Greetings
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, translated poorly upon licensing to "When they cry", is my favorite animes horror/thriller/murder mystery anime. And I am here to review it.
Synopsis
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni the anime is based on a visual novel by the same name.
The main character, Keiichi Maebara, moves into a new village, Hinamizawa. He befriends 4 girls in the local school. Ahead of the Watanagashi (Cotton) Festival, he discovers that strange events have been occurring annually where one of the residents would disappear while the other is found murdered.
What I Liked About The Anime
While other visual novels pick one story arc when turned into anime, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni goes with the collective of the stories in the show divided into arcs. Using a Neon Genesis Evangelion-ish way of resetting the world by the end of each arc.
Each arc is set within a time loop. As a person who went to this after finishing School Days, it was a nice and refreshing change at the time. It makes the anime freeing in terms of watching it for the details in each arc to find out who is going to snap, however, it is also free in terms of you being able to skip an arc if you like.
The animation of this anime isn't the best. On paper, that shouldn't work when it switches between comedy and horror, yet it does. A smiling face, when it's being humorous, makes you laugh, while when it's horror, the same exaggerations applied can actually haunt your dreams.
The animation is also unapologetic in terms of its gore aspects. This positive comes with a warning label as you may not enjoy it. But, for me personally, I always appreciate it when art is unapologetic.
The atmosphere and soundtrack. The atmosphere is a comedy-turned-horror, it disarms you with humor before giving you a spook. The soundtrack complements that, the main theme simply titled "Main Theme" creates a great mixture of sadness and dread. As you will listen to it below.
The characters are all very well-written. They all have a mixture of having a reason to snap but also having a reason to stay brave and contained. With them, you could see things going either way. That is a very rare thing in terms of character writing.
The terminology. I know this is not something unique to this anime or any work of motion pictures and story-telling but I really like the terms and backstories for everything in the anime. The cotton festival quickly becomes its own character.
The curse of Oyashiro-sama and the Hinamizawa Syndrome creates a great contrast of how the same action, or series of actions, can be perceived depending on one's perspective.
Finally, the anime has an amazing faulty-narrators approach. You don't often know whether a character is telling an objective truth or a subjective one. That puts the mindset of the characters in the sense of confusion or paranoia, complimenting the whole aspect of mystery.
What I Didn't Like About The Anime
It's not the anime, but rather season 1. Essentially, it is a big question arc. Yes, a lot of things are answered but it is still confusing at the end without a reward for sitting through 24 episodes of paranoia, death, and gore.
At certain points, it does seem like the creators are just seeking to shock you with gore. I commended their unapologetic approach, but at a certain point you might end up hitting a rather desensitized place.
The English adaptation is horrible on all cylinders. Like, they really got everything horribly. The dub is unbearable. Even adapting the title was horrible with a "When they cry" title that really doesn't say anything about the show.
Finally, the resolution just seems to be there. It creates an anti-climatic ending in a way. Like, it's not bad, just not worth sitting through. Especially since that resolution doesn't even happen this season but rather in season 2. For a show that managed to keep my attention for over 40 episodes, I didn't know how rewarding that was.
My Rating: 7.5/10
I have a weird relationship with this anime. It is my subjective favorite because of the way it captures me with just the right aesthetics that work with me in almost a guilty pleasure level. However, as an objective opinion, I would rate it lower than I would Elfen Lied and Another which both make better stories and conclusions.
