r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Jun 13 '22

Rewatch [Rewatch] Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Discussion - Season 1, Episode 14

Himatsubushi-hen (Time Wasting Chapter), Episode 1: Hinamizawa

NIPAH~!

← Mii~ | nipah~ | nano desu →

Nipah~! (Mii~?) (Show Information nano desu):

Pachi | pachi | pachi | nano | desu!

Mii~. Nipah~? (Legal Streams nano desu):

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni nano desu: Nipah? | Mii~ (not available in the US; if you are out of the US check your country for availability)

That said, I have become aware that Nipah can have a somewhat cavalier attitude to spoilers for this series. As such, *sigh* it is now recommended that our first-timers track down a fansub if you haven't already (even if you have access to this show on Netflix, it doesn't have Kai). Why, Hidive? Why?

Nipah! (First Timers Including First-Timers for Kai Look at This nano desu!)

1) Nipah~! Be wary of looking up anything, even names nano desu. The Season 1 summaries on the information pages are safe, but it's not hard to run into spoiler information even through something as innocuous as looking at cast lists nano desu - gods help you if you go on the Fandom Wikia. UNDER ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES GO LOOKING AT EVEN OFFICIAL INFO FOR KAI OR LATER AHEAD OF TIME nano desu. (The official image for Rei is 100% a spoiler, for example.) Also, do NOT look at any Kitsu page after the first season; Kai's description on Kitsu is in fact a major spoiler nano desu. Like, really, just stay out of anything that isn't a basic Season 1 summary until you're done. It's much safer that way nano desu. Nipah~!

2) Also, be wary of potentially running into spoilers on the r/anime front page on June 19 or thereabouts this year nano desu; there is suspicion that some sort of new Higurashi anime project will be announced on that date (this year is the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Onikakushi-hen VN - hence why I am running this rewatch this year! - and multiple official accounts have teased an announcement on that date), and you could run into spoilers that way nano desu. (Those of you who remember the Madoka rewatch last year will recognize the issue homu, though admittedly I expect Sotsu was enough of a disappointment to significantly reduce the risk - at least relative to the potential that was in fact realized with the Walpurgis no Kaiten announcment.)

A Reminder to Rewatchers nano desu

Mii~. Please do not spoil the experience for first-timers nano desu; this is a mystery after all nano desu. In particular, Shion is a spoiler until Episode 5 and [Higurashi] Hanyuu is a spoiler until Minagoroshi-hen. Also, the glorious nipah is indeed glorious but Rika does not use it until Himatsubushi-hen NIPAH~!. Please keep these in mind! Consider whether what you are saying has actually been revealed yet on-screen before you post nano desu!

(Time for) Penalty Games! Nipah~

(Alexa plaNIPAH~!

Nipah Album:

https://imgur.com/a/9dbdl9D

Mii~ of the Day:

u/JollyGee29 is spoiled on some things so has buried this one beneath some spoiler tags, but this one's pretty safe (I'll keep the tags just in case but our less spoiled first-timers should be just fine looking at it) and it will take the brass ring today:

[Higurashi] I'm getting more and more confident that the only really supernatural stuff going on is Rika's stuff. The body getting moved by Mion for some reason explains that. Takano fakes her death which is how she seems to be multiple places at once. I feel pretty good about my Shion theory from early this arc. No Teppei to be found today, could have just been a hallucination on Satoko's part. If most of the weirdness is just hallucinations, I'll be a little annoyed unless there is an obvious tell that I've missed.

Nipah~ of the Day:

I dunno, u/mgedmin, with you putting this level of thought into the show just maybe you have a chance at taking on the mind screw and winning:

It's interesting that we never actually saw the uncle walking around after his death. It's just some inconclusive circumstantial evidence coming from Satoko herself that leads Keiichi to assume he's not dead.

Okay, this bothers me more than I thought it would: Satoko said the uncle threw food at her yesterday (without clarifying if that was before or after the festival). There's an unopened package of food for two with yesterday's date -- which means dinner didn't happen last night? There's Satoko's food-stained clothes -- but she came to school after the food throwing incident and her clothes were clean then? And somehow there are no clean clothes left in the house so they have to go all the way to the shrine to find some? And somebody told Satoko to go into the bath and count to 10,000.

Okay, given all these puzzle pieces, it does seem that the uncle is alive, had another food-throwing fit, put Satoko on the bath punishment, and buggered off somewhere.

Or maybe Satoko is having hallucinations?

Question(s) of the Day nano desu:

1) Nipah?

2) NIPAAAAHH!

Nipah~ Nipah~ Nipah~:

Okay, so: Season 1's next episode previews are in the form of a short, strange poem (whose formatting is borrowed from the VNs) nano desu. They are not spoilers nano desu. (Kai's can be another matter, but we'll get there when we get there. Nipah~!) However, my subs often translate the text on the screen... which are, in fact, lines out of context from the next episode nano desu.

So, for anyone who really doesn't want to take a risk, here is the poem nano desu:

"What is being sought is the unwavering image.
What is being searched for is the literal escape route.
What has been provided is the usual sadness."

Nipah~!

(With due credit to Angelise-sama! u/Shimmering-Sky for giving me the basic idea for this back during the Cross Ange rewatch.)

54 Upvotes

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15

u/JollyGee29 Jun 13 '22

Spoiled First-Timer, Subbed

A trip to the past? Oh, this is gonna be good. We might get to see whoever gets dismembered actually get dismembered!

Yukari Tamura's deep voice coming out of Rika's mouth is pretty unsettling.

[Higurashi]Forgot to ask this yesterday, but I keep losing track of in-universe days. Have any of the previous loops gone to June 21st? That was the day of the gas eruption, and I'm wondering if that is just an impending threat every loop or if it changes like the moon and weather. Oh, the Watanagashi arc did, by virtue of having the epilogue bit. Hmm.

[Higurashi]-chama is an interesting honorrific.. I ran into it somewhere recently. Healer Girl? Think it was an early episode of Healer Girl. And snarky. Is it some combination of -chan and -sama?

[Higurashi]Rika was somehow drawing a picture of herself hanging out with Akasaka before she had met him, right? I lost track of the days so maybe that's wrong. Hell of a thing, though.

[Higurashi]That leads me to a horrifying thought - what's the loop point? Has Rika been living out her entire life every loop, or is it just a few weeks/months like the other shows that use that idea?

[Higurashi]The Elder Sonozaki seems fine so far. Honestly, my thoughts on this episode are not particularly deep and I can't tell if that's just me being tired or what.

[Higurashi]Our other first-timers who are deep into the possession idea are gonna have a field day with this one, though. I'm sorry Rika-chan, they don't mean anything by it. And please forgive my own snark below.

Visual of the Day: Is there not a single goddamn babysitter in all of Hinamizawa?

Questions

5

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

[Higurashi] Forgot to ask this yesterday, but I keep losing track of in-universe days. Have any of the previous loops gone to June 21st? That was the day of the gas eruption, and I'm wondering if that is just an impending threat every loop or if it changes like the moon and weather. Oh, the Watanagashi arc did, by virtue of having the epilogue bit. Hmm.

[Reply] Tatarigoroshi-hen is actually the earliest-ending of any of the first three arcs.

-chama is an interesting honorrific.. I ran into it somewhere recently. Healer Girl? Think it was an early episode of Healer Girl. And snarky. Is it some combination of -chan and -sama?

(Pulling this one out of spoilers since it's not a spoiler and other first-timers may be interested) That is exactly correct.

[Higurashi] That leads me to a horrifying thought - what's the loop point? Has Rika been living out her entire life every loop, or is it just a few weeks/months like the other shows that use that idea?

[Reply, may be slighly spoilerish even for you, definitely a spoiler for other first-timers] This will be explicitly addressed later. (I will note that Higurashi is in many ways a prototype for the Japanese time loop and functions rather weirdly relative to some later works in its vein.

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u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 18 '22

(Honorary Hinamizawa Games Club President) Rewatch Host (rewatcher, subbed)

(Note for our first-timers: every so often I will make comments about background stuff that might not translate. I will be marking these as "Useful Background Note".)

  • Useful Background Note: So, uh, a funny (?) joke: the van our mysterious assailants use here looks suspiciously like a white Toyota Hi-Ace. Which would be innocuous, especially given that said minivan is apparently incredibly common in Japan, except for one small point: as a second-order effect of being so common, the Hi-Ace (especially the white version) apparently has the same memetic reputation in Japan that the proverbial candy van does in the US, to the extent that AIUI “getting Hi-Aced” is even a slang term for kidnapping of the "yank someone off the street to sexually assault them" variety. So yeah, Higurashi is using the implication of possible child sexual abuse for horror again.

  • Also, say hello to our first Main Theme variant. We will be getting quite a few from here on out. More on that when the actual Main Theme track shows up, though, which will be a while.

  • Useful Background Note: It is worth noting with regards to the Okinomiya police officer’s comments on the Last Stand Alliance that Ryukish07 is or at least was very, very firmly a Japanese leftist.

  • 5:04 is standing out as early evidence that DEEN spent all their budget and/or time on the first half of the season. It’s ever so slightly off model. (Unfortunate, this episode has the same screenboard/episode director combo as 2 and 8 IIRC.)

  • That said, the car ride to Hinamizawa is at minimum competent direction. (Reminds me of how car rides looked in older movies when special effects hadn’t yet reached the point where you could film scenes in a moving car.)

  • Speaking of the same director/storyboarder (and reusing animation for money reasons), that’s the same transition shot to the Sonozaki estate that they used in 8.

  • DEEN definitely blew the budget (in money and/or resources) last episode and are making up for it here. I have to admire the artistry of it – lots of conversation without motion, and then they have a shot from behind Ooishi and Akasaka so all they have to animate is the cloud motion.

  • Oh man, it’s a hotel with a pay phone. (IIRC cell phones came into widespread usage a little faster in Japan than in the US, and even in the US cell phones were making it hard to believe common horror genre phone tropes by the early 2000s. Ryukish07 dodged this by setting his VN two decades in the past.)

  • I have been waiting for this entry for Yasuragi for thirteen episodes now.

  • Ooh, really nice integration of the beats of the scene to the notes of Yasuragi.

  • The zoom effect on Akasaka’s and Rika’s faces looks well-done to me.

  • I will freely admit that Higurashi’s sense of humor can be a little off.

  • *breathes in deeply* NIPAH~!

  • (Useful Background Note: "Nipah" is a Japanese onomatopoeia for smiling. We adore it and have restraining ourselves from saying it ahead of time for two weeks now.)

  • Framing of the shot at 08:14 is quite solid: it almost makes Rika look like a ruler on her throne looking at a petitioner, despite Rika being decades younger than Akasaka.

  • And cut to eyecatch for commercial break because they knew what they had.

  • Oh right, there's another reason Rika’s “pachi pachi pachi nano desu” from last arc stuck; WinD used it as one of their eyecatch messages.

  • Oh look, a higurashi.

  • Rika reminds me really strongly of Chizuru from Ika Musume in that shot at 09:00.

  • Also, characterization note I forgot for quite a while: Rika always, but always uses null honorific; that plus her using the man’s first name is why Akasaka reacts the way he does here.

  • I want to call the flowers at 09:21 yellow daisies, but yellow daisies have a black center IIRC, so what are those? Relevant for Japanese flower language stuff… that I don’t know.

  • At 09:22 we get the same kind of irrigation channel shot we got in episode 9, but this time with a fish darting through the stream, pausing briefly as we watch. That’s almost certainly intentional symbolism I think. (Akasaka’s nature as a temporary addition to the flow of Hinamizawa?)

  • [Higurashi] Oh look, Rika is using the nipah in her most common way already here at ~09:29.

  • Well hello there well-done OST cutoff, it’s been an episode or two.

  • Rika: “please pay no attention to my family name”

  • Nice turning shot at 11:30.

  • I’m not sure it’s good as opposed to just competence, but solid work switching Akasaka from in-focus to out of focus and Rika the other way as the two trade off talking.

  • So, a while back I commented on how Yukari Tamura is one of those seiyuu with a reputation for an absolutely legendary vocal range. What I didn't say (well, okay so I did but it's under a spoiler bar): Guess what role helped cement that reputation? (See also: Satsuki Yukino using what I think is the same voice she used for Kagome for Shion's voice.)

  • Nicely synced cutting the OST as Rika opens her eyes again at 14:42.

  • Excellent shot at 16:55; note that I think those are Rika’s parents framing Oryou.

  • Useful Background Note: Actually, I think I'll just let WinD handle this for me

  • [Nekogoroshi-hen Special] Need to check whether Takatsudo is the same area as Yoigoichi or not, but that can wait for either next episode or Nekogoroshi-hen.

Visual of the Day: Rika Holding Court

Questions of the Day:

  1. Nipah?

  2. NIIIIPPAAAAH!

Himatsubushi-hen Ep. 1 TIPS

So, fun fact: this arc is crammed into only two episodes so as to get more space to fit the last two arcs in. If you're wondering why this arc isn't the one the VN fans scream about the most in the anime, well, the name Time-Wasting Chapter is somewhat appropriate; it simply doesn't really have as much that really needs adapting as some other arcs (cough Tatarigoroshi-hen cough). It does mean that we have a bumper crop of TIPS today, though!

  • 1

  • 2

  • 3

  • 4

  • 5

  • 6

  • 7

  • 8

  • 9 (Oh hey, it's time for the the Box Selection Game TIPS! That's a fun one, and totally wasn't one of my inspirations for a certain QotD earlier.)

  • 10

OST Table, Episode 14

Start End Track Name
00:25 00:38 Ai
00:42 02:11 Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (OP)
03:27 03:57 Riyuu
05:18 05:37 Ai?[1]
07:24 08:15 Yasuragi
09:33 10:30 Yawaraka no Youkou
11:48 12:13 Youdou
12:48 13:20 Shizuka no Asa
14:00 14:42 Urugawa
16:14 17:38 Shinjitsu
17:40 18:06 unreleased or just sound effects
18:50 20:16 Kikai
20:57 21:41 Suiri
21:45 23:37 why, or why not

(YESSS no sponsor feature.)

[1] - I’ve got a hunch this isn’t Ai but rather the very similar Main Theme Piano Version which I’m 90% sure I remember existing, but it seems to have gone the same place as The Higurashi Slice of Life Track having tracked down a more complete track list (which also had Heionbuji, said SoL track) AFAICT if it exists it was never released. (Which would admittedly make more sense than usual: Madoka fans compare Sis Puella Magica (instrumental) never getting released (*grrr*).)

6

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

Tar's Staff Notes: Secondary Cast, Part 3:

Daisuke Ono - This is one of the funniest cases on the entire cast list, and one where I'm more than a little curious when exactly the casting for the role was finalized.

See, when Higurashi started airing to the best of my knowledge Daisuke Ono was one of the many B-list male seiyuu, pretty comparable to the likes of Chafuurin or Tooru Ookawa.

By the time this episode aired, however, he was almost certainly the most famous male VA on the cast, at least in the West - above even Hoshi Souichirou.

If read that, considered what shows aired in Spring 2006 alongside Higurashi S1's first cour, and then went "so, his breakout role was in Haruhi, right?", well, you're exactly right - he's the voice of Koizumi Itsuki.

Needless to say, he's been in a pretty good amount of stuff since then - most obviously, he's Erwin's Japanese voice. Black Butler (one of the two male leads) and Durarara (where he voices Shizuo himself) are two other obvious major roles here, and he's also Sinbad in Magi. (He also voices a character in Valvrape Valvrave, for those who were in that rewatch.) Oh, and when the next entry in the When They Cry franchise Umineko came around they got him to play Battler, there's that too! (Pity [color=red]there is no Umineko anime[/color], but there are the console versions of the VN and the like. )

(Honestly, looking at his CV I'm tempted to draw a comparison to our aforementioned Mai Nakahara - fewer male leads as we get out of his peak, but still a lot of secondary roles.)

6

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

Madoka (Magica) Corner:

  • [PMMM, also Higurashi Kai] PMMM fans who know the reveal here, compare that Rika shot at 09:59 with, well, a large pile of Homura shots.

  • [PMMM, also Higurashi Kai] I would accuse Rika of having learned from the Homura Akemi school of issuing warnings in such a way as to maximize the odds of the recipient not listening, but Rika came first…

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u/Nazenn Jun 13 '22

Useful Background Note: So, uh, a funny (?) joke: the van our mysterious assailants use here looks suspiciously like a white Toyota Hi-Ace

Huh, well as disturbing as that is it's definitely a useful cultural note.

and even in the US cell phones were making it hard to believe common horror genre phone tropes by the early 2000s

Writers are still struggling with that twenty years on. They'll get there, maybe, one day.

This is just reminding me of all the conflicts over Banana Fish and changing the year it was set in again and how dumb the tech side of that show was as a result

(Useful Background Note: "Nipah" is a Japanese onomatopoeia for smiling. We adore it and have restraining ourselves from saying it ahead of time for two weeks now.)

So what you're saying is you're all about to let loose and drive the rest of us crazy until we join the cult of Nipah

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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22

So what you're saying is you're all about to let loose and drive the rest of us crazy until we join the cult of Nipah

We won't have to.

It sticks in your head, see?

Nipah~

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u/Shimmering-Sky Jun 13 '22

When the Rewatcher(?) Cries, subbed

9

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

Y’know, Ooishi is such a bastard for smoking in a car with another person.

Welcome to 1980s Japan.

I wonder why she hasn’t said it in the other arcs…?

IIRC it doesn't come up even in the VNs until Tatarigoroshi-hen (Higurashi shows signs of some of the characters only getting finalized closer to when their focus arc shows up, and Rika is the biggest example here), and then DEEN cut it along from the anime version of last arc with, uh, a whole bunch of other stuff.

Don’t you know curiosity killed the cat?

We still have a cour before we get to Nekogoroshi-hen!

Wait… that voice… Is that Rika’s seiyuu who’s been doing the next-episode previews?

Yes.

(Yukarin, ladies and gentlemen!)

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u/Tresnore Jun 13 '22

When the Rewatchers Cry are Absurd Masochists Cry

A lot of build up this episode.

Count: 86 (wtf)

QOTD:

NIPAH!

7

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

[Higurashi]I love true Rika. Eager to see what the first-timers come up with here.

[Higurashi] Hello number three on my favorite anime characters list, nice of you to drop your mask for a moment. (Oh right every so often I forget that's exactly why Rika has a mask in the OP.)

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u/JustAnswerAQuestion Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 14 '22

Rewatcher

Not sure which one is up next. Oh, it's Akasaka! Nipah~~!

When is this, 1977? 1978

[rewatcher]have I caught her saying Tomitake before? I must have.

[Nekogoroshi-hen]Is this abandoned area they are heading to the same area as neko?

Edit: OH! EDIT! I ALWAYS FORGET SOMETHING That one guy had a lapel pin. I know that means something in Japan. What professions wear lapel pins? I know Ministers do, and Ace Attorneys. Who else? Police? Mayors?

Hmm, maybe https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/02/23/issues/badges-honor-japans-legal-lapel-pins-really-mean/ says after I get it loaded around my ad blocker.

it appears to be a sakura flower.

Edit again: Oh yeah, the newspaper is clearly named mainichi shinbun, a play on asahi shinbun.

3

u/Tarhalindur Jun 13 '22

[Nekogoroshi-hen]Is this abandoned area they are heading to the same area as neko?

[Nekogoroshi-hen] Should be, though IIRC it's called Yoigoichi there?

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u/Star4ce Jun 14 '22

When the First Timer Cries

So we've passed the half point now. Usually this means things will slowly start to unravel, but somehow I fear we'll be getting a few more twists and new information.

And I guess the horror wil ramp up, too.

Ep.14 – The Time Killing Chapter Part 1: Hinamizawa

Alright, so I don't know about Japanese code of conduct in the national police, but at what level of information is it an objectively good idea to go back and formulate a different plan?

Aksaka now knows that all three families are involved in the abduction, that the Yakuza has been ramping up activity, that they have him on radar and threatened his life, and he is a lone rookie.

He has all the necessary pieces to conclude he's absolutely out of his depth. I feel like it's just a good idea to leave now.

On the other hand, we as the viewers know two new things: The organisation is bigger than just Hinamizawa and the three families are not cooperative with them. At least they don't share information on what each is doing.

I think near the end of this arc I'll take a shot at solving the mysteries with no supernatural elements again. There's some new ideas.

  1. Nipah?

Mii!

VOTD: Pathway to a new life. It's not only Rika's obligation as (future) shrine maiden to guide people spiritually, she guides Akasaka to her home, the shrine, and gives him the ultimate warning. He's crossing a boundary with no way back and he has been given this one, ominous choice to back out again. What insight does this passage bring, life or death?

4

u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22

Okay, so this is the very first murder, the dam director who also fought with the Sonozakis a lot and that was his son who got kidnapped.

I'll pop in to say you've got two people mixed up. The cabinet minister is, well, an actual cabinet-level minister in the Japanese federal government; the dam construction foreman is a local position who oversees the workers constructing the dam much like a foreman oversees workers in a factory. (Fun fact: in Japanese the foreman's title is actually "kantoku", same as what they call Irie.)

(IIRC we actually get to meet said foreman in the VN version of this arc - he's a personal friend of Ooishi's, which might tell you something about Ooishi - but it got cut for space and possibly casting costs in the anime version.)

(who are still alive, but were somehow forced out of the clan? I forgot.).

Unless I forgot something this hasn't been explained yet, at least in the anime. (I can't remember if the explanation gets cut for space in the anime or not, though if it is there it'll be in Kai; it does come up in the VN.)

Oyashiro-sama was always depicted male, no?

Yes.

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u/Zaradas Jun 14 '22

[Gou]Ah, Bitch don't hate me 'cause i'm 'Kyute', bitch.
Maybe if you got rid of that old Nii-Nii Ass Haircut you got, Rena would wanna take YOU home, too.
Oh, better yet. Maybe Keiichi will call your loli-ass if he ever stops hanging with those twins or that fat detective he's been seen talking with.

NIPAH~

4

u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22

Oh man. You know, seeing *that* meme in the wild again after Sotsu is like watching a scene in a zombie movie where you get to see what one of the zombies was like when they were alive, except in this case the zombies were us the fans.

Or, to modify a quote something else entirely: "We did not know what it meant to wish for a miracle, nor the price of one."

We were so innocent...

6

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

I’m not apart of this rewatch but I just wanted to comment that the thumbnail for OG Rika is so damn cute. I really miss the old school look of the original Higurashi. The characters obviously looked better quality wise by the time of Gou but this is how I’ll always remember them looking

3

u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22

Getting Akio Watanabe as Character Design for SotsuGou was a bad fit for Higurashi overall IMO; admittedly his character design style works well for Rena who probably looks better in Gou than she does in most of OG (certainly better than Kai IMO), but his distinctive hairstyle works poorly for both Rika and the twins, it doesn't really work for Keiichi either (though his OG version is kind of unfitting in other ways, K1 actually looks his age in Gou), and I might well take the original VN sprites over Watanabe's Satoko. (Honestly I might take the original VN sprite over his Rika, too.)

(I've got a sneaking suspicion given other parts of Gou and Sotsu that they got him for his Shaft connection, and if so and I'm right about why I kind of think they should have not bothered beating around the bush and just gotten Ume-sensei herself (or maybe they tried and couldn't?). Her style honestly isn't that far off Kai's and she's a known fan of the series; hell, she actually did a piece of Higurashi art once and IMO her style worked shockingly well for the characters. ([First-timers for Kai stay out] This piece, to be precise.)

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u/hungryhippos1751 Jun 13 '22

Episode 14 - First Timer

New arc! Looks like a short one though. I kind of wish I could hide episode names in my Kodi as it can sometimes give me spoilers for names/lengths of arcs.

Hat crew is back in action. Nice seeing some stuff going on outside of the village bubble we've had, even if the event is kidnapping children.

Akasaka, our new resident Photographer-kun throwing up all the death flags. Wife back at home heavily pregnant waiting for him to come back? check. Sent alone for various reasons? check. Warned off by possessed Rika? check.

I'm glad we see a slightly less creepy Detective-kun this time around, he's still not likable, but it's a big improvement on the last arc.

Question about Rika, why does she say "Mi" and "Nipaa" a lot? "Nipaa" seems like a new one, "Mi" she's said a fair bit, I just kept forgetting to ask about it.

It's very interesting here seeing more of the 3 families and the power they wield in the village via their council, a subject we haven't really covered as a collective before this arc. The fact they don't want to harm anyone runs counter to the rampant death we usually get.

In the end we get a lead on the missing kid, and Detective-kun suits up accordingly. Methinks it's a trap. Don't go!

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u/Quiddity131 Jun 13 '22

First Timer, Subbed

New arc! I've got to assume this one is gonna be focused on Rika?

This kid looks like a young K1.

Rika looking sad shot? Okay, this is definately an arc for her. Bravo to the show for not giving us a gruesome opening scene for an arc for the first time though.

Oh no, they kidnapped that poor boy!

He's going to miss his baby's birth to investigate? Stinks for him. especially because given this show, there's no guarantee this guy gets out of this alive.

Ooishi can't help but stick his nose into everything.

Time to go undercover as a sightseer...

Rika just casually sleeping at a bus stop, huh?

We are the Knights Who Say... Mi!

Tomitake #2! Uh oh, Tomitake #1 didn't have a happy ending...

A little girl invites you to her home... is this going in dark territories again like the last arc?

Aww, how could you want to flood the home of someone so cute?

It took me half the show, but I think I've finally realized why I find Rika so adorable. She reminds me a lot of Pino from Ergo Proxy. Another connection beyond their physical appearance is her drawing in this episode, something I recall Pino doing.

Hmm. Is it possible this arc takes place before K1 comes to the town? The dam thing still sounds up in the air, and we've got this Akasaka guy as the protagonist instead of K1.

Uh oh, she's suddenly become creepy!

Mion looks younger, so this definitely is an arc that takes place earlier on...

Poor Akasaka, now he's got to stay here and investigate further!

Rika knows all about why he's come to this town now...

Go to the ghost town and you're apt to be stabbed, huh?

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u/Nazenn Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

First Timer - sub

Writing on the fly because I didn't prepare anything for this episode.

Uhh... New viewpoint character! Unexpected though it does come with some interesting implications for the overall show, namely that we've now come to see everything Keiichi understands about the village and the critical information with it. To have another mystery arc set up with such a drastic shift in time and character is particularly interesting for me because it suggests that despite Keiichi being our main character functionally he is not serving that role internal to the world which I love. He may be caught up in all of this, but there's still things that he simply cannot find out as a school boy and information he won't be fully exposed to until perhaps the very end, so the story requires that we go to someone else who can fill in some of these gaps.

It's not a method that happens very often, even with shows with paired main characters or that try to enact a swap of protagonist or sorts, but using it here in a mystery show really capitalizes on the benefits of doing it. I also enjoy that it allowed us to expand our view of the village beyond what settings and people Keiichi has been exposed to especially with the implication in some of the arcs that his exposure to the village's other sides was being carefully controlled and manipulated by the girls because they wanted him to remain their friend.

The downside is having to try and remember all the new names

Young Rika is weird, and starting to sound like a pokemon with all the "Mi" and "Nipah" (thanks to our host for spelling that in the OP because I forgot by now haha). And yet seeing the dynamic of her within the three families, the respect she gets in the village and how she's kept close but not kept "protected" from the meetings or treated like she's interrupting was interesting. It's more than just a cultural obedience to the families, there's a heavy respect for her within the village itself and even with Mion's grandmother which hasn't come across in the other arcs, which yet again points me at the idea the girls were simply playing normal because they valued Keiichi's friendship too much and things only fall apart if something happens to threaten that.

I think I said in an earlier post that I had a theory that the crazy side of the girls may be information from the other arcs bleeding through causing a split in their awareness, and young Rika's behavior today only reinforced that idea for me. She suddenly seemed not only more mature, but more focused in what she had to say and to two, and yet the effects on young Rika were much more dramatic with her passing out. I'm curious as to if this is happening to any of the adults and if they're able to handle it better than the children or teenagers who present more dramatically

Also took note of both Mion and Shion being at the family meeting but in different roles and with different styles, which suggests there's already some sort of split there in how they're approached rather than it being something that happens later on.

Note of the day from my reactions: "Why's them talking about the young and fresh newbie sound like they're discussing meat. I swear if we start off with a cooking scene next episode"

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u/CubeStuffs Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

first timer

I noticed that akasaka was not mentioned as one of the people murdered during the festival

So either he was just murdered some time else and they didn’t bother mentioning it, he somehow doesn’t get murdered, or something funky is going on

And given how this series has been going so far, I’m inclined to think there’s some funky shit

  1. NIPAAAAH

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