[04.01.23]

[facethestrange]

Challenge #2 - In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.

I find primers and manifestos overwhelming to write because I want to include everything and for my brain 'everything' often means literally everyFRAKKINGthing, so I go

and give up, lmao.

But you still get one! :D Sort of.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni: the checklist (and a brief explanation how the canon works) (no actual spoilers)

You might want to watch Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni if you love/like/are interested in/don't mind:
☑ time loops
☑ time loopers who are so DONE
☑ adorable af ancient gods
☑ blood, gore, slasher horror
☑ "madness" horror
☑ conspiracy
☑ science used for good and evil
☑ curses and ritual murders
☑ hope, friendship and community
☑ cuteness and silliness
☑ complex characters
☑ complex relationships (especially between siblings)
☑ identity crisis after trauma, chosen names
☑ non-linear narrative
☑ unreliable narrators/POV characters
☑ NI-PAAAAAA really though:

But please remember that this is a bloody, gory, scary show full of graphic triggers, ok. It's easy to forget it when you watch this cute af video. xD

This post is about the original installments of the anime that started airing in 2006. I haven't consumed any of the other media types (I know they're pretty similar though), and I haven't finished watching the last two installments of the anime that came out in 2020. (I'm watching them as we speak - I took a while for me to start them because I loved the ending of the original show SO MUCH. *still no spoilers*)

The show is otherwise known as When They Cry and its canon installments are:
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (the first season)
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai (the second season)
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Rei (epilogue - the 3 middle episodes are canon)
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Gou (remake/sequel)
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Sotsu (sequel)

The second season and the epilogue are a whole lot softer and warmer than the first season (still gory, though).

[I have also watched all the non-canon installments and specials, and I'll just say that I personally adored the last episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira, but I really, really do NOT recommend the first episode (they're stand-alones). But again, Kira is not canon.]


[not my meme] [not the ending of the canon]

If it sounds like your thing, awesome! If it doesn't, also awesome. :D

Comments

[colls]

LOL - that meme about 1 hr & 11 months was me when I set down to do this challenge yesterday :D

This anime looks intriguing - very nice write up!

[pronker]

I liked the neat checklist, especially 'cute and silliness' - well done!

[dragonofeternal]

Higurashi is one of those canons that I've been staring at like "ooohhh I know if I actually sit down and watch you I'm gonna really like you" since like 2007, but I always have a hard time making myself actually buckle in for long series. I usually enjoy them! But the theoretical "commitment" always daunts me... maybe this year I'll at least give the original anime a spin and see where I go from there.

[mekare]

Thanks for the checklist! There's gore on there, so it's definitely not for me. :-)

[facethestrange]

Well, your post was epic! ♡ And I'm kinda glad to hear that someone else feels the same way too. :D

Thank you! It pretty much is exactly as wild as it sounds, lol.

[facethestrange]

Thank you! :) With this show you go so fast between kids being super cute and the same cute kids people being graphically murdered that you can get whiplash from it, lol.

[facethestrange]

I feel like we're on the opposite ends of some kind of spectrum, lol, because I went 'but Higurashi is short tho', but I'm the person whose ideal length of a tv show is the old-timey western tv standard of 7+ seasons x 24 episodes x 40 minutes, and anything less than that will feel too short. xD

(Your icon is so relevant, I love it. :D)

[facethestrange]

Yep, sadly it's definitely not a show for people who can't/don't want to look at gore.

[dragonofeternal]

(thank you, I love hoarding icons so I have things that fit for any occasion)

XD Yeah sounds like it. Once I'm in the swing of watching things I can really enjoy longer series, but I only have so much time to watch new stuff (longer written canons are a bit easier) so it's hard to get myself to make the time investment. Granted, that can then hoist me by my own petard and leave me turning my canons upside-down and shaking them going "What do you MEAN this series I picked up specifically because it's short only has thirteen episodes and a movie!?!?"

[aquietjune]

Hi! Preaching to the choir here since I'm a fan already, I'm just happy to find another fan. My favorite characters are Mion and Rika.

Where are you in Higurashi Gou / Sotsu currently, and how are you liking it so far? I must say I really love Ayane's songs and in general the openings and endings for these series. But Higurashi has always been top-notch for music. My advice for watching these would be: Higurashi has a million spin-offs; Gou/Sotsu is a major project (more visibility/accessibility because it's anime and so on), but the main story is still the og Higurashi, Kai, and that arc in Rei, so you can keep them separate in your mind, reject them even.

(In fact, this year I'm looking forward to reading the manga version of Gou and its sequel Meguri to see how the story was developed in this medium--it's different from the anime)

[facethestrange]

I'm SO excited to meet another fan too! :D Rika is my very very obvious fav, lol, and one of my favorite things is that she's a time looper I finally LIKE - I've always loved time travel and time loops, it's one of my favorite tropes ever, but the character doing/experiencing them was generally someone I didn't care for (at least when it wasn't someone it randomly happened to in a one-off episode). Here I finally do. :D

I'm nearing the end of Gou and I'm completely ready to reject it as canon, lol. I actually started watching with this premise, that it doesn't have to be canon if I don't want it to be. And it doesn't AT ALL mean that I don't like it - I love it! It's my favorite thing and so many scenes are hitting even harder than in the original, but I also want to keep the original ending because fraaaak it was PERFECT. ♡ Good thing I can do both. :D

The openings and endings = ♡♡♡ Both the music and the animation. My favorite opening song-wise is still the original one I think, but they're all just frakking amazing.

I'll need to look into the mangas, I mostly knew that the other media had very similar stories, but if it's different then I'm very interested too! :)

[aquietjune]

That worked for me too, the characterization of Rika (the whole framing of it, really, with the slow reveal of her reality that is so different to Keiichi's, for example), her depressive states after centuries of looping, and the horror about her demise. I think that since Gou managed to finally animate some stuff from the VNs that was lost in the first adaptation, it also helps convey Rika's very particular character, her daily mask vs. her real self. (And the same is apparent for the other characters. Gou/Sotsu have many problems but some parts are really great.)

Again, Higurashi has tons of spin-offs and tons of... different realities. For obvious reasons. I think they can coexist in our minds. The main story is the main story, and then there are endless possibilities :)

This youtube channel has great videos about Higurashi, including an almost complete guide to all Higu spin-offs, I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/@bess3023

I always want to get to the VNs but since it's a commitment for now I've only read the manga (which is more faithful to the VNs than the anime, which had to cut a lot of stuff) and some random things on the side. But I want to get to the VNs. Ryukishi07 is very verbose but he's really able to convey the characters through their dialogues and inner monologues, and I appreciate that a lot.

And yes, the original opening remains the most beautiful and haunting, visuals included. <3

[facethestrange]

"her daily mask vs. her real self"
This, THIS right here both completely fucks me up and is my absolutely favorite thing. ♡

Thank you for the youtube rec, I'm especially excited to see some character-analysis stuff there! ♡

"Ryukishi07 is very verbose but he's really able to convey the characters through their dialogues and inner monologues, and I appreciate that a lot."
That sounds amazing, and for me verbose is not a "but", just another thing that sounds amazing, haha. :D As I said in my other comment, Higurashi will most likely be my first VN ever when I get to actually downloading one! ♡

ETA: Wow, Bess's video about Mion was as if it was personally tailored to me - only knowing the anime, I also felt like Mion was the one character who didn't really exist, and this video gave me a whole new perspective! Thank you for sharing it with me! :) ♡

[aquietjune]

I'm glad that you liked the rec! She's really my go-to resource for Higurashi meta. (And other recs on her channel are also very good, I watched Shiki--a very anomalous vampire anime, very horrific and dark in the deepest sense--because of one of her videos and loved it.)

[facethestrange]

Oh, Shiki sounds fantastic! Bookmarking it to watch at some point in the future. :D