Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU
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Dayraven
Posts: 174 |
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I’d forgotten that they’d gotten Teppei arrested in one of the original loops, but rallying the village for Satoko is new. The outfits in the opening-sequence scene don’t match the ones from the club reunion at all, even allowing for the false-colour effects on the opening scene — I went back and checked. Mion’s wearing a white top with jacket in one and a black top without in the other, for instance. |
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1204 |
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Kai's Minagoroshi-Hen(episodes 9 and 10) has the village band together to help Satoko, just like in Gou's Tataridamashi-hen. Later in Satokowashi-hen, the heads of the village announce that there's no curse and the dam war is over, and I think -that- part is new(like the rest of the arc). |
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jenthehen
 Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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re: the soy sauce
In this arc in the original Higurashi series, Rika uses soy sauce in the same / a similar way as a ruse to get into the mansion and confront Shion. |
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Gem-Bug
Posts: 1204 |
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Well that more or less played out exactly like I thought it would. Still, this one was honestly really fun to see play out from other POVs, albeit with reused footage and a bit of rushing. The horror aspects were excellent, from Kimiyoshi's torture to Rika sticking out of the hole(what kind of school has an outhouse that most of the kids could actually fall into??) to Satoko blowing off Mion's fingers. They went a bit easier on the blood, too. No seven gallons of blood spray here. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2939 Location: Email for assistance only |
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It's a traditional toilet. I've seen it come up in anime before (such as Yamishibai); I think they're rather common in rural settings so I definitely wasn't surprised to see one in a small, mix-grade school in the middle of nowhere.
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Gem-Bug
Posts: 1204 |
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A cursory google search did indeed yield a couple results that actually had the really huge hole, yeah. It was surprising, but whether Western style or traditional Japanese, hole size seems to just be based on plumbing vs none/outhouse. Definitely matches most park outhouses I've seen here in Canada.
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Dayraven
Posts: 174 |
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Needing to get an answer about Rika’s death from someone with full-blown HS and mostly dropping her false persona while doing it definitely seemed a bit less in control. The septic tank scene was a brutal one. |
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NezumiVA
 Posts: 24 |
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While I perhaps agree that the conveyance of horror was stronger here than in previous arcs so far, I think this arc suffered majorly in terms of Mion's characterization. Perhaps it's just because I'm deeply invested in the VN, and Mion is one of my favorite characters, but I really don't feel as though she was reflected even remotely accurately in this arc, even given the circumstances. I was interested to see how the syndrome would affect somebody with a personality like Mion's, and honestly aside from a few snippets of back-and-forth feeling sorry/turning cold, I didn't get the sense that this idea was really explored much, or in a way I find convincingly in-character for her.
One of my biggest pet peeves with how people talk about the original Higurashi is people who ignored all of the nuances of the sisters' narrative and pigeonholed Shion into the yandere stereotype, despite that descriptor not really holding water when you actually look at the source material, and the events of Wataakashi feel like a borderline parody in the way that they basically do exactly that to Mion. I'm also not sure how I feel about Satoko this episode. I've pretty much made my peace with where her character is going right now, but she was a bit too mustache-twirly for my liking, this time. I actually really liked the scene in Oniakashi where she was observing Rena and Rina in the junkyard, and almost seemed sad about the whole thing, but had convinced herself it was a necessary part of the road ahead. That kind of emotional nuance just sadly isn't there in this episode, as she gleefully kills one of her best friends without a second thought and revels in shooting her multiple times. Again, the direction of the character I'm not particularly at odds with (I think it's an interesting idea, I just think the execution so far both in Gou and Sotsu has been pretty lacking), but this episode's tail-end certainly didn't do her any favors in what will certainly be a huge uphill climb if they want to make her sympathetic by the end of the season. |
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jenthehen
Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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The best explanation for Mion in this arc that I've seen (on twitter) was that Mion would normally NEVER fall into this level of L5 Hinamizawa Syndrome BUT if she DID, it would be based on more sensical paranoia ... whereas here she's all over the place solely because she's been drugged. She's out of character because of the drug's influence and not her own "real" paranoia. I'm not sure if this totally works, but it's an ok enough explanation for me. Perhaps forced/artificial L5 is worse / more crazy than naturally succumbing to it? Who knows? I think Satoko was probably feeling some misplaced anger towards Mion since Mion ended up almost messing up her plans / ruining all her hard work. It really is a huge problem if she loses track of Rika and accidentally dies / kills herself first (then she can't "follow" the same Rika and would have to start over with a new version). She wouldn't have even bothered going over to confront Mion if she had already known that Rika was dead. |
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Dayraven
Posts: 174 |
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Though it’s not clear what that’d mean. Especially since Satoko does vanish once and die a couple of times without Rika in her early Satokowashi-hen time loops. Rika doesn’t seem to retain memories over those time loops, but the Rika Satoko returns to is still one with a century of experience in making her voice go deep. I guess we also have to take it that when Satoko repeatedly skips back a few seconds, that’s not quite the same thing either. |
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Gem-Bug
Posts: 1204 |
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Episode 7
The intro is skipped to give extra time with Satoko honing her manipulator game, which, is relatively jarring since almost right afterwards we get a scene with her making the ridiculous "angry anime multi-arm" thing(though this is pretty funny juxtaposed with Keichi's broken face coughing out blood). I'm honestly feeling bad for Teppei, as in some shards he really is trying to be a better person, only to end up being used. I'm guessing the violent confrontation between him and Keichi at the end of this arc is not going to involve either of them being injected, rather being the result of Satoko manipulating everyone's perception of what her current situation is. I'm also feeling that Eua isn't going to just let Satoko win. Seems like the type to be bored with happy endings. |
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Mencor
Posts: 65 |
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Satoko does not have the power to go back a few seconds in time. Eua told her that in order to go back, she needs to die, no ambiguity there. For several episodes prior to her snapping her fingers to try again we see both Rika and Satoko snap their fingers at the point of death, somtimes post mortem. This establishes a link between finger snapping and death. This link have continued into Sotsu. There isn't fingersnapping every time a character dies but every time there is a fingersnapping the person dies. |
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kyokun47
 Posts: 231 |
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Ep. 7..... I haven't added many contributions to the SOTSU forum pages as a whole cause I was trying to be optimistic, but seeing Satoko just sink further into this petty revenge is just so gross. I know they're going to try and redeem her character arc, but I've said it before in the GOU forums and I'll say it again: the "abused becoming the abuser" trope is awful and needs to die. She had such a powerful arc in the first two seasons about overcoming abuse and being able to rely on her friends without being seen as weak, but I fear that SOTSU is going to sabotage all of that development for what is currently just a power/revenge fantasy story. Satoko- no, Higurashi in general deserves better than this and I just hope that the ending is at least inoffensive enough to allow me to just forget it happened.
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Ryujin99
 Posts: 185 |
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I completely agree. I was afraid this was the direction they were going back when Tataridamashi finished with GOU. Moreover, I agree with Lynzee in that, at this point, I'm having a really hard time seeing how Satoko's character could be believably redeemed. My biggest fear at this point is that it's going to segue into Rika and Satoko transforming/becoming/growing into spoiler[the witches Bernkastel and Lambdadelta in Umineko]. It seems like umineko fans would like to see such a tie-in happen, but my problem with this is that, in my opinion, it ruins the message the higurashi vns appeared to be communicating. |
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jenthehen
Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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The reviewer states that in this version Teppei was never abusive, but wasn't he?
I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Satoko made false abuse claims against her stepfather and not her aunt and uncle. Her aunt and uncle really DID abuse Satoko and Satoshi after their parents died / were killed (with Satoshi bearing the brunt of it to protect Satoko). I think in THIS fragment, Teppei just feels guilty about having been abusive and is trying to make amends (due in part to memory leaks from Satoko's excessive looping) ... whereas he would have usually returned and abused her again. |
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