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Plot Synopsis

Maebara Keiichi moved to a small village named Hinamizawa and joined 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 Keiichi 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!

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 (above average)

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 (average)

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 (above average)

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 (very good)

Final Verdict

7.50 (good)

Reviewed by littlejonny100, 1y 5wk ago