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higurashi (reread)

tatarigoroshi (祟殺し編) LATEGAME:

still image from the original higurashi visual novel. satoko is standing in the kids’ school classroom with their homeroom teacher. satoko has a big smile on her face. the teacher is frowning with concern. satoko says “…Oh-ho-ho… It was just a little…. horseplay. I scared everyone out of their wits.”

ooo this episode has been very painful and sad. satoko…..

i think the scariest scene in this chapter (so far) is definitely when satoko freaks out when keiichi pats her head, and then she suddenly cheers up when the teacher is in the room and assures her everything’s fine… yeah. i think the text here really speaks for itself.

still image from the original higurashi novel. satoko and her homeroom teacher are still standing in the classroom. satoko smiles even more exhuberantly than before, her teacher’s expression remains concerned. keiichi thinks to himself “…The rest of the class… couldn’t keep up with her extreme changes. … We all just stared… in a daze.”

i like (narratively) the detail that satoko has (allegedly) been caught lying to the child safety service people previously. to me that feels like a realistic piece of nuance that would explain why the child center remains so hesitant to intervene (thus necessitating keiichi to intervene, which makes for a good story). it also makes the horror of this situation being actually extremely real and dangerous sting more, somehow. it’s “justifiable” on the part of the child center but it’s just not fair. bureaucracy hell type stuff

anyway that’s all a bummer for several hours of reading but then things get absolutely freaking epic when keiichi starts having an out of body experience and resolves to just, simply, kill satoko’s uncle on the night of wataganashi. duh!

still image from the original higurashi novel. mion is standing in the classroom looking concerned but all of the colors have been completely inverted suddenly which gives the image a very surreal and scary appearance. Keiichi thinks to himself “And then… the world’s color flipped inside-out! My field of view expanded. My head grew remarkably cold, and I felt like my mind’s volume had grown even wider than the classroom we were in.”

still image from the original higurashi visual novel. the screen shows nothing but the words keiichi is thinking to himself, which are “I would obliterate Satoko’s uncle. There were plenty of ways to do it. This was a task that held infinite methods.”

things get really crime and punishment here for a while which i really love. keiichi talks himself into a homicidal power trip and starts to plan the perfect crime: one where satoko’s uncle disappears on the night of wataganashi, an apparent victim of this year’s curse. there are also some extremely spoiler-y reasons i love this scene, so if you don’t want to be extremely spoiled for every episode of higurashi don’t click this.

still image from the original higurashi novel. There is nothing on the screen except a large blood splatter and the following text, which keiichi is thinking to himself: “I knew just how much his continued existence depended on me. He was nothing - I could expel him from this world within just 1500 seconds after making up my mind. From when I decided what to do, he only had 1500 seconds”

the random reveal that keiichi is a boy genius of sorts is funny. i had something similar happen to me in school as a kid and it also fucked with me psychologically so i get it. i also love the part where keiichi asks his mom for advice on how to commit the perfect crime because she loves mystery novels. cute conversation and a big hint for how to approach “solving” higurashi.

still image from the original higurashi novel. nothing is shown except for the following text which keiichi is thinking to himself “Of course. I haven’t read enough mystery novels to act all high and mighty about them. …The one who really liked mystery novels… was my mom. She’d read every well-known mystery novel from overseas, from past and present. Every time she watched mystery shows, she would always criticize them as having cheap tricks or being poorly thought-out…. I wonder… what the perfect crime would mean to her…”

have a couple hours worth of reading left in tatarigoroshi and will likely finish this weekend! this is the furthest ive gotten in the visual novel (previously i left off here and switched to the manga) and im excited to see some more of the music-in-context that i missed. the pacing of the actual visual novel really has a certain… je ne sais quois as well. reading for so many hours while actually listening to the sound of the cicadas…. only half paying attention when it’s boring… hinamiziwa may have some major problems but i think maybe the countryside could fix me.

still image from the original higurashi novel showing the sun setting over the town of hinamiziwa while keiichi thinks to himself “It would all be over very soon. Everything would end. …Yes, when the higurashi cried.

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#higurashi