higurashi no naku koro ni 15 discussion
Categories: anime, episodic review, higurashi, responses
Tagged: higurashi
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The least interesting episode sparks a most interesting discussion.
I dono, this show has a lot of contradictory arcs, and its a little difficult to guess what’s going on when the chain of events is never the same twice. – bento-cube
I think there’s two schools of people when approaching Higurashi… actually three. Group one would be people expecting a murder mystery. Group two would be people like myself who expect, as Fubared notes, “a series of B-movie thriller sequences.” Group three would be the people smug in their knowledge of the game and endlessly taunt groups one and two with spoilers.
During the Watanagashi arc, I gave up on any murder mystery aspect of the series. When you read a Sherlock Holmes novel (or even watch an episode of Murder, She Wrote or Matlock) there’s a set of physical rules that helps the reader piece together the puzzle. For example, people can’t walk through walls, people can’t come back to life, and other simple, everyday concepts. Higurashi blatantly disregards all of these normal rules by having these contradicting arcs… and once the show does that, it’s no longer a murder mystery. It’s sci-fi.
This isn’t just English semantics. With murder mysteries, there’s a pool from which to draw facts from. With sci-fi, it can be anything. Time travel, cloning, you name it, it’s possible. It’s no longer, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” With sci-fi, it’s “Everything’s possible; nothing’s impossible.”
Yes, sci-fi can be mystery, but it’s not the same when the possibilies open up. Trying to guess the outcome in a sci-fi series is kinda silly… it’s like watching 80 minutes of Serenity then wondering, “Mmm… how would it end?” instead of enjoying the final beat down. For a murder mystery to work, there needs to be consistant ground rules. Higurashi has none of that. More importantly, murder mysteries need facts. Not a lot, but enough to establish a story or poke holes in a story (like Lone Island Syndrome). Even Rashomon, who people have compared to Higurashi, starts and ends with the same indisputable facts. Even though everyone’s stories are different, the start point and the end point are the same. That’s a basic premise of murder mystery… the “murder”… if the murder isn’t the same each time, well, maybe it’s time to Amazon this book.
For Higurashi, that is not the case. The endings to the first three arcs are all contradictory. Can I think of another murder mystery where the murders don’t match three times over? There’s two that I can think of. The first I explained previously as an episode of TNG, and, sadly, the second is from TNG also (I do live in Silicon Valley, after all)… the episode Cause and Effect. In this episode, the Enterprise-D gets caught in an infinite time loop. Each time, the crew knows that disaster is coming but picks the wrong course of action and ends up repeating the loop. If you showed me the first 40 minutes of that episode and then asked “how would this end,” well, what am I supposed to say? It could be anything. Maybe Worf kills Riker. Maybe the Borg will beam in and assimilate everyone. Maybe Q pops up. Maybe Wesley Crusher *snicker* saves *snicker* the day… *on the floor lauging*.
But, wait, TNG isn’t a mystery series. It’s sci-fi.
Why is it sci-fi? There’s no ground rules. Time travel? Tachyon particles? Transporters? All fair game. That’s what Higurashi feels like. As I pointed out, Higurashi almost parallels Yesterday’s Enterprise (one of the twenty best TNG episodes ever) where Guinan is the only one who knows doom is approaching and tries to stop it. For Higurashi, Rika is Guinan, and K1 is Tasha Yar. The only explainations that can account for all three scenarios involve sci-fi deus ex machina… so I’m supposed to guess what deus ex machina is being used?
Okay. Fine. Rika. With time looping. Trying to save herself each loop.
So CR tells me that:
In Higurashi, when confronted with 2 conflicting incidents, consider 2 possibilities:
a) Only one version actually occurred. The questions you should ask are “which one is true?†and “how can the second version be explained?†e.g. someone had a distorted view of events due to being drunk, or someone lied
b) Both versions occurred. The question to ask then is “What was the trigger point in the past that made events play out differently? Why the significance of this trigger?
Guess what. That’s not in the anime. Nowhere in the anime is this mentioned. Did I not get my “how to properly enjoy the killer lolis” pamplet? Since I haven’t played the game and don’t know any better, I have to guess that what they present is what they present. Sure, the game includes TIPS and a lot more nuances, but once the anime decided to toss out these aspects and go straight to Rena gleefully swinging around her machete. The animators decided this. I didn’t. I didn’t call up Studio Deen and go, “Yo, toss out those TIPS… we need more melonpan airtime.” They present an anime that decided to forgo a good deal of the mystery aspects and focus on the other aspects of the game (and, from what people tell me, the game did have humor and harem elements).
That’s all fine and good. Just don’t tell me “hey, go read that Higurashi translation wiki and that 100 post long thread on animesuki to properly enjoy the series.” For example, let’s say that person A knows a lot about Japanese history and pop culture. Person B doesn’t even know what “tada ima” means. Both watch an episode of Pani Poni Dash… person B pans it. Person A loves it. Who is right? Both. For someone who doesn’t know a lot of the cultural jokes, PPD would be boring. Just like how I haven’t played the game, haven’t read any of the TIPS, haven’t participated in any shouting match on IRC feel that Higurashi is really lacking now. Other people, group one, who have played a bit of the game or read the TIPS, well, okay, go enjoy the murder mystery aspect, even if the final solution may include aliens, time travelers, and/or espers.
(Also keep in mind that the eighth arc isn’t even released yet. And as they say, “just when you think you know all the answers, they change the questions.”)
Maybe Studio Deen really wanted a murder mystery… but that’s not how the series is presented. Very little is done in the anime that encourages trying to piece together the mystery. The game? Maybe different. Maybe the group one people like using TIPS and whatnot to try to solve the mystery. That’s fine. But… then you’re not really watching the anime. You’re using the anime to fill-in-the-blanks of the visual novel and vice-versa. That’s a different beast. I didn’t name my post, “higurashi no naku koro ni 15 and game disc 3 and this animesuki thread.”
I think people forget that my big gripe has been that Higurashi could have been so much better. They could have expanded the mystery aspect. They could have expanded the killer loli aspect. They could have tossed in a hot springs episode. Watching Higurashi feels like watching Shawn Kemp‘s career… peaked early, should have dominated the NBA with GP and won a few championships… but ultimately didn’t. Seattle could have given Kemp a better contract. Seattle could have drafted better. Seattle could have passed on the Jim McIlvaine signing. Any basketball fan from the early 90’s know how unstoppable Kemp used to be, just like how I remember how fun the original arc was.
As Bluestreak2 sums up nicely, “Since this was looking to be a mystery sorta show, giving us an answer and letting us figure out how it got to that answer was really fun.”
I also like extraclassiclite’s “Sometimes mindfuck is okay, but mindfuck doesn’t equal mystery.” Would Paranoia Agent or Lain be mysteries?
SH points out the obvious, “You keep goin on about what a bad arc this was. They called it the TIME WASTING chapter, you couldn’t have had more of a hint if it said RECAP arc.” It did feel like a waste of my time. Hence why I decided to rip into the episode.
When you see people focusing on details like the quality of artwork, and body counts, that’s because people are giving up on the notion that there’s an interesting story to be following. – Googleshng
Every anime that I have reviewed, from ã‚ã‚ã£å¥³ç¥žã•ã¾ã£ to Zero no Tsukaima, I talk about animation quality. Why? It’s anime, and animation is one fundamental component of anime. You can have great animation and be a crappy show (Disgaea) or have crappy animation and be a great show (School Rumble), but it’s always worth talking about. It’s like talking about someone’s ability to play basketball and not talk about height… doesn’t make sense.
You started the “killer loli†phrase for this series, expecting “killer lolis†to be in it, but so far I’ve yet to see any “killer lolisâ€. It’s you own damn fault for expecting something that wasn’t there. – Enz
First, I’ll just copy and paste elsab’s explaination:
But there were “killer lolisâ€!!! that was the hook that got Jason blogging the series in the first place and what probably drew a part of the initial sub viewers: the fear/comedy dichotomy of seeing cute looking girls going bugfuck nuts- like that girl from Shuffle, whatshername. the show delivered that in the first 2 arcs and didn’t deliver in the 3rd and had 4th padding for 16 eps/exposition/infodump arc.
Second, I’ll also point out that I didn’t create this term. WinD fansub group did. They started using it with their original, “If you eBay this episode, the killer lolis will get you!” warning. I thought it was cute and started using it.
Third, English is full of colloquisms that do not make sense. For example, “Shaun Livingston’s crossover is just filthy,” “whatever floats your boat,” and “it’s raining cats and dogs.” So what if words don’t make sense? That’s the fun of meme. Go read some TMQ for better examples.
Lastly, who cares? Why do you care? Because I called them “killer lolis,” the cute girl in your class won’t go out with you? What’s the big deal?
Jason, why did you say the show peaked at ep 5? Re-reading your comments on Watanagashi-hen, it looked like you were having fun for all 4 eps (5-8). – FubaredByAnime
Peaks have tails, right? Think gaussian… for example, the Detroit Pistons peaked back in 2004 when they won the championship. They didn’t peak in 2003 when they make it to the ECF or in 2006 when they won 64 games. Both 2003 and 2006 were good seasons, but they’re tails of the peak. (If they win in 2007, I take it all back. Off-topic, but I spent two hours last weekend aruging with a friend over the Ben Wallace signing. In basketball, there’s rules. If suddenly you get one point for rebound, then, yes Ben Wallace suddenly becomes 10x more valuable. If suddenly they decide that the last forty games will be decided by free throw shooting, Ben Wallace’s only use would be to headbutt people. That’s what Higurashi is doing. Changing the rules mid-season.)
Whatever. You’ll like the next episode at least, lots of Shion/Mion. – Fencedude
They need to be in meido outfits to please me now.
For anyone complaining about jason’s failed expectations, please do remember what kind of blog you’re reading. You know, the one which has entries for meido power ratings and ans symmetrical docking? – elsab
No one ever talks about AoMM’s more serious posts. Or my crusade against idiotic DRM. Or my use of NBA references.
*Sigh* It’s kind of sad that you haven’t been enjoying Higurashi lately. I mean, I guess you could watch this series only for the killer lolis, the emo contortions, and the 38DD twins, but I seriously doubt that you could fully enjoy this series when those are the only reasons that you are watching it for. – Alpha123
Welcome to the Group One!
This anime has done a horrible job of trying to get the audience involved in solving the mystery of H-town. None of arcs tie together whatsoever and no clues are given to the viewer as to what we are looking for. I havent read the manga so I am only talking about the anime’s failure to tie anything together. Therefore, the only joy in watching this show comes from melonpan and emo contortions. These last two arcs have failed on a massive scale. – Kalm
Welcome to the Group Two!
I’m really looking forward to next episode. Satoko’s nii-nii looks hotter than Itsuki. – Mei
I’m not even going to say it.
38 Responses to “higurashi no naku koro ni 15 discussion”
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While I agree with many of your points, I wouldn’t necessarily clump the series with sci-fi. As it’s missing a valuable element…the science. Sure it doesn’t have all the connections you require for a murder mystery, but that doesn’t automatically make it sci-fi. It could just be a bad murder mystery. Or even better, a mindfuck anime. In fact I think that suits it best. It fits the whole no connections thing and provides suitable content for ppl to try and sort out. But that’s just my 2 cents.
Good stuff Jason. Always a good read when you synthesize your readers’ discussions, making for a lively and entertaining site. With as bad this show has become, instead of scrapping the effort to make a legitimate post, (like so many anibloggers do) you were able to boil the distain focused on it by other readers and create an enjoyable post that has legs.
– Jesterman
Damn its almost 2300 and I have to wake up at 0630. After the first two arcs I wrote off the mystery aspect when the whole town was gassed anf Mion rose from the grave. After wasting precious few hours to commandeer the 4th rate wireless at this inn I have dropped this in favor of others until I get back.
I agree that the mystery in this case has to be rooted in plausible events as it stands this is farce. At least TNG was ususally enjoyable and I recall no slumps like in Higurashi. Wesley Crusher saving the Enterprise hehe good one, as likely to happen as Worf in drag.
If its any consolation you are seen as a member of the Main Office by the King of Sis-con. Also you will always be the Lord of Meido and user of basketball technobabel, I don’t understand it then again most of my brain has been used for weapons drills. The reason I suspect that your serious posts don’t get as much attention is the fact that not too many people have time to create a thoughtful post, as it stands I know that ADSW doesn’t allow for much free time, and my Chiefs are dragging me about.
Well, time for lights out. Thanks to the most hated man in District 11 I have to share a room with an E-6, at least I got per diem. If any of you know who this man is give him slap, all of D11 would laud you as a hero.
Desperate for interesting content, aren’t you?
Well, it’s true that the anime didn’t present the series properly.. And it’s a fact that many who had played the game quite disappointed with the series (I’m not one of them anyway).. & The most annoying fact is that they will finish it only at sixth arc, which whatever the real truth there is, we won’t found it soon enough.. This is by far one of the worst adaptation anime I’ve ever seen.
Since I’ve read the spoiler, then let me tell you this.. This is a SCI-FI, but the FI is only works as the linker of the arcs, the mystery for each arcs itself is SCI, meaning that each arc itself can be (or at least able to be) explained properly. But since explanation is not enough from stopping you get killed, then we need solution, which is how to keep everyone from getting killed.. But since there is victim(s) already, then we need another chance in order to live on. This is where the arc system comes in, to provide another chance to stay alive, provided that you can solve the mystery that will get you get killed within the arc.
So, enjoy the Meakashi-hen, which will explain most of things happened in Watanagashi-hen. Too bad we might not be able to see all of them alive in the last arc (maybe??), though..
I’d agree with Mambo…Without Haruhi we’re all just insignificant squirming worms.
Hey Jason, have you ever seen shuffle? Why not make a post about that. After seeing the manga held up by Haruhi in episode 2, I decided to check out. Pretty good.
I don’t think it’s fair to lump people into groups. I’m sure people’s likings for the show are varied. Someone could enjoy the killer loli and the mystery aspect of it.
That said, I can understand why you’re becoming disinterested. Without cheap thrills to cover its flaws, I think the mystery aspect of “Higurashi” falls flat.
Whoa. I am weirded out. People actually think there are supernatural things happening?
Higurashi is a mystery show. There’s a bunch of other stuff happening as well, but the gore, the cuteness and the scares exist in a large part only to make you get emotional and lose your detective’s eye. The demon stuff too: if you let yourself buy into that you’ll wind up like Keiichi… lost in a crazy world of paranoid fantasy. :)
I don’t have any of that privileged information that Jason mentioned, but I’ve had no trouble coming up with theories as to what’s ‘actually going on’ in either the mysteries (‘Why did X kill Y?’) and the meta-mystery (‘Why is anyone killing anyone?’) Tackling the puzzles is fun, or at least meant to be! Don’t give up so quick, you chumps. :p
Argh. I fell like I’m reading an SAT essay. lmao.
I’m amazed at your ability to entertain and inform through your posts along with the usual posters who provide valuable comments. I feel desperately thirsy for content from any other blogger as they do not do much of anything but point out easter eggs or just summerize episodes. Analysis, opinion and humor have consistantly been present in AoMM, which makes it a more than a worth while read.
Alas, if only AoMM also covered H animation blogs… this blog would become any more important to my daily life. (How bout it Jason eh? lmao)
Oh I do appreciate all your allusions (very pertinant and entertaining at times, but always relevant), and the DRM article expressed my opinions about DRM better than I could have ever written.
If only you were a hot chick… Ah alwell.
Anyways, on to my comment about this arc:
I do feel dissapointed with the episodes, but even you, Jason, have to admit this is much better than the last arc. This arc does have some intelligence invloved in the main character, and overall, was more realistic. It does however, lack any actual “giddifying” content and was more of a filler than anything else. I think the writers for the anime would be better off just repeating K1’s demise in every arc with sicker mindfucking resolutions and have the last arc conclude the mystery behind “Oyashiro-sama.” Honestly, they should have left out the last two arcs. Again I leave this arc unsaited and hoping for a better continueation.
I hate Apple and Sony’s campaign for stripping money.
Muu. Whatever Higurashi is, I’ll just continue enjoying it. *winkｓ*
>> They could have tossed in a hot springs episode.
>> They need to be in meido outfits to please me now.
I know I took the comments out of context and were meant to be more sarcastic then fanboyish-sounding, but when someone does make statements of this kind, it’s usually out of cynicism and/or lost hope. If you feel that the show has lost its “edge” (stupid pun), then what drives you to continue blogging it with the same intensity as with ep 4 and onward at this stage of the game? You spent a lot of time blogging the 3rd and 4th arc with a lot of pics and summaries even though you complained about them. I think you’ve done enough to promote the show in such a way that your “atypical” (meant in a good way) comments would interest anyone in at least checking our Higurashi. No one’s going to blame you for moving on from a show that you felt has lost its charm on you. Dedicate your time to blogging other shows that can push your insight. Your blogs are at your best at times of inspiration, not desperation.
double post. smite me.
Shuffle: great start, HORRIBLE HORRIBLE ending 10 episodes.
I do have to warn you Komidol, prepare to be dissappointed.
>>Shuffle: great start, HORRIBLE HORRIBLE ending 10 episodes.
I think the ending is good. At least it’s the only Hgame->anime I know that did not end with a predictable ‘main’ female. See what happened to FSN, now that’s what I call bad. If you need a good ending badly, go play the Shuffle game.
As for Higurashi, I’ve not played the games nor read the manga. But I immensely like the anime. So where does that put me? I like the What-If situations that the different arcs present. Indeed the arcs seem so contradictary to one another but I feel that its just a matter of what-ifs. There seem to be similar elements in all the arcs but each question arc probably has a different course of action that resulted in the different ends we see. But there is no doubt that all these ends are true ends, just that the means are different. Well just my 2 cents but I think this is how a H-game anime should be, where all possible endings are shown. (Of course I know that Higurashi is not a hgame… just a bunch of doujin novel games.)
>> With sci-fi, it’s “Everything’s possible; nothing’s impossible.â€
That’s not true across the board. It’s perfectly possible to have a good SF mystery, provided that you lay all your SF elements out on the table first thing. For instance, we could have a story set in an exact copy of the real world, except that people can oh… switch minds with eachother via handshakes. If the author explains this, and lays out every single rule regarding how it works in the first chapter or so, you can then go on to set a mystery in that setting, because you have ensured that the reader isn’t lacking any vital information (unless you just suck at writing mysteries, and omit other important facts, like “oh yeah, it turns out there was a car parked right outside the window that was never mentioned” or something).
One thing I find interesting though is that no matter what level you try to enjoy the series on, the pacing takes you right out of it. If, as people keep insisting, later arcs come back and somehow make sense of things from earlier arcs in a way that will satisfy people on the mystery front, there’s a good 10 episodes or so of totally unrelated material between any question you may be asking yourself, and a satisfactory answer, which is too long a wait.
If you’re in it for the moment to moment amusement of, say, crushing the hand of a twitchy-eyed machete-wielding schoolgirl with a door, you’ve got another long lull… unless you pass the time with the K1 drinking game, but if you took a shot every time he did something unbelievably stupid, you’re hospital bound.
And of course, if you’re in the camp of people looking to other sources to fill in the blanks, the fact that you’re even doing that is a strike against the pacing.
i just gotta say this but dont condem a series cause of a crappy arc….now if its two crappy arcs back to back skip em and go watch something else (theres a zillion other series) and just go back if it gets good…..or not w/e the case
also since nothing ties anything togeter except the stories involving most of the same people and freaky god likes to kill ppl using girls… the next arc might actually do something in the for of solving the damn mystery…well that and bring back the killer loli’s……if it doesnt i dont think i might have to compare higurashi to gainax *shudders*
sure leave my insainty out V_V;
:D
Dude, your definition of “murder mystery†is narrow and completely boring. Think about the movie called “The 6th Senseâ€, you could try to guess what was going on, and it implied fantasy. In a similar way, with Higurashi you have to guess what’s going on, what’s behind the murders (and not who did those crimes, contrary to a “classic†detective story), and it may imply a good dose of fantasy (and not sci-fi). Arcs sometimes contradict each other? So what? Those contradictions rule out elements as non-factual.
Tips will be included with the dvds. As for the series leaving out to much details… it looks like studio deen didn’t pour billions into this series, making it 52 episodes long was probably out of question.
Granted arc#3 felt rushed and lacked coherence, but i find the other arcs satisfying. Going to animesuki’s board to deepen my thoughts on arc #3 did nothing for me. Tips are nice for sure, though sometimes spoilerish, but other threads are generally filled with original game readers bitching restlessly about the adaptation. While probably true, apart from sickening anime watchers who can’t read japanese, i fail to see the point of it.
>> Hey Jason, have you ever seen shuffle? Why not make a post about that.
Um… I have… like a year ago…
>> I know I took the comments out of context and were meant to be more sarcastic then fanboyish-sounding, but when someone does make statements of this kind, it’s usually out of cynicism and/or lost hope.
Typical stuff I write… not sarcastic, just I like meido moe…
>> If you feel that the show has lost its “edge†(stupid pun), then what drives you to continue blogging it with the same intensity as with ep 4 and onward at this stage of the game?
The same reason Madison Square Garden is always sold out even though the Knicks are 21-63 and spending double the money that the team that won the championship did.
>> i just gotta say this but dont condem a series cause of a crappy arc
I’m sorry, if 7 out of 15 aired episodes can be tossed int the recycle bin, the series stinks. I can’t remember 1 out of 26 episodes of Mushishi that I’m thinking, “Okay, this sucks. Ginko ain’t workin’ here.” Basically, Higurashi is 7 losses behind Mushishi in the pennant race.
>> Dude, your definition of “murder mystery†is narrow and completely boring. Think about the movie called “The 6th Senseâ€, you could try to guess what was going on, and it implied fantasy.
6th Sense isn’t a mystery. It’s a horror-thriller. That’s like saying that Anchorman isn’t a comedy… it’s a documentary on the struggle of women for equal rights.
More importantly, mysteries START with a murder. They don’t END with a murder. And I can’t remember the last mystery that I watched where the culprit was an explosion of natural toxic gas. Quick! Arrest Mother Earth.
>> One thing I find interesting though is that no matter what level you try to enjoy the series on, the pacing takes you right out of it.
Signed. I think they really tried to cram too much into the show. Should have just done two or three arcs and do them well. Save the rest for another season.
Well..I’m still pretty confident I won’t be comprehending what’s going on, unless Studio Deen decides to graciously serve it all up on a silver platter for me.
I mean, hey, I’m a person who will never give up on shows that I start on, and the only thing interesting for me right now is to see if I can enjoy it despite not knowing nuts about the plot.
I sure know that someone’s gonna die every arc, so I’ll use that as a constant factor to start laying bets on who’s ‘it’ this round.
It could have been better though – using the same events but from different character perspectives. Some horror games actually do this, Forbidden Siren, for one. They managed to do it very well, and I’m getting the creeps from remembering that game..I’ll go huddle under my blanket now.
First thing that caught my eye:
Monk Monk wrote:
>> It could just be a bad murder mystery.
I truly hope not. Otherwise, that means I wasted 26 eps watching crap.
Jason wrote:
>> I’m sorry, if 7 out of 15 aired episodes can be tossed int the recycle bin, the series stinks. I can’t remember 1 out of 26 episodes of Mushishi that I’m thinking, “Okay, this sucks. Ginko ain’t workin’ here.†Basically, Higurashi is 7 losses behind Mushishi in the pennant race.
Then why not blog Mushishi more?
>> The same reason Madison Square Garden is always sold out even though the Knicks are 21-63 and spending double the money that the team that won the championship did.
Hahaha! You still have this much hope for a show? I salute you, my friend. You represent western Otaku-ism at it’s finest. lololol
I hope Jason doesn’t take our comments the wrong way. I mean, I think nobody here is one of those jerks that contradicts everything is said to them.
I want to think everyone here respects Jason’s blogging. Ha! this is the ONLY blog I read/post in!
Sorry if I sound immature, I just wanted to spill this out.
PS:Keep bloging about Higurashi please, just in case we get more Shion/Mion.
>>More importantly, mysteries START with a murder. They don’t END with a murder.>For a murder mystery to work, there needs to be consistent ground rules. Higurashi has none of that. More importantly, murder mysteries need facts. Not a lot, but enough to establish a story or poke holes in a story >And I can’t remember the last mystery that I watched where the culprit was an explosion of natural toxic gas. Quick! Arrest Mother Earth.
Ah crap, damn my awful computer skills. Wish blogs had an ‘edit’ function. Okay let’s try again:
>>More importantly, mysteries START with a murder. They don’t END with a murder.
That’s a ridiculously narrow view of an entire genre. I can think of numerous mysteries where the build-up is just as important as the exposition, and somewhere ‘the murder’ is almost a by-product of the real mystery. Besides how can the mystery “end” with a murder when the mystery is never solved? The explanation won’t be spelled out for you until the show’s end.
>>For a murder mystery to work, there needs to be consistent ground rules. Higurashi has none of that. More importantly, murder mysteries need facts. Not a lot, but enough to establish a story or poke holes in a story
Well the history prior to the beginning or each arc seems to be the same, as does Tomitake and Takano’s fate. If Rika’s proclamation is to be believed then we can assume Rika dies in each arc to (though if that’s the case her death must have been off screen in arc 1)
Looking over the series as a whole I always figured the ‘holes’ where the apparent contradictions between arcs. If events in one arc appear to contradict another arc then one of them must either be wrong or misleading. To use a contradiction that was listed in the ep.15 blog comments, k1’s belief he has some sort of “killing power”. This is obviously a delusion on his part, as we know from other arcs that Takano would have died anyway and that Rika dies regardless of k1’s wishes, hence we can safely assume k1 has no supernatural power to kill people in Arc 3 or any other arc.
Likewise, assuming the build-up to each arc is the same we can assume that Tomitake and Takano are killed by the same people for the same reasons in each arc, and going by what we learn in arc3 it’s quite possible Takano had a direct hand in Tomitake’s death, which gives us something to work with.
I agree the show has it’s problems, and it’s certainly impossible to come up with any 100% foolproof solution at this point (not least because no real explanation has been provided for the ‘men in green’ who according to Policeguy seem to be well trained, have evidently been hanging around Hinamizawa for years but don’t seem to have any official connection to the Sonozaki’s, they’re the biggest ‘unkown factor’ for me right now)
Personally I think the ‘supernatural’ scenes are mostly red herrings. Rika seems to be the only character whose supernatural moments can’t be explained away fairly easily, and she’s trying to *prevent* the murders. Therefore barring some other unexplained force at work (and I’ll be deeply disappointed if that’s the case) we can assume the murders themselves all have mundane causes.
>>And I can’t remember the last mystery that I watched where the culprit was an explosion of natural toxic gas. Quick! Arrest Mother Earth.
My thought: Red herring. I can’t help but wonder if the disaster occurs in every single arc, and that all the other times it just occurs after the arcs end. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, I think the explosion itself is just a random act of nature and probably not worth dwelling on, unless the gas itself is mind-affecting in some way and has been causing some of the more rampant fits of paranoia in the characters, but that’s completely unsubstantiated speculation on my part.
Okay that comment turned out far more rambling than I intended it, sorry. Don’t have time to trim it so I’ll post it as is. Feel free to delete if it’s too off-topic.
I’m not going to go through and do a point by point rebuttal of things, but I agree with those here who say that Jason’s view is ridiculously constrained on how certain genre’s work.
And your statement about Sci-fi makes me wonder if you’ve ever read any actual Sci-fi at all. Just because something is Science Fiction doesn’t mean you have a license to do anything at all.
>>And I can’t remember the last mystery that I watched where the culprit was an explosion of natural toxic gas. Quick! Arrest Mother Earth.
>>My thought: Red herring. I can’t help but wonder if the disaster occurs in every single arc, and that all the other times it just occurs after the arcs end.
My assumption at the end of that episode was that the could of gas was caused by them hitting that mysterious pipe in the woods while they were digging. I mean, in only one arc
Between the second scene in the OP, all the people going wacky after recieving injection, and the heavy yakuza involvement in the town I sorta expect there’s some illegal drug production going on, but thats really just a theory. I really need to read some of this side material I’ve been hearing about.
Sci-fi is a very poorly defined genre, but the reality is that the majority of sci-fi produced today is more like science fantasy than the “hard” science fiction you appear to be referring to.
As far as Higurashi goes, well. Van Dine’s 8th Rule: “A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.” Higurashi is disqualified as a mystery because the core fantastical conceit leaves too many doors open to rationally narrow down the possibilities.
Of course, this shouldn’t matter. Higurashi is not a mystery, nor does it pretend to be one. It carries all the trappings of a psychological thriller, and this is the level at which Jason recently finds fault. Now, of course viewers can (and are) entertaining themselves with theories and speculation about the events of Hinamizawa, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But they’re making their own fun.
>>Higurashi is disqualified as a mystery because the core fantastical conceit leaves too many doors open to rationally narrow down the possibilities.
It’s odd… I partially agree with you in that I believe Higurashi’s flaw is that it leaves too many doors open, but I really can’t see why that’s a feature of the “fantastical conceit” assuming your refering to the show’s ‘Sliding Doors’ type structure. Despite the fact that the events in each arc occur differently, it’s easy to compare the various arcs and aquire information on the situation based on the information we get on the characters and what we can glean from resolving “contradictions” (which I believe the anime is mostly free of, any apparent contradictions are the result of one or both situations being misinterpreted).
The main flaw is that the vast majority of what would be needed to form a conclusive theory appears to occur off camera in every arc, which makes linking the various plot threads close to impossible, but I believe that’s a faliure to provide enough data rather than any inherent incompatability of the structure with the mystery genre.
I’m not sure that there’s anything fantastic going on here at all. I’ve always thought of the arcs as three fictional universes starting with only a butterfly’s wingflap of difference between them, and with the arcs starting at slightly different places chronologically (or a very different place in the case of Himatsubushi-hen). There’s no need to resort to the supernatural to explain the events in any of the arcs if one supposes conspiracies or cabals, myths, and psychoactive drugs.
Odd. My post disappeared. Oh, here you go again:
http://www.higurashi.host.sk/
http://hinamizawa.e-n-m.net/
Links to the Higurashi manga scanslations, for those who were wondering what they’ve been missing out.
…Say, since we’ve got Mion & Shion’s MILF, maybe we’ll get to see K1’s loltastic dad in a future episode? We’ve already been introduced to K1’s creepy mom…
It is perfectly possible to view different versions of the same event, where things happen differently, and have them reveal clues as to what is happening in ALL of them. Let me give a really simple example.
1. Bob comes home and finds his roommate Jim holding his roommate Jane’s head underwater in the bathtub as she thrashes. Bob attacks Jim with a baseball bat in order to save her, kills Jim. Too late for Jane, she’s dead. Bob panics and flees, believing the cops will pin both murders on him.
2. Bob comes home to find his roommate Jim holding a thrashing Jane. “She’s put poison in her eyes!” Jim yells, panicked. “What should we do?” Bob suggests rinsing her eyes, and they hold her head in the bathtub to try and flush it out. She dies anyway. Bob asks what the hell happened, and Jim says she put in some eyedrops, and immediately after started thrashing and going into convulsions.
3. Bob stays home, and notices that his eyes feel a bit dry. He uses Jane’s eyedrops, then hands them to Jane to use. She uses them, and shortly thereafter goes into convulsions. Bob, who seems fine, calls an ambulance but she dies before it can arrive.
Now, different things happen in each case, but each tells us something new about the previous ones.
2 tells us that in 1, Jim WASN’T the murderer, just trying to help.
3 tells us the the poison eyedrops in 2 AREN’T poison at all… Bob used them too and was fine.
Higurashi works in exactly the same way. It’s just hideously more complex and complicated, and we’re viewing it from a foreign culture with an imperfect translation. Still, if you look real close, you can pick out the clues as to what’s really going on.
Well, considering that the main reason behind the game series seems to be to initiate intellectual masturbation- er- “trying to solve the mystery”, I’m not exactly enamored with it.
Me, I don’t try to solve “the mystery” anymore. That’s the trap, baby. Some mysteries, like dear old Saint Augustine says, you don’t solve. Just ride the whirlwind and see where it takes you. That’s why the anime is a bit laggy for me – it doesn’t buck me around enough and give me some solid satisfaction.
In A.D. 2006, war was beggining
Jason: What happen?
Lt. : Somebody set us up the killer loli!
LT. : We get message!
Jason: It you!
Shion: Ha ha ha good evening gentlemen. All your Higurashi now are belong to stupid conflicts. You have no chance to survive look at my huge melonpan and enjoy.
Jason: For great justice….
Okay. Here’s my two cents. Enjoy Higurashi for what it is. Whether you like the killer lolis with the huge boobs or the “mystery” “pseudo mystery” “sci-fi” whatever aspects. Basically, the series has something for everyone and it isn’t over yet. Each arc has to be looked differently from the previous, some arcs are better than others. End of story, enjoy the rest of the series.
>>Now, different things happen in each case, but each tells us something new about the previous ones.
No, they don’t. If the situations are different, you can’t assume that there’re any constants between them. To assume that the eyedrops in (2) and (3) have the same composition is ludicrous when other details of the story (like the time of Bob’s arrival and the attempt to treat Jane) are different.
If the same scene was being described by different people, new information would be added. If Bob having used the eyedrops before Jane was new information added to a situation rather than an occurence in an entirely new situation, it would mean something. But because the scenes are different, any assumptions of commonality is unfounded, whether in character motivations and actions or the chemical composition of eyedrops.
That’s the problem with Higurashi. You aren’t seeing different ACCOUNTS of the same events, you’re getting different VERSIONS of the same events, so you can’t assume that things unseen happen for the same reasons they did in a previous version, or even happened at all.
Maxtreme, I’d imagine that was the best parody yet. I laughed for a solid 1 minute before becoming sober again.
*in order to be sci/fi, there needs to be some aspect of technology. so this is much mor ein the realm of Supernatural.
*technology=science ^^;;
You are right: dead people can’t come back to life. However, you have to remember one thing…are they really dead in the first place? Is the identity of the dead been affirmed, or might there be something that prevents the absolut confirmation of the identity? Is the event really happening exactly as the character’s POV you are looking thru? I recall in one or two Argatha Christie mystery novels, she plays around with those dieas
Higurashi hides small details like that while spoon-feeding you the vaque image. Only subsequent chapters would give you more and more info about the matter.
I actually just noticed that Rika uses “boku” as a pronoun. I haven’t seen it up to where it’s implied that she’s the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, but it just occured to me that could be a clue to that, since it’s usually a pronoun reserved for males.