Rika Furude and Satoko Houjou are best friends who have lived in the small village of Hinamizawa for their entire lives. Alongside their other friends, they spend every day together, and every moment is filled with fun and laughter. However, as Rika and Satoko begin to grow older, a life-changing opportunity presents itself to both of them. Rika is determined to follow her dreams and wants Satoko by her side.
Although Satoko is hesitant, she decides to walk this path with Rika. However, the realization of her dream forms a rift between them. This leaves the girls living in completely different worlds, with Rika enjoying her new life and making new friends while Satoko grows more and more isolated.
Longing to return to the nostalgic days in Hinamizawa, Satoko despairs and wishes things could be changed. Just when she is at wits' end, an encounter with a supernatural entity changes Satoko's perception and imparts new revelations about her best friend Rika. This begins her journey to get the future she desires—by any means necessary.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Chargecoulomb
Full Sotsu Review from the perspective of a longtime When they cry fan. Where do I start? *Warning* Heavy spoilers ahead! Story 1/10 The biggest disappointment to my parents since me. Everything was handled poorly and with sub par quality.Higurashi is a story about friendship. Cringy as it may be that's what Higurashi always has been. I will go into methodical and surgical detail dissecting why Higurashi SotsuGou is the worst iteration of its series, a horrible sequel and a horrible stand alone.
The first Arc of Sotsu is Onikaashi. Focusing on our favourite girl Rena Ryuugu. You know what else focuses on Rena? That's right, Tsumiboroshi. Onikaashi is nothing but a poor man's Recap of Tsumiboroshi, without any of the good stuff included. We already know who Rena is, we already know how she works, Onikaashi adds nothing to the character. These 3 episodes can be skipped without any consequence. Let's not forget to mention the fact that most of this is made out of recaps. The experienced WTC fan gets no information of any worth from this.
Second Arc is Watakashi. Focusing on Mion. This is a poor man's version of Meakashi. Hands down. None of Mions character is expounded on. It just makes her a another version of Shion. The possibilities for L5 Mion were endless, none of that was made use of. What we did get was Rika getting shoved down a toilet (the funniest scene of this show NGL) and more recaps. It's also worth noting the inconsistent nature of L5 in Sotsu here, because in the Original Series the drug Takano had, would drive you into a L5 induced death in a few hours, not days. It's a weird retcon, that I'm not sure should exist within the series, since it causes contradictions in previous arcs. Food for thought.
Tatarikashi, More Recaps baby! You get a recap, and you get a recap! Everybody take this recap and shove it up your - alright alright, I'll calm down. Honestly though, you should have some questions when the show redeems a child abuser (and a possible rapist) and then goes one step further and has a child faking abuse for the lols. Satoko manipulates Keichii hard in this ep. She has zero empathy for her friends. Funnily enough, Satoko starts feeling regret when she kills Teppei, why she didn't feel any guilt when she injects her friends is beyond me, so don't ask me. Either way she bashes K1. Then it reveals that the Teppei Hallucination thing we saw in Gou never happened (This was the only part we couldn't answer after Gou) I STRONGLY believe that this scene only exists to throw people off and make people think that a deeper mystery exists where it doesn't. It actively comes off as an underhanded and manipulative.
Then everything goes to hell. Alright alright get this. Rika remembers that Satoko was the big bad BECAUSE - She has someone else's memories! How? WHY? Who knows, it never happens before and it doesn't happen since. Its a Deus ex machina. The plot literally came to Rika. If this is not bad enough. The big suspenseful moment from the end of Gou - the Gun scene. Ends with Satoko shooting Rika - it sucks. The major buildup from Gou, the perrenial Cliffhanger ended just like that, once again this feels like underhanded storytelling.
Cue the next ep. Rika and Satoko go supah Seiyan! (This is not a witch Battle btw, to read Umineko if you want to see how that really looks like.)
PS - It's nothing like this. Mainly because Witches don't ever fight up close. Never. Not even Lambda and Bern.
They fight some more across different Fragments. Then finally Rika and Satoko end up in a bridge. With the McGuffin Sword in Rikas hands. Rika throws it into the river. Hanyuu gets it. Cracks Eua's horns, turns her into a Loli, sends her back to whence she came (a black cloud, probably Lambdadelta)
Rika and Satoko come to an agreement. Rika leaves to St Lucia. Everybody is happy. Satoshi wakes up. They play dear you just to give you the middle finger one last time before you go and it's over.
Don't wonder how Satoshi got up when he was in a medically induced coma, the series doesn't respect its own rules anymore.
This is pathetic storytelling. Much of the story revolved around a McGuffin Sword that literally turned into a Deus ex Machina at the end. Let's not forget that Satoko gets her neck cut with the McGuffin Shard and nothing happens! The story doesn't respect its own rules, why should we? If we can't trust the story to pay respect to the rules that it itself laid down, how can someone trust the story to be consistent. The 5 loop until death proclamation that Rika did, and Satoko ending up in a world without Rika, were unfortunately badly planned attempts by Passione to up the stakes. To create tension and excitement.
The mirror world references Passione put in are the same, poor attempts to create excitement within a shallow story.
If that wasnt enough insults, Higurashi Mei, Higuashis Gacha game, explains some of the finer details in the Gacha game of all things.
Hopefully by now you can understand how bad SotsuGou's story is . However I only scratched the tip of the iceberg. The sins of SotsuGou's story are so terrible that I can write a book about it, and still have a lot left to say. However for our sanity, it's best we move on.
Artstyle 6/10
Whether you prefer the rounded Artstyle that this shares with Mei is fully up to you. I won't go into detail here because this is based on taste and nothing else. Although personally I would have preferred Alchemist's Character designs to appear. Since they maintain a good balance between Ryuukishis original designs and traditional anime character standards.
Music 3/10
The DEEN Higurashi Anime is well known for its stellar use of music. Using a combination of VIsual Novel and Original tracks, it handles this perfectly.
Sotsu on the other hand, has no good music to call it's own. Much of the OST becomes background noise. I can't name one price of the OST that I like. It's really unfortunate.
Dear You is a song that is supposed to represent the bonds between the cast, in the context of SotsuGou however it comes off an insult when its the send off to a story that featured little of Mion, Keichii and Rena, along with the fact that Satoko actively kills and harms them.
Dear You ~ SotsuGou ~ is the last sad moans of this Anime. Doing it's best to hang in to relevance.
Animation 4/10
This is another place where SotsuGou struggles in. DEEN used dynamic camera angles, positioning to deliver a more fluid animation experience. Sotsu on the other hand mostly used shot -reverse shots which get boring. The actual character animation also leaves a lot to be desired. Character Animation was something DEEN struggled with sometimes as well, but unlike what DEEN, Sotsu can not fall back on its dark backgrounds as a clutch.
For their credit Passione used some of the budget for the big DBZ and Naruto crossover scenes at the end. So that's commendable at least. Good job Passione, give yourself a pat on the back.
Characters 1/10
Rika Furude
You know that this is bad when Rikas VA is confused about what's going on. In the original VN. Rika was the one who was emotionally dependant on Satoko. Not here however, because in SotsuGou 'le tables have turned on ye'. Satoko for some reason can't live without Rika. Why? How did this happen? Who knows? Don't get me wrong, Rika and Satoko were always close but Rika is the one who has a panic attack when she doesn't get Satoko, not the other way around.
Let's not forget that Rika ignores everything that happened in Matsuri. Her lesson there was;
'Waiting for things to go her was pointless. If she wanted to win, she had to roll up her sleeves and actually work for the future she wanted'
In SotsuGou she proceeds to ignore everything going on and gives random cryptic advice to K1. What happened to Rika? Eua must have taken some of her brain cells because nothing else can explain this. HECK, the idiot waits until Nekodamashi to check on Takano, ON TAKANO, the person that's supposedly gonna kill her and everybody she loves.
In the original one of Rikas goals was a world with EVERYONE she cared about all her friends and didn't want a world without them. Rika here decides to screw everybody else and stay with Satoko.
This is peak character butchering. Rika was only passive when she had given up, however in SotsuGou she's like that from the very beginning.
Satoko Houjou
The biggest tragedy (or comedy) of Sotsu. Satoko is a character with a fairly good understanding of others and someone who is capable of empathizing with even the worst of people. Here however she's turned into a one note evil girl with zero redemption (they didn't even try)
Let's look at what SotsuGou tells us about Satoko;
- Has no problem with killing her friends, not only Rika.
- Can forgive Teppei for abusing and hurting her and Satoshi but cant forgive Rika for some reason.
- Knows about all of Rikas loops but cant sympathise with why Rika might want to leave Hinamaizawa.
- Only felt Regret qhen killing Teppei (lol) but not her friends.
- Has no qualms about injecting innoncents like Akasaka and old man Kimiyoshi.
- Tricks K1 and screws him over in Tatari.
- Injects Mion, the most neutral and stable person in the group. For no reason than the lols.
- Rolls around in the ground laughing like an idiot.
- Falls victim to Euas goading.
- Kills her own regrets in Tatarikashi.
- Dodges sword strikes with the speed of a ninja? how? Who knows?
- Has no trauma for Teppei or Takano but somehow is traumatised by a BOX. Bloody hell if a box punch is all it takes, why is she not kneeling over for Rena. Who packs a meaner punch?
- Undergoes zero redemption or development.
- Gets forgiven by Rika with zero consequences.
The Eagled eyed reader might have noticed something interesting.
"Hey Coulomb, why doesn't Satoko or Rika have any character development?"
Because they don't. The show didn't give them any.
What's really tragic is, that Miotsukushi, an alternative ending arc did more for Satoko in two screens than Sotsu did in two seasons!
Hopefully overall you can realise how bad Satoko's characterisation is.
The WORST part about Satoko and and Rika is that they never resolved their conflict by themselves, the club basically stepped into force them back together. It's poor writing.
Overall 3/10
Not worth your time. Read the Manga for a better experience, but avoid the anime. If you are a new fan watch the 2007 Original + Kai, I gurantee my life, that it will be magnitudes more satisfying than this. That is all.
In Retrospect ......
"When they cry, I laugh." - The Messiah, Ryuukishi 07. (I'm not sure if he actually said this I just think it's relevant)
Higurashi and even Umineko had a theme of protecting children. Preserving childhood. However SotsuGou completely turned this message on its head , and gave us something else. Doesn't this entire thing make Ryuukishi 07 a bit of a hypocrite? I can accept many things - but when you start redeeming child abusers and rapists that's where I draw the line. In many ways I think death of the author is applicable here.
BT, bless his soul. He was more important than you would think. Higurashi originally was planned to have Irie as the villain, however BT felt that it was a bad idea so he made Ryuukishi change it. BT is no longer with us, and I wonder if anyone at 07th expansion atleast try to keep Ryuukishis ideas in check.
Ryuukishi is a man of many ideas, and by his own admission is someone who gets influenced a lot ( he wanted to make Keichii fight aliens in Tsumiboroshi because he had watched an alien movie) so why he doesn't have anyone to 'filter' his ideas I beyond me.
Higurashi Mei still exists, and ironically has a better story than Sotsu. There's also Ciconia. However since it's reception has been poor even among WTc fans, I wonder where thing will go next.
Higurashi is 07th expansions most popular series. Umineko only has a faction of it's popularity, and Ciconia is virtually unknown. Was it worth harming your most well regarded series for no reason other than money?
It's honestly best if each WTC remains separate. Connected universes may be cool, but in regards to WTC it just causes more issues than it's worth, and probably will hamper Ryuukishis creativity. They should never be connected.
Have a good day, and don't forget to rate SotsuGou with your respective rating.
Edit :
What REALLY screws with me about Sotsu is the simple fact that
Satoko didnt even TRY asking Eua to heal Satoshi. She didnt even CONSIDER it.
If your ever needed proof to show that Satoko is a one note caraceture of a half assed Yandere whose entire universe revolves around Rika and ONLY Rika this is it.
xm0123
When no one expected it, 07Ryukishi returned to Hinamizawa for a new anime storyline. Everyone thought he was over and done with, considering the original Higurashi spanned 8 visual novels, nearly 40 manga volumes and 50 anime episodes, and that’s before you factor in the spinoffs. Running at 39 episodes long, the new anime is more substantial than a typical 1 to 2 cour series. For the purpose of this review, my thoughts refer to both Gou and Sotsu. Unlike the earlier anime adaptations, this one was co-written by Ryukishi himself. Character designs were by Akio Watanabe, best known for his work on the Monogatari animefranchise. And returning composer Kenji Kawai has once again come to lend his talents to the music score. The music is not the best, but it’s not the worse either, especially at the end. The visuals are not the best ever, but at the very least, this new anime from Passione looks better than the Deen anime productions of old.
Speaking of technical aspects, the Japanese voice cast is still ace after all these years. Rika is still my favorite Yukari Tamura performance after all this time. Also of note is that Funimation did an English dub. Uncontroversial opinion: the English dub is as good as the original Japanese. How ironic. The first Higurashi anime’s English dub is quite possibly the worst dub that’s not by 4Kids or Sentai Filmworks in existence. Higurashi Rei and Sotsu? Everyone, even the moe girls, sound just as good as their originals. Michelle Rojas sounds EXACTLY like how Mion sounds in my head when I read the manga, for example. This is a show I can watch in either format and enjoy.
As such, if you’ve seen the score I’ve given, you’ve no doubt formed some thoughts about me. Conversely, I have some thoughts on how the one time an anime sequel is good, everyone shits all over it. Sure, it has 4.5/5 stars on Funimation, but all I hear, from both casual viewers and longtime fans alike, is that Gou and Sotsu sure did suck alright. They just plain sucked! People have seen anime that sucked before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!
Before I continue this apologetic, let me quality myself. Since my last review here was way back in December of 2015, Higurashi has gone up in my personal ranking. It is equal to Ryukishi’s own Umineko in my eyes now.
I should also mention the following: Higurashi and Umineko changed my life. They are only two of three works of fiction to have ever changed me on a fundamental level. (The third being that Star Wars had a huge impact on me as a child.) Ryukishi is also my favorite living author of narrative fiction. And let it be known that Higurashi and Umineko are my favorite works of fiction. (If you thought my review of Castle in the Sky was glowing, well, I’ve seen The Sun shine.) I say all of this now because if any of you think I’m too biased to properly review Gou and Sotsu, you may leave. If you think my merely liking Gou and Sotsu makes you want to PM me and call me a million variations of The R Word, that is your right. My purpose is to convince those who love Higurashi but avoided this new anime project because of the constant complaints from Real Fans™ about it that they should reconsider. Think of this review as a spoiler free reason to return to Hinamizawa.
It's hard to talk about the plot of Gou and Sotsu without spoiling anything. Suffice to say, a new mystery has arisen, and bloodied bodies are piling up once more. Things seem to be the same as before, yet they’re not. How could this be? Why must tragedy play out once more?
Here is the one flaw I found: Gou and Sotsu did not change my life. This could just be that I’m at a point in my life where I can no longer learn anything significant from a work of narrative fiction, but Gou and Sotsu didn’t have the life-altering messages that Tsumihoroboshi-hen, Minagoroshi-hen, and Matsuribayashi-hen did. Gou and Sotsu are “only” as good as Meakashi-hen was for me, which, by any measurable standard, is phenomenal. Still, if failing to live up to an impossibly high standard makes Gou and Sotsu the shittiest shit that was ever shat out of a butt, then fine, the constant criticisms make sense in that regard.
However, let me print a quote from Ryukishi’s own Umineko, “Without love, it cannot be seen.” Many of the Real Fans™ I see bashing Gou and Sotsu are, like me, familiar with Umineko. I wonder if we even saw the same show. I saw an intense character study, one full of pathos, a story where people grow older and move on to new things. Sometimes, that creates friction, even amongst those with the strongest of bonds. Sometimes, people drift apart not because of things like politics or a change of careers, but just…time. People you knew as kids might not be good friends of yours anymore. People you respect as an adult probably would’ve gotten on your nerves as a kid. People you idolize might have selfish desires, desires that go against your own wishes. This is life. This is reality. Sure, Higurashi presents this in the form of a story where little girls with huge eyes get massacred in brutal fashion, but Higurashi does something very, VERY few works of Japanese popular culture do: reflect reality. This is humanity. It’s not always pleasant. Many victims of abuse grow up to become abusers themselves. Those cute girls you look up to might not stay that way forever because that’s life. And, if I’ve learned anything from talking to people on the internet, it’s that whenever anything reminds people of something that makes them uncomfortable, their first instinct is to attack it. That, too, is reality.
Viewers these days are too literal. There is a difference between what a person literally says versus the actual meaning of what is being said. Much like with the ending of the Umineko visual novel, viewers are once again mis-interpreting Ryukishi’s message. There are no plot holes. No one is out-of-character. The mystery is not the point. If you focused on the actual message of Gou and Sotsu as opposed to your immediate reaction to something occurring that you didn’t theorize would happen when news first dropped of a new Higurashi anime, you would know this.
I publish this knowing full well that my reputation could permanently tank in this community. That’s fine. I already left behind the anime/manga community, so to speak, years ago. I only came back here because I’m trying to create a miracle. I hope this text, however unlikely, convinces fellow Higurashi fans who skipped Gou and Sotsu to give it a chance. While Gou and Sotsu didn’t have the same impact on me like Tsumihoroboshi-hen did, maybe it will for someone else. For me, that is enough.
Good tidings to all of you. Excel. Be kind to each other and yourselves. Bask in the miracle that is your existence. Thank you for reading. Have a pleasant day.
miblan
Welcome to Higurashi Ball Sotsuper! I'm highly dissapointed by this season. It started out good, altough a little repetitive since it was mostly scenes from Gou from another perspective, but the ending was nonsensical and I couldn't care less. Art: 7/10 The art is great, but just not scary. A big reason why I like the original 2 2006-seasons of Higurashi so much is because of the creepyness the art & animation gives. While the art in the original series were grim & uncanny, Gou & Sotsu's art is vivid & colorful. It feels more like a seasonal harem-romcom than a horror/mystery show. But it all looks good. Theanimation is nice and everything looks clean, just a shame the creepy vibes are gone.
Sound: 10/10
Great opening (altough I had to get used to it), great music, great ambience and great voice acting. Stabbing sounds feel like a sharp blade is getting forced into juicy meat repeatidly, screams are bone-chilling and Satoko's laugh is still as annoying as we remember. Couldn't be better!
Character: 6/10
This was initially an 8, but the final episode made me drop it by 2 points. Higurashi is a hard show to give personalities a score, since... you know... every loop introduces big impactful personality changes.
The reason I dropped it by two points is by how the season ended. Some things happen relationshipwise that doesn't make any sense knowing the circumstances.
Enjoyment: 6.5/10
I had too much fun with the gore but was too bored with the repetitiveness that I'm juggling between a 6 or a 7 for this. This season is brutal with some kills, and I loved it. But due to the biggest part of the season being scenes and happenings from previous season, it feels a bit like a waste of time.
We've already seen the protest against Teppei twice now, no need to show it a third time. This is not how you do an answers arc. The very first season did this much better (looking at you, Yandere-Shion-arc. It was the same timeline in different arcs but 95% of those arcs were different scenes).
Overall: 5/10
My first review complained about how unnecessary this season is. We already know the answer to previous season's mystery: Satoko is behind everything. We got told about that in the very last episode of Gou. This season just breaks down everything Satoko did in a very non-interesting way. Some big-brain moments give you this "Aha!"-feeling, but it's not mind-blowingly "WTF??!!"-like the original seasons gave.
What really annoyed me these last 2 episodes were the introduction of these out-of-nowhere Dragon Ball Z-fights. What the actual fuck?! This is supposed to be a horror-mystery.
Mega_Mega
Higurashi Sotsu is a miserable experience. It's a huge troll of an anime in the worst of ways. It respects neither the intelligence nor the time of its viewers. The first 13 episodes of this 15 episode series are glorified recaps. Recaps which add little to no new relevant plot information that couldn't be assumed by having watched the end of Higurashi Gou. To those unfortunate enough to want to know then end of the story after watching Gou, it's best to just skip to episode 14 of Sotsu. This show is has the genre labels horror and mystery, but the only horror to be found isin the viewer's slow realization that the massive amounts of time spent watching Gou and Sotsu were entirely pointless, and the biggest mystery is how anyone could ever enjoy this.
KuroNekoAlchemy
This anime made me wish I was 11 again because it reminded me of childhood classic "happy tree friends" -Hilarious black humor -Comic amounts of blood and simplistic gore -Predictable plotlines -Everything is spelled out for you by one-dimensional villain so just turn off your brain and enjoy -Fights that remind me of another childhood classic, "dragonball z" -antagonist with relatable goals "I don't want to study school is hard"Last but not least, if I was 11 again I wouldn't even know the original Higurashi and umineko so I'd smile and laugh watching this, instead of crying myself to sleep and becoming suicidal
also, reminder that the author's only job for the past 20 years was writing edgy fiction and shiposting on imageboards and it shows
SanaeK10
Without love, it cannot be seen. Massive spoilers for Higurashi to follow after the next paragraph. If you want my advice, whether you like the series or not, go watch the new one. I love this show to the bits. I despise this show to the bone of my soul. Higurashi Sotsu is both the best and the worst anime I have seen in 2021 (and 2020 counting Gou). It is both utterly brilliant and completely insulting, both paying great respect and developing the characters 20 years on in nuanced and intricate ways as well as shitting on them from a great height. It loves theaudience and hates them. It is both incredibly frustrating and incredibly gratifying on a weekly basis. It is both these things at the same time. However, because of this there is no good way to reflect this in my score; simply taking the average and giving a 5 is disingenuous and implies the show is mediocre (when it really isn't). Thus, I will apply the same method Ryukishi07 used in Umineko : To misuse Schrodinger's Cat and to construct a Cat Box.
There is one thing you can't deny going into Gou/Sotsu. In that it is a complete wild ride from start to finish. While the original VN (and Umineko and Ciconia) were works that are to be taken seriously, I cannot see Gou/Sotsu as anything but a black comedy. They hired a comedy director for goodness sake. And from the interviews, the deliberate grindhouse aesthetic chosen for the violent scenes do support this view. It's moments like the club members playing in a river as Satoko violently stabs Rika in the throat with a blunt fork, or Keiichi and Rena playing knifey-clocky, or that beautiful beautiful Gilligan Cut with Akasaka and Rika, that make me laugh uncontrollably. Unironically, Higurashi has been the best comedy of the whole year, unintentional or not, but I'm willing to give some credit in this department. Just some.
Gou/Sotsu (Sotsu especially) is what I'd call the accumulation or the perfection of the art of schlock. It is complete madness from a creator who may or may not have genuine distaste for his work, and who takes the chance to laugh at both himself and the audience for going through in this mess. For that, I respect R07 for going through with this vision. Even if he may completely mock me for enjoying Gou/Sotsu.
To begin dissecting why I think this show deserves both a 1/10 and a 10/10 score at the same time, let's look at characters. Or less charitably, character assassination. Before moving on, I want to stress that I like Satoko's new change in character. Her new personality makes sense and is a natural progression of how her character would evolve after the events of Saikoroshi, and tying her to Lambdadelta or Vier from Umineko/Ciconia respectively makes sense on both a design and plot front. Likewise with Rika. Rika has always been a terrible person even in the VNs, so her stubbornness and selfishness are likewise, natural progressions of her character arc from the end of Saikoroshi, and a bridge to her later alter ego as the cynical and cruel Frederica Bernkastel. No, character assassination refers to everyone else (apart from Teppei). Keiichi, Rena, Mion, Shion, even dear Mr Delicious and some of the adults. That is something I can't easily forgive R07 for. Shion (the one without the tattoo) got the worst of it though. Just her overall patheticness in Watakaashi genuinely made me angry. I just can't fathom why the previously craziest Yandere of the entire series is reduced to a crying mess in front of a slow moving non-threathening Mion. Teppei on the other hand is the (third) biggest winner in terms of character growth though. I can't believe R07 made me actually feel sympathy for him 20 years on. Though in hindsight he pulled the same stunt back with Rosa too, but Teppei here seems genuinely remorseful and because of that, you do end up pitying him.
Now to tackle the plot. Oh boy. While I did like Higurashi as a VN for its atmospheric mystery horror, I will freely admit it eventually relied on a Deus Ex Machina to resolve its plot. Nothing relating to the main themes of trusting your friends ever helped Rika find out the identity of her killer. If we're going with the Eua is Ryukishi07 analogy, we can see one of the first and clearest deviations is that the sheer concept of a Deus Ex Machina is mocked in its entirety for Gou/Sotsu. And that includes Hanyuu of course, which can also be seen as a stand-in for R07 in his earlier days. As a writer, I personally find his longer works (Higurashi, Umineko, Rose Gun Days, and to some extent Higanbana) to be excellent, but at the same time his shorter works or his manga ventures are just terrible (I don't wanna mention Iwaihime ever again, or Loopers). So how does Sotsu fall in this regard?
For an author who once championed the philosophy of actively trying to solve a mystery even if you're off the mark, and who deliberately didn't give explicit solutions to Umineko in Episodes 7 and 8, preferring the viewer to come up with the solutions on their own, it is incredibly disheartening to have most of Sotsu be repetitive recaps of Gou with the most obvious solutions shown in excruciating and unnecessary detail to the viewer. It is tiring and the absolute lowest point in the series for me. It is dead obvious as to the Who, How, and Why of Oni/Wata/Tata, but we really didn't need to see Satoko slowly stalk her victims and inject them and then once more following the victims as they cause havok. It is so dull and so much of the footage from Gou is recycled. At least when Haruhi did it they reanimated many of the scenes. Here though? By my estimate only 40% of Sotsu is new material, and that includes the final 2 episodes which are past the recap point. And yes, it took 8 whole months for the story to continue. And yet, in spite of this flagrant reuse of content, I ended up going through the same motions at Eua, laughing heartily at every single scene Satoko does her spooky red eyes in. It's awful but in the best possible way. Or maybe that's the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in. It is instances like these where I wonder if R07 has contempt for his fans, just stringing us along on this seemingly neverending year-long journey where you do get to feel like Rika being stuck in her endless loops.
It is also through Higurashi that I have to come to a hard realization, that the original VN's plot isn't that good. It is entertaining and I was emotionally moved, yes. But in doing so I had to ignore plot holes and the Deus Ex Machina that completely destroys the whole story in order to provide a happy ending. At the tail end of Matsuribayashi, R07 asks the viewer a graduation question, which to paraphrase is "Is there a way for there to be a happy ending for everyone?". Gou/Sotsu on the surface seems to try to answer that, but in doing so it establishes connections, that weren't there in the first place, to the greater WTC series, Umineko and the still-yet-unfinished Ciconia, with Satoko being the lynchpin that holds this House of Cards together. While this does turn Satoko from my most disliked character into my most loved, the consequence of this is that I have put greater importance on the meta-narrative stringing these series together rather than the individual stories themselves. And in retrospect I can't enjoy the original Higurashi on its own without connecting it to the greater meta-narrative. How it all comes down is still in the air, since the final (?) part of the puzzle is still unreleased.
Much like with Satoko and her conflicting love and hatred for Rika, I too am in a similar position with Sotsu. The ending to Sotsu reinforces my love AND hate for what has become of Higurashi as a new version of you plays in a beautiful scene as everyone gets a happy ending at last...and yet it also reinforces how R07 refuses to provide an explicit connection to his other works. I mean, if you're gonna establish a "cinematic universe" of sorts, why not just go all the way and spare us this grief.
To conclude, there is no easy way to judge Higurashi Sotsu on its own merits. One mustn’t forget that even the original Higurashi has been rereleased several times with several different new arcs penned by different authors and Ryukishi himself, all of varying quality, none matching the original 8 arcs in quality, so in that sense, Gou/Sotsu excel marvelously on that merit alone. BUT, as I had stressed so many times before, it comes at a cost of diluting the original message and spirit of Higurashi in line with connecting it to the greater WTC Series, of which includes an unfinished product. It is both incredibly frustrating and charming at the same time. A myriad of oxymorons in a sealed box. You will never know what you’re gonna get, and the truth is always concealed. All inside a cold uncaring catbox.
Now everyone, join me in praying for Ryukishi to stop giving excuses and continue writing the rest of Ciconia.
1/10
The one represents DAIICHI NO COURSE.
RebelPanda
"Be careful what you wish for." Higurashi Gou and Sotsu are exactly what people mean when they say that phrase. I love Higurashi, but admittedly the original adaptation has aged poorly. I always wanted to see one of my favorite stories remade. And now that it finally has gotten a reboot, I wish it hadn't been. Over a decade after the original anime aired, they have resurrected the franchise for no reason other than profit. Gou was purposefully mismarketed as a remake to attract curious new viewers—then it rebranded itself as a sequel to get the old fandom's attention. Occasionally it had scary moments, but it neverproved why it should exist. Sotsu is supposedly the "answer arcs" but it is 90% reused footage with slight alterations.
These reboots focus specifically on Rika and Satoko. Rika wants to leave Hinamizawa and go to a prestigious high school. Satoko dreams of staying in Hinamizawa forever, but she will not let Rika leave. What ensues is endless torture porn. With the help of an enigmatic spirit, Satoko gains the same looping ability as Rika. Every time they enter a new loop, a comically evil version of Satoko makes Rika suffer as much as possible. The end goal is for her to give up her dreams of escaping. That's it. That's your 39 episodes in a nutshell. I could end the review here, but we need to discuss what turned this from a lukewarm spin-off to the worst thing that has ever happened to When They Cry.
Higurashi's first two seasons were a nicely completed story. There's no reason to watch Gou. I only finished it because I wanted to see what would happen to my favorite characters. Sotsu had the same problem, and it failed to justify its existence. Supposedly, these anime are the bridge between this series and Umineko, but it would be less exhausting to read a Wikipedia summary. There's a common argument that this show can't possibly be crap because Ryukishi07, the original visual novel author, co-wrote the show's script! That's a pretty awful excuse; I shouldn't have to explain why, but I will. Writers mess up from time to time. Sometimes they lose their spark altogether. Have you ever heard of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? George Lucas co-wrote the script, and it ended up being the worst received film in the franchise.
There's nothing new here; Keichi, Rena, Mion, and Shion have the same character arcs, except their personalities are stripped to outlines of their former selves. In terms of character development, do you remember Satoko's abusive uncle? Well, they gave him a redemption arc! Great work, guys. The only thing that distinguishes this as a sequel is Satoko's intervention. She injects various friendly faces with Hinamizawa Syndrome, the virus that causes psychosis. There's no deeper meaning for why the loveable cast of maniacs loses their grip on reality—wacky old Satoko pulls the strings. Water down themes from the original to act as set dressing; cycles of abuse, cultural preservation, evil government, harmful traditions, etcetera. The new theme is a shallow 'good versus bad' conflict. No nuance, Rika is the good guy because she wants to save everyone. Satoko is the big bad because she will kill anyone to keep Rika from escaping. Satoko turns from an abuse victim to faking getting abused to manipulate her friends. This sharp turn into foul territory makes me question the sincerity of the anti-child abuse messages in the original. Even with a stellar presentation, this would've still been an unengaging turd, but that's not good either.
The directing deserves its fair share of criticism too. Higurashi has always used tonal shifts to its advantage; half of the show is upbeat slice-of-life with family-friendly comedy. At the drop of a hat, it could turn sinister—Rena curses Keichi under her breath, then returns to her happy-go-lucky self. The reboots utilize this same technique to build tension, except WAY too much. It's cool to see Satoko go berserk after two whole seasons of her being the sane one. But we get it. She's bloodthirsty, evil, and manipulative. You don't need to beat us over the head with it every two seconds. At least Satoko's voice actress is trying, and that's all I'll say. I don't object to using violence in a horror anime. In Gou and Sotsu, I frequently wondered why the gore was there, just as I questioned why the rest of the show was there. Why use so much violence when Higurashi's strength was creating tension and shock without it? Sure, it has always had its fair share of violence, but they used it sparingly. Gou and Sotsu are filled to the brim with serial killers, stranglings, bloody knives, shootings, and immolations. In Gou, they censored it. Sotsu uncensored much of the carnage. I'd say it's better to watch it as a slasher thriller, but it gets trite quickly. You can only watch so many crazy people go on murderous rampages before it gets mind-numbingly banal.
I love Higurashi because no matter how many times I watch it, I notice new details. It foreshadows its twists; you can predict they're coming, but rewatching it will feel all the more rewarding. Sotsu and Gou are not like this. Their narratives are a means to get to shocking scenes. They never considered if the twists would linger with the audience. The most foreshadowing in both seasons is in the opening credits. Both seasons have dubstep theme songs that do not fit the show at all. The new art style doesn't work either. Sure, Studio Deen's adaptation left a lot to be desired, but it was an artistic representation of the mundane cute slice of life contrasted with violence for shock factor. They could've achieved the same effect with an art style similar to the visual novel remakes. Instead, they went with something generic. The use of visual effects, like CGI flames, was distractingly cheap.
Higurashi Sotsu could've been a two-hour movie—cut out the recaps, all that's left is Satoko screaming and people going crazy. It is a grossly mismarketed and unwatchable sequel. Unless you have seen every season of Higurashi (16+ hours) and read the Umineko no Naku Koro ni novels (110+ hours), do not bother watching these. The final arc of Gou set up an intriguing premise, but Sotsu never had a payoff. Even diehard When They Cry fans will be disappointed with the direction it takes. If you must see how it ends, start from episode 14 of Sotsu. It becomes Dragon Ball, equipped with neon color battles, super strength, and fighting that'd better suit a kids cartoon if you removed all the blood splatters.
Gou and Sotsu regurgitate as much of the imagery we expect from Higurashi as possible. It successfully drew the attention of long-time fans, only to waste our time on an absolutely meaningless sequel. The few effectively staged gory scares provide passing entertainment, but the rest is bland and tedious. The brief burst of spontaneous insanity in the final episode of Sotsu serves as the last gasp of air for this decaying, mutilated corpse of a franchise. Yet I doubt we've seen the last of When They Cry.
heydreamer09
This sequel broke my heart. The OG seasons remain one of my favourites to this date, but watching this sequel was a torture spread over a couple of months. Every week before the next episode aired, I was full of copium that "this is it, it will finally get good" until the show ended. The hundreds of fan theories I've read online were million times better than whatever the hell this was. The characters' actions didn't really make sense. There was no mystery or suspense, because you already knew who was the killer. At times, it was genuinely boring. If you're a fan of theseries, avoid this and continue in blissful ingorance.
Flomen
As I watched the final episode of this season, I felt I could relate to something one of the characters said: "I tire of this." -Eua (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu, episode 15) Going into Higurashi Gou, I decided to watch through the first three seasons made by Studio Deen (that being Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei). I'll write a review for Gou shortly after writing this one, but I will say, when I finished Higurashi Gou, I at least felt that there weresome very interesting ideas at play. I'm sorry to say that I felt the complete opposite as I watched through Sotsu.
First of all, the animation this season was less than subpar. Much of it was reused, and any of it that wasn't reused was fairly ugly and far too saturated to look at. Many animation choices were questionable as well, namely the incredulous amounts of blood during kill scenes. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, especially for action shows with shounen pacing, like Jojo, but here it's just a hindrance. Blood gets spattered to such a degree that rather than being grossed out, scared, or horrified by a scene, I end up laughing in disbelief. In other words, this anime no longer classifies as part of the "horror" genre in my book.
Second, this anime is just downright boring. In Gou, the first half of the season consisted of a "retelling" of the arcs that happened in the first season of the original Deen series, but with a good number of changes to create a new mystery. In Sotsu however, we actually have to sit through the same exact arcs AGAIN, but through a different character's perspective. Unfortunately, the amount of changes we see in these 13 long episodes could've been summed up in only 2 short episodes. Believe me when I say, sitting through these episodes is more tedious than sitting through Haruhi Suzumiya's "Endless Eight". And let me remind you that this season was only 15 episodes. If you want to watch this season, be prepared for 13 episodes of waiting for a change of pace. Furthermore, the payoff that you get from the last 2 episodes is miniscule in comparison to the conclusion of the original series.
The last two episodes, without spoiling anything, could be summed up pretty easily. If I could describe it in one sentence, it would be along the lines of, "Two children have a badly animated shounen battle while two other children fight over who's going to give up first". Figuring out which pair of children is which will be the hard part if you're watching this for the first time, but I promise you that it's one of the most boring conclusions I've ever seen for a long running series like Higurashi.
Anyway, after sitting through this dumpster fire, I can avidly say that it was a waste of my time. I think I'm going to give up on any future "When They Cry" adaptations and just start reading the VNs. I hear they're pretty good.
Kararagi
I loved the original Higurashi anime and VN, so I was extremely excited when they announced a new anime in the franchise. I didn't care if it was a remake of the original or a new story arc like Higurashi Outbreak. I would have even been fine with a lighthearted comedy spinoff similar to episodes 1 and 5 of Higurashi Rei. Instead what we got was a "sequel" that straight-up mocks the original story and performs a complete character assassination on many of its beloved characters. I'll give a spoiler warning here, but since this anime is so irredeemably bad that nobody should watch it, Idon't think it'll matter.
What baffles me is that Higurashi Sotsu points out its own story flaws through character dialogue. When Hanyuu cries, "Please stop! Why are you making Satoko do these awful things?", that is the exact thing that goes through the audience's mind while watching this show. Satoko is one of the most sympathetic characters from the original Higurashi. She's a victim of domestic abuse and bullying. Her brother has disappeared and she has panic attacks. But despite all that she puts on a brave face most of the time and plays with her friends like nothing's wrong. It's hard to make a character as selfless and mistreated as her the bad guy, but that's exactly what the idiots behind this anime decided to do. Meanwhile her uncle Teppei, the objectively most despicable character from the original gets a redemption arc that nobody asked for. It's sickening how they try to make us sympathize with a literal child abuser while making his victim the bad guy. Talk about tasteless and contrived.
Another thing that sucks about this show is how boring and repetitive it is. After you find out Satoko is the villain, which on its own is likely the single dumbest Shyamalan-esque plot twist I've seen in any media, there is no mystery or suspense. They just replay clips of Rika and her friends getting murdered over and over again that we already saw during the first season. Only this time it cuts to Satoko with an evil smile. Speaking of which, here's a fun drinking game: take a shot every time Satoko pretends to be sad or upset in front of the other characters, and then five seconds later flashing a psychotic smile to the camera. It gets really obnoxious really fast. We get it, she's the bad guy. Rubbing it in our faces doesn't make it any less dumb.
Really the only new information we get in this season is how exactly Satoko got access to a gun, the virus and the knowledge how to mess with Rika. But since it's still so hard to accept the level of stupidity required to make Satoko the villain, all of these scenes are just boring and meaningless. We cannot relate to her motivations at all, so watching her elaborate planning is just tedious.
I mentioned earlier how the characters themselves point out how stupid the story and character motivations are. The most insulting example of this comes in the last couple episodes where nothing happens except for Rika and Satoko fighting non-stop. Rika points out that it's crazy how Satoko's whole motivation behind killing her friends over and over again is basically that "she hates studying". And yeah, that's very much what it all boils down to. 39 episodes of senseless murder and betrayal, and it's all because Satoko didn't like studying and wanted to stop Rika from going into a prestigious school where Satoko herself couldn't keep up.
So yeah, Satoko wants to stop Rika from going to a different school and basically uses timelooping in order to bully her into staying in Hinamizawa. This is the main problem that sums up why nothing about this anime is even remotely enjoyable. The villain is a previously likable character who turned evil for the pettiest reason. How is it entertaining or interesting to watch a character kill her own friends she loved and cherished, just because she has attachment issues? Also, whatever happened to Satoko seeing Keiichi as her surrogate older brother? Or how about Shion as her protective older sister? Those relationships are barely even touched as Satoko is just uncharacteristically obsessed with Rika now. I get that they're best friends, but best friends don't treat each other this way.
Furthermore, it's also weird how Rika wants to leave Hinamizawa so bad. You'd think that she'd want to stay with her trusted friends who helped her defeat Takano. In the original series, Rika is constantly referring to worlds without Keiichi "hopeless", so it's out of character for her to just leave and forget about him.
Anyway, Satoko tries to justify her actions by pointing out that Rika didn't do enough to support her when she struggled at the prestigious school. Not only is this still a petty reason to hold a grudge, it's also objectively false. There were many moments when Rika offered help, but Satoko simply refused it and kept insisting that she'll always suck at studying. You'd think that Satoko would use her timelooping skills to overcome her educational obstacles instead of planning how to creatively murder her friends, but I digress.
And to be fair, Rika very uncharacteristically just forgot about Satoko soon enough and just started hanging out with her new snobby friends. That's more evidence of character-assassination on her part. She would never just leave her struggling friend alone that easily.
Speaking of leaving friends alone, it's weird how Keiichi, Rena and Mion get basically forgotten when Rika and Satoko went to the school. You'd think that they would stay in touch more after all they've been through together. But they're like "oh, you're going to a different school? Cool, I guess I'll see you around". No teary farewells or anything. And when the gang does reunite it doesn't have any kind of emotionally satisfying payoff. It's like "hey remember when our friendship and teamwork ended a 100-year timeloop of constant death? That was cool". All the relationships in this anime are so soulless.
The new Higurashi is not scary, interesting or even "so bad it's good". It's not a good mystery because the biggest twist is complete nonsense. It's not a good drama because the characters are awful for no good reason. It's not for newcomers, because it expects you to have seen the original. It's not for fans because it ruins previously lovable characters (namely Satoko and Rika), redeems the worst possible character (Teppei), and sidelines other fan favorites (Rena, Mion, Keiichi). It's annoying and frustrating to watch characters we've seen pull through impossible odds together being so cold to each other for no good reason. Avoid this terrible show at all costs.
Dunslax
This anime was just recaps from the previous season... which was already recycled material from the original higurashi. The plot is downright nonsensical and all the characters you loved in the original Higurashi are either irrelevant or have butchered characterization (remember Rika caring about her friends? the writers sure don't, she'd kill them all if it meant being with her gay lover Satoko). Oh, but it has an umineko reference at the end, wow! I guess ruining higurashi was worth it then. Jesus christ. Do not ever watch this. It's up there with Mayoiga as one of the worst anime I've ever watched. I pity the poorunaware souls that picked up Higurashi with this entry, because it also spoils the original, making that one too, unwatchable.
Sylenced1
I had the pleasure of watching the original higurashi when I was in my early twenties and the combination of the art style plus the story was an experience that goes far beyond these two recreation series. It makes me sad that anyone who gets into the higurashi storyline watches these two abominations prior to actually seeing what higurashi is really about. You don't get a sense of dread and terror from these remakes, despite them literally recreating every single bit from the original with slightly better art, if you could call it that.They also hardly explored the 2nd seasons Arc with Takano, whom wasthe main villain all along. The very reason Rika had to suffer so much, but Satako was somehow able to watch 100 years worth of her best friends suffering and we're supposed to pretend it was this evil "witch" Satako based on how they ended the series, not the real Satako, whom made those heartless decisions. I think the art style delivered in the original gave Higurashi its notoriety. The same studio that did Konosuba as far as I can recall, who also did the original Higurashi, did the series justice. I think they were a perfect fit for the original series. The saddest thing to me was watching the final episode look like a Naruto wannabe remake with Sasuke and Naruto punching each other until their feelings reached one another. We spent the entire series watching remakes of what we already knew for basically this episode alone, episode 15. I still cried at the end because I love these characters and everything that drew me to Higurashi in the first place. I really hated it when Satoko snapped her fingers as if to return to her original self because that in itself broke my heart. I don't understand why they took the direction they did with this story, why the main cast (Keichii, Mion, Rena, Shion) cut out of so much of this series just for such pointless recreation and melodrama. If you're watching the remakes for the first time maybe it makes sense to you, but for somebody who grew up on the original Higurashi story and fell in love with it, it's really hard to say anything positive about the finale of this series. I highly suggest everyone to to watch the original two series and get a real feel for what Higurashi No Naku Koro No is about.
lindencat
I watched Gou and Sotsu back to back. I enjoyed Gou, so I was excited to see where things would go in Sotsu. But wow, was I ever disappointed. This was not like a typical Higurashi series. It didn't evoke those same emotions and overall vibes of the first season. Even though most of Sotsu was a dumpster fire- like mess, I was hoping that by the final episode of Sotsu that things would get a bit better and that we would have a solid ending to this mediocre season. What I got instead was a bunch of unnecessary "but why tho" moments which I won'tdive into for the sake of spoilers.
Would I recommend that you watch this? No. If you're looking to get into the Higurashi series, just watch the first season and Kai and call it a day - those two are the best, and Kai ends off on a good note.
Infatuate
*This review marks a spoiler section and assumes you have watched the 2006 series, while also being clear enough for newcomers* Back at it once again with another review after years! This show must've been either really good or really terrible for this review to exist, wonder which one of those is it? is it?! Bad jokes aside, Higurashi Gou was entertaining, flawed but at least passable. This review is mostly addressed for its 2nd season: -Sotsu- the sequel that ultimately turns this entire franchise into a laughing stock full of nonsense that should never be considered canon. The 2006 version had the infamous Studio DEEN atthe helm, this one has Passione (Interspecies Reviewers). Amazing. For the most part they get the job done if we look past the weirdly revamped character designs and comically bad bloodbath splattering scenes. What's not acceptable is blatantly REUSING scenes from the first season that aired earlier this year. This happens constantly throughout Sotsu, and while I understand that not every studio can pull off a Kyoani's endless eight, being this cheap is never a good look for obvious reasons.
The voice actors are back for their respective roles and they pull them off perfectly even 15 years later. The OPs and EDs (for both seasons) are decent with the ED stills being particularly beautiful. No complaints on that front except for some minor foreshadowing.
Now, onto the real juicy part of the review. The characters, their development, the story and the overall reason for this sequel to exist.
Let it be known that the Higurashi franchise did not need a sequel. The original 2006 anime was adapted well enough and had a very adequate conclusion with a proper payoff at the end. Yes, the story was completely finished, an HD remake was not all that necessary (as originally advertised) much less a completely new sequel that disregards and trivializes the ordeal that the main cast had to endure in the original.
Yes, these whole 24+15 episodes were supposed to be just a remake but I guess that word has a difference meaning for Japan. What we got instead is a completely new sequel that spoils major plot points of the 2006 version by the very 2nd episode of Gou and not happy with that, promises to bridge Higurashi with Umineko, the other 'When They Cry' series. A very ambitious goal that even if misguiding and seemingly unnecessary at first, still managed to spark curiosity. Just how do they plan to do this? Will the finale be as good as the OG? Does Ryukishi07 (the series' creator, who also co-wrote the 2021 ver. script) still have it in him?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. The following section comprises most of my review and will include heavy spoilers for both the original, and the 2021 version.
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The 'When they Cry' series are visual novels. They come with 'Question' and 'Answer' arcs. This is evident in both 2006 and 2021 adaptions with their respective seasons: original / Kai for the former and Gou / Sotsu for the latter.
If we think about the original, we have a plot that starts as a nonsensical murder mystery and slowly develops into an amazing story by gradually delivering bits of information to the viewer and "answering" all the confusing parts soundly by the end of it. A story centered around an endless cycle of tragedy, mystery, and with a side of gore. Well fleshed characters, excellent villains and a nearly perfect conclusion.
For this 2021 version it's sadly not the same. It's a cheaply made attempt at a sequel that screams cash grab. The story is reduced to a torture porn gorefest with a one note altercation that could be easily resolved, and the way the mystery works is already obvious for old viewers while still proving unsatisfying and extremely confusing for new ones. It really begs the question, especially as you draw near the final episodes: Why does this exist? Not only did it not need to exist because, as previously mentioned, the original had a proper ending, but also because the entire reasoning for the resurgence of this old franchise boils down to one plot conflict:
Satoko hates studying.
In the original, it took everyone's strength to overcome the fate that Rika, the secret main character, was cursed with. In this 2021 version we throw that out of the window and once again return to the year of 1983 in the story. Back to the murders, torture and gore just because Satoko fucking hates studying.
In the original, we have a thrilling story of mystery, conflict of interests, legacy, friendship, some comedy, a bit of sci-fi and an overbearing eerie atmosphere surrounding the Hinamizawa village that will keep you guessing until the answers show themselves. Here, Satoko wants Rika for herself (no yuri undertones at least) and will sabotage, torture, kill everything and everyone, friend or foe, to achieve that.
That's it. The entire conclusion and epilogue of the 2006 story where Rika can finally go to a city academy to study is overturned because in this sequel Satoko (who also joined Rika in that academy, persuaded by her) couldn't keep up with her studies and grew jealous of Rika, while also somehow being physically unable to ask Rika for help. Yes, that's the main plot point, the crucial problem that caused the massacres to return to Hinamizawa. No conspiracies, no scientist pride, no secret organizations, no myths or nothing. Just good ol' little Satoko who felt slighted by her best friend, doing what she thinks is the best choice to bring that friend back: Torturing, gouging, mutilating her across several time repeats until Rika finally gets the message across. Not even her own group of friends were safe.
I don't want to start rambling but at this point things are so stupid that there should be nothing left to say to kick this show down even further, but there is a lot left still. A LOT.
So then, let's start with the overly abundant gore. In the original, violence only reached extreme levels when the plot called for it, in the climax of each of the multiple mini-arcs. Here, a lot of the mini-arcs aka time loops are compressed. While they would normally last 3 to 4 anime episodes, in some instances in Gou / Sotsu they're shortened to fit multiple different time loop conclusions in the span of ONE episode. This means that across one episode we see our lovable cast of main characters, including poor Rika (who in case you are a random reader, has the physical appearance of a 10 year old girl) violently beaten to death, stabbed, having her guts spilled, shot, drowned, etc. MULTIPLE TIMES for NO reason. This is why people say this is fucking torture porn. It's too much, it's senseless. It doesn't affect me but it just serves no purpose.
Understandably some arcs needed to be compacted because they only wanted to show how many more times Rika was willing to tolerate her harsh fate, but that is in itself a failure. The beauty of Higurashi was reaching the bloody climax in each arc and learning something in the process each time. A couple more details that allowed you to figure out the who's and why's. The fact that at some point, 2021 version arcs are mashed together and only her fateful end is shown means that there was NOTHING to show. There was NOTHING we could've learned as the viewer because everything was already known and the loop only had a symbolic purpose.
A new entity is also introduced, a plot device called Eua, a Goddess who shares a resemblance with a major Umineko character. She appeared, gave a teenager Satoko time looping powers and conveniently explained to her (and the audience) how everything worked. Satoko then proceeded to literally spend over a hundred years inspecting time fragments to learn every little thing about Rika in order to torture her better back at the village. Hanyuu happened to lose her powers for some reason and randomly reappears in the fragment space whenever the plot calls for it too.
The rest of the main cast that isn't Rika or Satoko become side characters. They really don't do anything. This is a Rika and Satoko anime (who also bear a striking resemblance to two major umineko characters).
What's left is a story devoid of mystery, full of senseless murders, a childish main villain and absurd superpowers.
"Wait... superpowers?" you may ask - "did you misspell something?"
No, I did not.
I never really asked myself if there were sharks in the river where the wataganashi takes place, but there are, and boy trust me that they have been JUMPED. On episode 14th all logic was forsaken and Rika / Satoko decided to fly in the sky while shooting each other with laser beams. These are regular elementary / middle schoolers. There are literally no superpowers they possess outside of endlessly returning to life in case they perish. So why the fuck are they flying in the sky in the real world and tossing fridges and junkyard waste at each other while Satoko screams at the top of her lungs "I HATE STUDYIIIIINNGGGGG"?
You can't make this up. This isn't even "it's so bad it's good". It's legit trash. It's one of the worst conclusions to a show I've ever seen.
Fast forward to a couple mins later, Rika is punching Satoko with all of her strength for at least 20 times (did not get knocked out) while shouting that she (Rika) will not give up on her (Satoko). They didn't really make up but kind of agreed to stay distant. Bitch, she killed you in cold blood for so many loops, is this the best you're going to come up with? You STILL want to bring her along to the academy and stay near her? She can kill you whenever she feels bored you better hire some bodyguards or something.
Of course, there's also Satoko in the middle of all of this. A lovable character equally chased by misfortune and tragedy in the original series reduced to a basic evil Yandere type bitch who no longer acts her age for this stupid sequel. No point delving deeper into this at all. They ruined her character and made her murder her best friend for a pathetic reason.
There are many more instances that have a severe lack of logic like:
- Satoko not using part of those 100 years to study or cheat in tests and learn all the answers to keep up with Rika, instead deciding to use that time to look for injectable drugs, guns, how to shoot a gun, creative ways to get others to kill Rika, etc.
- On the topic of injectable drugs (Lv.5 Hinamizawa syndrome), there's no way you can inject Mion while she's standing up and she won't notice it. Come on show, at least TRY to make sense.
- The very convenient arbitrary rules of: Rika not remembering who kills her in the loops (except when she eventually does), or Satoko being able to jump to the same time fragment with Rika ONLY if Rika dies first in the previous fragment (Satoko never died first apparently despite brawling with Rika on episode 14/15 for over 15+ times).
- Satoko getting sliced in the neck by the sacred sword and not dying right then and there. It wasn't even referenced anymore in the subsequent battles. It didn't even matter.
- 'Evil' Satoko personality taking over and then peacing out at the end to leave original Satoko in her default body.
- Anything related to Eua / Featherine.
- Takano being reduced to a very minimal character, with her character conflict reduced to a non-factor even though Hanyuu is no longer in the mix.
and of course last but not least, Satoko never taking the chance to have a serious conversation with Rika at the academy and TALK like a proper human about the dumb problems she had going on. Nah, that's cringe. Let's just repeatedly kill her and her friends instead.
End of spoilers
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All in all, this show failed catastrophically in most aspects. The only thing that is free of criticism is the VA work and most of the OPs / EDs. This will forever be seen as a joke series that failed to bridge Higurashi with Umineko and while it was nice to see the old crew animated again, I wouldn't say it was at all worth it.
Let Higurashi rest in peace already. Ryukishi07 you HACK.
Si1verR0se
So let me start with most obvious point episodes that were relevant\connected to the ending: Gou Satokowashi till Satoko got to Saiguden, Sotsu's 15 after Hanyu defeated Eua. EVERYTHING ELSE was completely pointless(maybe except for explanation about memory leak, that explains why Teppei and Rina are suddenly good). That's all, everything else was irrelevant and pointless. Remember Eua saying things like "You'll end up in the world with no Rika", "Everyone might get the memories and you'll be fucked"(which is even was hinted by Ryukishi a few times)? Remember Satoko killing her "good" side(that some people claimed to be "Just a metaphor for her killing her ownregrets")? Remember that Takano ratted out Tokyo?
Well, forget it all. All what Eua said was just for "Up the stakes" reason, it wasn't Chehov's gun. Satoko didn't get any consequences, she's just forgiven. There was nothing about her missing that "good side". Takano freely walking(just like Okonogi), she's not in jail(mass murdering? What is this?), she's not dead(she betrayed\failed Tokyo, remind you).
Satoko ended up completely forgiven for all bullshit she's done. Yeah, definitely a good choice to wrap 37(24) episodes' events in just 2 episodes with the most shounen cliche that's possible. Doesn't feel rushed at all. She didn't get any punishment or consequences for all what she's done, even more she got rewarded(Satoshi woken up and Teppei is good now). Does it mean that the whole message of SotsuGou is "Killing and torturing your friends is okay, being dick is okay and you even got your happiness. But fighting back and wanting to live happily is NOT okay, because you'll get punished"? Dunno
Remember Satoshi and Shion? Yeah lol, me neither, they were irrelevant and got as less screentime as possible, despite them being the dearest\crucial persons to Satoko. Shion was cutted out just because Rika and Satoko would never go to St. Lucia if she was around(remember that she was studying there? Also if you think it's not that bad type of place, just check Utsutsukowashi manga. Or read Umineko and check how it was for Ange). They never bothered explaining why there's so little Shion, but it's the only explanation I could come up with. Because you know, Ryukishi is never got full idea from the start, so he often evading giving explanation. Like with "Why doesn't Hanyu helped Rika?"(yeah, Hanyu is bad\selfish, or Hanyu just wanted Rika to be more independent) but there's still "Why Rika never tried to follow TomiTakano herself?"(she could, and she'll likely get succeded on one of her tries, or just understood everything after few deaths) which he NEVER explained. There were no hints towards it in VN. Not to mention that he's got easily affected by a lot of ideas, and he was planning to really add aliems in Tsumihoroboshi afaik. Also most of you should known how controversial Umineko got after episode 4 iirc. I'm really scared of what Ciconia will turn into
Original "good" ending was butchered just for a few vague references to Umineko\Ciconia and then finished it by Narutotherapy that's overly stupid. Was "PERFECT" ending worth it? No way. "Perfect is the enemy of good". While the original ending was kinda weird in some way, it wasn't that stupid. Hanyu is gone, Takano still got punishment(it was implied at least) as well as Okonogi(at least he was arrested), and there was hope for Satoshi to wake up eventually. It was more of a bittersweet type of ending(in some ways Miotsukushi is better).
Here we got "yeah forget all that hope and friendship just for us to stick it in your throat but worse and more bluntly". Like for real, THIS is the ending you came up with? At least not make it that rushed, you spent a whole 13 episodes for a fucking recaps(mostly. At best it was 60%, at worst around 80%) but you don't give a fuck about ending. They were out of ideas and clearly wasn't aiming for atmosphere, tension and drama. Yeah, I remember Kawaguchi saying "We turned it into b-grade splatter where the more gore the funnier" but them having purpose for doing it in such a shitty way doesn't excuse them doing it in shitty way
The ending was mostly anticlimatic. Satoshi have woken up... What are you waiting for, that's all there's no interaction, no Shion or Satoko even learning about it. Everyone is happy even bad guys. Oh and here another Umineko\Ciconia reference with no relevance to plot.
Oh, and Featherine got defeated by Hanyu because of FRIENDSHIP POWER!!!! lmao, you couldn't do Featherine more dirty than this. Imagine being META creature that unparalleled in everything, yet you got defeated by "weak fake" because of friendship power. What a disgrace. Though some Umifans could use "Aragorn trousers" type of argument. Like "We never were told in red that Hanyu is weaker, so her winning against Eua totally make sense, despite Eua just freely doing whatever the fuck she wants for the whole Sotsu and Hanyu doing nothing for the whole SotsuGou"
The only good parts were seiyus(VAs), OST and finally good action(last 2 eps of Sotsu) after very cringe and stupid action in any previous episodes. Yeah it was very NOT Higurashi like because of all Naruto\DBZ style, but it was good action nonetheless. Though I must say, that if you forgot that it's Higurashi, the last 2 episodes are very good shounen lol
Feels very anti Higurashi. It's just ode to abusive relationship, praising evil acts as well as "you should forgive EVERYONE, and if you're sorry you won't get ANY punishment". Yeah, good job R07\Passione.
I would NEVER check anything that Ryukishi have worked on after this(I still like OG Higurashi\Umineko. He was good writer at some point, but now... not so sure)
Oh how could I forget, Higurashi is now a cash cow. We have PUBG collab of all things, waiting for collab with Rainbow six, Genshin and FGO(Higurashi is also a gacha game now. Though even gacha has better story than SotsuGou). What a greedy assholes
Marinate1016
After the massive cliffhanger that Higurashi Gou left off on, fans were incredibly anxious to get things resolved in Sotsu. Sadly, Sotsu took 3 months to wrap up something that should have been an extra 4 episodes at most. While I did really like a lot of Sotsu like Satoko’s perspective, so much of it could have been condensed. 70 percent of the content we got during this season was just rehashed from Gou. If you can suffer through the reused footage, Higu Sotsu has some of the best moments of the entire series in my opinion. Episodes 12 and 15 are probably my twofavourite episodes of the entire franchise. Watching Satoko’s gradual descent into darkness and the lengths she’s willing to go to in order to break Rika’s spirit was simultaneously horrifying, yet amazing. I enjoyed seeing Eua and the divine aspects of the Higu series front and centre for once as well. The first few seasons focus heavily on the humans and the virus portion of the lore, but Sotsu gives a lot of time to the mystical and magical elements of Higurashi lore.
I think Sotsu has everything that makes Higurashi great. Mystery, dread, pain, magic, murderous lolis, etc., but it just feels inconsistent. There’s episodes that have mainly new content(last 3) and are a blast to watch, and then there’s ones that feel like a chore to sit through because I’ve already seen everything. Then there's episodes like the finale which kind of feel like a slap in the face to OG Higu fans because of the majority of time and money going to a loli fist fight and other plot conveniences. The final episode feels like it just came out of nowhere and left myself and others disappointed.
I honestly struggle to understand why they made a full 15 episode season of this instead of just making Gou longer and or just doing what MagiReco season 2 did and making a really short second season. The only explanation I can come up with is BD sales, for which higher episode counts equate to more volumes and profits. It looks like the production committee were having just as hard a time as the fans with saying goodbye to the beloved horror series. Sadly, they didn't leave it on the best note.
Because of the repetitiveness of everything, it’s really hard for me to rate Higu Sotsu. On one hand, I did really enjoy watching it and when we got new content it was on par with or better than anything we’d seen before, the DBZ style fight with Satoko and Rika in episode 15 will forever be immortalised. It just happened far too little and far too late in the 15 episodes for me to really rate Sotsu as high as I’d like to. For better or worse, the show does feel like a final conclusion to Higurashi and if you're a fan of the series you should watch it. I could see other Higurashi else-world stories being created later on whether in anime or VN form, but I’d like to think this concludes Rika, Keichi, Shion and crew’s long journey.
Higurashi Sotsu gets 7 out of 10.
Vallants
I doubt anyone filters to recent reviews but i'm writing this just in case. I know MAL and it's marketing makes it SEEM like a reboot to the Higurashi anime but to keep this short THIS IS NOT A REBOOT. It is a continuation of the higurashi Visual Novel and some post content from there and also a prequel to the Umineko visual novel that comes after Higurashi in the When They Cry series. So in short do NOT watch SotsuGou if you have not completed the Higurashi visual novel and imo if you have not read the Umineko visual novel as that helps withunderstanding these shows.
viper2020
I have finished the series and therefore am updating my original review. This review will contain spoilers for both the original Higurashi anime and Higurashi Gou/Sotsu. If you haven't seen the original Higurashi anime, I highly recommend it if you like mysteries. It's very well written and it kept me on my toes. I can't, in good faith, recommend Gou or Sotsu. Now that I've finished the show, I can safely say that while it didn't get markedly worse from episodes 1-13, it hasn't gotten any better, either. There is so much reused animation that this entire show feels like a clipshow, and not a very goodone. The pacing here is God awful, shocking because the original Higurashi had wonderful pacing and Gou, at the very least, had decent pacing. Everything moves incredibly slowly and we're shown scenes we've already seen throughout Gou. If I had to guess, I'd say an entire third of the animation in this show has been reused. That's to say nothing about the story, which is just "here's this event, but there's also a scene here that adds almost nothing." Want to see how Keiichi got to L5 in Gou? Too bad, here's a scene after where it ended showing the police tackle him - oh, and Satoko does more evil shit or something. Want to see how Mion is injected with the syringe? Go fuck yourself! It happened when she and Satoko went for a drink or something. Want to see how badly Satoko treated Rena? Oh wait, they actually did a pretty good job with that one - more on that later.
I've seen a lot of people respond to the complaint that there's a lot of reused animation with "well, the original Higurashi did the same thing." I disagree with this. Firstly, the original Higurashi was made on a tight budget, which is why it looks so rough around the edges. Secondly, the original Higurashi revealed genuinely important secrets throughout the second season. It wasn't obvious that Mion was actually Shion, or that Keiichi had hallucinated Mion and Rena trying to kill him.
Speaking of Shion, she's in this season for about 10 seconds. I'm not exaggerating, she's here for one scene. Forget about Satoshi. Oh wait, Satoshi makes a little appearance at the end, just to say fuck you for thinking that we'll do anything with his character.
Going back to Mion, why don't we destroy one of the things that made her completely and utterly unique? We have an opportunity to give Satoko a roadblock, let's waste it! I'm sure you already know where this is going.
Mion was incredibly unique in the original series. She's the only one in the friend group who is immune to the deadly syndrome that plagued the original series. While the anime cut a lot of her character out, in the original visual novel, she served as the "rock" of the group, helping inspire Rika to keep pushing on along with Keiichi. Sotsu turned her into a yandere, almost exactly the same as Shion - just replace Satoshi with Keiichi. It changes almost the entire formula of the show. It took her a little bit longer, but she succumbed to the disease nonetheless, which has never happened in the Higurashi universe. I can't explain how disappointing this is.
Going back to Satoko, there is little to nothing stopping her. She is a God, or rather a demon. There's a scene where she finds out that Rika has to die before her or else it won't be the "same" Rika, but that does basically nothing.
...And they gave Satoko a way out. No no, you see, that wasn't the REAL Satoko, it's a demon/split personality that was created by this deity when the power was given to her. This makes little to no sense; the original Higurashi was about redemption, how people can grow and get better. On top of that, most of the actions in the original series, including Takano's, were due to the syndrome. This show explicitly states that Satoko was cured of Hinamizawa syndrome, along with the rest of the village - except for Satoshi, who's in a coma until the end of the series.
"Evil" Satoko has got to be one of the least likable villains in anime. Even Takano was somehow more likable. She's callous and cruel and comes off as horrifically abusive to Rika. Also, we get it, you don't need to show her eyes turning red every single time - she's evil.
Going back to the parts that I enjoyed, it was nice to see the first chapter from Rena's perspective. They did a really good job showing her descent into madness. Obviously, there was no twist, we saw Rena stab Keiichi - the clock meant nothing, as had originally been theorized by a lot of the fanbase. We also saw Satoko inject Rena with the disease and laugh when Rena started to go insane. It serves only to make me dislike Satoko even more, but apparently people like to see the "crazy" girl do evil things. I do love the scenes where Rena interacts with Rina, it's not as gory as Gou was and it felt a lot more like the original Higurashi. Rena's story also made sense and was believable, and the animation being recycled wasn't as obvious at this point.
If I had to rank the stories so far, it would be Rena's > Ooishi's > Mion's. Rena's story was great, Ooishi's story was kind of interesting, Mion's was horrible.
Just like Shion, Satoko's feelings towards Rika seem to have been put on the backburner. I wasn't a fan of this, the "psycho lover" story has been done to death and it feels incredibly harmful to make the only lesbian character a psychopathic killer and abuser. With all that being said, it comes off as queerbating in a medium that has more than enough of it.
There are some other good parts, including learning about Eua and seeing a bit more Hanyuu. However, it's not worth the obnoxious Satoko story and definitely not worth the reused footage. Also, this is an incredibly minor complaint, but Passione decided to add a weird fanservice scene involving Hanyuu - in one of the only dramatic moments that has been believable so far. It's also weird seeing it in Higurashi of all places, a show that has (thankfully) avoided fanservice thus far, aside from a widely disliked OVA.
Overall, while Sotsu is slightly more enjoyable than Gou, there is far too much reused footage, and the weaknesses from Gou are even more pronounced. I would not recommend watching this show unless you're desperate to finish Higurashi as a whole - though I'm slightly convinced that there's another season worth of reused footage in the works.
Sotsu feels like a bad fanfiction. The ending shows that very clearly. The original ending to Higurashi was, unfortunately, firmly stuck in the "friendship overpowers all!" dynamic; however, because the characters were so well written, it overcame the odds and concluded with a satisfying final episode. None of the characters in Sotsu matter at all aside from Rika, Satoko, Hanyuu (who's barely there) and Eua (who mostly laughs maniacally.) They tried to do the "friendship overpowers all" ending again... and ended up justifying abuse. Rika and Satoko decide "well, we don't need to be together all the time! Let's be friends." Friends, after being tortured, mentally and physically.
Mind you, Rika grew up, originally. She made new friends. She got slightly more distant from Satoko. She became an average high schooler. And Satoko responded by trying to mentally torture her "friend" so that she would stay in a village that Satoko knew Rika would hate. This "friendship" ending is such bullshit because Satoko, at this point, does not deserve the kinship of any of the people she's continuously tortured. There wasn't even a redemption arc trying to justify her, it's just "well, both sides were bad, so Rika deserved to be tortured I guess." Even with Teppei, his "redemption arc" comes down to "Satoko killed him and made him think it's a dream, so it's okay now." Gou and Sotsu seem to have a real problem showing that abusers are wrong in their actions, something the original Higurashi didn't struggle with.
Also, remember all the queer undertones from Gou? How a lot of the fanbase insisted that it wasn't queerbating, and that Satoko's romantic love for Rika would play a role in the story? Nope, they're just really really good friends. Satoko just doesn't want to lose her friend. How much clearer can we make it that they're just FRIENDS? Never mind all the implications that we've thrown out there from the beginning, Satoko harbors no romantic feelings towards Rika and vice versa. Satoko went on a killing spree because she didn't want to lose her totally platonic friend.
Overall, this show has been incredibly disappointing, and every criticism I've had has always been met with "No, Higurashi wouldn't do that, there's gonna be an episode where they explain it/it's a fake out." (aside from Satoko's character being drastically different, which I supposedly imagined and somehow was unable to see the "clear signs" that didn't exist.) And yet, we're at the end. They haven't fixed anything, and the story is just as unsatisfying at it has been from the beginning.
I would rate this a 3 out of 10. That score is for Gou as well as Sotsu. They're basically the same trainwreck.
Leon_Trotsky_
Watching When the Cicadas cry series has been an absolute blast. From the very first season to Gou I found incredible joy, shock, horror, and thrilling mystery around every corner of this delightful anime series, so much so I can confidently say that up until watching this season this series stands in my top 3 anime favourites. However, after finishing Gou I was faced with one more season left, “when the cicadas cry Satou”, a season that has been recognized as an absolute flop by the fanbase with bad reviews after bad reviews to boot. To say the least, I was very hesitant to watchthis season, after all, I've experienced the painful disappointment of falling in love with a spectacular anime only for it to be ruined in its later seasons, making me wish I simply never watched its downfall. But, as wise men say, “gots to see it through my boi”, so with expecting the absolute worst I began Satou, waiting for it to fumble. I waited, and waited, episode after episode for the anime to fall on its face, even going into the final episode I was waiting. But to my surprise, the downturn never came, and I remained invested and quite happy with the story right until the credits. This leaves me with quite an unpopular opinion, Satou wasn't as bad as people say. Moreover, it was actually quite good.
I know, quite a hot take.
So why, why does the fanbase hate this season with a burning passion as if it were the most appalling thing ever aired on TV? To be honest, I'm not sure if I can answer that in its entirety but I will try to give my own interpretation on the areas of supposed failure. I feel this might serve this review better as delving too deep might lead to spoilers which I absolutely want to enjoy, When the cicadas cry is better enjoyed knowing absolutely nothing about it beforehand in my opinion.
First off, while it'll be difficult not to spoil, I quite enjoyed the new mystery that was put forward in Gou and solved by Satou. I felt the anime handled it well and the outcome of it felt fulfilling to the story. I do understand complaints about the anime reusing scenes from Gou however this wasn't really the case. In early arcs we’d see repeated scenes when they were being viewed by another character, giving the same scene from another perspective helped lay out what was actually going on in the mysteries Gou put forward. Later arcs however we’d see a lot more repeated scenes however I felt they were necessary as they were used to lay out a timeline of exactly when the events were happening, as the later arcs show events that happen connected, but completely outside of what we saw in Gou. While slightly irritating I will admit it helped me figure out each point of deception and lies corresponding with the events we saw in Gou.
Secondly, the action and final battle, yes there is a final battle in this anime which ill admit was very odd at first and a little out of place but still quite good and almost nostalgic as characters fight through the different settings and events we saw in all seasons of the anime as we reach our conclusion. Plus I thought the witch battle was just cool.
Lastly was the ending, which many didn't like, however, I believed it very well wrapped up the series as a whole very comfortably and even leads some speculation and opening for theories as the show chooses to end not in 1987, which was the farthest Rika ever managed to get to so far, but Rika departing out into the world in 1986, conveniently a few months before the story of “When the Seagulls cry” begins. I thought this was a very nice nod to what would end up being the next events to play out in the universe of when they cry, one which mind you involves a small Japanese girl who looks identical to Rika which a near-identical name, however, I don't wish to get too much into theories despite this animes greatness in wanting viewers to theorize about it. In basic terms, I felt the ending really tied the entire franchise together which was nice to see.
Moreover, the decent into insanity plotline this season went for was highly enjoyable, leading to many tense moments which give that good old When the Cicadas Cry feel. The conflict was handled well, the plot was explained in a way that made sense, so for me, there wasn't much to complain about.
All in all, I loved When the cIcadas cry from beginning to end, this includes Satou. Maybe my love of the new seasons comes from me being new to this fanbase, only beginning this series a few months ago, so for me, I have not had time to idealize the show and have it become a nostalgic memory like many long time fans. Perhaps if I was in the same boat as others and watched the new seasons almost a decade after watching the original id hate it as much as the rest, but who knows.
My only complaint about Satou is teasing a scene where we would see Satoshi reunite with Satoko, or maybe even Shion and then not follow through with it. Felt like a kick in the dick to me and was heavily disappointing.
So my verdict is that Satou isn't bad, it's great, however, I do understand if long-time fans were left disappointed after a build-up of a decade worth of nostalgia.
Thank you Ryuukishi07 for making such a fantastic rollercoaster of a story, one which I will always hold as a favourite.
