The Bonds of Reasoning

In the story that I wrote, you can fly in freedom. Let me cast my final spell, so your light may not know the darkness. In the illusion that you created, I came to know love.

[hiiragi-shira]

So far I think I got the clue of everything about Satoko’s actions in Gou/Sotsu. They all must be tied to her trauma past. In fact, she just wants to take revenge on her sufferings in the past. But, why does Rika become her main target of all those things?

Gou/Sotsu-Satoko is still trapped in her child-self with all the bad memories from the past, which is why she has been thinking that no one treats her well beside her best friend, Rika.

She is still putting herself in a situation that everybody in Hinamizawa mistreating her, including her aunt and uncle. She knows Shion and Satoshi love her, but she must have a bad experience about Shion torturing her in the original show, and Satoshi had abandoned her for a whole year during his coma. She also doesn’t think any other friend in the group accepting her like Rika (as you may notice, the OP of Sotsu shows Satoko seeing them all in a creepy smile and Rika isn’t among them), Rika has always the only best friend who stayed with her during the good times in the past.

Therefore, it must be the reason that Satoko can’t bear the pain to see Rika betraying her of all everyone else. Seeing her last hope slipped away triggered Satoko doing at any mean to keep her happiness alive.

[hiiragi-shira]

The Red Halos which Cutthroat sees on the top of his targets heads are most likely possessed by innocent people yet getting an urge to kill. An ordinary person such as Swindler might have the strongest murderous intent than the real Akudamas once she started getting kill, especially when she has something to protect (the Sister) or when meeting dangers. It is feasible that Cutthroat perceived her ‘Red Halo’ as the most magnificence. After Swindler finished off Cutthroat, her murderous urge is immediately dropped down, that’s why he saw it all black.

[hiiragi-shira]

Watadamashi Ep8

Mion might have overheard Shion’s phone to Keiichi in the night after the festival. As Mion confessed that she already knew the four of them had violated the forbidden temple last night. As the representative of the head of Sonozaki, Mion definitely knows that they’re gonna face the curse of Oyashiro-sama and decided to punish Shion for pushing Keiichi to that worse situation. However, Mion wants to spare Keiichi and went so far to find a way to end the “tradition” of the curse. Giving her the doll is what triggers this event to happen, Mion became the outbreak instead of Shion because it seems likely that Satoshi didn’t get involved to Shion in this whole new arc, so there’s no reason for Shion going outbreak.

Just like Satoshi is the motive for Shion’s revenge in Watanagashi and Maekashi. Mion’s purpose is eliminating people who carries out the curse to save Keiichi. Furude family is one of those involved to the curse. It’s no doubt that the man in the construction uniform is one of the Yamainu, I guess Satoko heard Rika saying she was gonna meet Keiichi behind the school but the one she met was actually a Yamainu. Perhaps Mion overheard Rika saying something to the Yamainu and found out that she is the “ringleader” behind the curse, that’s why she put Rika in the septic tank of the outhouse after torturing her. Then locked Keiichi up in the basement. After observing the cameras in the basement, she referred the Yamainu as “their minion”, I take that she was thinking the Yamainu being Rika and Satoko’s minion.

Probably Satoko went to Mion’s house to confront her for killing Rika. Mion and Satoko’s dead poses remind me of Rika and Satoko’s at the end of Onidamashi, being killed by the same knife. Were Mion and Satoko killed by the same gun? Hard to see the later as a suicide ‘cause the gun was laying a bit far from their hands. I guess there’s a third party shooting them down then put the gun between their corpses. Rena might survived in this arc due to her having no connection to the Three Families.

[hiiragi-shira]

Watadamashi Ep7 :

Keiichi has some memories of the original arc, just like Onidamashi. He remembers the original name of the Hinamizawa village was Onigafuchi and his fear of him and Shion being “demoned away”. Even though Shion told Keiichi that Tomitake and Takano were just missing.

Tomitake and Takano escaped through a festival’s truck, explaining why their car and bicycle were left behind in the previous arc. So it’s obviously that they aren’t or haven’t been seen to be dead yet.

Rika is the only one telling Keiichi that Tomitake and Takano both dead while Shion being alive. I think Rika is more likely being haunted by Watanagashi arc, she is confused as same as Keiichi. By hearing Keiichi’s cats story, Rika realized that Keiichi must have the memories of Watanagashi arc because that was the story she told him, I think this is the reason she thinks it was a ridiculous story ‘cause she was never able to do anything about it. Keiichi already broke into the shrine storage and everything would be over for them. Rika was sure that Shion should still be alive by acknowledging a ‘fact’ that Shion would be the outbreak. Though Rika wasn’t sure how much memories Keiichi has.

Oyashiro-sama’s statue’s head was fall off just by a small touch. Shion never heard any sound inside the storage, the sounds of footsteps were likely Shion’s hallucination of Satoshi in the original arc. If she didn’t hear it, would she no longer the outbreak of this arc?

[hiiragi-shira]

Thoughts on Onidamashi :

So Higurashi Gou is the sequel of the original arcs, taking place after the end of Matsuribayshi-hen when Rika already knew all the answers and overcome her fate.

Onidamashi-hen (Ep1-4) has some differences from Onikakushi-hen :

- Keiichi has the flashbacks of Onikakushi-hen where he ended up killing Rena and Mion.

- Unlike Onikakushi-hen, Keiichi lets Rena into his house for dinner.

- It’s odd that Keiichi still survived after multi-stabs in the stomach by Rena. I doubt that Rena is the one having the Hinamizawa syndrome, she doesn’t show the sign of suspicion of anyone. In Onikakushi-hen, Keiichi is precisely the one having the syndrome, driving him to mad suspicion that killed Rena and Mion. Apparently Onidamashi-hen shows that Keiichi is haunted by Rena’s act back in Tsumiboroshi-hen for protecting her dad. The disease caused Keiichi’s hallucinating that Rena killing him, but in fact, he is the one doing otherwise. It’s plausible that his wounds were caused during their fight but fortunately survived after killing Rena.

- Rika and Satoko were murdered or committed suicide by the same knife.

- In the hospital, the nurse asked if Keiichi felt itchy on his neck that it turned out he is the one who had Hinamizawa syndrome like in Onikakushi-hen ‘cause the person after murdering someone would scratch their neck to death.