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Remember when a new Higurashi Anime was announced and advertised through PVs, CMs, and visuals, which looks pretty much a remake. Surprised it isn't, classic Ryukishi07 trolling his audience.

Higurashi Naku Koro ni Gou is certainly a sequel as it presents the arcs in a similar structure that parallels with the earlier arcs from the original Higurashi. This could work as entry Higurashi for new watchers, but the problem is they showed supernatural powers or scenes earlier on, as opposed to Original Higurashi, which was only revealed later. Watching or reading earlier arcs of Higurashi, we're supposed to think as a mystery horror. But since supernatural ... powers were revealed earlier in Higurashi Gou, people will think through supernatural and real perspectives to deduce what is going on. The ending arc of this new Higurashi pretty much gives us the background of what is going on, why Rika is repeating the loops almost the same as her experiences back in the original Higurashi, even if she did something to prevent the tragedies. So if you feel like your not getting something new, bear with it and go watch it till the ending arc, there's something new there. I like the Higurashi series, so I hope this new entry to the Higurashi series will be worthwhile.

The studio working with this new Higurashi is studio Passione, which is known for animating ecchi shows like High School DxD Hero and Interspecies Ishuzoku Reviewers. Akio Watanabe did the character designs. He is known for the Monogatari and Grisaia series character designs. For me, I'm not used to its too moe design and shiny palette to the characters of Higurashi anime. The lighting is a hit and miss. Mostly a miss, when they do a dark scene. When it's dark, it's certainly dark, you can barely see, which to me is not a problem back in the original Higurashi anime.

The iconic Cicadas sounds are still present, it gives me a nostalgic feeling. As opposed to the original Higurashi or the prequel, Higurashi Gou has less of an eerie atmosphere and is more lenient to Slice of Life. It's not a bad thing, but if you're expecting more of a tense feeling similar to the Original Higurashi, you'll only get enough to shiver. The OP and ED are good in their way, they are upbeat but still gives a tense feeling, compare to Original Higurashi OP and ED, which are mellow and eerie.

Higurashi Naku Koro ni is one of those prime examples of anime that is successful horror anime done right. It could frighten you or at least give you a suspense feeling. Hopefully, the sequel will give us satisfying answer arcs and be as a successful piece of entertainment as its prequel.

A little story on how Sword Art Online started. Reki Kawahara written SAO in Fall 2001 to participate in the 9th Dengeki Novel Prize, but he exceeded the page limit. According to him, he had no idea or will to trim it down, so he end up forfeiting and instead published it online. This manuscript he wanted to use to take part on the competition is the very known first arc "Aincrad arc", a death game story that take place in a floating castle inside a Virtual World, because of continues support from readers he wrote the sequels arcs and spinoffs. SAO was later published ... officially into Light Novel around 2008 then adapted into anime on 2012, at the right time it exploded in popularity, with varying receptions to its fan, haters and critics. As well as at that time, the boom of isekai from light novels had begun. The author's wish to take part into a light novel competition was now unexpectedly adapted into anime continuously with new seasons and other media as well.

Minor spoilers for first episode.


Currently, here we are with the longest arc of SAO, started on Fall 2018 and span with almost 50 episodes, "Alicization arc" is animated completely. Alicization arc mostly sets in a Simulated Reality called "Underworld" created by Rath for the purpose of creating a True general-purpose Artificial Intelligence, where the characters are not NPCs but actual people copied from real world people's soul using the most advanced technology of SAO, the Soul TransLator. The first part of this arc "Human Realm sub-arc" is about Kirito and Eugeo on quest to reach the central city Centoria, with different goals, Eugeo is to save Alice, while Kirito is to find out how and why he was in sent to Underworld. Consequently, in the real world, while Asuna and Rath Staffs are waiting for Kirito's recovery and observing the state of Underworld, their facility Ocean Turtle is infiltrated by a Foreign Terrorists group. This lead to unfortunate events, with Kirito being comatose worsely, character deaths and the start of "Rath's Final Load test" or in Underworlders viewpoint, it is the start of war between Human Realm and the Dark Territory. This last season is part of the "War of Underworld sub-arc", the second part of Alicization arc, that covers the later 4 volumes, spanning with 24 Episodes. It started at were the "War of Underworld 1st Part" left off, with the Reinforcements coming from Real World, Asuna, along with the human army and a temporary truce to the Dark Territory had now a glint of hope. They can now fight back to the overwhelming number of the Red Knight Army, or so they thought, as a certain demon from the past takes the stage, and wants to settle the score with the SAO survivors, such as Kirito and Asuna. Meanwhile, Alice was captured by Vecta flying on his dragon to exit through the World End Alter, Bercouli, along with the 3 integrity knights dragon, continues to chase him. The adaptation is pretty faithful with slight alteration to join the elements from the movie Ordinal Scale. But because of most scenes lack explicit context, it will not be understood well by most viewers. Unless the viewer, perceives the scene using the past similar phenomenon or scenario that happen in previous season, as reference for its explanation or context, this is mostly the "Incarnation scenarios" in the anime. There are also overdid scene which got controversial receptions, which is to begin with, already questionable in the Light Novel, and just like on the first part of Alicization, this seasons controversial scene was adapted worse. But even though it did have those scenes, the anime did deliver heartfelt or emotional scenes, character moments, high production action battles and the storyline wrapped up well for this arc. The story elements that matter at start of this arc and from the other previous arcs were still used for this arc, such as the old characters coming back for this arc like the friends of Kirito and other players from other VR worlds; there is also old game/system mechanics at work such as the account-conversion system which made possible by The Seed program package, the common program used by all VRs in SAO.

The Alicization arc until this last seasons arc is still directed by Manobu Ono, not a well known director, but has made quite experience with the popular very detailed scifi Light Novel, The Magic of Irregular High School. Did he do a better job at adapting the whole Alicization arc up to this point, instead of Tomohiko Ito who directed season 1-2 and the movie? My answer is not really, at most it's presentable, some directions being questionable leading to varying receptions. But thankfully, he did some good scenes that got a well reception like character interactions and relationships either among the main or supporting characters; and the most notable in SAO, of course the action scenes. But that is because of his other notable well-known great talent staffs such as Yoshihiro Kanno, Kentaro Waki, and Kajiura Yuki. They had produced high production values for this arc specifically in this second part of the War of Underworld. Yoshihiro Kanno is the SAO's main animator of major action battles, he came back for this arc's second part, after not animating the major battle scenes back in Alicization Part 1 Human Realm sub-arc. He did a great job, putting rough and weight on major action scenes, such as the most notable, Bercoulli vs Vecta fight. The Director of Photography(DoP) Kentaro Waki, known for being the DoP of God Eater and Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, made the final animated product refined. Blending the background and subjects with amazing visual effects. They produced the major action scenes captivating. Major action scenes indeed is sakugafest, although most of them lack the explicit context for it to understand. Also, we continuously have the notable great talent composer Kajiura Yuki, who's well-known for Ufotable Fate anime and Kara no Kyoukai. She had produced well-arranged pieces, ranging from heart warming to intense soundtracks.

SAO is consistent and didn't shy away on presenting its themes, even though how ambitious it is. From earlier arcs back then we have Virtual Reality, VR machine for Medical Technology, now in this arc we have Artificial Intelligence, Time Accelerated and Simulated Reality, which is for myself the very reason I continue looking forward to SAO, are the themes it shows us, how our future technology might be. I wonder what more can SAO do with its themes, as the franchise is far from ending now. An announcement just made for another SAO anime.

If you have watch this SAOs longest arc up to the previous season, why not finished it now with this last part, you might still find something to like.