higu 6

It has been a little over a year since I first encountered Higurashi, and close to a year since I last experienced new content from it, bless the extremely irregular steam release schedule. It almost seemed too convenient how it was timed. The last arc I read, Meakashi, was the first of the answer arcs, giving just a small taste of what mysteries could be unraveled by way of a different perspective. On that basis, I was expecting the 6th arc, Tsumihoroboshi to do something similar and rationalising the eccentric behaviour of some of the characters in the first arc, perhaps retelling that same story from one of their perspectives.

That is not what I got. Well mostly anyway. The main story of Tsumihoroboshi certainly does work as a companion piece to Onikakushi, only this time around it's Rena, not Keiichi, who is experiencing heightened paranoia. The story actually jumps between both of their perspectives, sometimes when they're in the middle of conversation with each other. It works as a potential way to counter unreliable narrators, so you end up seeing a full picture, but also the fractured version of that picture which motivates Rena for much of the arc.

Something I find interesting about that is that there are really two sections of this story. The first is the issue of Rena's father being snared by a woman pretending to love him, and then about Rena's severe investment in the apparent conspiracy of Hinamizawa. Both follow a similar structure with the way the tension heightens before cooling off at the end with a heartwarming moment, but I find it interesting how both are essentially driven by Rena happening to come across concerning information and reacting accordingly. As we're led to believe, in the first instance, her fears are warranted, and the second instance they are completely misplaced.

When They Cry novels have a habit of frequently introducing new characters in a nonchalant manner as if they've always been there, and then they become integral to the plot. However they kind of subvert this because it's only about 2 hours after you first see Rina that she has been murdered, essentially never even acknowledged again. Rena spends a lot of the 2nd half of the story completely paranoid of higher powers under the impression that they want Takano's scrapbooks, and not that she murdered two people earlier that month. I will say though that it is very interesting to see Satoko's uncle show up in all new villainous ways in a completely different subplot, which makes me all the more curious about what he's typically up to and how Tatarigoroshi differs in that sense.

The climactic final chapter was definitely the highlight for me. As a narrative device, I find usurping of power to be really fascinating when it's fleshed out. In this sense you can see how one girl can end up holding her entire class hostage in a situation where there seems to be no way to avoid crisis; they even make it clear that even Rena has no idea just how dangerous the situation is. Tension is always high, and every time it seems like Ooishi has a way to get things under control, the tables are turned and it gets even more drastic.

Something I also like about that ending is that it feels like the main cast are all involved in this chapter. There's a tendency in prior chapters to have any characters not connected to the main conflict to feel like background characters, but here they're all used in ways that really no one else could replace them in. Mion with her family connections pulling strings behind the scenes, Satoko with her knowledge of setting traps to foil Rena's plan, as well as giving Keiichi her brother's bat, and Rika as the character with much more to her than anyone can anticipate, knowing exactly when to come to the rescue.

The thing about Rika is actually something I've really been interested for a while, it's also something I think was partially spoiled in Umineko. Something that is strongly implied in Umineko is that Rika's character was trapped in some sort of endless loop of tragedy. It's also something that's been hinted at a few times in Higurashi, particularly with her predicting her own death, but they really drop a lot of the subtlety in this arc. Her conversation with Rena at the dump is intentionally warped to take it in a way that Rena can only use to re-affirm her suspicions, but it does pretty much confirm the idea.

However what wasn't made clear in Umineko is whether or not she was alone in this tragedy. It's clear that she has lived through hundreds of June 1983s, but not if anyone else is aware of this sensation. However, in this arc we see both Ooishi and Keiichi, especially the latter, make comments suggesting a similar purgatory. The way I see things, this actually makes a lot of sense because if there are several characters with some amount of free will to change fate, you can imagine different outcomes resulting with their efforts countering each other, whether intentionally or not. You can already see the situation as a tragedy from Rika's perspective, since she's the person most aware of the situation, but, in the body of a small girl, least equipped to be able to do anything.

Umineko also makes me think that Takano might be subject to this as well, and really she's the character I'm most curious about. Tsumihoroboshi frames her as a conspiracy nut but there's so much mystery surrounding her that it's hard to leave it at that. Admittedly part of this is framed for me by the fact that she can be seen in a tense scene on the back cover of one of the DVDs. I've also had it in mind to believe that she's never actually been killed after the festival, with the amount of times they've noted the irregular autopsy, it's very easy to believe that the body has been misidentified. With that though I can only wonder just what she's getting up to behind the scenes, and I can only imagine that it explains the eventual Hinamizawa disaster that seems to consume the town every single time. There are plenty of curiosities that still go unexplained as well, such as Rika's gruesome death, Irie's apparent suicide, or that one time Ooishi was found dead, though in this arc he seems to still be alive 20 years later. One thing I'm thinking is that when Rika tries to inject Shion with a syringe, she actually is doing it to help her, and only kills herself, not as a symptom of the drug, but because she realises she's failed. It's clear with this cycle of events that she's not particularly scared of dying, so her actions make sense.

Overall though, reading this chapter really just served as a reminder for why I got so attached to this series a year ago. The writing is really just top notch in terms of setting a scene, and though I haven't yet experienced the series with voice acting, the background music really does wonders to adjust the mood. All the characters are ever so charming with their idiosyncratic behaviour, and I feel like in this arc more so than any prior, it really captures just how close the main 5 are as friends. I'm sad that I'll likely have to wait a very long time to keep reading, but I'm very excited for where it goes next.