What the Heck Was With That Last TIP in Yoigoshi-hen?
I recently finished playing the DS-exclusive Yoigoshi-hen arc for Higurashi, which you can now do provided you've bought the game on Steam and go here. I highly recommend playing the game, even if you've read the manga. It's a fantastic arc, develops Ryukishi07's themes (it feels like the first non-canon arc he actually had a hand in writing, if only in part), and is a gift for fans of Mion, showing her being a badass, saving the day, and pu8lling off multiple impossible things.
(Spoilers for Yoigoshi-hen's VN route follow)
For those who have read the manga, there's an extra character inserted into the plot. Arakawa, the annoying reporter guy (he's less annoying in the VN as he's the "reader" character, but he still grates a lot of the time) is traveling to Hinamizawa with a fellow reporter, Miyuki. She's cute, but quickly we realize she's a bit suspicious. As it turns out, she's an undercover cop who specializes in yakuza, and is trying to stop the war the Sonozakis are having. She's also, as we find out right at the end, Akasaka's daughter Miyuki, all grown up.
After the credits roll there's one last tip called 'Unruly Girl'. Most of it is Akasaka chiding his daughter for taking risks, as well as establishing they're from a family of police. At one point, Miyuki's recklessness reminds Akasaka of Yukie, and he says that she reminds him of his dead wife, mentioning her grave. (Wouldn't she have a shrine instead?)
What happens next is very weird. Miyuki notes that Yukie is, in fact, not dead. Which stuns Akasaka. She then gives him these pills he apparently needs to take, which Yukie told her to give to Akasaka because he tends to forget. And now, crying, he recalls that Yukie is, in fact, alive.
What the fuck just happened here? First of all, it's worth looking at the world Yoigoshi takes place in. It's meant to be "read", in the VN, after Tsumihoroboshi. After this there are only four arcs left: Minagoroshi (Yukie is alive), Matsuribayashi (ditto), and the two arcs tied together that are DS/PS2, Tokihogishi and Miotsukushi (ditto).
Yoigoshi takes place in a "failed" Tsumihoroshi, where the school blew up. Rena, Mion, Satoko, Rika, and the other kids all died. K1 (possibly as he was on the edge of the roof) initially survived, but died a few days later. Shion wasn't at the school, so survived, but was hospitalized for a while due to shock. The family decided to pretend Mion survived and kill off Shion, which must have come as a surprise to Arakawa, who has read news articles saying that Mion died in the explosion. But I'm picking nits.
Mion, as we see at the end of this episode, did not pass on like the others did (which we literally see them all do in Minagoroshi), but stayed with her sister, becoming a calming presence and sometimes appearing in dreams. She's the one who got Shion to go to Hinamizawa, and when her life was in danger, she possessed her sister for the majority of the arc. In the manga she pretty much does everything herself, but in the VN she is aided by Miyuki, who is a crack shot, and it can be argued that there might have been a bad end without Miyuki there.
I've talked before about how it's easy to go from Higurashi to Umineko but hard to go the other direction. Those who have read Umineko find it very hard to shrug off all the "it really is fantasy" aspects of Higurashi: Hanyuu, the time loops, Hinamizawa Syndrome in general, and, in this arc, ghosts coming back from the dead to give rousing "live for me" speeches and possessing their twin. Higurashi's "mystery" can't be explained by Knox or Van Dine, you have to roll with "and then magic happened". Umineko fans dislike this, I think.
The last TIP in Yoigoshi-hen sees time literally being rewritten as we watch it. Here's what I think happened. Mion is grateful to Miyuki, and now that she has "passed on", has hooked up with Rika and Hanyuu., They can't save themselves, but can perhaps fix things so that Yukie doesn't die - either Akasaka goes back to see her and doesn't rescue the kid (Minagoroshi), or he talks to her on the phone so that she's not restless and going to the roof (the other arcs). So now Akasaka has his wife and Miyuki her mother. And Akasaka's medicine may be for lingering effects of Hinamizawa Syndrome (though it's surprising they'd promote him so high with that going on).
This doesn't really mesh well with the canon arcs, where Hanyuu's power is pretty low, but it's a cute idea that explains why we see a baffled Akasaka find his wife is dead one moment and alive the next. And I'm always happy to have Yukie alive.
