missed nothing - even with that they could have covered this evil Satoko and Keichii stuff within ONE Episode.

The op shows Rika and Satoko facing off, 11 EPs in we've seen none of that.


Anybody who's gonna be watching Sotsu in the future, I'm gonna be recommending to skip all the Rena and Mion EPs. Completely pointless, and add nothing to the series.

Fabienne said:
Hahaha this is so entertaining ...
Not! damn it's not, the best thing about all this is that Rika looks like an idiot.

I mean wow Satoko kills three people in one day, who is she, a professional hitman.
She can even wield the baseball bat like a pro, I wonder why Satoko doesn't try to conquer Japan. It would most likely work in her favor.

The new thing about the episode was that only Rena was spared this time,
lol if at all Satoko has to get punished for giving the sweetest character such a traumatic experience.

It's time for a switch of perspective, Rika wake up!

I really don't know what that anime wants to tell us in the end, for more than 10 episodes we see what Satoko can do when running wild, the other characters are mainly there to fill the screen or to get abused and killed by Satoko.

SkyhighCFC said:


To be fair...Rika was never the smartest character to begin with. It took her 100 years to "conquer fate", when it was only in the last few arcs of the OG that she actually tried to change anything. She was an idiot in the OG and nothing has really changed here.

SkyhighCFC said:


To be fair...Rika was never the smartest character to begin with. It took her 100 years to "conquer fate", when it was only in the last few arcs of the OG that she actually tried to change anything. She was an idiot in the OG and nothing has really changed here.

SkyhighCFC said:


Some people like being able to see what actually happened from the killers perspective in a series like this. Just because you didn't care for it, doesn't mean it was "completely pointless".

ssjokg said:
An "idiot" who has all the information they need and and "idiot" who knows nothing are two different things.

Jin_uzuki said:


This is factually untrue. In the original it was mentioned she tried a bunch of shit, she even escaped from Hinamizawa once and lived in the woods for months, which allowed her to survive until July. Her repeated failures coupled with Hanyuu's fatalistic mindset is what led her to give up.

Her "dumbest" behavior in the original was not using Hanyuu better, but that feels more like a plot hole than anything since it would have ended the story in 5 minutes.

Chargecoulomb said:


If we just followed what Satoko did, we could have covered three arcs in 3 episodes.

Just collect all the important segments from these 11 EPs and see how much run time you get.

Rena's episodes were a poor man's version of Tsumiboroshi.
Most of content of Mions EPs were repeats.
This arc speaks for itself.

Someone should make episode edits stripping away all the repeats and fluff. You'll get around 3 -5 episodes. One for Rena, Two for Mion, and Three for Satoko.

SkyhighCFC said:


She did try to actually take action in GOU and SOTSU to be completely fair to her, but even then she should've noticed that something was off way sooner. But again...this isn't new.

ssjokg said:
The actions she took completely ignore the knowledge she has now. It is like this was the pre Matsuri og Rika again.

Saving her friends but letting Tomitake die and do nothing about Takano wont save her ass.

Like, she had one scene in Tataridmashi were she seems wary of Takano but as we saw right after the Satoko deal is over she acts as if everything is solved.

It makes no sense, and I am ot buying that Rika is such an idiot.

SkyhighCFC said:


I'm not buying this excuse for her character at all. She was "trying a bunch of shit" yet it took her 100 years to figure out that Takano was the culprit? That's laughable at best. I've come to accept that her character doesn't learn from her mistakes and is way too quick to give up.

Jin_uzuki said:
[

It's not an excuse, it's what the damn story said. She tried to save Satoshi, her parents, warn everyone, escape, but it always failed. Trying to say she did nothing in the original it's factually incorrect.


Even in Saikoroshi Rika was more aware since the very first thing she's does is wondering how she can pull a Matsuri again.

SkyhighCFC said:
I didn't even think about this...but you're actually so right. It really does make no sense whatsoever even if you consider Rika to not be the smartest. Why is she acting like she won when they haven't even confronted Takano yet (given that at this point she still thinks Takano is the culprit).

LockeGran said:
The fact that this is the moment where you decided to question Rika's intelligence and actions in Gou/Sotsu speaks a lot about you.

SkyhighCFC said:


None of this changes the fact it took her over 100 bloody years just to figure out who the culprit is. That in and of itself is laughable. Ok, I admit I was wrong to say she didn't try anything until the last few arcs, but that might as well have been true considering it took her so damn long to make any meaningful progress.

Si1verR0se said:

Ask Ryukishi. He decided to add Hanyu without thinking about plotholes that it will bring.
I mean, obviously asking Hanyu to follow Takano\Tomitake to find out who kill them(or at least follow them herself) is the first choice you're gonna come up with after like 10 tries at least. But then it will completely remove "who is the culprit" thing.
BUT, there was no mention of Rika even trying to do so, so it's just a plothole.
No way it speaks "lol Rika is dumb". If you think she's dumb, I have a bad news for you: you're lacking critical information

Mizu said:
Will any of this be worth a rewatch in the future?

SkyhighCFC said:
Some people like being able to see what actually happened from the killers perspective in a series like this. Just because you didn't care for it, doesn't mean it was "completely pointless".

SkyhighCFC said:
To be fair...Rika was never the smartest character to begin with. It took her 100 years to "conquer fate", when it was only in the last few arcs of the OG that she actually tried to change anything. She was an idiot in the OG and nothing has really changed here.

SkyhighCFC said:
She did try to actually take action in GOU and SOTSU to be completely fair to her, but even then she should've noticed that something was off way sooner. But again...this isn't new.

SkyhighCFC said:
She was "trying a bunch of shit" yet it took her 100 years to figure out that Takano was the culprit? That's laughable at best. I've come to accept that her character doesn't learn from her mistakes and is way too quick to give up.

Hulio said:
Fuck no.
If anything, Rewatching Deen after this will feel like a storytelling & directing masterpiece.

Sooo... just because you or someone else wants to see it means it's not pointless?

So let's start with your baseless assumptions.

Yeah it took her 100+ years to finally win, whats wrong about that?
It just means the challenge was that hard. Takano was all but an easy opponent to deal with. What Rika should have done in your opinion?
Do you know chess? Here's a challenge for you.
Play one chess game each year with someone highly intelligent. But only you won't know the rules, and aside of a few main rules, there's smaller ones that seemingly change between games.

Let's see how many years it will take for you to win.

She only tries changing something at the last chapters of OG? Uhh, no.
She tried changing things at the beginning, she tried a lot, but then she gave up.
The main story is about the fragments where she has already more or less given up, except for those few last chapters where she regained her fighting spirit.

She tried nothing.. NOTHING.
Patted Tomitake's head, told K1 to let Rena in, suggested giving the doll to Mion..
And? She didn't do any of those in the past? Not sure, but even if everyone survived Watanagashi, they would die quickly after... She did nothing.

You're laughable.
Consider yourself repeating the year 2021 all over again, always dying at June.
But here's the twist, you won't remember anything from the night of your death, and there's a special ops group hunting you down.
The death will be swift and come literally out of nothing.

Also meanwhile, all your friends and family will be killing each other.
Great funfun times to play detective of who kills me.

SkyhighCFC said:
- Yes...yes it does. Most people don't like being left without a visual explanation of how things went down in a story like this. They should've condensed this down into less episodes than it took, but regardless, it wasn't "pointless".

- Oh brother...did you seriously just compare playing 1 chess game a year against "Someone highly intelligent" for 100 years to Rika's situation? You do realize that's only 100 chess games right? Rika spent well over 100 loops in June 1983. No where did I claim that her task was an easy one, or that Takano was an easy opponent, but the fact that Takano and Tomitake were the only constants within ALL that time should've given her at least a bloody hint. I also already addressed that I was wrong that she only tried to change things in the last chapters of the OG...but even so. 100 years???

- In GOU/SOTSU, she tried things that would've helped her get closer to the answer in the OG.

- If it takes you more than 10 loops to realize that Takano/Tomitake are suspiciously the only real constants within every loop then you are indeed laughably stupid.

but she could easily utilize the time before that to help her piece together shit. It would definitely still take a while because of the reasons you listed, but 100 years? I don't think so.

Stopping her family/friends from killing each other should've been the easiest part considering her friends got the syndrome naturally unlike in GOU/SOTSU where they were forcefully injected, and there were clear red flags for each of them getting the virus.

This doesn't even take into account her terrible use of Hanyuu throughout the series. You cannot convince me that Rika is an intelligent character.

Lyree said:
boring and annoying.
as expected, the only thing ooishi could say was itchy itchy itchy.
there's so much wrong with it it would be a waste of time to type it all again.
this show is so pathetic I can't wait for it to be finally over

also funny how there's ALWAYS some replies in the episode threads like "oh finally it's the good higurashi as we know and love it!!!!"
is that irony? are people blind and deaf watching it / just dumb?

Hulio said:
If that one guy calling this pointless doesn't make it pointless, it is equally strong argument to say that one guy calling this not-pointless doesn't make this not-pointless.

If we'd draw a line between new watchers and old, one of which would call this pointless whereas the other would not. I don't think you have the authority to disregard the other side's opinion of the pointlessness.

I sure did. Would you have rather played 100 a year? Don't forget the not knowing the rules part, that's important.

I don't fully remember if they used this comparison in Higurashi, but they sure did in Umineko, the theory is exceedinly the same tho.

You're saying her task wasn't easy, but you're also saying she's very stupid? hmm.
Also don't stick with the 100 years part, it's just 100 years. You probably haven't lived that long so you don't know how that feels. Or how dying feels.. or whatever in Higurashi feels.
Maybe you would have done better than Rika, but maybe you would have done a lot worse, frankly, we can never know.

Don't know if you read or watched the OG stories, but even if you picked up Takano & Tommy dying every single chapter, and even when you had vast amounts of 3rd party information Rika was lacking. You probably didn't figure out Takano was the culprit until the end. But then again, that's completely uncomparable.

Considering she had already gone through everything and even won, she should have actually tried doing something.. fighting against the fate. Not just leave it at "I told K1 to be kind to Rena, I wish everything will be okay now"

So you're saying it took Rika more than that to notice that?
Funny enough, they weren't.

From what I remember, I'm pretty sure Rika was under surveillance, and got attacked & cloroformed during her sleep, and then killed later. Not sure how easy it would be piece stuff together + the amnesia. Most of the times she'd just wake up in the new fragment with "Oh.. I died again"
At most you'd know that Takano, Tomi & Rika herself always dies (and occasional friend)

Also what comes to the 100 years (if it was only 100 years) you can't really say it took her that long to piece things together, it took her a lot shorter to give up. Most of the fragments she's just been living the repeat until her death, probably the reason why she started drinking aswell.

It might have been the easiest part, but by no means is it that simple.
I mean, I guess she could go running around chasing her friends and vaccinating them, but aside of that, giving the doll or letting Rena in, there's no proof they actually work in the main story. There's only 1 instance of both occurring, and neither is enough prove them working.
Then again, Rika does say that giving the Doll to Mion is enough to prevent the tragedy, but how does she know that if it's the first time happening?
Meaning that she had already figured it out long ago, but during Watanagashi, she had already stopped caring.

Well, I probably can't prove that is specially intelligent, but there is a lack of proof pointing out she's stupid aswell.

Eragur said:
After taking a long break I finally watched these 11 episodes of Sotsu. Things didn't change for the better.

To give my two cents on the topic:

1. If we were talking about a detecive, trying to figure out the whodunit, whydunit and howdunit then yes, the best way to escape the loops would be to gather as much information as possible by throwing away your life. Objectively, that's what Rika should have done.

2. Rika isn't a detective, and she doesn't treat the loops like a game that needs to be beaten (like Satoko does). She just want's to live her normal life. She is afraid of death and pain and tries to avoid getting killed. That's why she isn't willing to throw her life away for questionable informations.

3. She is just a young girl. Getting killed that often with seemingly always changing rules sure let's you lose hope fast. Who guarantees her, that she can even change the outcome? How many years are you able to do your absolute best if you don't even know if it's possible to escape?

4. Not being able to remember what happened before your death makes it so much harder to get any reliable information. Why would you let yourself get killed if you don't even get information from it? Maybe she tried following Tomitake and got killed by the Yamainu who keep an eye on her? Maybe she couldn't remember who killed Tomitake and gave up on following him because she didn't feel like dying for nothing.

5. I agree that 100 years sounds like a ton. But that's more out of a viewers perspective. Of course I'd imagine that if my life depended on it I would be able to figure out the culprit a lot faster than that. But I am not a little child who has to suffer through this without anyone to depend on. I can't imagine how it must feel to get killed that often for seemingly no reason and by different people each time without being able to remember how it even happened. That must destroy your dedication to play detective very fast. So I don't blame her at all to have basically given up at some point and mostly passively waiting for a miracle to happen. If anything, it makes Satoko's behavior in Gou/Sotsu even more ridiculous, since for some reason she doesn't get affected by being stuck in loops and constantly killing and dying at all.

On another note I totally agree with the comments about how this isn't like the OG at all even though some people act like it is.

The worst part is when people write something like "Finally some gore, the good old Higurashi is back." Not only are you outing yourself as a mindless goon who only watches for splatter without care for the actual mystery but you are also pleased by the worst gore we ever saw in Higurashi. What's with this ridiculous amount of red paint...

This is like the OG:
- A lot of gore (but with less realism -> less horryfying)

And this is different:
- Barely any overarching mystery
- Less Horror and suspense
- Predictable Answer Arcs
- Barely any exciting new content
- Bad pacing
- A boring puzzle that's no fun to figure out
- Lot's of convenient plot devices

SkyhighCFC said:

- I mean, based on what the story told us, both of those should have worked in almost all scenarios. The reason they didn't work in GOU/SOTSU is because of Satoko's intervention.

- I'd say based on how the story prevents Rika, it's more reasonable to assume she's not very smart than to suggest otherwise

SkyhighCFC said:

4. Yes, losing your memories of the hours before you die is definitely a huge detriment. Which is why it should've been her priority to gather as much information before this threshold. It should still have been well within her capabilities to do so in at least a good chunk of the loops. I mean, Satoko was able to break into a top secret military facility and steal one of the L5 syringes. And based on that, it definitely couldn't have been that difficult to at least keep an eye on Tomitake and Takano considering how easy it was for Satoko to break into that base.

5. 100 years is a ton. It feels like a ton for us and it certainly felt like a ton for Rika that's for sure. And she did have people to depend on...her friends who eventually helped her overcome fate and Hanyuu for crying out loud. The difference between Rika and Satoko is pretty simple to be honest. Satoko came from a timeline where there is no tragedy beyond her own perceived "tragedy" of Rika drifting away from her. Therefore, she doesn't actually feel trapped in loops. It's more of a game for her where her goal is to keep Rika there at all costs by using the information she gathered by viewing Rika's 100 years of looping. Now the fact that Satoko watched those 100 years and didn't think that subjecting her FRIENDS, not just Rika, to that type of torture was crossing a line is another story altogether and it's one of my biggest criticism's of Satoko's character in GOU/SOTSU, but that's another discussion for another day.

SkyhighCFC said:
- I mean...if the majority of viewers don't think it was pointless, I don't quite understand how you could describe it as much, but to each their own.

- It's not a good analogy in my opinion other than the part about not knowing the rules. And this is the part that would have made it especially difficult for Rika. The fact that she literally started off with basically no clues. But again, and I keep stressing this, just because it isn't an easy task doesn't mean it should've taken her 100 years.

Funny enough, they weren't.- If not, then by extension it shouldn't have taken 100 years then surely?

- Probably the hardest part for Rika to be successful would be actually preventing her death. My issue is how long it took her to figure out who the culprit was and how long it took her to pick up on some of the flags for her friends getting the syndrome.

but like some others here said, she obviously didn't like the idea of dying, so what was she actually doing in the loops where she just "gave up"? You see the inconsistency here?

- I mean, based on what the story told us, both of those should have worked in almost all scenarios. The reason they didn't work in GOU/SOTSU is because of Satoko's intervention.

- I'd say based on how the story prevents Rika, it's more reasonable to assume she's not very smart than to suggest otherwise

ssjokg said:


-What she did wouldnt work in the OG as well...if she does nothing about Takano.

-That is if we ignore how Ryukishi's/scriptwriter's writing can be the one at fault.
There is a difference between being slow to understand something and being a complete retard like in Gou.


4. Not the same thing. Satoko can remember everything AND the plot conveniently has the syringes in a lock that tells her what the correct combination is.

5.Her friends needed those 100 years in order to even remember a small part of some fragments; Hanyuu needed 100 years to decide to DO SOMETHING; Akasaka needed 100 years and some DEM to be capable to do something. When Rika calls it a miracle she isnt overestimating what happened.
As for Satoko, why didnt she think to make Rika's life a living hell AFTER she breaks the loop? She only makes her want to leave the village more and more. Make her suffer afterwards so that she doesnt want to leave. Reenact the curse of Oyashiro-sama and his rules the proper way.

SkyhighCFC said:


- Already addressed this. It's a plot hole for sure.

- Doesn't matter which it is in my opinion. Both are bad.

- Based on what was presented to us in GOU, Satoko used her ability to keep all of her memories to her advantage to bruteforce her way into finding the password. God knows how many loops that would've taken. Still, memories or not, it shouldn't be that easy to just waltz into a facility like that. This is yet another plot convenience used causing inconsistency in the overall story.

- Fair point about the friends. I'd say when it comes to Hanyuu though that I feel like that just seems like cheap plot convenience again. You mean to tell me it took that long for Hanyuu to feel the need to do something? As for Satoko, I'd like to think it has something to do with the manifestation of her witch persona, but who really knows at this point.

SkyhighCFC said:



- Fair point about the friends. I'd say when it comes to Hanyuu though that I feel like that just seems like cheap plot convenience again. You mean to tell me it took that long for Hanyuu to feel the need to do something? As for Satoko, I'd like to think it has something to do with the manifestation of her witch persona, but who really knows at this point.

Chargecoulomb said:


The thing about Hanyuu is that she is a huge coward. She is 'Oyashiro sama' but doesn't remember much if not all of her past. Kotohogushi explicitly says that our Hanyuu has no real idea about her past.

Her reason for looping Rika, was that she could spend as much time as possible with the reincarnation of her daughter/ coupled with the fact that she is the only person she can really interact with. She didn't loop Rika with the expectation of her beating Takano. I think the VN goes into more detail regarding this.

Hanyuus species become infantile as they get older. Even though she still retains some of her 'maturity' she is still more childish than Rika at the end of the day. So when Rika gives up, she will accept it as well, and she only steps up in Matsuribayashi and Miotsukushi once Rika regains her will to fight.

Hanyuu's role makes sense when you consider the big picture, but it is not as clear in the Anime and Manga as it is in the VN.

SkyhighCFC said:


I see. Her actions make a lot more sense when you look at it with this perspective. Still though, even if Hanyuu is more childish than Rika, I think even a young child would want to help a friend in need in whatever way the can. She's a coward but I still feel like there's more she could've done if you get me.

Hulio said:
Young children can be vastly different from each other, and even if Hanyuu wanted to help Rika the best she could manage, her ability to do so could be could be lacking, if not infantile aswell.

She could perceive helping Rika to be equal of just wanting to help her pass time. Children can be highly sympathetic and empathetic, but it doesn't mean they could actually help adults on their own.

You may feel that Hanyuu could have done more, but that's you, not Hanyuu.
It's easy for us to see Hanyuu as an entity of great power who could do many many things to help Rika solve the events, but that's just us projecting ourselves in Hanyuu's... shoes.

Next you're going to say that if you were Hanyuu, you would have immediately started stalking some key figures and solve the mystery in just a handful of fragments, but I don't think it works like that.

Frankly it's even debatable how much she wanted to actually help Rika to survive past the events, but that's gonna be something completely different altogether.