Awwwwwwww lingering trace left behind of Hanyuu cute
So Higurashi Gou episode 14 is finally here, and boy wow was it a good one. In fact, I’ve spent most of the show so far saying “this is good but it has yet to make me understand why Higurashi is so acclaimed and respected” - but we’re finally now getting to that point. I’ve heard that this starts the Answers Arc of the show, and I think that’s just what the series needs for me to be like “oh fuck now I get why people love this!” and that’s poggers.
First thing of note this episode is that we don’t open on a new timeline - we open during the Watanagashi of last timeline, with Rika thinking to Hanyuu how happy she is that they saved Satoko and commenting that now she has the strength to fight back against her own apparent impending death. But then Ooishi starts fucking shit up, but we actually know why now! He thinks he learned the truth of Oyashiro’s curse and it’s all on the village being fucked up and Rika keeping secrets! Which also means Rika’s known the truth of the curse the whole time! Alright, fuckin wow! This is epic! We actually know why last timeline failed and suddenly Ooishi seems a lot more sane, as weird as that sounds - at the end of the day going on a killing spree is a bit fucked up but if he’s doing so because he has reason to believe the entire village are murderers then that seems a bit easier to get behind.
And now with her life being ended by Ooishi, Rika is now once again talking to Hanyuu, but actually, Rika remembers how she died, because Hanyuu fuckin used the last remnants of her power - also sorta killing her own lingering trace self apparently - to give Rika the power to completely remember her loops, which is like a blessing and a curse because now she has more information at her disposal but that info comes with more trauma which like, is just fucked up. Hanyuu also tells Rika about a sword she can permanently kill herself with and not be brought back to loops, but when she finds the thing it’s only a shard so who knows if it’ll really do the trick? Either way Rika’s comfortable with the fact that she can maybe die whenever she wants now, so she feels she has the strength to continue for at most, 5 more loops. After 5 she’ll give up, but her hope appears to be give everyone a happy ending within said loops and then she can fuck off and do her own thing.
This is all really cool and it’s great seeing events be set in motion in such a way, plus Rika was maybe my favourite anyway so this elevated narrative importance is gonna feel poggers, but I do think this was maybe a bit of an information overload in a way that feels quite inaccessible to me as a newcomer. I’ve previously praised lines like Rika telling Keiichi he taught her to rip through fate or whatever because those lines are kinda vague and make me want to learn how those events played out before. But with this they’re talking about how Rika only made it through those 100 years because of Hanyuu and she’s afraid she can be basically brought back to 1983 Hinamizawa at any time even though she escaped and she wants to share a drink with Hanyuu again and it’s just, these lines feel very much written for fans of the original anime. And this is a sequel so that’s not inherently a problem, but if the writers are gonna claim that this anime is newcomer friendly, maybe tone some of this stuff down a bit? That thing I was just saying about making me want to learn how old events played out, Hanyuu didn’t feel like she was written with that in mind. She feels written as if I already know who she is. These lines don’t make me want to see the old anime out of a curiosity for how Hanyuu came to be like this, they make me feel like I have to watch the old anime to know what this scene is actually about.
At the end of the day I am going to watch the old anime anyway and I still enjoyed this episode and where the series is going regardless, but this is definitely the first moment where I’ve felt the show isn’t as outright newcomer friendly as it was claiming to be. And that’s a little unfortunate.
But hey like I hope I’ve made clear, I did really like this episode and it’s nice to have something that so quickly made me understand the specific appeal of Higurashi beyond just solid seemingly self-contained horror timeloop stories. Poggers.
