*First Review*
"When a phone rings in the 2nd to last episode in the arc, shits about to go down." This review will contain minor spoilers. Oh Higurashi. Where do I begin with this one. Well this anime takes place in a town named Hinamizawa. In which, a re-occurring theme happens where every year, on the night of the ritual of Watanagashi, someone always dies and someone else disappears. Our main protagonists, the only boy Keiichi, along with Mion, Rena, Rika, and Sakoto cover each of their own separate arcs that usually tells us more about themselves and why they act the way they do..... Also,
...
with some crazy freak out moments. But Higurashi has it's own special feature to it, and this is where I explain why. (Note: I will not talk about each arc in this review.)
Story - 7.5
The thing I love about Higurashi is the mystery behind "The Curse of Oyashiro." Throughout the story you get the same mystery of what exactly is the curse of Oyashiro? Is it real? or is it not? In each arc, you learn little by little about the background of this Curse and the characters themselves. But, some of the arcs can be less impactful than others, which I take a little point off for. Yet the special feature that Higurashi has to it, is that the person watching this anime is solving the mystery, not the characters inside the anime. It makes it seem like you are one of the detectives inside this anime trying to put all the pieces together and solve the mystery. I won't try to spoil to much but I'll just say it gets 1 point off for some puzzle pieces not being useful to the mystery, at all. Some minor flaws behind the story is the beginning to each arc. When you first watch the episode of the arc, sometimes you have no idea when this is taking place. It leads to confusion throughout the arc and is little answered by the producers. Another thing I had a problem with was the characters in each arc, which I will talk about next.
Characters 4:
A major flaw in this anime is the characters in each arc. They seem to shift personalities before the arc even starts. I understand that characters develop differently throughout each arc, but they are already different before the arc even starts. Another thing wrong about the characters WAS their change. For example, Kei was the most useless character throughout all of Higurashi. He did nothing to stop anyone and really could be better off as a side character. But, no... the producers wanted to magically make him useful after all at the end because they realized this. This pissed me off because if your going to keep a character useless, in all of the arcs, make him useless until the end. Do not switch at the very last moment and confuse everyone. Two of the other protagonists, Rena and Mion, their arcs were not impressive nor significant, since they seem to be the closest to Kei. They were short. They had shitty endings. And told us little to nothing about the story at hand. Rika and Sakoto, our other protagonists, were honestly the ones that made this anime. They were so good, I would honestly go back and watch them again because they had great background stories, and had an actual significance on the story. Also, Rika was the savior of this anime. She was so cute, plus she gave me basically the understanding of the whole anime with two fucking episodes. The side characters though were more useless than Kei, besides Akataka and Oishi. They did nothing that changed the plot nor helped with any of the questions you had. You can see their attempts at trying to have an impact, but in the end they did nothing to explain the story, nor change any of the main characters, which is why I rate the characters as a 4.
Animation 6:
I'll start off with the good things about the animation aspect. There was actually blood in torture and killing scenes. Many anime just don't attempt at this or just fail at doing so. The scenes were realistic though, I believe they weren't over the amount of blood nor to little. In which I commend you Higurashi for taking a plunge no other anime has done before. Now to the flaws, even though this is made in 2007, you can tell some animation designs were just completely wrong. For example, every time Kei enters the cop's car to talk, the windows are white all around him. Also, a re-occurring animation problem was that you can see a pencil outline through their hairline. Let me clarify, if their is hair over a characters eye, you can still see an outline, in pencil, of the character's eye that's supposed to be covered up. I don't understand why a company would do that, it just looks awful on the characters and can be distracting. But I have to commend Higurashi for actually taking a step in the horror aspect and having red blood where it's needed.
Sound: 9
Higurashi has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in an anime. The opening was amazing along with the OVAs. The OVAs were set in the right place at the right time and created an ere and creepy aspect to parts where you know shits about to go down. I have to take a point off though for the ending and the cicada noises. If you hate cicadas as much as I do, you'll get really pissed off at this anime and sometimes may have to even mute it. I think the purpose of the cicadas was to establish a realistic setting and give a momento to the watcher that, "hey you paying attention" which can be really annoying. The ending I just didn't find as special as the opening. It lacked the mood to end each episode. The opening does the exact opposite in having a great song, and fits well with the anime. But, if the ending was a tad bit better and cicadas were less involved with the anime, this easily would have been a 10.
Enjoyment: 9
I thoroughly enjoyed Higurashi. Many episodes had great cliffhangers that kept you on your seat and made you want to watch the next episode. I marathoned this even though I was planning on finishing it in two days but, I couldn't stop. I always wanted to uncover the mystery of this Curse. The reason though I give it a 9 was because one arc was totally just awful, and had no significance what so ever and the horror aspect didn't affect me, but I can see it affecting others.
Conclusion:
You know I don't really watch a lot of horror anime because I don't get scared easily and animation is "un-realistic." But I have to give thanks to the creator of Higurashi because they have the best killing and torture scenes I've ever seen and the music just follows up with it perfectly. The big problem with this anime was the characters though, I understand it's an arc, with time skips, yet I know the producers of this anime could do way better as well with the animation. So my final score for this anime tying in all the scores is...
Score for this anime: 7.1 round to a 7/10
Recommendation: Anyone new trying horror, looking for a good mystery
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May 31, 2014
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
(Anime)
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*First Review*
"When a phone rings in the 2nd to last episode in the arc, shits about to go down." This review will contain minor spoilers. Oh Higurashi. Where do I begin with this one. Well this anime takes place in a town named Hinamizawa. In which, a re-occurring theme happens where every year, on the night of the ritual of Watanagashi, someone always dies and someone else disappears. Our main protagonists, the only boy Keiichi, along with Mion, Rena, Rika, and Sakoto cover each of their own separate arcs that usually tells us more about themselves and why they act the way they do..... Also, ... |
