Higurashi Question Arcs Review

Higurashi Question Arcs Review
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- TL;DR -

It's really, really good aside from some slice of life parts in the beginning that can be hard to get through.

- PREMISE -

Gotta make a disclaimer before I get into how much I enjoyed reading Higurashi. The first 2 chapters start with a fair amount of slow, slice of life content. If you don't like slice of life, this will be a bit of a slog to get through. Try to put up with it until the Watanagashi festival starts, that's when stuff gets interesting.

Higurashi's premise is basically that you're a kid who just moved into this small, rural Japanese town. After you get settled in, you're told all these unsettling rumors of the local god, Oyashiro-sama, and how he hates outsiders. And, for the past 5 years, after the annual Watanagashi festival, 1 person ends up dead, and another person ends up disappearing both under rather mysterious circumstances. Obviously, this year's Watanagashi is no exception, someone winds up dead, another person is missing. From there, weird things really start to spiral out of control, no spoilerino.

The way the arcs work is similar to the way they work in Umineko. Each one of the main Arcs (Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi) has the same sort of initial starting conditions, same characters with the same personalities, but things proceed in a completely different manner. The final question arc, Himatsubushi-hen, is a flashback story to give you some other relevant background info.

- THE ACTUAL REVIEW -

So, I'm not a big fan of slice of life stuff. This made the first part of Onikakushi a little annoying to get through, but it does set things up pretty well. That said, in Watanagashi, the early slice of life stuff does a better job at being directly relevant to the mysterious circumstances behind the town and the relationship of various characters to each other. And in Tatarigoroshi, everything hits the fan pretty much right away.

The actual meat of the story manages to have really compelling horror, suspense, and mystery elements. Each arc has a sort of different feel, in that regard. Onikakushi leans more on horror, Watanagashi more on mystery and suspense, and Tatarigoroshi just has everything. I knew quite a bit about Higurashi as a whole from some stuff I heard when the anime was airing, but it managed to be compelling and surprising all the same. It was some seriously good stuff.

Tatarigoroshi (chapter 3) deserves some special mention. It's quite the ride, definitely up there with some of the top VNs I've read. I'm getting really excited about seeing how all these mysteries get resolved, because there's some pretty weird ones.

All in all, I'd put Higurashi almost right up there with Umineko. The question arcs are some top notch stuff. Where the Higurashi series falls overall will rest on how well things get resolved in the answer arcs, but I'm pretty sure its well on its way to be one of my favorite VN series.