the visual novel database

Report an issue on this page.

Review of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai

SubjectHigurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
ByHelpfulness: 0
Vote: 3
quplet on 2022-12-05
ReviewThis review is going to gloss over some things that I already covered in my review of the question arcs. Reading that here (link) will probably provide further context for many things I say in this review.

None of the arcs in the answer arcs got as bad as arc 2. Thank goodness. That being said, my experience was still very much mixed, leaning negative. A few things I moderately enjoyed, and many things I found very disappointing and amazingly stupid.

Brushing over some retreads, the pacing is still god-awful. Especially one particular scene I will get to later. The only scenes that seems to have any semblance of good pacing are the thriller sections. Pretty much everything else is bloated into the sky.

The thriller portions again never reached the peak of arc 1. However, this can be partially excused by the shift in focus and tone for the story. I suppose I'll start with that.

Higurashi started out, was advertised as, and tried to be a SoL turned horror/thriller story. This is what I was expecting going in, and probably one of the many reasons I came out disappointed. Because especially later on, the focus of the story shifts away from this completely and in a rather jarring manner. Its pretty much an instant switch from the intense thriller to essentially a power of friendship story. Had I been aware of this shift going in, it might not have whip lashed me so hard, but unfortunately it did. While I do appreciate *most* of the power of friendship stuff, the juxtaposition of that with the horror/thriller story I came for, wanted, and enjoyed the most caused a massive dissonance with me from the overall story, despite the theme of trusting your friends etc being a theme I like on paper. Its not what I came to this story for. Its not what I expected to get. That along with me not really caring for anyone in the cast, left me completely dissatisfied.

There are some really stupid things that result from this power of friendship stuff to. Largest one being the deus ex machina time stop to catch a bullet bs at the end of arc 8. Like come on, Ryukishi. There is no way you thought that was a genuinely good idea.

From what I understand, arc 6 is considered the best arc in the story, or at least in the answer arcs. Funny enough it is by far my least favorite. It started out actually pretty good. Poorly paced SoL first half as per usual, but this time it actually had a strong connection to events that would happen later. Once the paranoia section got going I was enjoying myself briefly. Right up until the moment when it tarnished what little I enjoyed most about Higurashi: arc 1 and its answer.

What I loved about arc 1 was the sheer horror/thrill I got out of its second half. It still to this day some of the most intense thriller I've ever experienced. And the one thing, the last thing, I was really even slightly looking forward to in this story was a satisfying answer to what was happening in that arc. And what I got was by far the most disappointing thing I could have possibly expected. It was all just in his head. Keiichi was never in any real danger from these people. This felt to me that Ryukishi and Higurashi were taking the piss over and making a mockery of the terror and thrill I got from it. "Lol it wasn't real, got you idiot!" In retrospect, I like how it was set up. The clues are there. Everything laid in place. But it didn't matter to me, and still doesn't. The knowledge that Keiichi was in no danger during that just completely invalidated all of the amazing thrill I got out of it. After that I quit for a while. I was done, I needed a break. I wasn't enraged like I was during arc 2, just filled with complete utter disappointment. So I took a break for a while; read a couple other VNs before returning a couple months later hoping that feeling of betrayal had subsided. It wasn't unfortunately, but I kept going anyway... For it only to proceed to get even worse.

The final fight of arc 6 between Keiichi and Rena is awful. Purely in summary its perfectly fine. It goes off the SoL scenes presented in the first half, good good, but once you actually start reading it, the massive problem shows itself. The pacing... oh my lord, the pacing is so ridiculously bad. I liked to think I had gotten used to the bad pacing Ryukishi employed to pad out the story, but nothing could have prepared me for this. Out of everything I've read, novels, VNs, manga, movies, everything, nothing comes anywhere close to how poorly paced this fight was. It is basically nothing but constantly repeating lines and slash effect over and over and over again. A few minutes in after I saw it wasn't actually progressing anything, I actually pressed the skip button for a solid minute, and after I let it off it was still going on the exact same stuff! Ryukishi, why for the love of God did you bloat this fight so much?!?

I guess now's a good time to get into the mystery, which is subpar. At least considering how its presented. If Higurashi's didn't goad its readers into trying to solve it, where its purpose was just to increase the tension/horror/thriller elements, I would not complain about it. It serves those goals perfectly fine. The problem stems from the fact that it does try to goad the reader to solve it with its opening title cards, despite the mystery being borderline unsolvable until at earliest arc 6. I will give Ryukishi credit here since he uses the language "conjectures" and not "deductions", seemingly aware that any conclusions drawn will be basically guesses.

The problem stems from the combination of two things. One, the use of unreliable narration, and two, the use of supernatural elements. Alone these things aren't so bad. Both unreliable narration and supernatural stuff can be used in a deducible mystery perfectly fine. Its when its combined that this becomes very difficult. Higurashi poses the question of whether supernatural elements are in play with the murders. Now the answer turns out to be yes, there are supernatural elements used. That alone is not too difficult to deduce, since the events are repeating in a time loop. Kinda hard to do that without supernatural stuff. The problem is when you try to separate the supernatural from the normal with the goal of solving the mystery with unreliable narration at play. Because how are you supposed to determine whether something is a result of supernatural phenomena or just the narrating character being unreliable? Higurashi gives you 0 tools to separate this despite it being necessary to discern the truth. For example, in arc 2/5, both Shion (who is the narrator in arc 5) and Tomitake hear banging inside the locked shrine. Is this a result of unreliable narration/craziness or something supernatural? The answer is the latter with a tiny hint of the former, but the point is there is no definitive way to decide prior to the answer reveal. Its mixing the two elements without giving any tools to separate them. Things like this occur all over. Fortunately Ryukishi learned from his mistakes with the mystery when making Umineko by actually providing rather clever tools the readers can use to separate these elements. Umineko The red truth is one of the massive tools for this, as it describes only what is true. Allowing truthful conclusions to be drawn despite the mixing of unreliable narration and fantasy as well.

The way the mystery is structured also lends one more massive problem, the antagonist, Takano. Due to her involvement in the stories events being almost entirely relegated to the background in most arcs, even by the time of the reveal, we barely know anything about her. So the first half of arc 8 is forced to be one massive backstory for this previously minor character in order to explain motivations and knowledge she has that was pretty much completely missing until hints in arc 6. Really throws a wrench in what is already pretty poor pacing.

The fragment pieces part of arc 8 is also really really dumb.

Several chosen story progressions are also very questionable to me. For example, Rika forgetting the truth in arc 8... despite all that she did in arc 7 to make sure she'd remember. Just why tho? Why would you do all that setup and then proceed to not pay it off?

These characters to me were hit or miss, mostly miss. Mion/Shion is fine. The reveal that they swapped was very cliche but whatever. Rika is the best character in the VN as she is by far the most interesting. Rena was very intriguing at first until after all her life was revealed. I was very intrigued in this character that had a near violent insistence that Oyashiro-sama was real. After it was kinda of just brushed over in arc 6 and then never used again she became uninteresting. Keiichi is the stupidest character I've ever witnessed (see question arcs review). Sakoto is nice but damn I wish she would just shut up.

Again I'll reiterate that I like what Ryukishi was trying to do. His experimentation with mystery was very flawed but ended up paying off massively when he learned what worked and didn't from Higurashi when making Umineko. I really like the themes of this story on paper, even though in execution they just about all fell flat on me. If you like this story, great. I'm happy you could enjoy something I found terrible. That being said, I don't understand the love this series gets and trust me, I've tried.

The visuals were fine, assuming I'm using the console sprites. The soundtrack was also fine. Only one or two tracks really stuck with me.

Overall, Higurashi is a 3/10 for me. Carried hard by Onikakushi and tanked by Watanagashi and Tsumihoroboshi.
0 points