Danpmss said:Holy crap, just as fucked up as the leaks shown it to be...
I was expecting all that was coming because I got spoilered, but I was still impressed by the brutality displayed in here (nothing on Nekodamashi level just yet, but still, they only censored the fingernail ripping lol).
Tatariakashi next.
Cool episode, I'll expand my thoughts on it later (in this same comment).
EDIT:
Starting with Mion:
So, HS Mion is an interesting thing. She doesn't take Oryou's word for granted any longer, which was a sign of mutual trust in them to just believe in each other no matter what. Back in Meakashi, it was the sole reason she told Shion Satoshi wasn't Onikakushi'd by the Sonozaki, which was basically her words only, nothing to back it up. We eventually get to know that Oryou truly never lied, but in this case their mutual trust will crumble the moment she gets distrustful from what important people around her says or are implied to have done (which is what the virus does, RIP granny).
She WILL hyperbolize her natural reactions to psychotic, paranoic, even dellusional levels, much like the rest of the cast, and honestly it's all the reason to be distrusful from Oryou for her overall, she knows her family is up to shady business and admits so multiple times, but she usually trusts her word as her sucessor in terms of her dedicated responsibility, and her word is usually all she ever get (and was exactly what she got in Meakashi, her word on "how the Sonozakis are not involved").
Which in turn get us to what we are going for in here. Mion going after not only her household seemingly conspiratory goal, but also everyone from the main families connected to her character plot point, which is a fun change of pace and basically Watanagashi played completely straight, instead of having Shion going nuts lol
As for Rika's position in that regard, well, talk about terrible timing for her to act weird around the person Mion is obsessing with protecting atm lol, not even Satoko expected her to make her disappear Higanbana style (oooof, those are fucked flashbacks). Loved how even with the virus she never loses her good sense completely, it's very reminiscent of K1's own battle against his mental state whenever he is HS'd. Shion and Rena are much more objective with their killing instinct and calculated actions instead, few times actually triggering such humane reactions like the other two when it comes to their friend's well being (to be fair, Rena is a an emotional mess in general, the poor thing would react badly to things even if she wasn't HS'd).
As for Satoko:
When I saw the leaks, I was a bit worried on how the scene would be handled at first. Luckily, it was a badass villain moment instead. She just completely dominates the situation with this arc's infected person, and straights torture a completely psychotic Mion into saying that Rika was done for in a mad rage to trigger a reaction.... which she failed and gets killed right after LOL, that was a really good scene for this ep.
As for the episode on itself:
Honestly, we didn't really need the K1 scene trying to breakout in the narrative (in terms of chronology, which is how they are revisiting stuff here), but whatever, it was short lived. This entire episode felt like five minutes tbh, the pacing was incredibly fast in covering everything it really needed, they didn't really waste time in anything else, which I kinda was expecting (also they are still putting essential info within the narrative like Shion's fingernail torture and such, I guess they are still trying to make this standalone in an overview still, which is kind of a nice touch, but personally I think this complements more to the OG anime experience as an expansion with stuff not adapted form the VN than being a good standalone).
The sound directing was superb yet again, the animation is still a notch better presented (specially in terms of shading and color tonality choice for the presentation) than most of Gou's, like the previous eps honestly, and overall, this was a pretty fun and brutal revisit to this plot (blazing fast too, all things considered, I thought it would be padded a bit more than what it was with the recap scenes for context).
I was a tad bit disappointed with Oniakashi missing some infos I wanted clarified for the aftermatch, but this wasn't the case in here luckily. This was the better revisit so far, I'm looking forward to Tatariakashi. Sounds like THE arc that will change most things in this. going forward.
Sotsu so far is very entertaining, like Higurashi usually tries to be at its core, in Ryukishi's own words in Matsuribayashi:
Ryukishi07 said:
In the end, what was this all for?
If I were to put the answer to that question in one word, it would be "entertainment".
It's not important if you were able to answer the riddles.
After all, if you enjoyed yourself, you won.
Higurashi keeps being the entertaining thrilling fun with silly stuff in between it always was intended to be. I would tone down the blood a bit though, but alas, that was also ADMITEDLY put in there for the fun so.... I guess I'll just not take it the anime too realistically, he also is always quick to point out Higurashi is not like reality at all anyway (and the VN wasn't even as hyper-gruesome despite the raw descriptions) lol
But won't stop me from nitpicking every week about how much blood there is! Anyway, waiting for Satoko's character arc to get addressed better at last.
4/5
yep, the blood is as excessive as before. As someone who pays attention to details, it bothered me and still is but of course, I won't hate it just because of that. It's more, annoying than something to hate the whole thing for.