Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The festival is here – it’s time for some killin’!!!! Somebody’s gonna die by the end of this episode – that much is pretty obvious. Who’s it gonna be? How’s it gonna play out? Well, as if the screenshots didn’t spoil that already…
We start with the events of the Watanagashi festival – the group, sans Rika, assembles sometime in the early afternoon at the temple grounds, where the various food and game stalls are up and running. K-chan shows up late – bad move to have your girls all together in the same place, plotting how they will punish you. For starters, he gets his face stuffed with an entire mounds of cotton candy – twice – while I sit here wondering what it would feel like to be punished by Mion’s own two mounds. Moving right along, the first club contest is a takoyaki (octopus balls) eating contest. Naturally, K1 tries to show up the girls but ends up overdoing it – he gets last place if he’s incapable of continuing, right? Same deal with the shaved ice contest – same deal with the cotton candy contest (granted that he already had two to begin with…)
Elsewhere, Rika is in the dressing room suiting up in her miko outfit. Faced with the image of herself in a miko costume – the symbol of her role in the impending Watanagashi – Rika is overwhelmed with despair and hopelessness, almost to the point where she just wants to cry out and give up. But she continues on, all the way through the festival, dutifully performing her ritual dance.
Right after the dance, Rika rushes off into the woods, looking for him. Who? Who? Where is he? As Tomitake emerges from the bushes, Rika grabs him by the arm. Did you go in? Did you already go in?? He denies everything and walks away… just as Rika whispers “you better be careful… tonight, you and Takano will be murdered.”
Satoko hears the whole thing, spying from behind a tree.
Later that night, Tomitake begins clawing away at his throat through his gurgled cries of agony…
The next morning, the creepy cop shows up to question Rika. He tries to coerce some information out of her, specifically about her little chat with Tomitake in the woods, but Rika plays it off with her girlish charms. Ooishi, being the old lech that he is, falls for it instantly and leaves.
Once again, Satoko has heard the entire conversation. Why is Rika lying? What’s going on? Could it have something to do with Rika’s prior claims of her own murder?
That night, while Satoko confronts Rika about the lies, someone snoops around outside of their house. Satoko gets real suspicious while Rika plays it off, saying it was probably a cat. The next morning on their way to school, a similar feeling of being watched overcomes Satoko again, with Rika oblivious again. And one more time at school, with some creep watching through the window. Satoko tells Rika of her suspicions after school, and Rika completely dodges it by making a silly face. Ignorance is bliss…
Satoko is feeling pretty genki after that, until the dude pops up again on their way home from the market. By now Satoko is going pretty apeshit inside – she’s totally freaked out and she’s got nobody she can call out to for help, now that her nii-nii is gone.
That night, while Satoko is in the bath, Rika does another one of her doppelganger chats, this time voicing that she’s completely given up. If there’s nothing I can do… then I’ll do nothing.
The next morning (wow this episode covers a lot of days), Satoko spills the beans to K1, Rena, Mion and Shion. They all say they’ll look out for this stalker, but later on it’s clear that they don’t believe her either. So now, Satoko is feeling pretty damn lonely with nobody to depend on.
Nobody but herself. The next morning, she wakes up early to set up some trip wire hooked up to wooden clappers, so if anybody steps into the vicinity of the house, she’ll hear em. She heads off to school with Rika, but on the way, she tells Rika she forgot something back at the house and will catch up with her later. Rika knows something’s up, but lets her go anyways…
Satoko runs to the clinic to see Irie-sensei, who she was supposed to meet to talk with. There’s a bunch of cops when she gets there… turns out that Irie-sensei… had committed suicide. The investigator on duty sees Satoko standing there stunned, and after talking with her, decides that he’ll send a cop to go protect her. Satoko feels a bit better and heads off to school.
The investigator heads back to the station… on the way, he seems some suspicious looking dudes with a white van breaking into the radio tower. “Hey, what are you doing?” were his last words, before taking one in the face from a silenced handgun.
So much for that police protection. Satoko stays up until midnight that night, waiting for her protection. Instead, she hears the clappers go off…
Thoughts
So the deaths have started, and there seems to be no stopping in sight with the guys from the evil organization now just on the outskirts of the village. Even the only one who seems to have any sort of knowledge of what’s going on has completely given up, realizing that even with her futile effort to stop Tomitake, there was no going around her fate… or her job as a miko.
So, it seems like it’s all up to little Satoko now, who’s significantly more likeable these days without Satoshi around to baby her. She did seem a bit creepy sneaking around and spying on all of Rika’s conversations, but that only seemed to make her stronger and more aware of the situation, rather than just denying it like everybody else has. She even went as far to set up her alarm system… but now that it’s been triggered, what will happen? Kitchen knife? 2×4? Or just her deadly good looks?
-jaalin
i wonder if they’ll help rika n listen to satoko
Horie Yue haven’t show up?
Next ep is the end of this arc.
Minagoroshi-hen will start at ep6.
thanks loki
where the blood and gore?
where is a psycho switching huge knife and baseball bat.
This is not Higurashi YET.
Yeah, let the killing begin…
^
Prepare to be disappointed if that is what you think is the point of this show.
higurashi is all about teh crazy killa loliz and gore loooolz xDDDD
i forgot is this the questions arc or answers arc
lolz Irie is first.
@asian: This is an anime-exclusive arc, actually.
@Chicle: I believe he’s referring to the character that’s done by the VA, which we should see very soon.
this time there wont be as many blood anyway why does everyone asking where they are?
iam sure many ppl have already said that this season is focus in answer all the question and is meant to have a “happier” theme than the 1st one.
Where´s Rena With her favourite hatchet and psycho look? Who´s going to die anyway? Satoko or Rika? Or both maybe?
I’ve said it a few times in other posts, but people keep thinking that the show is just about little kids killing people. Oh well, their loss really.
What would’ve been REALLY freaky is if Satoko was pretending to sleep, while listening to Rika’s monologue… and the au-au-au voice comes out…
And no… NO organiszations… PLEASE!!! No secret cult groups, No big boss with his minions, or anything!!! … though it’s prolly too late… yes.. too late… i don’t know… too late… the game has been out for a long time now… too late… … [goes into dark Rika mode].
Wonder where/how much it will cost to get the game with all its arcs… in english. Any ideas?
happier theme yes! but wheres the meat?? how many ep’s again?
^ the game isn’t expensive per se, but it is text heavy, and there isn’t any english official translation anyway.
For instance, Minagoroshi-hen chapters 1-7 and Onikakushi chapters 1-3 have been fan translated so far.
As for Yakusamashi-hen, it is pretty clear that this Chapter just breaks completely the usual “situation – creeps – madness – deaths” pattern. No gory or killers things, just rather harsh reality.
It is really interesting, since Yakusamashi-hen is preparing the field for Minagoroshi, which will probably start at episode 6. (considering the preview, Yakusamashi will be complete with that. be careful, it is HEAVY spoiler)
o snap
gun+silencer=win
@Jayars
Don’t worry, it’s not that bad
It’s really funny to see people repeat the same kind of comments every week waiting for blood to happen lol. I’ve given up explaining already.
Yeah, I’m gonna buy the game… and probably a japanese-english dictionary. Just don’t know where to actually start looking, and which to buy. Does the one game comes with all the arcs? Or will I have to buy the arcs separately? Got a web address? 😀
@Jayars
How much does it cost? Let’s see… (A) Original game in Japanese, Himatsubushi-hen ($13) and Matsuribayashi-hen ($17) covers all the main arcs. (B) Shipping to US, roughly $20. (C) Translation to English. Professional translation costs roughly $0.15 per 1 Japanese letter, in the case of business documents (if you need something artistic, then the price goes up). (D) Whole text of the game is consisted of roughly 2 million Japanese letters. So in total, you need: (A) + (B) + (C) * (D) = $30,0050.
Mr.Monday:
hmm… so $30+$20? Cool, now which web store has it? Any bundling options?
And regarding the translation, … I’m just gonna stick with a japanese-english dictionary (~$10 used), and the next 3 years of my life (if I were to progress at a rate of ~1830 kanji’s a day). Wonder if there are any hardcopy higurashi novels though, aside from the manga. Would be nice to have something to read on the bus. And I can always read it while listening to the game’s soundtrack for some mood-boost.