Anime: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Critic’s Log - Earthdate: May 11. 2013. Review #46 : Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Notice: This anime is called “When They Cry - Higurashi” in the U.S. but Higurashi’s full title is translated “When the Cicadas Cry”, so I’ll just call it “Higurashi no naku Koro Ni” or “Higurashi”

Before I begin, I just want to tell you that I just boarded up all the exits of my home because of a pants-pissing terrifying note that I received. care to find out what it says? If so, here goes.

“Hello Mr. Cowboy or whatever you go by... Three or four years ago, you watched all of Higurashi but never saw Higurashi: Kai. Well... I was wondering if you would take the time to watch Higurashi: Kai and then review both shows simultaneously. If you want, you can review Rei and the other entries of Higurashi that came after Kai, but that’s up to you. But, if you don’t review the Higurashi series, we will come after you and you don’t wanna know what happens next. There will be painful and deadly consequences if you don’t honor our request.”

- Unknown

Yeah, if I value my life, I’d better just get this over with. by the way, I really did watch the first Higurashi series years ago but I neglected Higurashi: Kai because I was confused while watching the first series and didn’t bother to watch it until now. Also, the whole thing with the note was a joke. What’s not a joke is what I will be talking about unless you are a psychopath, get ready to cry in fear with Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni!

On one hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Keichi Maebara comes to the peaceful rural village of Hinamizawa. While he is there, he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the club they formed, Keiichi and the gang plays all sorts of activities ranging from card and board games to hide-and-seek. But just as Keiichi was beginning to be assimilated in the simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa. As Keiichi dives deeper into the mystery, he finds that his new found friends may not be all what they seem to be. No one is safe.

To be technical, this is a Studio Deen production and the animation is not really much to write home about. The animation is passable and the character designs could’ve looked better. What does make the animation work...well, I’ll explain that in a moment. The animation is ok, but it’s noticable that Studio Deen took a lot of shortcuts with this show, it’s not too cheaply made, but it’s not too impressive either.

The music is actually on an interesting note. The music for Higurashi is composed by Kenji Kawai, How is this interesting? Well, if you saw the Ghost in the Shell movie... He composed that movie and the music in that movie was pretty good. So how does he fare with Higurashi? Well...I can’t say the soundtrack to Higurashi is somewhat memorable in some places but he does make the music eerie for the show to fit in with the eerie atmosphere. The opening is pretty good and it is fits the mood of the series, I also love the closing theme in this show as well, it's that kind of closing I don't skip after I watch an episode. The song is stuck to my head essentially, but it's a really good closing theme.

When it comes to voice acting. The Japanese cast is pretty good but there’s not a whole lot of famous seiyus in the bunch but they play their roles just fine. Then of course, there’s the dub. It’s...It’s... *sigh* Well... All I can say is that the dub does not have an all-star cast which is fine if the voice cast tried their best at it. I cannot say that the dub was good, in fact I hate the dub to this show. For one, the dub sounds like an english-speaking imitation of the original Japanese intent and a lot of voices did not match or sound right. I think it would be best to stick with the Japanese cast on this one because the dub does not meet expectations and it is a disappointment.

In terms of characters and oh boy, this is going to be a doozy to talk about. The characters are okay in this show. The reason I say they are “Okay” rather than fantastic or amazing is because the development in characters isn’t as fleshed out, but guess what. The character writing isn’t too bad at all. Keichi is fine in this show, it’s the girls that steal the show and I kid you not, If you get scared easily, these girls will scare the shit out of you when you least expect it.



When it comes to story, the story is one big complete mindfrag. My apologies for some slight spoilers but after the 4th episode of the show ends, the story resets back to the beginning .This show is split into story arcs in a non-linear storyline. Some might say that this is kind of clever, some will be confused by it. What I can say is that it gives Higurashi a great feeling of mystery of why it is assembled this way, There will be questions unanswered in the first Higurashi season because these arcs in the first season are known as the “Question Arcs” while Higurashi: Kai has the “Answer Arcs”. Some of the moments in all the arcs are worth seeing especially if Horror is your thing, but there are some slow pacing moments obviously present in all of these arcs.

The directing by Chiaki Kon is interesting and the writing composition by Toshifumi Kawase is pretty good. What really makes Higurashi work is the mysteries that are present in the show, some animation effects to make things eerie and terrifying, and of course...There are those moments of insane laughter and pants pissing horror which is often referred to as the “Higurashi Moments”

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni was available by Geneon until they went under, it was available by Funimation until the license expired. Unfortunately, this anime is out of print. The Higurashi video games were never released stateside unless I somehow misread that. The Higurashi Manga is available by Yen Press. The Higurashi Light Novels have not been released stateside and The Live-Action Higurashi movies have not been released stateside as well.

With all that said, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni is an anime that may not be for everybody but it is for anyone that is into the Horror genre. Even with it’s non-linear plot, it has the insane frightening horror, it may not have the best animation in the world and it may not have the best character development. It’s still (if not) one of the scariest anime out there.

I give Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni a 7 out of 10. it is GOOD!

Feel free to leave a comment, and enjoy your life before it’s cut short! He he he he, Ha ha ha ha, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is one of the most watched animes of all time (based on statistics using a few anime list related sites), and it shows why. Higurashi is one of the most exciting yet confusing animes I have ever watched. Based on the popular Visual Novel series with the same name by 07th Expansion, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni brings you possibly one of the best, if not THE best horror anime series ever.

Art & Animation: This is probably my only real complaint about Higurashi. It's not bad, but at times the animation can look a little bit off. But compared to the artwork of the game, I can't really complain... The thing is that sometimes it can look a little bit stale and you can see that this anime wasn't made on that big of a budget. It can feel like some details are missing or that the surrounding area is a little bit empty at times (but what do I expect from a village, really?). You practically never see anyone around the city unless it's a major event going on in the city or when the main characters are in school. Another thing that is actually both a good thing aswell as a bad thing is the colouring. The thing is that most of the time the colours are very grayish or are practically missing a tint completely, whilst this is of course a bad thing since it doesn't bring a lot of life in this world it is undeniably also one of the strong points as it brings much more atmosphere to the village and the horror feeling. And the gore is always enjoyable to watch!

Sound: Higurashi has without a doubt one of the best soundtracks ever. It ranges from cherry slice-of-life music to really creepy and scary tunes that sends chills down your spine more times than you can count. Just try to listen to its soundtrack on a rainy, cold, dark night. It will creep the life out of you. The opening was sung by Shimamiya Eiko and is called- like the anime itself, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and it brings this show to life. The first time you hear it you will think "Holy shit. My mind is ready for this". It truly is one of the best openings to any anime I have heard and it continues to amaze me everytime I listen to it. The ending was sung by Ooshima Hiroyuki and its name is Why, or Why Not. Altough not as amazing as the intro is still fits the setting of Higurashi very well. Even though the engrish is horrible...

Story: The story of Higurashi is told using many different stories (even told by someone else's point of view) and is about Maebara Keiichi who moves to a village after an incident. In the village he meets 5 girls and befriends them like a typical harem anime. Those girls names are Furude Rika, Ryuugu Rena, Hojo Satoko and the twins Sonozaki Mion and Shion. While everything seems nice and dandy in the beginning it starts to develop into a really mysterious anime filled with, well, mysteries! Disappearances, deaths, epidemics and other things plague the village of Hinamizawa. Now this is where the anime goes confusing on quite the level I've never experienced before. First the story will go this way and after a major event has happend, the time will go back to somewhere where the anime has been before. And this seems to be one of the reasons why a lot of folks drop this anime. But these stories are all part of a puzzle much bigger than what this season will tell you (See Kai for the answer to this puzzle). The best story in Higurashi is by far the first one and is in my opinion one of the best arcs in any anime ever. It was a clear perfect 10 and drags you into the anime like nothing else before it. However, this is also where disappointment awaits, no story after this one was even close to being as suspensful as the first one, with some of them being only good and never great. But that first arc will never be bad no matter what, in fact I've rewatched those episodes 2-3 times.

Character: The characters are presented very well with Keiichi being a really good protagonist, Rena being really creepy, Mion being very entertaining, Shion being crazy, Rika being mysterious and Satoko being... :brickwall:. The other side characters are also very entertaining (favourite being Irie Kyousuke) but some gets worse as the show progress. I'm looking at you Ooishi Kuraudo. But something I thought was a little annoying was that there was barely any townfolk shown. As I said before, most people are seen in the school. This season does not really have a real villain but instead uses one or two villains for each arc. The main villain is saved for Kai.

Value: This show has very high replay value. With the first arc being as good as it is and all of the gore it has, makes Higurashi a very fine show to rewatch that I would say is even better after you've finished the second season, Kai. Altough the later arcs are not as good and well written as the first one, they too are very entertaining in some way or another.

Enjoyment: It's as simple as this: if you love gore and horror, this anime is a must! But the confusing story can be more than a little annoying the first time watching this.

All in all, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is a great anime that should not be missed! Don't pass this one up no matter what.

Thanks for reading, take care and see ya next time!

ANIME EVOLUTION SERIES
Full list of the review series can be found on this page, 3rd post from bottom:
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?uid=251338&show=userpage&do=blog&blogid=29009&page=0

Notice: This is a review for the whole franchise as I won’t bother making slight alterations for the same story.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

SPECIFICS

FINAL THOUGHTS

And now for some excused scorings.

The only reason I watched this series was because of the good rating this series got and a few awards this show received. And honestly, I wanted a change of pace for anime… lately I had been watching pure romance or action or ecchi anime series, so watching something I’d normally wouldn’t watch was good for me (horror genre)… well, that is what I had initially thought.

For those reading this review and have not started watching the series or barely started watching it and are somewhat confused, because I was, let me explain how this anime series is broken down. This anime series is broken down into arcs (mini-series). Basically, you have 4-5 episodes related to each other and then there is a conclusion and then a new plot is brought up. Think of it as “Law and Order” the TV show (this is not anime), every week there is a new episode, however with each new episode, that episode does not continue from the previous episode plot, instead it is a brand new one. Now arcs are exactly this, the only difference is that instead of 1 episode, it’s more like 4-5 episodes. It might seem silly for me to explain it, but if this can bring some light to how the structure of this anime series is, then it was worth me mentioning.

Now with the anime structure identified, I will break down each arc.

1) Spirited Away by the Demon Chapter (Rating for this arc - 10/10)
When I first saw this, I was like “wow, this is some scary stuff”. When I saw this first arc, I wasn’t aware that this anime series was broken down into arcs, so I expected this plot to carry through 20+ episodes. This first arc has it all… suspense, thrills, horror, blood, a little comedy (only at the very beginning), murders and the paranoia factor.

The thing that got me with this arc were the girls. They start out all cute and innocent, then out of nowhere those same cute girls change their face to an evil murderous look that says “I’m gonna cut open your stomach and rip out your guts”, I do not exaggerate with this, that look is deadly, it truly catches you off guard for the first time, and sends chills down your spine.

The first arc is about Keiichi who just moved to a very low populated town and starts going to a new school. Since it’s a low populated town, there is only 1 school for all grades; this is where he meets up with all the girls that are younger and older than him. One day, Keiichi and a few of his friends are walking down the road and he asks a question about a dumpster area that was supposed to be a dam. The girls tell him a clean version story of what happened in that area, which he later learns that murders took place in that area. From this point, the girls start stalking Keiichi with those evil murderous looks until… well, you’re gonna have to watch it to figure that out ^_-

2) Cotton Drifting Chapter (Rating for this arc – 6/10)
By this point, 5 episodes into this anime series, you should be used to those evil murderous looks (at least I was) and because I got use to those looks, this arc lost its edge or wow factor in my opinion. The reason I say those looks lost its pop is because they do that look very often to the point where you yawn when they do it or don’t care about it.

Not only that, but the overall plot for this arc was meh. It is nothing compared to the first arc. The first 2 episodes of this arc are all happy and comedic. However, the last 2 episode which are supposed to be scary were not, nor did they make me think. When this arc was finished, I was glad that this anime series was structured based on arcs, because a completely different arc would begin.

The second arc is focused around a festival, however 4 people choose to skip the festival and break into a shrine. However, the people that went into the shrine… unexpected events happen to them.

3) Curse Killing Chapter (Rating for this arc – 4/10)
If you thought the second arc sucked, this third arc is even lamer. First of all, those evil murderous looks are gone or they hardly happen in this arc, it’s like the writers or animators realized they were overusing that look and decided to lay low with the look.

Another reason why I did not like this arc is because normally it’s the girls that are the aggressors, but this time it’s Keiichi being the aggressor but totally sucks at it. He keeps doing a psycho look but it is over used too much that makes you think “stop”, yet it keeps coming. Keiichi loses his cool way too easily and gets angry, which makes you think “wow dude, you need meds”. Also, whenever Keiichi gave us his psycho look (too many times), the camera always had to zoom up to his eyeball and move in ultra slow motion showing us his eyeball from different angles (yippe). I wouldn’t have cared if this was done every now and then, however this camera action is done almost every time he does his psycho look which is too much in this arc.

The third arc is about one of his little friends having an abusive uncle and he tries to fix the problem, his way.

4) The Time Wasting Chapter (Rating for this arc – 5/10)
By this point, the first arc is becoming a distant memory because to this point it is by far the best arc. Nothing really exciting happens in this arc. In fact, most of the main characters are not used in the entirety of this arc. The only interesting events that happen in this arc are that some events that happened in the previous arcs get mentioned in this 4th arc, so the connection of arcs are starting to appear.

The fourth arc is about a police officer in Tokyo coming to the low populated town/village to do some investigation and that’s about it.

5) The Detective Chapter (Rating for this arc – 7/10)
Being the second to last arc of the 1st season, this arc connects all the other arcs together. All the holes in the previous arcs that might make you say “huh, I wonder why this happened or I wonder how this happened but from a different perspective”.

This arc begins before Keiichi is introduced. The plot for this arc is focused around Shion (green haired girl) and how she falls for a boy (Satoshi). However, after some events, Satoshi disappears and to this point it is not clear what happened to him. Shion was madly in love with Satoshi and starts killing/torturing villagers to get information on what happened to Satoshi. Eventually, Keiichi is introduced about 2 or 3 episodes into this arc. But by this point, it’s nothing new, because this arc is the same as the other arcs; it just fills in the holes left by the other arcs. Basically, the first few arcs were through Keiichi’s perspective and this one is through Shion’s perspective.

Since this is the longest arc so far, there were some annoyances that I did not like in this arc.
a) Shion is torturing a subject, but the subject is talking casually as the torture is being performed. It’s like the subject was thinking “yeah, I’m getting tortured to death, but let me not show pain and talk casually like nothing is happening”, I mean come on… that scene lost all credibility.
b) Towards the end of this arc I was so sick and tired of Shion, always doing that evil laughter. I mean by the end it got so bad that you could have said to her “2+2=4” and she would laugh her ass off. Sorry, but to me this laughter was heavily overused and got very annoying fast. I am very glad this arc is over because of this annoyance.

6) The Atonement Chapter (Rating for this arc – 7/10)
This is the final arc for the 1st season. Now that I have watched the complete 1st season, I can see what the writers were trying to accomplish. They were trying to give mysterious through multiple perspectives and by that I mean by different main characters. This arc was focused around Rena accompanied with happy episodes then mystery/horror.

The final arc as mentioned deals with Rena and starts off focusing on her and her parents, and how her parents are going through a divorce. In order not to give too much away in this arc… there is a murder (isn’t there always), but everyone is involved… what I mean is that there is a murder which all the friends need to keep a secret about. However, slowly Rena starts going psycho and, and, and… gotta watch!

Information

Animation
Very basic. There is a lot of blood and gore in this series and that is portrayed well, but if you wanted to see breath taking scenery and awe dropping animation for characters, then look elsewhere.

Sound
Mediocre! To be blunt, there is none. Take out the OP/ED, there is absolutely zero music or soundtrack throughout the anime series.

Conclusion
When I first saw this series I thought this was the scariest and thrilling horror anime series that I have watched in years. I truly believe the first arc was that impactful on me… like I mentioned before, those evil murderous looks got me completely off guard during that first arc. Unfortunately, I watched the rest of the anime series and was not satisfied. I guess in a way I kept comparing all the other arcs to the first arc and none of those arcs got close in quality or impact like the first one did.

The more I watched this anime series, the more irritated and fed up I was getting with this series. I would like to mention that I did watch the entire series, so please don’t assume I gave up on it because I didn’t. I would like to state that all the arcs except for the last arc were on par with each other (plot wise), however the last arc completely did it for me in terms of completely giving up with this series, because the last arc started to mention about aliens/dimensional worlds. For me this was too much and considering this was the last arc, it left me with a bad aftertaste for this anime.

Even though this was an up and down anime series for me, I think eventually I will watch the 2nd season, but I’m gonna watch some other anime series before I do, to kinda rinse my mind of this bad aftertaste. By the way, I heard that the 2nd season would clear up some unanswered issues from the 1st season, but to me, it seemed like there weren’t any unsolved questions out there. It seemed as if everything was solved. Only mystery I could think about was Satoshi and his disappearance, but oh well.

Verdict
Even though this was somewhat ok for me personally, I would still recommend this anime series, because it’s one of those unique shows that make you think. Not to mention that first arc is completely out of this world and those evil murderous looks completely get you.

"Oh snappies." This simple phrase ran through my head repeatedly throughout the course of watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The reason: I found myself experiencing such excited moments that I didn't think could possibly be thrust upon me in such a successive manner. Higurashi is composed of six story arcs within the town of Hinamizawa, a place that seems serene enough at first, but it soon becomes clear that this town holds a secret, dark enough to bring people beyond the ends of their wits just to hide or discover what it all means. Each of these six arcs has a sort of gentle beginning, and yet escalates (each and every time) into a climax that appears to be absolute madness. I love it.

Originally created by Seventh Expansion (a doujin circle, with member Ryukishi07 in particular attributed as the original creator) and directed by Kon Chiaki (Junjou Romantica, Nodame Cantabile: Paris-Hen), Higurashi tugs and tickles the dark, carnal parts of the inner beast found within the human animal. This beast, I was often shocked to find out throughout the course of this series, is all too willing to cheer on the madness that ensues throughout these six story arcs. This is thanks to an effective use of animation in certain key areas, excellent voice acting, a plot that continues to drive into deeper and darker depths, and a cast of characters that descend into absolute insanity.

The animation, done by Studio DEEN (GetBackers, Jigoku Shoujo), is generally not the greatest. The character designs are all, in their basic forms, cute, and hair colours are all over the place (green, blue, blonde, red, etc.) The animation quality occasionally dips, and there are many times when the shapes of characters, or their legs, just plain looks funny. There's some slapstick humour that gets displayed through the use of the usual slapstick animations (chibi characters, funny faces, and so forth), and while this seriously threw me off in the first episode, I soon realized that this was all just a deception tactic, designed to create the illusion that everything is perfectly normal in the lands of Hinamizawa.

The animation has, however, one very strong aspect to it that adds significantly to the series' quality as a whole: when someone's going nuts, they seriously look demented. There's a hefty amount of insanity going on within the characters, so this effect gets a decent amount of screen time. When a character's going nuts, you can tell by the crazed look in their eyes and the twisted grimace tainting their facial features; when a character is deathly afraid, you can tell by the horrified look in their eyes, spreading across their face. For me, this made a lot of the downsides much less important—these crazy animations really added to the sickening atmosphere of the show.

The music is in some ways just there. Both the OP and ED are what one could call good songs, but I didn't care for them in the least bit, so I won't go into much detail here—I just wanted to hurry up and get to the next scene of the anime itself, without wasting any time on the OP nor ED. While with some shows I find myself just relaxing and enjoying the OPs and EDs, especially if they're good, the pacing of this show made me skip them without a second thought (which is, of course, good in regards to this series as a whole). The background music keeps up with the pace of the show, which is constantly flowing magnificently from serene and playful to dark and horrific. None of the tracks wowed me, and none of them stood out as crappy—they performed their function as background music effectively, in this regard.

The voice acting, however, truly is great. Maebara Keiichi, voiced by Hoshi Souichiro (wow... let's see, Aiba Yuuki of Infinite Ryvius, Ryu Soma of Argento Soma, Kusanagi Kei of Onegai Teacher), is incredible. The range of emotion that his voice portrays depending on what his character is feeling, be it joy or despair or rage, epitomizes the intense array of characteristics the seiyuu of Higurashi must exhibit. Ryuuguu Rena, voiced by Nakahara Mai (Midori of Midori no Hibi, Mai of Mai-HiME), and Sonozaki Mion, voiced by Yukino Satsuki (Milly of Trigun, Chidori of Full Metal Panic), also shine alongside Maebara Keiichi. The pure feeling behind the voices found in this series can really get to you at times, and make you empathize with the characters, even if they've already descended into a paranoid, murderous rage.

And that brings us to the story. Oh snappies, indeed. I of course don't want to ruin the story, however I must point out something rather important: they are all variations of the same story. What this means, exactly, I leave for the individual viewer to find out. Nonetheless, I'll point out that there's a certain cohesiveness that builds up with each successive arc, and as such there's an appropriate level of overall plot development that is constantly moving forward, preventing the story from becoming redundant. The story weaves, intertwines, confuses, and brings to light such revelations that oft made me smile in awe as my mind orgasmed upon realizing what sheer cleverness was being crafted before my eyes. The climaxes of each story, my oh my were they climaxes. Some of the occurrences that take place are extremely satisfying, and I would but love to explain in fine detail—but that would ruin for you my favourite part of this series: discovering the madness.

I initially had some complaints about the story, and wondered how some of it could possibly ever end up making sense, but then the plot actually managed to take what seemed like holes and filled them up with fitting details. The story was most definitely the strongest force behind the enjoyable experience that is Higurashi.

The characters, too, had a strong role in keeping the story moving forward. Maebara Keiichi, Ryuuguu Rena, and Sonozaki Mion stand out the most, and are the older of the five main characters. Furude Rika and Houjou Satoko, the younger children, also play significant roles. The role that each character plays is never easy to pin down, even if you might think so at first. The way each arc develops and intertwines with the rest ends up giving each character more and more depth, forming and breaking bonds between them all that left me loving and despising each and every one of them. I found myself rooting for one, and then rooting for the same one's demise the very next episode—and I absolutely loved this aspect of it, as it fits in so perfectly with the way the story develops.

The side characters serve to move the story forward through their interaction with the main characters, acting appropriately as pawns. While some develop a bit, such as Takano Miyo (the nurse), as a whole they are just there to act and react according to how the main characters are playing their respective parts—this is okay, because the series already has five main characters to begin with.

I highly value this show for its ability to make me feel things I don't normally feel when I watch a show (or a movie, or anything for that matter). I found myself getting quite invested in the characters and their situations, cheering them on or wanting them to die depending on how things progressed. Few things have made me actually feel (and thus, care) so much about what happens—but Higurashi successfully managed to captivate me and drag me along its rollercoaster story arcs. I rarely say nor feel this, but I would absolutely love to watch this again and share it with friends, because the way everything ties together is awesome, and I'm sure I missed many clever subtleties due to the nature of the story progression. Keep in mind that this series contains violence and murder—it is designed for a mature audience.

As if it wasn't completely obvious... I enjoyed this series tremendously. I can't say much more at this point that wouldn't be absolutely redundant, and I feel as though I've already explained enough as to why I loved watching this series so much: the character insanity and story progression were simply beautiful and horrendous all at once in this delightful cacophony of madness.

Animation:[br] I quite liked the style it was animated. Its not filled with with 3D-Animation but the characters are most likely too bright coloured.[br][br]Sound:[br] The opening song was really really good. I am still thinking about downloading/buying the opening song if its available. The ending was not as impressive as the opening but still well made.[br][br] Character- and background-sound of the episodes itself were quite well chosen. Especially at the horror scenes which shocked me a few times.[br][br]Story:[br] Oh my god! This story is far one of the best I've ever heard about. Well, it is quite confusing if do not watch it until the end and I think most people will stop at the third chapter (Curse Killing Chapter) because the story itself will repeat and nobody knows why if you did not play the game.[br] For those people:[br] Watch the sequel! Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai http://animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=4894[br][br]Characters:[br] Well, as said before, they were quite bright coloured and thats the only thing I do not like about them. Everyone is very important for the sequel and this story. The group of 5(Keiichi, Reina, Mion, Satoko and Rika) who were playing games most of the time were really funny to watch.[br][br]Last but not least (total statement):[br][br]To call everything together, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is a nice anime which takes time to understand but does not give away any fun or excitement. If you watched almost half of the episodes, you should not stop to watch because everything will be cleared until the series is over. Have fun watching =)[br]