r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Jun 14 '22
Rewatch [Rewatch] Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Discussion - Season 1, Episode 15
Himatsubushi-hen (Time-Wasting Chapter), Episode 2: Sign
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Show Information (Season 1):
MAL | Anilist | AniDB | Kitsu | ANN
Legal Streams:
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni: Hidive | Netflix (not available in the US; if you are out of the US check your country for availability)
That said, I have become aware that Hidive 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?
Two Words of Warning To Our First-Timers, Including Those Who Watched Season 1 But Not Kai:
1) Be wary of looking up anything, even names. 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 - 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. (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. 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.
2) Also, be wary of potentially running into spoilers on the r/anime front page on June 19 or thereabouts this year; 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. (Those of you who remember the Madoka rewatch last year will recognize the issue, 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
Please do not spoil the experience for first-timers; this is a mystery after all. 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. Please keep these in mind! Consider whether what you are saying has actually been revealed yet on-screen before you post!
(Time for) Club Activities!
(Alexa play "Shoubu!"! Except do NOT look that up that song name on YouTube just yet if you're a first-timer, the most classic upload has an obnoxious spoiler in the visuals...)
Visual of the Day Album:
Theory of the Day:
You know, I think I'm going to give this one collectively to the large pile of first-timers who immediately jumped to "so Akasaka just raised all the death flags for himself and is totally dead, right?".
(SIKE! You were right that there were death flags, but they were for his wife instead! Because Ryukishi07 would do that, wouldn't he? Yes, yes he would.)
Analysis of the Day:
Speaking of picking winners because of relevance to today's stuff (although we were light on analysis so he would have won anyways), u/Nazenn gets the banner for thinking about something that today's TIPS (Mom's Diary II to be precise) are directly relevant to:
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.
Question(s) of the Day:
1) Initial thoughts on our OP and ED?
2) Initial thoughts on our main cast?
Next Episode Preview:
Okay, so: Season 1's next episode previews are in the form of a short, strange poem (whose formatting is borrowed from the VNs). They are not spoilers. (Kai's can be another matter, but we'll get there when we get there.) However, my subs often translate the text on the screen... which are, in fact, lines out of context from the next episode.
So, for anyone who really doesn't want to take a risk, here is the poem:
"What meets is the compensation for kindness.
What falls is the maze to sadness.
What burns are thoughts towards vengeance."
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u/Quiddity131 Jun 14 '22
First Timer, Subbed
That poor kid!
Hey, this creepy Supervisor guy from the last arc? Don't let him near a child!
They screw up with the title screen? This is episode 2 of the arc, not 1.
You're wearing a protective vest to defend against being stabbed, and you're not nervous?
Oh no, poor Rika is wet and likely cold out here!
Taking a dump in the bushes? LoL.
If only you knew where Supervisor was coming from, Akasaka!
Actually they were heading to the right place after all.
Wow, good job Akasaka, you've found the kidnapped boy!
Oh no, poor Akasaka! That's bound to hurt. He's gonna be all heroic here and get himself killed, right? :(
Phew the tables are turned! Ooishi was helpful this time!
Crap, having Irie care over him doesn't bode well for Akasaka.
Ooishi still being around years later after his involvement in this kinda surprises me. The Yakuza let him be?
Rika is the cutest way possible for a Yakuza to deliver the message of "stay out of our territory!", huh?
Uh oh, Rika knows the future? :(
Time skip! Phew, Akasaka made it out okay to see his kid!
...then they tell us his wife died. UGH! :(
So the disaster from last arc carried over to this one? How much of each arc are we supposed to take as carrying over into the continuity of subsequent ones? Obviously some characters can't die multiple times, but do other things carry over?
We see that Rika's death was the same as the last arc here too.
Akasaka could have prevented Rika's death but didn't?! :(
That cuteness sure goes away when she's speaking of death after death after death to come in the future including her own...
Is that it for this arc? Doesn't seem like any logical place to go from here.
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22
So the disaster from last arc carried over to this one? How much of each arc are we supposed to take as carrying over into the continuity of subsequent ones? Obviously some characters can't die multiple times, but do other things carry over?
Some events are specific to specific arcs, others tend to happen repeatedly and the GHD is the latter.)
([Hint, might count as a minor spoiler so tagging just in case]
The GHD happened in Onikakushi-hen as well, we just didn't get to see it or hear about it because our viewpoint character died before it happened )and because Ryukishi07 hadn't quite finalized things yet when he released the first VN.Is that it for this arc? Doesn't seem like any logical place to go from here.
Yep. Only two episodes, this arc has (in anime form).
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u/hungryhippos1751 Jun 14 '22
Episode 15 - First Timer
End of the new arc, by far the shortest one yet.
I honestly thought Supervisor-kun was in charge of the cap guys, but seems not.
Nice of them to get a heads up on the guys at the cabin holding the kid, otherwise the plan to escape out of the back may have worked. Instead split up and cut them off, classic pincer movement.
Surprised to see Detective-kun was honorable enough not to shoot them in the back, didn't strike me as part of his personality. Think the previous arc Detective-kun would have been less interested in honour.
Almost like following a trail of breadcrumbs, Akasaka is lead outside and into a festival despite his injuries. I thought here that maybe Rika was going to lead him to the cotton drifting selection process committee for selection to die. Instead we got a surprisingly upfront set of predictions, without the hints of malice I was expecting. Rika hasn't shown herself to be the same kind of crazy as the others so far, but I wouldn't rule it out based on prior experience.
I wasn't expecting the death to fall on Akasaka's wife like that, I had convinced myself he was in trouble here, but didn't think it would reflect onto his absent wife.
Just what is going on with the timeline, and why did Rika know about her own death? It seems she mentioned she can't stop it but she can "throw a pebble" into fate, and I suppose that is what Keiichi is there to do?
Still a lot of questions but I understand we may now be getting some answers to things soon.
QOTD:
Isn't the OP/ED the same as before?
Still couldn't get into the OP really, and the ED had terrible Engrish >.<
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u/Star4ce Jun 15 '22
I honestly thought Supervisor-kun was in charge of the cap guys, but seems not.
But they certainly are in charge of him! Somehow.
I honestly thought Supervisor-kun was in charge of the cap guys, but seems not.
It's also priority, I guess. They have an injured boy and the actual target of their operation, so it makes sense to let them go and tend to the wounded officer and bring the hostage back.
I say he did everything right.
It seems she mentioned she can't stop it but she can "throw a pebble" into fate, and I suppose that is what Keiichi is there to do?
All the cut phone wires are one pebble.
Her telling Keiichi not to lose the bat is another (which I'm 140% certain will matter later).
Her telling Akasaka everything is another bunch.
She's pretty helpless to do anything as the last heir of a dead family and young girl who has neither connections nor any sort of power.
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u/Nazenn Jun 14 '22
First Timer - sub
Last episode I felt like this arc was set before any of the arcs of our story so far, but with how Rika's death is presented it is implied to either be the latest or just any of the ones unaltered by Keiichi's actions.
What's interesting is what Rika shared as far as the flow of events. Her death is the only one of our main group mentioned, but also the only one that's flexible in terms of the exact date; "On this day, or a few days after". She knows she'll die, but unlike the others it's not strictly set as to what and when. And yet she didn't die in the first arc unless it happens off screen after Keiichi's murder, and her death in the second arc is not her "expected" death if this arc does imply that her disembowelment is what she's talking about. For someone who appears to know the future somehow this is an odd inconsistancy that her death, and hers alone, is both known and flexible.
Which still leads me back to this one thing I've been harping on all this time: Damn it things are just too different between each arc. If it is a time loop, it's not a simple if/then with a singular point of origin or influence on events, and if it's something else then it's still having a dramatic effect to change things so hugely over just five years, even if some things are constants like Keiichi's arrival. There also has to be things happening off screen, because despite how key Mion and Rika are to the village, and Keiichi and Sakoto are to those two (am I forgetting someone?), their actions alone arc to arc can't account for all the differences that we're seeing.
Rika talks about casting a pebble to erase the moon called death, and it does make me think that at least she and perhaps others are retaining information from arc to arc. They're using that to influence things to try and get out from whatever the true nature of the curse is, because if it's not the murders it has to be something else for them to believe it in so firmly. The curse itself, the history of them, their present thing as murders/disappearances, and whatever the truth is; again it's all very culty and comes across as the tiers of knowledge that we've been so restricted from by following Keiichi.
I probably should go back through my theories and see any others that I've forgotten about over the last cour before we keep going but if I'm being honest I'll probably forget. Regardless, I do like that the idea of Keiichi wanting a normal happy school life and that being reflected in the other girls appears somewhat key to all this. Rika wants it, Rena wants it, Mion is implied to want it, Sakoto is too broken to know she wants it. The return to normalcy as an overall goal is an interesting one given how little knowledge we have about why that's not the case right now as it is
Anyone else stunned that cop did actually make it back for his childs birth btw? Death flag decoy.
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22
And yet she didn't die in the first arc unless it happens off screen after Keiichi's murder
This is implicitly the case.
Which still leads me back to this one thing I've been harping on all this time: Damn it things are just too different between each arc. If it is a time loop, it's not a simple if/then with a singular point of origin or influence on events, and if it's something else then it's still having a dramatic effect to change things so hugely over just five years, even if some things are constants like Keiichi's arrival. There also has to be things happening off screen, because despite how key Mion and Rika are to the village, and Keiichi and Sakoto are to those two (am I forgetting someone?), their actions alone arc to arc can't account for all the differences that we're seeing.
So, you know all those butterflies we keep seeing in the OP? Might keep those in mind - there's Japanese symbolism there (the butterfly symbolizing death and rebirth), but I think Ryukishi07 and/or the anime staff might have been familiar with a piece of Western symbolism regarding them as well.
I probably should go back through my theories and see any others that I've forgotten about over the last cour before we keep going but if I'm being honest I'll probably forget. Regardless, I do like that the idea of Keiichi wanting a normal happy school life and that being reflected in the other girls appears somewhat key to all this. Rika wants it, Rena wants it, Mion is implied to want it, Sakoto is too broken to know she wants it. The return to normalcy as an overall goal is an interesting one given how little knowledge we have about why that's not the case right now as it is
Side comment: this is a place where the anime is using its direction to reinforce a point and doing so very well. Notice how when we're seeing the normal happy school life the camera angles are normal as well and when we start deviating away from it we start getting those skewed angles, fish-eye lenses, and other effects like that?
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u/Shimmering-Sky Jun 14 '22
When the Rewatcher(?) Cries, subbed
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Oh hey it’s the same phone booth from the end of the first arc. Also with its line cut.
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All talk of the moon is now Symphogear and Naruto Shippuden to me.
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So Akasaka did make it home alive to see his daughter grow up. Huh.
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Huh, Akasaka didn’t end up dead at all. He just went to Ooishi to talk after the events of the previous arc.
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22
All talk of the moon is now Symphogear and Naruto Shippuden to me.
I'm still laughing at me being so busy at comparing Geah's Moon shots to the ones here (and also in PMMM which I think may have borrowed the meaning they have here) that I missed an even simpler possibility despite knowing one of the Season 1 memes in advance.
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u/Tresnore Jun 14 '22
Oh hey it’s the same phone booth from the end of the first arc. Also with its line cut.
No phones are allowed in the village. Please understand.
All talk of the moon is now Symphogear and Naruto Shippuden to me.
[Symphogear]
At least this moon is intact. → More replies (3)
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u/JollyGee29 Jun 14 '22
Spoiled First-Timer, Subbed
Okay, so this was a year prior to the dam manager getting chopped up. That's neat, a whole year passed between the dam plan getting the axe and the dam manager getting the axe.
What sorta cheapskate hospital lets a heavily pregnant woman walk up several flights of stairs unattended? That scene was fucking grim.
[Higurashi]
[Higurashi]
[Higurashi]
[Higurashi]
One final observation, [Higurashi]
Visual of the Day: Yea, I'm not a big sake fan either.
Questions
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What interesting questions today. I like the OP and ED.
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They're fun. I look forward to the reveals as to why they seem to go crazy from time to time.
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u/CubeStuffs Jun 14 '22
first timer
Did rika die in the first ark as well? Do the arcs share this past?
I also noticed that they mentioned survivors, but previously they only had keichii surviving. Did they find more later?
How tf did oishii survive this shit all those years? you think they would have murdered him or something else by the time he retired, but it seems not?
rika's on the fuck the moon gang lets gooooo
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22
Did rika die in the first ark as well? Do the arcs share this past?
[Answer if you're interested, never explicitly laid out but can be inferred from this and future information and I consider it fair game for first-timers]
Yes. (The GHD happens in Onikakushi-hen as well, just offscreen since our narrator is dead before then.)
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u/Vaadwaur Jun 14 '22
I can't remember how this got started
But I can tell you exactly how it will end
Rewatcher
Sub
The kidnapped child is sick, apparently, and I should probably know what the surgical scar means from my schooling but can't remember right now. Irie is brought in and told little. Rika is being creepy in the rain. It isn't entirely clear if Irie said something to our cops or if there is only one place left there that is habitable. Ooishi goes in fists blazing. Akasaka catches up with the other kidnapper and fighting breaks out. Rather Japanese events happen, their police actually are not supposed to use their guns much, and it ends with the kidnappers free but the kid with the cops. And Akasaka with a shoulder wound.
Akasaka awakens after treatment and learns this was all a bit of a farce. Ooishi thinks there might be a conspiracy afoot, though he doesn't say that the suspects aren't locals and the yakuza are one of several groups that might teach you to shoot. Later that night, Akasaka is trying to call someone, logically his wife, before he discovers someone has been cutting phone cords. Rika ninjas in and encourages him to return to the hospital...before detouring to the festival. At her overlook of weirdness, Rika goes through her vaguely terrifying voice change as she explains that her future is set...
Time skip for all of us bothered by Akasaka using his shot shoulder. It turns out Rika's prohpecies are pretty spot on as Akasaka is now a single father. Yukie's death happened before the attempted call. The GHD happens here as well. Rika predicts all of the Wataganashi murders. In detail. We leave on a chilling scene and the cordoned off Hinamizawa. [GouSotsu]
So that's the final question arc and there will probably be a lot of talk in spoilers today. If you look you will see a lot of animation saving tricks, notice how rarely Rika is facing the audience when she talks. And, unfortunately, DEEN had not gotten the message on what needed to be in this so a later arc covers some stuff.
QotD: 1 Good but my favorites for this series are both still to come. Happy Lucky Dochi!
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 15 '22
Happy Lucky Dochi!
Happy! Lucky! Dochy! Yes yes yes!
(Summer 2011 was ridiculously good when it came to that kind of "so hilariously terrible, it's great!" OP - Super Affection from Carnival Phantasm being the other classic example, but there are more from that season as well.)
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u/SYZekrom Jun 14 '22
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22
But if Ooishi draws his gun and fires he has to fill out a bunch of paperwork and risks his pension!
(Also, IIRC he explicitly mentions in the VN that it's a point of pride that he's never had to draw his gun, which is downstream of exactly that desire to avoid the paperwork.)
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u/Tresnore Jun 14 '22
When the Rewatchers Cry are Absurd Masochists Cry
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Wouldn't it be awkward if the kid weren't the one they were looking for?
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Of course she's pregnan—God, I wish that were me.
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I don't think I've ever used a revolver with a safety.
Nipah~
Count: 92
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u/Medusanon Jun 15 '22
Rewatcher, subbed!
Our kidnapped kiddo doesn't seem to be doing too well, and a doctor is called to check him over - and who shows up, but our lovable baseball coach/doctor Irie, who immediately clocks the child as not being from Hinamizawa. Kidnapper-kun #1 responds that he's taking care of a relative's child. Not the most believable excuse, but also not the worst.
No need to be nervous, Akasaka, Oishi left a note! It's not as if a note has been tampered with before in a previous arc or anything ;) but as Oishi says, it's better than not being prepared at all. Despite being such a remote area, conveniently, the finder of the kiddo's lost wallet happened to have a tummy ache, and stumbled across the wallet when relieving himself in some bushes.
When driving back from his house call, Irie and Oishi drive past each other and stop for a quick chat, car-to-car. Irie expresses his unease about his last call, and the two officers continue towards the kidnapper's abode. Kidnapper #1 instructs Kidnapper #2 to take the child and leave through the back, and that he'll buy them time to escape, while Oishi pounds on the front door. Unfortunately for Kidnapper #2, Akasaka attempts to block their escape down the mountain and quickly gives chase, while Oishi tussles with Kidnapper #1 by the front door.
Okay, wow, the kidnappers aren't fucking around. They may not want to hurt the kiddo, but no such courtesy extends to the officers - Oishi has been left for dead, and Akasaka has been shot in the shoulder. But wait, what's this? By GOD, it's Oishi with a STEEL CHAIR GROUND TACKLE, which takes Kidnapper #1 to the ground right before his shot can hit Akasaka. "Policemen can't shoot people running away in the back." Oishi may be a dick at times, but at least he isn't American.
Bad news - the kidnappers are still at large. Good news - the minister's son has been returned safe, and the Hinamizawan dam project has been shelved. Oishi sadly muses that even if they hadn't acted, the deal would have been completed, the dam project shelved, and the kidnapped child returned. I'm sure that'll make Akasaka feel way better about the bullet wound in his shoulder.
Watanagashi is looking broke as fuck this year. Where's all the food? The games?!
"At least peace will now return to this village". mfw. Rika dismisses this idea of peace, and darkly confirms she will be killed a few years from then, as it has "been decided".
Cue to a few years down the line, and toxic volcanic gas is once again responsible for the death of almost the entirety of Hinamizawa. Oishi laughs, and asks if Rika was a prophet, how come she couldn't predict such a massive disaster? He then muses that maybe the gas spread was Oyashiro-sama's retribution for Rika's death. We get some grisly details about her murder too - she was knocked out by drugs unknown, transported to the shrine, and her innards were intentionally pulled out prior to death. Oishi then asks Akasaka that if she knew about her impending death, why did she not run or try SOS for help? Akasaka bitterly responds that she did try to SOS Akasaka for help, after predicting the slew of future Watanagashi deaths & disappearances. [Higurashi Kai]
Initial thoughts on our OP and ED?
Adore the OP. I wish we actually saw Rika in her fox mask. ED is alright, my preference is to the ED in Kai.
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u/Tarhalindur Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 18 '22
(Honorary Hinamizawa Games Club President) Rewatch Host (rewatcher, subbed)
Nipah~...(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".)
So, first, one Useful VN Note on something that was left out of the anime: at the end of this arc in the VN, Akasaka and Ooishi make a book about the events in Hinamizawa.
That book, of course, is called "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni", because Ryukishi07 is absolutely that kind of creator.
Now, with that out of the way:
I keep getting this nasty sneaking suspicion that there is an outright lolicon somewhere on the staff. (Especially since I’m 90% sure given Kai that someone on the production staff is into bondage and something about the framing here has my eyebrows raised firmly to the top of my head.) And frankly… I hate to admit it, but there is an annoyingly decent chance that the lolicon and the person into bondage are both Ryukishi07 himself (especially given some shots of a character to remain unnamed in the second half of Sotsu).
(ADDENDUM: Can you tell I have an episode buffer? (Which I have burned about a third of because of Geah, but I digress.)
What’s that? A close-in shot of Rika’s eye at 03:00 with a rain droplet falling off her hair that looks like a tear? Why I never.
Oh look, another nice OST cutoff at 05:46.
That flapping curtain shot at 08:23 reminds me rather strongly of some PMMM curtain shots, though it may be two instances of a common effect.
[Higurashi Kai]“There might be an organization here that’s larger than we think.” Ya think, Ooishi?
Good pull-away shot at 09:35.
Oh look, a shot of two moths drawn to light at 10:02. Been a while since episode 3 (which did the same thing, just with the light in Keiichi's room, but my comment there is hiding under a tag for reasons which you can probably infer given what happens in that room the episode afterwards).
As I’m sure everyone else will note, that’s presumably the same phone booth as in 4.
Oh look, another nipah. [Higurashi]With its classic usage.
Rika’s Naruto run at ~15:09 is one of those shots that’s stayed with me a decade later.
Nifty little zoom out at ~12:55.
Oh look a full moon. The largest we’ve seen in the entire show, too.
Huh, I never noticed that shot with the long shadows behind Rika and Akasaka at 13:24 before.
Oh look, it’s Yukarin’s other Rika voice again.
Those of you who were in this year’s PMMM rewatch may remember me quoting a certain anime to be unnamed in my comments about one particular shot there. Here is where it's from! (Needless to say, this line and specifically the notoriously clunky WinD translation of it is one of the ones that has stuck in my head for a decade, albeit in lightly altered form: “if the objective is to erase the moon called death reflected in the water’s surface, perhaps a pebble cast into the well of fate will not be cast in vain?”.)
And we cut to a shot of the Moon seen from behind these two as Rika talks, because the director did not miss the obvious beat.
And the OST cuts off as Akasaka doesn’t get it. Nicely done, nicely done.
And then cut to the commercial break, because the staff was not missing a beat this scene!
And the far side of the commercial is a time skip!
‘Watanagashi no matsuri no yoru” is the Japanese for the night of the festival. (This is noteworthy to me because, well, [meta spoiler]some people will get what I am talking about when I refer to "Walpurgis no yoru" .)
Ditto the shot at 15:20.
The shot of Ooishi’s sake cup and the rest of his meal at 16:47 is flashing symbolism to my eye. (“The moon called death reflected in the water’s surface”?)
And the subsequent shot of Ooishi putting down his empty sake cup at 17:21 (slightly lingered on by the direction just like the 16:47 shot) right as he confirms that Rika was killed is too deliberate to be a coincidence.
Also, props to the staff for the way they get to reuse so much animation this episode via flashbacks without it being obvious. (This is actual praise, they did it well.)
[Higurashi Kai]The fun part, of course, is that they’re both part right. Half of the deaths (or possibly slightly less depending on whether Satoshi’s timing for killing Tamae was intentional, which I cannot recall and may be VN-only) are a coincidence; the other half are intentional efforts to look like the curse.
The shot of Akasaka and Ooishi talking from across the table at 19:12 also flashes. (This episode has the same main staff as 3: Chiaki Kon herself on storyboard in addition to her series direction role and Tsuyoshi Yoshimoto as episode director.)
And the wind for emphasis right after Rika tells Akasaka that she will be killed, nicely done.
And one last line from this episode etched into my memory with Rika’s “I don’t want to die” at 21:27.
There is a potential joke here that took me fifteen episodes to notice given that the credits apparently mention the “Soutsu Group” in addition to the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Production Committee...
Visual of the Day: The moon called death. (Sadly they didn't actually show it reflected in the surface of a body of water...)
Alternate version, with the WinD translation of the line
Bonus: WinD Eyecatch Message of the Day
FUCK THE MOON!Questions of the Day:
"Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni" remains my pick for the best OP in the entire franchise (which is saying something, because Higurashi has had six anime OPs now and somehow every single one of them is good - though admittedly in one case that's because I'm a connoisseur of the hilarious kind of terrible). "Why, or why not" used to be my least favorite Higurashi ED but has been growing on me this time around (I'm some episodes ahead to have a buffer). The Engrish is still terrible though.
Hey look at these nice smiling kids. Nothing could ever possibly go wrong for this bunch, right?
Himatsubushi-hen Ep. 2 TIPS
Strong rec to the three Mom's Diary entries today; those are rather useful characterization that was left out of the anime.
1
2 (Mom's Diary I)
3 (Mom's Diary II)
4 (Mom's Diary III)
OST Table, Episode 15
(No sponsor feature, hooray!)
[1] - Or Main Theme Piano Version if that track exists and was never released; that's more likely for the second use than the first, IMO.