blog好き

Aug 14 2006

Categories: anime, episodic review, higurashi
Tagged: higurashi, higurashi:sonozaki

30 Comments »

I was a believer in life, to be myself always, and was asking whether I would be alive.

Having been caught evesdropping by Mion, Shion is in some deep shit. Mion explains to Shion that Takano and Tomitake were found dead as a result of Oyashiro-sama’s curse. Of course, I was hoping that this series would take a swerve and have Mion give Shion a kiss about now, but, alas, yet another golden opportunity blown.

Shion, though, decides to retaliate. She hatches her plan for revenge… first up, tasering Mion. Honestly, where did she hide her taser on that tight blouse/mini skirt combo of hers? I’m suddenly more interested in this puzzle than Oyashiro-sama.

(I’d be more excited about Oyashiro-sama except that the newest game claims that it will destroy your preception of whom Oyashiro-sama is. Sounds like 7th Expansion is run by a bunch of ex-Sunrise employees.)

After zapping Mion, Shion decides to take Onibaba out as well. Satoshi no tame ni! Is Shion doing this to avenge Satoshi? Or is she doing this to save her own ass? Maybe a combination of both, but chances are she just sealed her fate as well. BTW, Onibaba looked really confused waking up. She’s the mastermind of the Sonozaki estate? Seriously? Her?

Blatant false advertising. 19 episodes in and Rena has yet to lick blood off of herself. In fact, I’m not expecting to see Rena or any other killer loli this episode. Sad, hun? The most popular killer loli (according to AoMM’s poll… though if I combined both Mion and Shion’s votes… they’d be on par with Rena) has a total of six lines since Meakashi started.

(I’m rooting now for Shaft to remake Higurashi no Naku Koro ni as Higurashi?! and turn it into yet another harem show. And if it has Rena staring at Mion’s ass, all the better.)

Awesome. A foreshadowing scene that actually came true. What ever happened to Rika stabbing herself? Can you imagine this show being aired on American TV? How fast would it take for Jack Thompson to launch an anti-anime campaign after that? Two hours? Three?

Shion is kind enough to strip Mion before tossing her into the underground cell. Note that Mion doesn’t have a mark on her back and that she’s not wearing a bra. I’m not sure what piece of information is more important.

Shion taunts Mion about the cruel irony that Mion’s the one caged up. If Nelson Muntz were here, he’d be going, “Ha-ha!” right about now.

The animators are working overtime trying to keep Mion’s top from falling out of her camisole. I have a massive desire to hop into my car, drive to the local Nijiya, and purchase a loaf of melonpan.

Shion looks like a drug addict when she questions Mion about Takano’s and Tomitake’s deaths. She wonders if Tomitake was injected with a drug and if the Sonozaki goons did Takano in. Mion continues to deny knowing anything. Is it possible for me to concentrate on the conversation with the camera alternating from 90210-class Shion to Falling-Out-of-Her-Top Mion? I think not.

Shion continues to press Mion for information about Oyashiro-sama’s curse. Shion thinks it’s easy as So-no-za-ki and that her family is behind everything. Mion doesn’t agree or disagree. She does point out that she’s only Onibaba’s spokesperson, and she believes someone else is directing the action from behind the scenes. Do you believe Mion when she says that she doesn’t know anything? Who do you think this new mysterious puppetmaster is? I’m going to guess… this person.

Shion asks why Tomitake and Takano were killed by the curse if they had nothing to do with the dam project. She wonders if it was because they violated the shrine, to which Mion seems to have no prior knowledge of. It makes you wonder what Mion and Onibaba were referring to when they were talking about Tomitake and Takano earlier. Just gossip? Or Tomitake and Takano were doing something else unholy, like downloading mp3s using the temple’s wi-fi connection?

Shion correctly points out to Mion that if Oyashiro-sama’s curse is real, then wouldn’t two people need to disappear to satisfy the curse, yet two people haven’t disappeared yet? Mion surmises that it’s because four people went into the storeroom… doesn’t that mean Shion and K1 would disappear? At the end of Watanagashi, they didn’t “disappear.” Instead, I think Shion is slated to be a guest star on next week’s This Old House with Bob Villa.

(I’ll call this the first Law of Oyashiro-sama: momentum of death. Any death will be met with an equal and opposite death. At the end of Watanagashi, it kinda it with Rika, Satoko, and “Mion” in the tossed in the well category with “Shion, K1, Takano, and Tomitake” in the killed category. With Rena being the sole survivor. Until everyone gets gased. Which K1 survives. Except he ripped out his own throat after Mion and Rena injected him with something. Are we sure 7th Expansion isn’t founded by ex-Sunrise employees? Can I get some reassurance on this front?)

Having had her fun with Mion, Shion decides to move onto questioning Onibaba… she doesn’t look like she can chew her food let alone mastermind a criminal syndicate.

Shion makes a lot of horizontal looking facial gestures this episode. She is so evil this episode, she’s reminding me of Lacus. I also realize that this is probably why we don’t see a plethora of good looking Higurashi models… I can’t imagine resin-making otaku getting behind this show. Not kawaii enough. Though I’d love to see an emo facial distortion resin kit.

My gosh, she makes you rip your fingernails out, and the best revenge you can think of is to burn her?

Unfortunately, torture is kinda pointless if the person is already dead. Gee, it’s not like a taser would kill an old hag by inducing a heart attack or anything like that. But it does piss Shion off… not only does she not get to torture Onibaba, she can’t extract information out of her either.

Excellent. Shion goes on Louise-class rampage with her whip… remember when Mion told K1 that Shion was a sadist? She was right! If Louise, Shion, and Major Motoko opened up their own s&m shop, which of the three would get the most business?

Oh most excellent. Shion is still a queen of emo facial distortions. Good times… actually, Shion is starting to remind me of that witch in Bruce Campbell’s Army of Darkness who looks really hawt from far away, but once you get close, she looks like Onibaba. I’m off-topic, I know.

My gosh, is that facial contortion even possible? I’m giddy, even if my melonpanriffic Sonozaki looks more like an orc than a night elf.

(I’m going to have interesting dreams tonight. I’m debating if I should just pop two caffine pills and try to stay awake or risk falling asleep and accepting the consequences.)

Yeah, definitely, in Higurashi?!, Shion would have a whip at all times like Louise. Also, she’s wear that Angel Mort outfit more often (haven’t seen it yet this arc, which is the real crime against Oyashiro-sama), and Rena would wear a matching one. K1, of course, would die every episode much like Kenny in South Park. Rika would sport nekomimi at all times.

Shion stops her emo rampage (to my dismay) because she feels someone watching her, like what Satoshi described. Oyashiro-sama? Shion doesn’t care. She declared war. Even on Oyashiro-sama. She reminds me a lot of Keroro believing that he has a chance when he declares war on Natsumi.

With that disproportate body of hers, Mion looks like she’s been a captive for weeks, not minutes. I’m wondering if those 38DDs weigh more than the rest of her.

Shion asks Mion for the location of the secret well where the bodies are dumped before casually revealing that she wants to dump Onibaba there. Shion is just so nasty and evil this episode… she’s literally fighting evil with evil. Still, that’s all and well in Hinamizawa, but how would that fare against Amanda on Melrose or even LC on The Hills? I vote, “not as good.”

Mion asks Shion if she is seeking revenge on Onibaba for Satoshi, and Shion wonders why Satoshi was taken away from her even if she showed distinction. Right now, not only has Shion ripped out three fingernails for a boy that she has spent a total of five unappealing minutes with, she has killed her grandmother as well as locked up her twin sister. Love makes us do crazy things. Mion tries to explain that she really doesn’t know why Satoshi was taken away…

“Uso da! Uso da!”

As Shion starts pummeling the hell out of Onibaba’s crotch area. Is it corpse desecration night, and nobody informed me? Man, not even Saito gets abused this badly. Shion gives warning to Mion… “if you are telling the truth, I’ll stop tormenting you. If you lied, you’re toast.” Even if Mion were telling the truth, would Shion let her go free? How awkward would that be? I can imagine the two at the next family Thanksgiving dinner. It’ll be chillier than a table of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and Rick Solomon.

Meanwhile, henchman Kasai calls the Sonozaki compound asking for Shion. Shion pretends to be both her and her sister and calmly explains to him that she was part of the gang that violated the storeroom. Big mistake. No one else knew about her involvement up until that point… why’d she have to share it and invite trouble? Kasai tells her that he can’t cover up something this big and that she is in serious shit. I wonder how’d he react if she told him, “Well, Onibaba’s dead and Shion’s locked up and for sale on eBay as a sex slave. I’m the new queen bee now.” Would he and the rest of the henchmen follow her? Or would a power struggle ensue?

Shion worries about this topic for a bit before realizing that she can easily just take over Mion’s spot and have people believe that Shion is the one locked up. Wouldn’t someone with a normal IQ ask about the mark on her back? Oh wait, no one on this series has anything approaching a normal IQ. She can even use this situation to her advantage by using poor K1 as bait… which seems like a common thread these days. He’s been used by Shion and Ooishi.

At school, Shion repeats a scene with K1 from Watanagashi except we know now that it is Shion. The juicy takeaway is that Mion asked K1 about seeing Shion the night before. Does this imply that Mion knew about the storeroom therefore lying to Shion earlier this episode? Honestly, I don’t care. I’m still wondering where Shion keeps a taser on that outfit of hers.

(Though I like Shion’s “You suck at lying!” thought bubble.)

Pretending to be Mion, Shion gets into the town sausage fest by making them think that Onibaba’s sick or something. This is one hell of a sausage fest… they have hot dogs, chorizos, brauts, franks, viennas, kielbasas, wieners… and Shion is the only lady there. This setup resembles more of a pr0n star trying to set a “most something record” than a murder mystery anime. (Maybe that’s why Onibaba looks so damn old.)

Shion shocks everyone by telling them that she has herpes afterwards. Ha! The joke’s on you! Actually, no. Shion shocks everyone by telling them who visited the storeroom. If Shion telling everyone is how word of the break-in occurs, how’d Mion pseudo-know during Watanagashi? Was Mion questing K1 then because she was worried if Shion was putting the moves on him, or was it because Mion knows about the storeroom then (thus making implying that she’s lying now)?

Shion invites the town elder over to pump more information out of him. Shion manages to convince him to have some leniancy on Shion and then she brings up Satoshi and learns that…

… she never performed the Distinction for Satoshi. The three nails were for her, Kasai, and her uncle. Ouch. Is Shion not giving an extra nail to Onibaba the equivalent of K1 not giving the doll to Mion? Actually, let’s go over that… didn’t Watanagashi make it seem like Mion went bat loco because of a doll? It has nothing to do with this arc or even that arc! Whether or not K1 gave it to Mion or Rena has no bearing on the outcome of Watanagashi.

(I hate stories whose endings make the previous events completely worthless. TMQ actually has a good rant on this subject last week. That’s right… Higurashi has about the same level of plot cohesiveness as a Tom Cruise movie.)

The town elder speaks ill of Satoshi, and that riles up Shion’s demon blood. She goes off into her crazy emo zone and wonders why Satoshi, who did nothing, was targeted? Just because of family? “What sin did Satoshi commit? Do I look fat in Mion’s clothes?”

Hopefully, we get to see the rest of the Watanagashi arc… I’m wondering why “Mion” pushed “Shion” off of the apartment ledge if they swapped places. Gah. My head’s going to explode, so with that, I think I’ll go off to bed after all… with dreams of melonpan fluttering in my head.