Sunday, December 17, 2000

When they cry 8.5

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni starts off in a quiet, peaceful little village that looks quite ordinary and amiable to anyone.

But, of course, there's always something horribly wrong.

Higurashi was first brought into the world in the form several PC games, with the covers designed to look quite disarming so any person would think that this series was harmless. But once you get into the meat of it, things aren't looking so rosy. You'll be pulled, dragged, and unwillingly shoved into a head-spinning mystery that you wished never surfaced in the first place, fighting for your life against people you trusted, and digging through graves and lies in order to survive.

There are four "question" arcs, consisting of four different viewpoints of the fateful Hinamizawa festival and two "answer" arcs (in the anime), which will reveal what went wrong in two of the question arcs.

What's best of all is the horror, both physical and psychological. If the blood won't get to you, the emotional tension will. With a cast of memorable and lively characters, you won't be able to watch this anime only once.

Higurashi no naku koro ni, based off very popular Japanese PC games, is a horror anime about a town named Hinamizawa, formerly known Onigafuchi, or 'Demon's Abyss'. There is a rumored curse, the curse of Lord Oyashiro, making people disappear every year. The story is told in 4 Question arcs and 4 Answer arcs (The last 2 aren't planned to come out in anime form as of yet).

Each question arc shows the story happening in different ways, with different victims each time, and the answer arcs fill in info missing from the question arcs.

The story starts out with Keiichi Maebara, a high school boy who's just moved to Hinamizawa. He soon starts learning about the strange happenings called Lord Oyashiro's curse, and gets very involved.

This show is the first horror anime I've ever actually enjoyed (granted, I haven't seen that many), It's fun trying to figure out what exactly is going on in the town. I don't think Sherlock Holmes could solve this case, for for you anime fans, Shinichi Kudou.

There are FOUR of them now. Yes, you'll have to deal with four creepy girls instead of one like a normal horror film would. They'll be cute and bouncy for one moment, then murderous and psychotic the next. Full of twists, turns, and unpleasant surprises, after watching this, you won't be able to close an eyelid for some time.

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