I will end up watching it at some point. Main reason I haven't yet done so is that I am bored of "revisting" the same arcs. I rewatched the OG series a few months back so I wanted something new and fresh.
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Judging by the latest manga chapter is pretty much confirmed she didn't realize Takano had changed until the very last neko loop lmao. The story is pure nonsense.
That was already known from the anime. Really, she doesn't have much of a reason to suspect Takano changed since she never lives long past Watanagashi. What's surprising from this chapter is that she's blaming her deaths/sudden syndrome outbursts on Takano, rather than suspecting something completely different is going on. Really, I think this is the kind of story that can only be born from a writer doing a outline, and rather than actually writing out the full story. An oddity like that would have been easily noticeable if the original story weren't just some kind of story guideline.
Things are also different in the manga, with the loops of her getting murdered over and over again happening before she got the ability to remember everything after death. Most of the issues she faces had little to do with Takano (as she was the final barrier to overcome and survive) so having random people go into L5 and she not realizing why that there was another looper causing it makes sense, why would there be another looper forcing events like this anyway? In 100 years, she faced nothing like this. We all know thanks to the anime that Satoko made a crucial mistake when she killed Rika in the final loop we saw, as Rika at that point remembers her last moments, but she had no way to know before that that she was the one manipulating everything behind the scenes, specially with Hanyuu being in ghost jail, unable to wander around and investigate.
I haven't read the latest chapter, but yeah, R07 is always VERY detailed when he writes stories, I am not sure how much he writes for the manga though. Then again, as I mentioned, Rika being confused is no surprise, why would there be another looper from another god that Hanyuu never mentioned? I am sure with enough loops she'd have realized Takano isn't the culprit this time, anyhow, let's see how it evolves.
There were some people speculating she did something behind the scenes and Sotsu was going to show us that cuz it makes no sense for her to not warn Tomitake.
Obviously I know why it's like that, because this anime doesn't know if it wants to be a sequel or a remake, but the whole thing doesn't make any sense. She knows what she has to do to win and does nothing.
Personally, I just thought she wasn't very worried about Takano since the mountain dogs are seemingly dismantled in Onidamashi while she was still alive, even though she wouldn't know the cause for that. But... Comes Oniakashi we got no reaction at all from her to that. So, this Gou chapter goes right alongside that too. It's a baffling writing oversight though. Two days go on with a closed Irie clinic and we get no reaction from Rika.
There's still hope the Sotsu manga fixes this, I guess, but even if it shows some kind of reaction she can't really figure out anything since she somehow believes Takano is tied to the new tragedies.
Those quotation marks around "answer arcs" are putting in a lot of work in that sentence, lol. Calling Sotsu answer arcs is too generous.
The answer arcs in Higurashi (and Umineko, though they're not always called answer arcs there) are so, so much more than whatever Sotsu is trying to be. They present whole new fragments full of new events. They put the time loop structure to proper use and maintain forward momentum by revealing things that help solve mysteries from other arcs while always being different enough that it's left up to the reader to sort through what's universally applicable and what's unique to that fragment. That's the entire foundation of the "gameplay" in When They Cry, and honestly, it's also just a really darn cool way of telling a story.
...Not calling you out specifically, btw. Sotsu gets called answer arcs quite commonly by fans, and I just think that sucks and wanted to complain about it again. The structure is yet another of many ways in which Gou/Sotsu has tossed out the heart of Higurashi so it can brazenly strut about while occupying its husk.
One of the trailers outright used the term Answer Arcs for Sotsu's arcs. Although in general I'm baffled they really went in this direction. You'd think they'd realize they were making at least 6, possibly more episodes, with no real hooks or twists by following this route.
Oh wow, did they? I missed / forgot that. It doesn't really change anything (it's clear anyway from the way they're presented that they think they're doing answer arcs), and yet that still somehow makes it even worse. There's a supreme lack of self-awareness behind the production of this show.
Does anyone even want "answers" on who did it and how they did it? Speaking for me personally, I really didn't care about deep explainations. I mostly want them to go to the part where Rika gives up. An episode with a montage on how Satoko manipulated everyone to kill would have been perfectly fine with me. Heck, two would have been fine if they didn't want to rush.
The new season have clearly been twisting our expectations so why not go even further with the concept and do something different?
The new season have clearly been twisting our expectations so why not go even further with the concept and do something different?
I definitely don't imagine those were the kinds of "answers" people wanted, in general. Over-explaining the whodunnit and howdunnit (which... I guess is happening? Not that anything really needed explaining) is them doing something different, really; answer arcs in the past have never been about that. Like, there's a whole enormous scene in Umineko episode 7 dedicated to solving every mystery of the first four arcs one by one, and they manage to have that scene play out without ever actually naming anyone or giving any methodology at all, lol. Real answer arcs have always instead been focused on character development and motivations, along with moving the overarching plot forward (through memory leaks and Rika's perspective in Higurashi, and through the meta narrative in Umineko).
So yeah, I'm with you. The plot of Gou really didn't ask for the sort of arcs we're getting Sotsu; it would have been much better to keep things moving forward.
Answers are fine, but these aren't very interesting ones. They don't explore the characters any more than just making them murderers. The only "surprise" is that it sort of inverts the original question arcs by more or less playing them straight. Rena and Mion are the killers. But even that is revealed in Gou's question arcs, so the only new information we are getting is Satoko's minimal involvement and more brutal murders shown on-screen.
Pretty much everything we're seeing could have been done in a one-episode montage of Satoko's involvement rather than 3-episode arcs of mostly retread.
Good to hear I am not the only one.
I still need to watch Sotsu but answering the stuff we don't really need is the reason I haven't been excited about doing so. I remember the first season (or was it the second?) with Shion and getting answers for what actually happened was really interesting and cool. We learned a lot of things and it was a nice twist. But knowing Satoko basically infected everyone and that's why they are doing the things they are doing really isn't interesting.
It is a bit of a bummer. I really like Higurashi and Umineko's mystery elements because the "who" and "how" are often the least interesting or important parts. Ryukishi07 puts a lot of emphasis on humanizing and giving meaningful motivation and drive to his characters and what led them to do what they do. But so far Gou and Sotsu seem content to just give us the facts and no substance.
The parts in Gou where Satoko was killing herself over and over felt too weird compared to the original series. It felt too "anime" if it makes sense.
But I did like Gou at the end of the day.
The very underwhelming answers of what Satoko was doing behind the scenes reminds me of the Danganronpa 3 anime's reveal on how the villain "manipulated" everyone.
I think I would would have been better off not knowing if the answer is Satoko just goes around stabbing butts and then creeps in the background trying to look menacing.
I think I would would have been better off not knowing if the answer is Satoko just goes around stabbing butts and then creeps in the background trying to look menacing.
I didn't even want this thing to exist.
But really Higurashi's mysteries while important and actually pretty fun to untangle were never "teh point", Higurashi was first and foremost a character driven story where R07 examined the characters' traumas and injected social commentaries into the narrative (like ffs the original has literal criticism on Unit 731), which is why SotsuGou is a show about nothing.
Just compare Shion's arc to Mion's arc. Shion arc explored the grief of having her life stolen and feeling unwanted, Mion's arc explored... her 2 weeks crush? She's actually a worse character now. Literally le epic yandere that people meme Higurashi for.
By the way, next episode has the arc about how society ignores abuse victims and the the system fails them with the "abuse victim" faking her abuse all through it. That should be "fun".
Personally, I never really cared about why Rika was stuck in this loop, or honestly even what her life would be like after she got out. As others have said, the high points of this franchise come from it being a character driven mystery, but it's the in-loop mystery that grabs me, not the out of loop stuff. The original unpacks in a brilliant way; you get this seemingly idyllic, slice-of-life style country village story, it ends in a tragic, hyper-violent, out-of-nowhere way, and then it picks back up into the idyllic summer dreamland again but now you are on edge the entire time. All of a sudden every pause in dialog, every shot that holds for just a bit too long, every character that pops up in a place they didn't before freaks you the fuck out, and you are taken on this rollercoaster where it's very confusing and misleading due to the missing information, but just as your head starts to spin, the answer arc kicks in and you not only get the missing pieces, but whole new context for the previous events which can totally flip your perspective on not only the plot but the characters themselves.
Gou and Sotsu do this, but...wrong? Poorly? We've tread this ground before, but it feels like we're making the same recipe but with knock-off ingredients. If answer arcs are all about filling in the missing jigsaw pieces, Sotsu does that, but so far it's less like an amazing series of revelations and more like "well Gou left us with a missing square here, and Sotsu shockingly reveals that the missing shape was....a square!" What did Gou leave us hanging on and what was the shocking or intricate answers that Sostu provided in these last few episodes?
If the goal of this sequel was to show how Satoko breaks Rika down and they both become witches, they really should have changed the focus to just the two of them. I'd bitch if everyone else got sidelined, but if this is the kind of character "development" we're going to get, it would have been better if they left well enough alone. I don't like the idea that the rest of the cast are simply getting used as pawns in order to get Rika and Satoko to their destiny, but if that's how it's going to be, then shove all of this shit into a montage like they did earlier so we can move on and actually develop the two of them.
TL;DR: We don't need to be in a question and answer arc format if the questions have obvious answers and the answers reveal information that makes characters worse.
Gou and Sotsu do this, but...wrong? Poorly? We've tread this ground before, but it feels like we're making the same recipe but with knock-off ingredients. If answer arcs are all about filling in the missing jigsaw pieces, Sotsu does that, but so far it's less like an amazing series of revelations and more like "well Gou left us with a missing square here, and Sotsu shockingly reveals that the missing shape was....a square!" What did Gou leave us hanging on and what was the shocking or intricate answers that Sostu provided in these last few episodes?
- Gou: Rika has gone missing! Keichi finds that the outhouse door is locked! Mion isn't acting right! Oh no, Mion and Satoko are dead! How did this happen?
- Sotsu: Rika was killed by....Mion, the one who was acting strange! The door was locked because...that's where Rika's body was dumped! Mion and Satoko were killed...because we've already established Satoko is pulling the strings and is batshit crazy! Mion's acting strange because...uhh...Keichi gave her a doll and now she has a crush on him and wants to protect him, I guess? And Satoko injected her and must of played it off as a big ass mosquito or something, I don't know.
If the goal of this sequel was to show how Satoko breaks Rika down and they both become witches, they really should have changed the focus to just the two of them. I'd bitch if everyone else got sidelined, but if this is the kind of character "development" we're going to get, it would have been better if they left well enough alone. I don't like the idea that the rest of the cast are simply getting used as pawns in order to get Rika and Satoko to their destiny, but if that's how it's going to be, then shove all of this shit into a montage like they did earlier so we can move on and actually develop the two of them.
TL;DR: We don't need to be in a question and answer arc format if the questions have obvious answers and the answers reveal information that makes characters worse.
There is a fan edit adding the Onidamashi scenes skipped by Oniakashi back in, making it a single large story. That actually really helps with the flow of the final part of Oniakashi that ended up rushed in the actual episode. It almost feels like the show was made to be watched like that.
Now the same person made a version of Wataakashi with Watadamashi's missing scenes, but this one doesn't flow nearly as well. There are several continuity mishaps between them when placing the scenes like that - like the beginning of the festival (there are two different scenes where they talk like they're first arriving, although in the Wataakashi one they're also searching for Satoko and Rika, while they immediately find them in the Watadamashi one).
Looking back there are even continuity mistakes in Wataakashi by itself. Mion is wearing her school uniform when she meets Keiichi in the waterwheel after calling him to her home since it's a recycled Watadamashi scene, but then when they arrive there she's already in the leader outfit (which she was wearing in previous Akashi scenes). I initially thought it was fault of mixing together Watadamashi and Wataakashi, but rewatching the wataakashi episode that was all there by itself.
Now the same person made a version of Wataakashi with Watadamashi's missing scenes, but this one doesn't flow nearly as well. There are several continuity mishaps between them when placing the scenes like that - like the beginning of the festival (there are two different scenes where they talk like they're first arriving, although in the Wataakashi one they're also searching for Satoko and Rika, while they immediately find them in the Watadamashi one).
Looking back there are even continuity mistakes in Wataakashi by itself. Mion is wearing her school uniform when she meets Keiichi in the waterwheel after calling him to her home since it's a recycled Watadamashi scene, but then when they arrive there she's already in the leader outfit (which she was wearing in previous Akashi scenes). I initially thought it was fault of mixing together Watadamashi and Wataakashi, but rewatching the wataakashi episode that was all there by itself.
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I personally enjoyed this arc because its these episodes in the question arc that made me go "Wait is Satoko a looper?" which set up most of the speculation for the season like her interrupting Rika, throwing suspicion on Keichi in the classroom and the utterly baffling shot of her and Mion lying dead with gunshot wounds. So seeing it all come together was really interesting to me.
Satoko destroying all the curry was the most monstrous thing she's done so far.
Satoko destroying all the curry was the most monstrous thing she's done so far.
Yeah, mirroring the original format seems like a clever idea on paper, but the execution doesn't really justify it.
Out of everything she's done, this really did feel like the worst. It isn't even a "prank", just an extremely spiteful dick move. Chie got pissed at even the idea of not taking this seriously, so the curry slap-down should have gotten her suspended. She didn't even need to do it; if she learned how to become Golgo 13 with a gun, she has enough time to become Michelin starred at curry.
(I'm being a bit facetious but I really did gasp when she just yeet'd that pot.)
That scene isn't even really Sotsu-original. In the VN she builds a giant cooking contraption that "accidentally" pushes aside the others, and then gets Rika to distract people while she dumped the salt/sugar on everyone's else food. Here, they animated that scene which was skipped in the original DEEN anime, but with Satoko doing it all by herself and on everyone's faces, without hiding anything. I don't get if it's supposed to have some kind of point or if it's just a way to get through it quickly.
Of course, it only really works because Chie isn't there at all. I can't remember if she left during that scene for some reason in the VN.
Huh, I had no idea! It feels a bit out of tone with the rest of her schemes; while dropping erasers or tying someone's shoes together is "normal" bullying, direct sabotage of a school project seems a bit meaner then what she usually gets up to. The contraption and roping Rika in seems like it would make it comical enough to get a pass, but this representation is some real BWE* level stuff.
I also don't get the point, but I also don't get the point of showing us Rika's dance seventeen times, even if I do like the animation. Unless Satoko goes full Scaramanga and mercs her during the it, I think we can infer that bit is the same and move on.
*Big Witch Energy, naturally.
In her defense none of that is natural . We know what she's like normally in this arc back in Wata and Meakashi, and she can't ever get it naturally, here she has a drug injected into her that attacks the mind, and breaks her down. As we see she's a mental wreck by the end of the 3rd episode. This isn't like the OG series where people had natural triggers/insecurities to get them to go crazy this is literally Satoko forcing her into it. Maybe if they hadn't given the first episode to Satoko and Teppei getting a gun they could have communicated that better rather than rushing it though.
Caught up with this and man...
I really wish this didn't exist. I really didn't need to see Mion like that...
Satoko is one of the most evil people I have ever seen. Just ugh.
As for the current arc, it feels really god damn weird to have this arc but not root for Satoko. Really fucking weird.
I really wish this didn't exist. I really didn't need to see Mion like that...
Satoko is one of the most evil people I have ever seen. Just ugh.
As for the current arc, it feels really god damn weird to have this arc but not root for Satoko. Really fucking weird.
I'm still rooting for Satoko in this arc because I've got to figure if they're ever going to put her down the path of redemption it'd have to start here.
No sign of that yet in this episode but we get some more clues that this whole thing is just a setup by Eua who definitely seems to have it out for Rika here. Rika calling out the lack of Hanyu's "au au" is the biggest hint yet that she is just an ilusion of Eua who is playing both sides.
Notably, they included Hanyuu
"auauing" in both flashbacks to the original Higurashi where she appeared back in Gou, but yet she never does it in the present. Then this episode basically confirmed it's an actual plot point. Maybe we'll actually get the Eua/Hanyuu connection shown on screen.
Higurashi Mei also recently had a retcon (compared to the console arcs, nothing actually canon) that seemingly would go alongside this.
Higurashi Mei's basic plot had R07's participation, but it's actually written by the console writer. A recent event showed some flashbacks to Hanyuu's ancient past, and a very interesting change compared to Kotohogushi, Hanyuu's backstory by the console writer, is that Hanyuu has the chipped horn even in the past era. No "adult Hanyuu with intact horns that look just like Hanyuu's horns", unlike in Kotohogushi.
Alongside revealing that Hanyuu's memories of this distant past are unreliable.
Alongside revealing that Hanyuu's memories of this distant past are unreliable.
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Fake Hanyuu tells Rika about the shard next arc. I'm guessing Eua tells her that without Satoko's knowledge to make the game more entertaining, and her true goal is to get Rika to kill Satoko, and take her place as her miko which would be the thing to finally break Rika permanently. Satoko's win conditions are also almost impossible to achieve since Rika is bound to find out eventually whose really been causing her grief no matter how good Satoko is as a looper.
Satoko's losing condition is dying before Rika. Being sent to a fragment where Rika doesn't exist is more like a punishment for losing rather than a condition of the game.
"Fragments" can be basically any kind of world, not just variations of Rika's life. So it's not odd that there would be fragments without Rika. It's true that it's the first time something like that is mentioned in the main Higurashi series itself though.
Yeah, with this new condition Satoko has already lost since "Hanyu" also gives Rika the ability to remember who kills her. Before I thought she could maybe suicide and be forced to start over, but now Satoko has no move to play once she pulls that gun at the end of Gou 17.
The former. These are the same fragments as Gou we're just seeing what was happening behind the scenes.
That was my guess. Satoko going into the house with her uncle sealed my suspicions.
Usually all the fragments we have seen are variations of the same thing, Saikoroshi being the exceptions (But it was still based on current timeline).
But like, why would there be a punishment when nothing like this ever happened with looping and who set-up the condition? Was it Eua? But Rika looping with Satoko was Satoko's idea. Did she just come up with it now, or was it something Satoko already knew?
I wonder if there's some bad wording this episode.
A fragment where Rika never gets born might mean looper Rika rather than "base" Rika? Satoko's motivation seems to be specifically to break down the motivation of looper Rika to want to stay in Hinamizawa.
It really seems like Eua is setting up the rules however she likes, and if it's just the case of looper Rika never being born rather than base Rika then the condition could be inferred from the whole "as long as Rika dies before you you both go to the same fragment".
Higurashi spin-offs and non-Higurashi series by Ryukishi had already shown more variable fragments though. Mei had Hanyuu giving a speech about the nature of fragments and how they could be any kind of story when they introduced an odd sci-fi event (coincidentally, "Rika Furude" didn't exist in that world according to the historical data when the cast researched it, although it obviously has nothing to do with the current Sotsu plot).
This plot follows a "game" format in a more direct way than the game metaphors of the original Higurashi. It had already been stated that Satoko couldn't die before Rika during Oniakashi, we just didn't really get the full consequences of that up until now. Satoko knew about this condition from the start. This all goes back to the show for whatever reason skipping the point where the "game" started (high school Rika getting brought to the new loops). I really wonder if there is some kind of new twist upcoming regarding that or if the anime staff just messed up for some reason.
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The first Tatariakashi episode was mostly new scenes and events, although it's still just the behind the scenes of what was happening in Tataridamashi.
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This episode was better overall, as the added context felt more meaningful than what we got in all of the last arc, but I'm not sure how I feel about Satoko essentially faking child abuse, which is where I assume this is headed. Like it makes sense in world that there's no low she won't stoop to at this point, but from a meta standpoint it makes me feel a bit squeamish.
Faking child abuse isn't as bad as gleefully massacring her friends. At this point she passed the point of non return 2 arcs ago.
What is fucked up is that R07, someone who worked with real abuse victims, used the whole arc dedicated to a sociopolitical commentary on how the system fails to protect abuse victim for this. It definitely will be hard to look back at the original Mina.
What is fucked up is that R07, someone who worked with real abuse victims, used the whole arc dedicated to a sociopolitical commentary on how the system fails to protect abuse victim for this. It definitely will be hard to look back at the original Mina.
Had a feeling that was the case - I don't mind this to be honest
Yeah, this is going to be an uncomfortable arc for sure. We've known the implications of what was happening behind the scenes here for some time, but I was hoping they might subvert expectations by finally having Satoko begin to regret her actions and show her absence from school and classroom freakout as her being genuinely overcome by guilt which the others misinterpret. The arc still has the potential to be a turning point for Satoko but for now it looks like it's full steam ahead on operation: pity party.