Note that this was a post from my blog at an older location: Posted June 19 2008
Well, seeing that it’s June, I thought that it’d be kinda appropriate if I reviewed the events of “Watanagashi” that occurred 25 years ago, from an anime that I have recently finished watching. “Higurashi no naku no koro ni” (“ひぐらしのなく頃に” in Japanese, “When the higurashi cry” as English translation.), is the name of this anime, and I am currenly watching the sequal, “Higurashi no naku no koro ni Kai”. Be warned that Higurashi does contain quite a bit of yelling and horror elements to it.
The basic story line of the plot, is that the main character’s family, Keiichi Maebara, moves to a village called “Hinamizawa”. “Hinamizawa” seems to be a a relatively “normal” village to Keiichi, however, this “normal” feeling changes after the annual “Watanagashi” Festival. “Watanagashi” is a celebration to commemorate and give thanks to the local god, although, Keiichi learns that every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival and Keiichi is soon brought into the strange events that take place every year. The anime uses separate story arcs and in each story arc, he or one of his friends succumbs to extreme paranoia. Often, this paranoia often results into the murder of one or more of their own friends.
Although at first I found this anime to be very confusing, (especially after the events of episode 5 after what took place in episode 4), I found that continuing to watch this anime was certainly not a bad decision. It is not at all innocent and cute like a lot of anime’s. The events of Watanagashi, and the reasons behind it, are slowly revealed to us in a somewhat annoying way, but the resulting answers I found to be rather satisfying despite it’s mind-boggling-ness, although the ending I found to be a little cliche. It also left me a few questions unanswered which resulted me in watching the sequal.
Higurashi was certainly not how I expected it to be, nor had I expected what was to happen in the next episodes and the sequal (which I am near the end of watching…). The soundtrack for this anime was very appropriate although the ending theme (even though I speak English) was hard to understand but it was a nice lead-up for the next episode preview. A few downsides are that the animation is rather poor, and although the the voice actors did do their best (and I think that it was the best any voice actor could do…) in quite a few scenes (notably the ladder scene), I will have to lower my overall score. I would very much recommend this to anyone who does not mind the blood and violence that is present in this anime.
Story – 9
Animation – 6
Music – 10
Characters – 8
Enjoyment – 9
Overall Rating – 8.5 out of 10
I am terrible at writing reviews…
More info on “Higurashi no naku koro ni”: Wikipedia ||| Anime News Network ||| My Anime List
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