#onidamashi

[fanbun]

Lol he probably should have been more specific

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Manga Part 1

Onidamashi, Watadamashi, Tataridamashi

Now I’m caught up on the Higurashi Gou manga, let’s talk about it!

Onidamashi, Wataadamashi, and Tataridamashi had a few small differences, which most people commented on as those chapters were being released. The ones I found most interesting...

Onidamashi: The scene between Rika and Hanyuu is moved to the end of the arc and expanded. In my opinion, the pacing is smoother this way, and the small changes to the scene itself (Rika breaking down, Hanyuu hugging her) do a much better job conveying the characters’ importance to each other, as well as the sheer impact of what it means for Rika to trapped in the loops once more.

Watadamashi: There are some small tweaks to how the events went down, with Mion and the rest searching Rika and Satoko’s house rather than the school and Keiichi not breaking out of the cell. Keiichi also flashing back to cute Mion moments from earlier in the arc as he desperately struggles against the bars makes the ending a bit more genuinely emotional.

But overall, this arc seems to be the most similar to the anime. Even the detail of the gun on the ground being different from the gun Mion was holding earlier is the same (in fact, it’s even more obvious in the manga). That doesn’t bode well for salvaging its Answer arc version - if Meguri even goes into how the murders were committed at all.

Tataridamashi: Another arc with some larger changes. For example, Satoko has actual bruises and the club runs into her buying drinks for Teppei’s gambling friends. She only has her breakdown after Keiichi actually touches her head, instead of reacting beforehand. It’s probably all still faked, but it’s a lot more convincing in the manga.

The arc still has the plot hole of implying Rika remembers Minagoroshi, including Rika flashing back to Takano killing her when she sees Takano at the protest. Oh well.

But Rika actually does make the phone call to Satoko. Which probably won’t matter at all, but I’m glad that moment was kept because of its importance to the characters. (Man, Satoko must have found Rika’s speech about asking for help and not enduring things on her own really strange to hear after St Lucia…)

Of course, the real major change is that Satoko doesn’t invite Keiichi to her house, and Teppei is never seen again after Satoko is “saved” from him. Personally, I again think it’s still likely that events went down the same, with Ooishi finding Teppei’s corpse behind the scenes and therefore going on a rampage. Which would be super unfair if you were trying to solve Gou as a mystery, but eh. The mystery is the least important problem to fix about Gou, in my opinion.

The bigger question for me is whether Satoko and Keiichi’s relationship is more genuine in the manga. It’s given a lot more focus, and at the end of the arc, she seems to be actually trying to get him out of the way of Ooishi.

We also do get Ooishi’s rampage at the end of this arc instead of the beginning of Nekodamashi, which seems much more fitting in terms of pacing. The arc still ends with Rena’s inability to recount the events, though in a neat touch, it’s implied that she heard two shots when asked about Satoko’s death. (One for Satoko killing Ooishi, one for Satoko’s suicide, I imagine?)

In Conclusion

Still, overall, the Question Arcs were essentially the same as the anime. Just trimmed down, and with better depiction of the gore/violence.

But even those small improvements do add up. For one thing, if the Question Arcs aren’t significantly different, then rushing through them as fast as possible is a good thing. Although the Gou manga doesn’t fix the core issue of Rika being so passive, it at least gives the reader far less time to dwell on it.

The toned-down depiction of violence also makes it much easier to take the story seriously. In the manga, I wasn’t left scratching my head over how Keiichi could survive everything, so I could actually focus on the tragedy of the events instead.

On the downside - the manga does have some annoying moments that are even more fanservice-heavy than the anime. (The introduction to Angel Mort stands out.) But, because of the fast pace, it also trims or even cuts out some of the uncomfortable moments and jokes (*cough* Irie *cough*) that made it into the anime. Win some, lose some.

.

In the end, would I recommend the first few arcs of the manga over the anime? Maybe. I think the manga arcs are better, but not to the point where you’re losing out with the anime.

I also still wouldn’t recommend the manga to newcomers to the series. When I say the events are rushed, I do mean it - they’re probably sped through too fast for a newcomer to come to care about the characters.

[fragmentwitch]

[luciernagaart]

expectations vs reality amiright 

[thesleepykuma]

I don’t know about this latest episode, guys.

I get that this is the payoff to “we think keiichi is going crazy and he overcomes it and trusts Rena and we think that maybe things might turn out okay but Rena was the one that was going crazy the whole time!” but it was so fast and... over the top, you know? She was laughing hysterically and I know that overdramatics sometimes happened in the original but I feel like the scene would have played out better if she had been more coldly serious about the whole thing. Though maybe some of the laughing was in Keiichi’s head, he did still go to the funeral and it may be hard to tell what was Rena genuinely acting strange and what was mild Hinamizawa syndrome in Keiichi’s part (that got exasperated when Rena tried to kill him)

I’ve still got questions.

They never did confirm what happened to Takano and Tomitake. My guess is that Takano is still alive because the men are in the clinic and someone seems to still be controlling them but Tomitake? Who knows

Was the clinic actually being renovated?

My guess is Rika offed herself and Satoko when she heard about Rena before Takano could get to her but technically we don’t know that either.

A side note but there’s no way I believe that keiichi would be the one who to survive in a combat dealing with a knife to the chest vs an alarm clock

My guess for the twist in Watadamashi-hen is that it’s actually Mion who will get the syndrome this time but we’ll see.

I just don’t know guys.

[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.

[tsuisou-no-despair]

Tsuisou’s Theory Time: What Happened In Ep. 4?

So I have another theory, and this one’s pertaining to Onidamashi again. Spoilers for Episode 4 of the new anime, but that isn’t anything new

What happened in Keiichi’s house on the night of Rena’s death is something that’s understandably up for debate. On-screen, Rena comes at Keiichi with a kitchen knife and stabs the shit out of him, and he fights her off, barely, with an alarm clock to the cranium. However, the evidence for that doesn’t fit with the aftermath - Rena’s dead, Keiichi lives - which seems unlikely given the many, many stab wounds he recieved - and nobody’s really comfortable with explaining why. Given that he’s been shown to suffer from Hinamizawa Syndrome, it’s extremely likely what he experienced wasn’t real, to some degree.

My theory is that it wasn’t “Keiichi imagined it all” or “it actually happened as shown”, but rather, that it was very real up to a point.

This is a theory that started as me being contrarian and going “but what if the truth’s in the middle” apropos of nothing, but then on my rewatch of the scene via the dub, it seemed like maybe it’s more founded than I thought

There’s a lot going on with Rena that’s founded on Tsumihoroboshi information that Keiichi almost certainly wouldn’t know at this point - such as the neck-scratching or everything to do with her father. Now, this could very easily be Hinamizawa Syndrome interacting with Keiichi’s memories of other loops and getting “meta” - dumping information from other loops to make a more plausible scenario - or it could be Rena’s actually acting like this. (If nothing else, adding in Tsumihoroboshi facts did a lot to make it feel real to the audience, myself included!)

So, what happens after this? Rena charges Keiichi, disarms him, chases him into the other room, and then Keiichi charges her and knocks her against the table, stunning her. Keiichi breathes, lets down his guard, and approaches her.

And then, she snaps awake. Everything that’s happened up to this point has been real.

Everything after isn’t.

Immediately, Keiichi is stabbed, brought to the ground, and stabbed again and again. If you’re here and reading my theories, you probably don’t need me to tell you about how shaky that may or may not be.

So, here’s my theory as to what really happened - this is mostly conjecture and dreaming of alternate scenes, so take it with as much salt as you want.

Rena comes to Keiichi’s house with all the supplies and murder paraphenalia she needs. As seen, she attacks Keiichi and takes a blow against the table. At this point, Rena snaps out of it - maybe she remembers another loop, maybe she just gets some sense knocked into her, but regardless, she’s back to something close to normal. Meanwhile, Keiichi, still in the throes of Hinamizawa Syndrome and with his adrenaline spiking, sees a twitch of movement on Rena’s part and assumes (and perceives) that she’s getting up for Round 2. What happens next resembles what happened between them as seen, but with the perspectives swapped - Keiichi beats the absolute shit out of her - maybe with the clock, maybe with his bare hands, who knows) and Rena makes enough of an effort to defend herself with the knife to take him out, but not fast enough to save herself. Rena dies, Keiichi has significant but not fatal injuries, and the rest of the episode plays out more-or-less as it had.

Anyhow, I’m just wildly theorycrafting over here, and this probably won’t be relevant either until Tsumihoroboshi’s equivalent (Tsumidanashi?) happens or perhaps not at all. I just wanted to share my idea of what might have happened with you.

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Sotsu Episodes 1-5

Lack of motivation to write aside, I genuinely don’t have much to say about Sotsu so far! So here’s a collection of scattered fragments on the first two arcs.

First: these are by far the most straightforward Answer Arcs in the entire WTC series, aren’t they? I was initially wondering if we might be doing the set up from original Higurashi, with similar events but different Fragments - but no, we don’t even have that conceit. We’re showing the exact Fragments as in the -damashi arcs, just from different points of view. With Satoko even spelling out her trick afterwards!

The overall result is that Oniakashi and Wataakashi still feel like Higurashi being set to “easy mode” to cater to newcomers. Even after that ship long since sailed.

Meanwhile, the actually optimal way to experience Higurashi SotsuGou really does seem to be having watched the original Higurashi anime many years ago. My younger brother is in that category - so what feels like repetition for superfans like me ends up being a nice refresher on the characters and their circumstances for him.

New OP/ED!

-Gou’s OP might still be my favorite (not having a random clothing damage Hanyuu helps…), but Sotsu’s is a close second! And I suspect the song will only grow on me as the season continues.

-I think the part of the OP that surprised me most was the sheer amount of St Lucia-age Satoko and Rika in this one. So far, it seems like Sotsu’s Answer Arcs are going to be exact perspective swaps on the corresponding Question Arcs, which won’t leave much time for St. Lucia shenanigans. Perhaps a hint that we’ll be returning to that original Matsuribayashi Fragment?

-And yes, @tarhalindur​, you were not wrong that I would be all about those OP/ED visuals! As so many people have noted, the laser light battle in the Sea of Fragments is extremely Umineko-like. Even specifically Lambda and Bern-like. Regardless on how the actual SatoRika relationship shakes out, I think we’re still fully on track for witch origin stories!

(Though leaning too far into the Umineko witches makes those shots really hard to take seriously, haha! Please imagine Rika and Satoko screaming “I LOVE YOU” at the top of their lungs there, and that’s it, that’s Lambda and Bern’s dynamic in a nutshell. XD)

-As for that one shot of Satoko and Rika nearly kissing… well… that’s what my other post is going to be about.

-I actually don’t have much to say on the ED, beyond it being as incredibly beautiful as the last two. (Gosh, I really need to get high resolution screencaps of it to use as desktop backgrounds!)

Symbolically and tonally, it’s oddly hopeful and reconciliatory for this point in the story. (That handholding image in the Sea of Fragments at the end...!) In the episodes themselves, all we see is Satoko going about her plan with villainous glee (and so much for my theories that she was barely keeping her side together). But between the OP and especially this regretful ED, I still find myself believing Satoko and Rika will eventually work things out.

Oniakashi

-I thought Oniakashi was a surprisingly efficient and well told version of Rena’s backstory. I can’t remember how it was done in the OG Higurashi anime, but compared to the VN, this is a very efficient condensation of her backstory. We got exactly what we needed to know, presented in a decently affecting manner, and without over-belaboring the point.

-I always disliked that Rina was characterized as so one-note evil given her profession. It felt stereotypical in a bad way. So I was quite happy to see Rina got some tiny bit of depth to her, she honestly needed it even more than Teppei.

-There were also some neat bits and bobs of symbolism and atmosphere building scattered throughout these episodes.  That quick shot of Satoko with looper-eyes in her reflection in the classroom, for example.

(Seeing the witch version of yourself in a reflection… does that happen in the Umineko manga? I know it’s a very very common subject for fanart, but I don’t recall it occurring in actual canon before. Which is to say: goodness I love all the fanart in this mode, so I was very happy to see that visual come up in the actual series.)

Another neat detail - the symbolism of Rena’s cotton puff sinking during the Watanagashi festival. Was it on-the-nose? Sure. But it’s lingering on tiny things like that which really help to set the atmosphere, something Gou really struggled to do. So all-in-all, I think I’d actually consider Sotsu off to a stronger start than Gou in its presentation.

-After building up "how does Satoko inject people without arousing suspicion?” as an obstacle in my head so long, the explanation that Rena was just asleep felt rather underwhelming. (And come on, we don’t even get to see it in Wataakashi? Sheesh...)

-All the digital ink spilled on theories where part of Keiichi and Rena’s fight was a hallucination… well, so much for that. Pity, that was the one thing that could have really elevated the end of Onidamashi in my opinion.

-That being said, as much as I’m unhappy with the “solution” to Rena and Keiichi’s fight, juxtaposing it with Rika’s happy cheering was about the best way that material could have been presented. (The pitch black comedy continues to be on point, lol.) Plus, whiplashing from that to Rika learning about it at school makes it clear why she despaired enough to resort to suicide.

And the suicide itself… well, that scene sure made it obvious that Satoko is a lot more practiced at manually jumping Fragments! Heh.

(Though much like the infamous USO DA, Rika Stabby Fun Times is another scene where I think the original anime sold the horror better.)

Wataakashi

Satoko and Eua being able to snoop on Rika and Hanyuu’s conversations in the Sea of Fragments is very intriguing. That means Satoko probably knows about the Onigari too.

But does this detail (and Eua’s badmouthing of Hanyuu) make it more or less likely that Eua is Hanyuu in some form? Man, I don’t even know at this point…

-At least Satoko’s adventures in firearm acquisition was a taste of the completely absurd time looper thunderdome tactics I was hoping for. Rika really needs to up her game!

To some extent, Satoko’s strategy here also feels like a commentary on fans asking silly questions like “why didn’t Rika get a gun?” Ditto regarding her curiosity about what an L5 Mion would be like. She truly is becoming more witch-like - in that she’s now a dark mirror of the audience’s most morbid interests, just like the role played by Bernkastel, Featherine, and of course, Lambdadelta.

Oh, and don’t think I didn’t catch those horse names being another extremely oblique LambdaBern reference. Satoko placed her bets on Wanyan beating Cheshire Cat, you say~? 

(Wanyans/Meowoofs are also a Ciconia thing, though they’re first mentioned as a pet Lambda has in Umineko’s epilogue.)

-As for Satoko and Teppei, I’m still okay so far with how Teppei’s change of heart is being handled. I actually kind of like that even this “better” side of him is still clearly a pathetic loser who has no business taking care of a kid. And Satoko is warily tolerating his presence on her own terms, with no actual intention of forgiving or trusting him. She controls the situation!

-So much for Shion escaping St. Lucia getting brought up in Wataakashi, huh. Or Shion and Mion’s backstory at all, for that matter. A disappointing choice, after I thought Oniakashi did decently well with Rena’s backstory.

-In general Wataakashi seems to be getting hit the hardest with pacing woes, as well as taking the least unique route to Mion going L5. Lots of it seems like an attempt to parallel Shion’s obsession with Satoshi / Shion realizing she did something horrible but it was too late from Meakashi, to questionable effect.  

If anything, the thing I found most interesting was that Satoko was the one opting to push the jealousy angle! Usually she’s quite naïve when it comes to romance. But now... projecting much, girl? :P

-Finally, I can’t help but continue comparing these -damashi/akashi arcs to the twists in the original arcs, and that comparison still does not do the new arcs any favors. Because Onikakushi and Watanagashi had some really good twists to their solutions! In contrast, these new arcs are an exercise in “what if the early suspicions you had about Rena being murderous and Mion being a yandere were actually RIGHT?” It’s Onikakushi and Watanagashi played completely straight, and I think those arcs lose a lot of their brilliance as a result.

It also makes me very, very nervous for how Tatariakashi will be handled...

But we’ll get there when we get there, I suppose. No sense worrying about that now, when we’ve got Mion’s bloodbath to cover next episode!