Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Skylink · Post by **Skylink** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:26 pm

Speaking of which. Slight change to OP
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/8685 ... yuugw9.jpg

celibi87 · Post by **celibi87** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:00 pm

OMG there is a second season to this?

Skylink · Post by **Skylink** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:36 pm

yes. and it's half way through. Where hast thou been? O:

celibi87 · Post by **celibi87** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:56 pm

Skylink wrote:yes. and it's half way through. Where hast thou been? O:

Apparently under a rock in a cave.

ZephyrStar · Post by **ZephyrStar** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:06 am

Ep 14:

Spoiler :

Lyrs · Post by **Lyrs** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:38 pm

I was watching episode 15 and throughout the second half, the motivation and the end result, it all felt wrong. Takano went wrong somewhere and the path led to a genocidal end. However, this schism seem to have occurred prior to her coming to the village.

How long prior to the Festival will Rika be reborn? What can she do to change Takano's plans? Perhaps, most importantly now that we know more about Takano and her suffering, what can Rika and team do to change her heart? In war, the only real victory is over hearts and minds.

Ishbalan · Post by **Ishbalan** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:02 pm

I first came across this series after seeing it used in a few popular AMVs. It seemed like a creepy anime, and I usually like the creepy type. I also wanted to know how so many characters can die or kill in to many different ways, because the clips seemed to contradict each other. I finished the first season the other day, and i absolutely loved it. This even tops Paranoia Agent on my list. It was one of the most incredible animes I had ever seen and I promptly told all of my friends about it. I had hoped that the second season would continue the ingeniousness.

First thing I see in the new season is the new op. Let me first say that I loved the original op because of its incredible solemness and the fantastic music. This new op I immediately did not like. It was slow-paced, and conveyed none of the emotions that the first delivered. This is something i rarely do with an anime, but I decided to skip the op while watching the new season.

Spoiler :

The first episode was something I had anticipated. A meaningless episode that is merely meant to reintroduce the setting for everyone who happened to miss the entire first season. I thought the alien explanation was a little overreaching and although the image of an adult Rena was interesting, it ultimately took away from my image of her.

Now the second episode. The gruesome realization hits me.
OH MY F***ING GOD!!! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE ANIMATION!?
I didn't realize in the first episode because it didn't have any of the characters in their original ages, but the animation style is completely different. One of the most charming things about the first season was the unique animation style that it portrayed the characters. The heads were large, the eyes were super-large, the hair emphasized the head, and the bodies were thin in comparison, at least for the girls. This style of animation aided in the lighthearted pasttimes of the club and their innocent, but not so innocent, games. It aided even more in the transition from friendly to psychotic that happened oh so often in the first season. The new season portrays the characters in a traditional animation style that looks slightly more realistic and which I'm sure is much cheaper to use. Just seeing it makes me sad because one of the key elements of the anime has been lost.

I grieves me to say that the disappointments didn't end there. Rika's role was greatly overemphasized in this first arc. She was basicly just depressed the whole time and kept spacing out and groaning to herself the same thing over and over again. It bored me out of my mind. The character dynamics also became more anime-cliche. There was an increased use in crayon-esque animation with the warped anime faces to emphasize comical situations as well as a significant increase in sexual humor, which was practically non-existant in the first season. Usually this stuff is all good in an anime, but I was happy without it being in Higurashi. The transition was not made well, in my opinion. And then, the ending to the arc: it did aid in the explanation of Rika's apparent death, but usually an arc can accomplish more than that, right? Each arc in the first season was greatly entertaining and contributed much to the plot. This one failed to compare. The very final minutes didn't make much sense either. It didn't really have that conclusive feel to it. My final complaint: NO ONE WENT CRAZY. Satoko became paranoid, but that was justified. In think this arc should have been shortented to two episodes and taken away Satoko's role, replacing it with something simpler.

After watching the first 5 episodes of the second season, I am sick to my stomach.
In the transition from Season 1 to Season 2, this anime went from being a psychological masterpiece to a typical crap-story anime that is almost painful to watch and certainly isn't worth my time.

I shall cry alongside the higurashi, grieving the mutilation of a beauty.

Skylink · Post by **Skylink** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:40 pm

ah well.. can't please them all.

I still need to watch 15, but my internets is broken =/

Hanyuu · Post by **Hanyuu** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:21 pm

wow a higurashi thread, its my favourite anime..

anyway i am a little fed up of Takano hogging this arc.. i hope its more of the main characters soon

Lyrs · Post by **Lyrs** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:59 pm

Hanyuu wrote:wow a higurashi thread, its my favourite anime..

anyway i am a little fed up of Takano hogging this arc.. i hope its more of the main characters soon

In all stories, there are many sides and to understand the significance and the depth behind the main storyline, you do have to look at the antagonists history. Before this, the anime has not presented any significant amount of information on Takano, Irie, and the Institution. We knew a little about when, where, and why some things happened or did not happen, but we did not know how it came to be that Takano sought the destruction of this little village. We did not know about her upbringing, her struggles, and her suffering.

Now, you might ask why this is important. It's important because it helps us understand this world better. I firmly believe that all actions have a explanation. When an event occurs without an explanation on why it did happen, there is no worthwhile conclusion. It is "bad story telling". The arc serves to provide much of the motivations behind Takano; however, there is a disconnect and this disconnect is disturbing as I pointed out in a previous post.

Hopefully, in the next arc, we'll see more clearly the transition from a research study, to a genocidal project. Interestingly enough, I also want to see Rika & Team save Takano. In the previous arcs, we saw how the power of friendship, trust, and love can break through the delusions of the disease and fate. The key to stopping this genocide is to stop Takano, and there are more ways to do that than by killing.