Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Review

Alternate Titles: When they Cry,

Original Japanese Release Date: 2006 (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni), 2007 (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai)

Episode Length/Run-time: 26 episodes (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni), 24 episodes (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai)

Summary:

Maebara Keiichi moves out to a small backwoods town in the summer of 1983.  He befriends his cute new classmates and settles into his life as a student, playing board games after class, and generally being a carefree kid.  But he quickly discovers not all is right with this town and the people he’s met may not be who they seem to be.  A series of deaths begins to sweep across the city but after a short period of time events seem to “reset” and continue again.  The circumstances surrounding this town, and the deaths, remain in mystery.

Review:

This review is covering both the first (Higurashi no naku koro ni) and second (Higurashi no naku koro ni kai) seasons at once. The reason for this is while the first CAN stand alone it makes little to no sense by itself.  The first season is setting up the characters, premise, and introducing the questions of what is going on and why things are happening.  The second season is the “answers” to the first season.  Where you see why the town is caught in this confusing loop and being continually restarted after the unfortunate events which occur.  In other words, the second season is the story and the first season is the “set up.”

From here on, there may be some loose spoilers, as the review will be near impossible to go forward with without them.  I recommend you stop here though if you have not seen this series stop here and just take my word for it, watch it.

… Still here?  Okay, review time.  So the simple explanation for what is happening in the village is that all the villagers are infected with a parasite that makes them go crazy should they leave the village, OR should the host parasite (which is within Rika Furude) be killed.  The way the series begins to show this in the first season is through the subtle thing that every time she is killed, or someone leaves the village that’s when the crazy happens. This then justifies the random scenes  when they’re all playing boardgames because it provides contrast.  I love things like this, things you don’t notice unless you’re really keeping track. Rika has the power to move time though a local deity (and I won’t spoil more than that) so she is attempting to move through time in an effort to find a course of events where the village is saved.

Cool, right?

This series starts out good, and just becomes fantastic.  It’s gory, surprising, disturbing and doesn’t hold anything back.  It is so nice to finally see a series that is not only shocking and surprising but it doesn’t rest or rely on that plot device, there is more to it than that.  If you watch this series you MUST watch both seasons.  There’s no point in watching just the first season because you really then don’t even see the full story.

It well deserves a 5 and is one I recommend for anyone mature enough to handle it’s dark subject matter.

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