It’s been so long since I’ve written about the Higurashi OVAs, I couldn’t remember how to start this. Seriously, these 5 episodes have been dragged out longer than whole seasons. Well, for a Rena Ryuguu fanservice episode, this was bloody brilliant, because it gave you just about everything you could’ve wanted from Rena. The only thing missing was some billhook action. *Schaawiiing*

It’s a funny thing, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Higurashi characters look up before. I got a kick out of seeing the Charlie Brown style faces of Rika and Hanyuu looking up. Too cute.

Rena and Keiichi are spending some time together when Tomitake and Takano stumble across them. During a blushing fit of embarrassingly cute embarrassment, Rena accidentally swallows a love magatama that falls out of the sky due to some mishappenings at the Furude Shrine. Later, RIka and Hanyuu use Hanyuu’s antenna (lol) to stumble across the box, but find that both of the magatamas are missing.

Keichii mentions that Rena swallowed something strange the day before, and Rika ends up explaining exactly what’s going on. Even though this was a Rena fanservice ep, the Rika moments were great too. I get such a kick out of seeing Rika annoyed, angry or frustrated. There’s something uniquely hilarious about seeing a loli character and hearing Yukari Tamura’s mature voice get angry or annoyed. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing a fanservice ep dedicated to each one of the characters.

Rena leaves the school to find Tomitake with Takano. Using her wily charms, with an unexpected dose of USO DA!, and an offer to cosplay as a nurse, it doesn’t take long for her to get Tomitake to fall head over heels for her. That is until the rest of the gang shows up and fires a barrage of fireworks at Tomitake, knocking him out.

I’m not sure what Takano’s problem with cosplaying as a nurse is. She’s dressed as one half the time. Actually, when I rewatched the Higurashi series, I made an especial note about Takano’s Class-S worthy zettai ryouiki nurse outfit.

Tomitake goes down for the count, but it turns out Takano took the magatame, leading to an excellent yuri scene in both the fantasy and real worlds between Rena and Takano. I always figured Takano hated men. It really makes perfect sense.  Also returning for all its fanservice glory is Rena’s reptile eyes. The clean, smooth drawings hurt the effect, but there’s very few eyes that are as memorable as Rena’s reptilian ones. Also note for the record that we had an omochikaeri scene here. Unfortunately, just one of those this episode. I would’ve killed for another one of her breaking out from bondage to omochikaeri Hanyuu scenes.

Finally, Rena ends up in the hands of an older man, Mr. Delicious, detective extraordinaire. The null set recently had an interesting post about mature characters in anime, I’d have to say Ooishi is definitely one of my favorite "elders" and one of the more integral secondary characters that I’ve seen.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure of all the details during the mahjongg scene, but it was pretty exciting. It felt like I was watching Saki for a second. Akasaka again helps save the day with Keiichi to defeat a magatama boosted team of Rena and Ooishi. With defeat, Ooishi returns the magatama, but due to some circumstances, Keiichi ends up swallowing it too, leading to a funny scene in which Satoko holds Keiichi back while Mion tries to punch the magatama out of him.

In the end, the gang has no other choice to drag Rena and Keiichi back to the Furude Shrine, in order to do some ceremony to rid the two of the curse (and to cap the Rena fanservice, we even get a confession from her). I have to say I get a kick out of seeing Rika doing some sort of ceremony where she has to wave a staff around, or doing her Watanagashi festival performance every single time, and the "mushy crap" line was the best line of the series. Rena’s great, but it’s lines and expressions like those which give Rika the extra oomph as my favorite Higurashi character. It’s a close call though.

In the end, Rena’s magatama issues are solved, although her Tomitake-Takano issues are just starting. Luckily Rika doesn’t need to worry about any of that crap, and she can focus on giving Hanyuu payback – by chowing down on some nice, raunchy, spicy foods.

You’d think a silly fanservice episode like this wouldn’t work in Higurashi, but it comes together really well, mostly because the characters are so awesome and well-developed. That way, they’re able to do things like mix and match Rena’s omochikaeri side and her USO DA side to get the perfect mix of strangely awkward comedy. Even the moments where they used the foreboding Higurashi music just made the comedic release that much more funnier.

The bigger story is that this is it for Higurashi! I feel sad knowing there’s no more anime episodes to look forward to, but it delivered everything I could’ve possibly wanted so it’s hard for me to ask for more. It’d be great to see the alternate branchings and endings, but I loved the way they ended the anime and wouldn’t want them to see it become bastardized. Ah well, there’s always the manga and VN (which is apparently getting an official VN translation according to ANN, brought to my attention by zilch). Either way, thanks for the memories!

I don’t ever want to say that Higurashi has every disappointed me, but… it’s admittedly hard for me not to say that I was disappointed by the resolution of this arc. And I can’t help but think that I’d rather have had Studio DEEN explore alternate scenarios in a full third season than release this half-hearted OVA. With that said, I am looking forward to the next throwaway Rena episode, just because she’s so cute (when she’s not killing people). Onto the episode.

So basically, the first half of the episode consists of Rika talking to Hanyuu about her situation and trying to get some advice on what to do next. In response, Hanyuu tells her that centuries ago, before she became a God, she asked her daughter to kill her to save the village. Hanyuu tells Rika that she didn’t blame her daughter for doing so, and that it was no big deal. Hanyuu, seeing that Rika’s not completely convinced by her demotivational speech, then tells her that in Rika’s new world, everyone’s happy and well adjusted. Keiichi’s not killing people with his baseball bat, Rena’s not killing people with her billhook, Mion’s not getting killed or tortured by Shion, Satoko’s not getting abused, tortured or killed by anyone, Satoshi’s not getting abused, tortured, killed by anyone, nor abandoning anyone himself, and Ooishi is keeping his shirt on (probably).

Basically, it’s a nice kill-free zone they’re living in. And while they may not be best of friends, at least they’re not bathing in their own blood every couple of weeks. So Rika has a choice of staying in this well-adjusted world where no one’s a killer, or going back to her old world where Rena’s parents are still divorced, Satoshi’s still missing, and everyone else is probably destined for a lifetime of therapy after everything that occurred. All Rika has to do to get back to her old, screwed-up world is to chop down her mom like a Amazonian rainforest tree. As you can see, Hanyuu paints a difficult picture.

But next thing you know, Rika wakes up at the Irie clinic with all her old friends back! Did Rika do the dirty deed? Well, that’s perhaps open to debate, but if you believe Hanyuu – and there’s probably no good reason not to – no she did not. And instead, they pulled an "it was all a dream" ending. Hanyuu, upset with how Rika had so easily and quickly thrown away her life after fighting so hard for her freedom, decided to bring her back to life one last time, and play a cruel trick on her to teach her a lesson. That lesson being, don’t race bikes down the wrong side of a windy, mountain road.

I didn’t mind the slow pace. I didn’t mind that nothing really happened, and there was little of the Higurashi horror we’ve come to love. And although I know they stayed true to the original material (unfortunately I spoiled myself accidentally like a year ago, I just didn’t know how the pieces would come together for the dream ending), I think Hanyuu’s "lesson" would’ve been more powerful if Rika had done something more to deserve it. Ostensibly, this would require a bigger build-up than a 5 minute intro and a quick ride down a mountain road. Did Rika take her new life lightly? Perhaps. But it wasn’t as if she had a death wish when she was racing with her bike. What should she have done? Thought about her life more intensely, before riding down at an appropriate pace?

On the flip side, I can empathize with Hanyuu’s frustration and anger. You fight for so long, trying, trying to get your friend to break their destiny of horrendous fate. And once you do, you see her throw it all away in a second. That’s the kind of stuff that will literally drive you insane. However, because the story centers around Rika, we don’t get the same insight into Hanyuu’s thoughts until the final couple minutes where she reveals to Rika that it was all a dream she created. Only then do we realize that hey, maybe this story should have been centered around Hanyuu, because it seems like she was the one carrying the emotional baggage of having to continue to save her friend. I think that could’ve made the story a lot more powerful, and it definitely would’ve used the characters better than just having Hanyuu narrate everything from a magical marble.

Oh well, rarely do these OVAs ever turn out to be very good. Despite my criticisms, any Higurashi is good Higurashi, and I’m glad we got the OVAs. Now, onto Rena! And Umineko!

Higurashi fans will enjoy this episode for its slow reveal of the facts about Rika’s new world. We’ll freak at the Rika freak-out, and rustle uncomfortably, wondering, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Non-fans will probably gripe about how nothing really happens in the episode and point out that we’re 3 episodes into a 5-episode OVA without any forward progress besides Rika coming to terms with her new world. Neither side would be wrong. But I’m one of those who happen to enjoy the buildup.

Rika finally finds a familiar voice, although in a different form, when she comes across Hanyuu in a glass marble. Apparently, Hanyuu used her reset power to bring Rika, who had been beheaded in the car crash (probably more like squish-headed), back to life one last time. Unfortunately this time, doing so came with some unintended consequences. Rika’s back to life, but in a different universe (in the Umineko no nako koro ni world perhaps? ). Hanyuu is unable to access this new universe, except by making use of the power in the Furude shrine, in which case she has the ability to speak through a glass marble. This also means that if Rika dies in this world, it’s game over. No more lives. Luckily for her, there’s a way back to her old world. Turns out a shard of Rika’s old universe has been embedded in the new universe along with Rika. If Rika wants to get back to her old world, it means she needs to find and destroy the shard – and if that shard is embedded in a person – killing that person. Easy choice right? Nothing ever comes easy in Higurashi.

Finding the shard is easier said than done, considering it could be anywhere and everywhere. Rika’s first instinct is to check if the shard is in her (really beautiful) mom. One back massage later, still no leads. Meanwhile, Satoko continues to pick fights with Rika. Which made me wonder if she was the magic puzzle piece and if Rika needed to kill her former best friend to get back to her old home.

Turns out Rika probably could’ve killed Satoko without a second thought in this new world if she needed to. Her brutal beating of Satoko harkened back to old times. It is the one thing that’s been missing from the OVAs – a real violent danger waiting just around the corner. But I think the OVA’s doing a good job of playing up our expectations of it and getting us into Rika’s head, because I keep thinking there’s danger around every corner. A hundred years of constant, brutal dieing will do that to you.

I guess Rika took it pretty easy on Satoko, or more likely there’s only so much damage her little body could do, because both she and Satoko get off with an apology, and Satoko looks pretty dandy considering the WWE-esque chair beating. I don’t know what it is about the doctor, that Rika felt ok telling him her story to, but I don’t trust him. And I can’t help but wonder what “story” he could possibly have for Rika to listen to. Was he planted there to find the truth about Oyashiro-sama and his reincarnation? A spy planted by Irie and Takano? Does he have something horrible fated for Rika’s mom? Everything about this world points to him being just a caring, normal doctor. But we know better.

When Rika returns, she finds Satoshi, Mion and Rena offering an olive branch and trying to become friends with Rika. Apparently, the Rika of this world was quite the princess, which explains everyone’s distaste for her. But with their offering of friendship, this is the first time Rika’s faced with the choice of living with the world she has and getting back to the world she fought so hard for. As difficult as it might be to throw away her previous world, things in this world are pretty good. No Maebara Keiichi unfortunately, but Rika’s mom and dad are alive and appear to be loving parents. Satoshi and Satoko seem to have good parents. Mion’s not killing anyone. Shion’s not killing anyone (wait- where the heck is Shion?). And Rena seems pretty well adjusted. It’s not a bad life. And failing to destroy the puzzle piece would be disastrous.

Just when Rika thinks her decision can’t get any harder, she finds out that the puzzle piece is in her mom. Not only that, her mom is the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama. Motherf-er! So does this mean Rika’s mom has the same power that Rika has? The power to see her fate? The power to reset her life? Has she been living the same nightmare that Rika’s been living? Trying to survive, trying to defeat her fate? If so, how many times has she been killed by Rika in this world? Does Rika need to kill her mom, knowing she’s fighting the same fight that Rika fought? This is just too cruel.

Nothing ever comes easy in the world of Higurashi no naku koro ni.

While Higurashi Rei #1 was a welcome reintroduction to all of the characters, it was pretty much a silly, throwaway story. However, episode 2 comes back with the creepy, foreboding vibe that Higurashi no Naku Koro ni delivers like none other. This is probably a good as time as any for me to mention that if you haven’t seen either Higurashi or Higurashi Kai, it’d be foolish to keep reading.

So it turns out episode 1 didn’t happen in a vaccuum, and it didn’t take place in a parallel universe, as we catch up with the gang heading back home after Keichi’s ~hauu sea bear humiliation. However, things take a quick turn for the twisted, when Rika, enjoying her newfound freedom for the first time in her life, barrels down the road, straight into an oncoming truck.

When Rika comes to, she’s shocked to find that Satoko’s brother, Satoshi, is back. She quickly realizes that her hard fought freedom is for naught and she’s returned back to her nightmare. Nearly the whole episode focuses on Rika trying to figure out which nightmare she’s returned to. Seeing that Satoshi and Rena are around at the same time, she’s able to narrow it down to a date.

But later, when she’s taken to the Takano clinic to get her head checked (not for insanity, but because Satoko apparently hit her on the head with a ball), she learns that there is no Takano. At least not the Takano she remembers, the Irie clinic is gone, and the doctor in charge doesn’t seem to have a clue what the Hinamizawa syndrome is. But what really blows her mind is when she observes that the date is Showa 58. Or a year after the neverending nightmare she endured.

Meanwhile, as Rika heads back home, she gets a feeling that this world is not like the worlds she’s become accustomed too. Something about it seems off… Her suspicions are further confirmed when she returns to the classroom. No Maebara Keichii. Otherwise known as the key to breaking the cycle. Without him, all previous scenarios have come to particularly horrific ends. But is the game still on?

She walks home with Reina and tries to probe further. She learns that Rena is still Reina. Her family’s never left Hinamizawa, her parents aren’t divorced, and she seems mentally sound. She also learns that Satoko and Satoshi, both seem to get along well with her surrogate father, who is apparently not the drunk, child abuser that Rika’s come to know.

Rika gets more and more perplexed by this world, which appears to be completely different from all of the previous worlds she’s known. When she learns that even the dam project is continuing and that everyone in the town will be evicted, she presses even further. Asking questions that… well, no sane person would. She learns that while there was some resistance early, the town’s leadership quickly came to terms with the government. And to ensure that Oyashiro-sama wouldn’t be ignored, Rika’s father had come up with an alternate plan that would keep him from being angered. Finally, Rika gets right to the point and pointedly asks Rena about the dam murder incident.

The episode ends with Rika, lost and confused. Unsure if she’s been freed from her nightmare, but also unsure about how to proceed in this new, strange world, where everything seems too normal to actually be normal.

Impressions

There’s no other show that’s able to create the atmosphere that Higurashi creates. The creepy, foreboding sense that there’s evil lurking beyond every corner, carnage and despair behind every motive. And while nothing major happened during the episode, I was still on the edge of my seat wondering when this facade of normality would break. I imagine Rika was thinking the same, and that’s where I think this episode succeeded most. As Rika was trying to piece together the puzzle, the show invites us to do the same. Dates. People. Family situations. Nothing matches the previous patterns, but when you’ve spent more than a lifetime experiencing the worst things possible, you can’t help but think that this world is just screwing with you.

And that’s where I really felt for Rika. She spends a lifetime, more than a lifetime – I think it was over a 100 years – living the same few week period over and over, only to get killed in the most gruesome ways possible, over and over – sometimes by your own hand. You finally break out of it. And just when you think you can enjoy the freedom you earned. BAM. You’re back into the nightmare. If the previous lifetimes of death weren’t enough to drive you insane, this just might do the trick. It’s like Sisyphus pushing the rock to the top of the hill, only to have it roll back down the other side.

A couple more random thoughts:

• Generally the animation and designs are of a much higher quality than the TV version’s, but the big color-filled eyes, don’t quite push the crazy look enough. But it’s a minor gripe. It’s probably not fair to the reptilian Rena eyes that continue to haunt me.
• If I was Rika, the first thing I would’ve done is tried to talk to Hanyuu. You’ve got to think that she would have some idea of what was going on.
• Next OVA is on May 22nd. May 22nd!?

Higurashi’s famed for its lighthearted, slice of life starts and quick descents into madness and bloodshed. But this was admittedly a throwaway ep. There was no hint of danger to come. It was just a fun, fan-service filled episode, reintroducing the whole cast within a normal universe.

Basically, the story is (and it’s not much of a story), Mion’s uncle gives Keiichi a pair of cursed swimming briefs if he’s able to wear them for 3 hours, telling him that it’ll turn him into a stud. In actuality, Mion’s uncle read the directions wrong, and Keiichi is in danger of becoming a narcissist. Mion learns of this and rounds up the whole group to capture Keiichi and strip him of his briefs (and give him a pair of comical swan briefs). So some hilarity ensues, and after much struggle, they succeed in stripping Keiichi naked, tempting Rena to go omochikaeri with Keiichi’s sea bear. I’ll plan to do a more “standard” review and impression for future eps when the storyline picks up. In the meanwhile, check out just as planned for a nicely written walkthrough.

I was a little disappointed that this ep wasn’t tied into a larger story, considering they’re only doing 5 of these, but like I’ve mentioned before, any Higurahsi day is a good day. And I stand by that. It looks like we’ll get much more of the famed drama in the following episode.

Animation and character designs were clean and well done. Everyone looked really good. Although I’m not sure I like how they filled the eyes with more solid colors. It does seem to provide good contrast when they showed the crazy eyes a couple times. I’m not digging the new OP that much. It’s definitely a step down from the first two, but the ED is a classic Higurashi-style ED, and is very, very good.

It’s not what I expected, but I’m just glad to see Higurashi back. And I’m really looking forward to the new arc when that’s released in a couple weeks. The best is yet to come.