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littlejonny100's Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Tv Review

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni tv Review

Keiichi Maebara moves to a small village named Hinamizawa and joins a little club for playing fun games with his new friends at school: Rena, Mion, Satoko, and Rika. But as the days pass Keiichi starts to suspect that there is something unusual at Hinamizawa. As he learns more about the Watanagashi, a festival in Hinamizawa, strange things started to happen around him... Murders, disappearances, and the deadly wrath of Oyashiro-sama!

Synopsis: ShiXion

Story & Characters

Firstly this anime is for a mature audience and not for the weak of heart, also before you watch it throw away all you think you know about relative time. In the beginning you have your everyday high school girls, cutesy and fun one minute, oddly psychotic and strangely psychic the next. A town in the midst of a strange conspiracy or a town caught in the grip of a horrible curse. 'Higurashi no Naku Koro ni' is a peculiar mix between the investigative genre and a gripping horror/suspense while containing an even balance of the elements dominant to each.

The character development is interesting in a way that your not exactly sure who's in the right and who's in the wrong. Chances are you'll also find your opinions of each character changing constantly. Honestly each characters personality is too diverse and changing to really talk about, but that's part of the point.

There are two options while you watch this that will allow you to have any idea of what is actually occurring; try to think faster than the dialogue or sit back and let the story eventually explain itself. One thing that does help the story back itself up is the existence of identical twins. Without them the story would be dead.

At first it seems like it may be repeating the same time frame over and over with a different sequence of events in the middle and....it essentially is, except the different sequence of events is actually just a different perspective. What they try to make suspenseful falls short of the mark and often become boring in the beginning. I will add however that the story becomes much more engrossing towards the end for the simple reason that it starts to make sense. As the story loop repeats, what was suspense becomes answers. You may think the story falls short by the end, but remember this is only the introductory series and another one is to follow. Still it has a negative effect on the scoring.

Rating: 7

Art

The art is, on the whole, disappointing. Big heads, odd proportions (people/objects vs environment) and these proportions also have a tendency to change spontaneously. There is also a consistency of making characters eyes excessively (and unrealistically) large to help create the image of going insane. Although this works at first, over time the same excessive techniques become redundant and irritating.

Like any anime there are nicely animated scenes and the boring old scenery. The only scenes in which the art is nearly always respectable are those involving an amount of blood and gore, of course glorifying this highlights a major part of the atmosphere of the anime.

Rating: 6

Sound

The opening theme is appropriate in that it sets a realistic mood for what the anime is really about, also helping start the atmosphere of tension and mystery. The ending theme is sung in bad engrish with half the sentences just making sense, regardless it's still a nice laid back song that helps you to digest the content of the episode you just witnessed.

Although the higurashi (or cicada) are a fairly generic noise they consistently please with their chirping and play a very important part in the background ambience that is 'higurashi no naku koro ni', but that should be obvious right?

Even for an anime and even for a psycho, the 'psychotic' laugh is laid on pretty think and borders annoying. An odd aspect of sound is that it doesn't seem to travel very well, that is you can have a conversation about someone from a meter away and they'll have no idea your talking about them, even if you repeat their name over and over within the conversation. The voice acting is commendable with each character having a very distinct personality portrayed through their voice (exception of the twins), however it becomes slightly confusing as the voices change with certain mood swings. In regards to background music, there isn't a great emphasis on it and it plays a mild part in the anime. It acts only as background to help create atmosphere, which naturally is highly important, however it never envelops a scene.

Rating: 7

Presentation

I don't believe it's fair to rate this anime yet, which is why I think presentation should compensate the dismal scores given above. Although elements fall short, in the end the anime does exactly what it's intended to do. It provides a very complex view of an oddly disturbed town, including a distorted presentation of the time frames involved. It also presents itself as very gruelling without creating the perception of blood for the sake of blood. Everything is there because it's supposed to be and there are few things thrown in for the sake of satisfying fans.

There is a constant 2 sided approach to create an air of mystery and tension, in the beginning of the series this is really quite frustrating however by the end it becomes acceptable as you finally start to receive answers. It's unfortunate but lots of potential is lost in the manner that the anime will constantly exaggerate everything to the point that, once repeated, it becomes annoying (and I wonder how many times you hear the phrase "shrine gods curse" throughout). As said again and again, the anime becomes much better as it progresses, however I'll also point out this does not mean you'll like it by the end if you hated the beginning, it's just as possible you'll be turned off the whole way through. Regardless of what your final opinion is, this anime must be respected for it's unique approach and successful outcome.

Providing half a story is unbeneficial for reviewing an anime such as this however more satisfying answers for the many questions are to be provided in "Higorashi no Naku Koro ni Kai" (currently airing as of July 2007).

Rating: 9

Final Verdict

7.5000 (good)

Reviewed by littlejonny100, Aug 02, 2007

Comments

  1. ridersofthestorm Aug 03, 2007

    i like this series. though I'm really confused because they're dead in the last episode and then they're alive again.. O_o how's that possible?.. :sweat:

  2. vatican92 Aug 11, 2007

    Quote by ridersofthestormi like this series. though I'm really confused because they're dead in the last episode and then they're alive again.. O_o how's that possible?.. :sweat:

    It's like those novels with more than one conclusion and with different routes where it starts all over again (like a reset button) as one version of the story ends

    Personally I thought it was too much........ unreasonable violence while leaving a vague image in mind why it happened.......
    Haven't heard the ending so cannot respond yet I personally like the higurashi noise

    Also, I thought it was rather strange where the character had an angry expression but a calm voice......... very freaky @_@

    They really do have multiple personality...... as if they have different egos.........

    The story does seem repetitive and I have yet to finish the series so I cannot say if the plot improves as it approaches towards the end of the series

    Also agree on the disproportionate figures of the characters but if you see it that way, most animes characters (especially chibi) have enormous eyes :sweat:

    Personally, I like the old, country scenery TTmTT

    The opening was rather bizzare..... but it kinda fit the theme of the anime although maybe a scarier, horror movie type of song might have been better

    One thing I would like to highlight is that there is that there seems to be too much comedy in a weird psychologic anime.... well but that's my personal opinion

    Overall, I thought it was a thorough and well covered review on all points

  3. Fanatik007 Jul 12, 2009

    thanks for great review

  4. SchRita Aug 24, 2009

    Thanks for the review!

  5. mea0113 Oct 01, 2009

    I loved this one.
    I honestly loved the art style but I was rather confused by the jumping around myself. If you really pay close enough attention to it and watch it all the way through in 2 or 3 days like I did, it makes more and more sense. I also recommend repeating. If you enjoyed it as much as I did. I liked the cute/psycho path thing they had going on there A LOT. The gore was just enough for my taste for an animation, I personally prefer gore in movies. But what kept me in to it was the "wanting to solve the mystery" feeling I got. It almost gave me the same satisfaction from watching Law&Order and it's spin offs but better. I think I can say they almost tastefully did the kill/death scenes. Rarely showing a smashed in face but defining the splatters of blood during the action is somewhat tasteful. I will say the constant stills of a corps can be creepy and sends a chill down my spine.

    In my opinion I have a feeling the virus/syringe is some kind of chemical that makes you hallucinate and go mad. I don't think you actually have maggots, that is just the hallucinations. I also think the the curse and all the deaths that deal with them are true to some degree. Someone is giving these people something to make them go mad like that. But its hard for me to stray from the thought that there really is demon blood running through the veins of the people of Hinamizawa. Which can explain the sudden mood swings of those who aren't blatantly exposed to this mystery chemical. As for the story line going in some sort of loop... The very last episode Rika mentions to Keiichi that he remembered killing Renna and Mihon in the first chapter. And that is was all a game. This puzzled me. Then I began to think, she knew lots of stuff before it even happened. She knew she was going to die and she knew of all the deaths (mentioned in the killing time chapter) Even at one point she was about to prick Shion with the syringe. I also believe that somewhere, not sure excatly which episode, that someone mentions That Rika is the reincarnation of Oyashiro. Rika plays a bigger part in all of this and I'm very very interested to find out more.

    Sadly They are not releasing the rest in the USA from what I've heard. I'm one of those rares who prefer it in English rather than reading... However, beggers can't be choosers.

  6. SchRita Oct 31, 2009

    Thanks for the review!

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