Story:
I enjoy the way they went about telling the story for the most part. I don't like the constant rehash of the same information (I don't want my anime to hand hold me) but higurashi didn't try to explain to much of the plot. I was annoyed that every other episode I relearned about the curse and it's victims but as the series progressed they went into less and less detail and it seemed as if they were spending less time explaining it so it's a minor complaint and if you pace out the episodes you yourself may consider it much less annoying than I did. Overall I find the plot enjoyable. It's rather simple but not dumb and sometimes I like not thinking to hard anyways. I would like to note that this feels more like an introduction to the world in order to explain and advance the story in a way that makes the viewer more interested in the characters than the complete story and I believe the sequel goes about resolving the actual conflict. I cannot say for sure because I have not seen the sequel but everything points towards that being the case. Non the less I consider every episode necessary and so I don't mind personally the way they did things.
Art:
This series has fairly decent art work I suppose but I must admit that I've never been to picky about the general appearance of my anime. I'd like to note that the anime was not as gory as I expected it to be, although it had a couple moments there were only a few of them and they were tamer than I was expecting. Still this anime isn't about trying to give it's viewers a cheap thrill, rather it's more about mood, so I found it appropriate.
Sound:
The opening was better than I thought it was going to be and I really enjoyed it. other than that everything felt right but nothing else seemed to stand out.
Characters:
I'll admit I didn't like the characters at first. I found them annoying and dull, but every arch seemed to be focused on one character and as time went on I even found myself picking favorites. The character development managed to make me change my mind about everyone over and over again but in the end also managed to find a way to make me understand there motives and feelings and even sometimes care about them. Now having finished the show I can say with certainty that I like all the characters, even rena who I found to be the most annoying for quite awhile.
Enjoyment:
I enjoyed this anime and while no anime is perfect this one was very good in my opinion. and since 8 means very good on this site I can say that the number 8 even if it doesn't sum up all of higurashi, perfectly sums up how much I enjoyed this series.
I'm happy to say that I see myself honestly recommending this to someone in the future and for me this anime was better than decent but not quite great.
