Sequel to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou.
#~~~___This review contains spoilers for Higurashi___~~~ _I’d recommend reading my review of Gou [(click here to read it)](https://anilist.co/review/11664) to better understand my positions on this series. Sotsu has made many areas of it age like slim milk, but it describes my general feelings of Gou and my expectations going into this._ ___ Out of literally any piece of media that I have experienced, and even those that have been released, the existence of Higurashi Sotsu stands out as a strange anomaly. A sequel to Higurashi, which already had a perfect conclusion with the end of Kai/Festival Accompanying, would strike many people as pointless. There have been sequels to anime that have already had perfect endings before, but in the way that Sotsu does it, there is nothing that is comparable. This is the point where the marketing of the series comes in, since it is basically inseparable from the season that it's attached to. The bait and switch with the lead on that it was a followup to Higurashi Gou, the season that started the new 2020 sequel of Higurashi to continue the story ended off by Higurashi Rei. Instead it ended up being an extended recap of the first four arcs of Gou that told the viewers nothing of substance with only two episodes of an actual sequel at the end. That is it. There is no silver lining. There is no second cour to save it all. That is what Sotsu is plainly. I really don’t want to come off as someone who hates this series just because or somebody who finds no appreciation in When They Cry. My review linked above should show that I really like Gou even despite all of its problems. Even now, post-Sotsu, I still wouldn’t change my score from what it is right now. Even if it probably defies the reasonable part of me, the second cour leaves such a lasting impression in my mind that I really can’t hate it. The expectations that I had going into this were insurmountable with how much affinity I had for both Gou and the original series. You can even see that optimism in my review. >”...the revelations involving the point of the existence of this entire season have been so well handled by the final arc of this season, that I barely have any worries about how Sotsu will go about handling the act of providing answers.” _~~~sometimes i wish i could erase my memories and just go back to june 2021 when i was ignorant of what would soon come~~~_ My optimism quickly became thoroughly crushed as most of the series became relegated to recapping things that I had already seen twice before. Sotsu recaps Gou’s first four arcs with changes that are inconsequential in progressing the story or further developing characters than what is surface level. But just saying that it is bad purely because it recaps ignores the finer details. When actually breaking down Sotsu’s arcs, most of it is actually composed of new content. Recapping even as a concept isn’t something new to Higurashi. One of Higurashi’s best arcs, Meakashi-hen, recaps Watanagashi-hen for a lot of its story. In a more comparable example, Gou pulled a very similar trick for its first three arcs, and while those arcs are still questionable in terms of quality, there is still an ocean of difference in storytelling of Gou’s recaps to Sotsu’s recaps. Sotsu's recapping problem isn’t a problem of the recapping itself. Rather, it ends up being such an issue due to it being a culmination of multiple core issues that made the story irreparably broken from the very start. The biggest positive take away from both Gou and Sotsu is the interweaving character arcs of Satoko and Rika. The deep dive that Nekodamashi-hen and Satokowashi-hen took into the two of them made a lot of what Gou does best at. After Gou though, there was only so much room that the story could take for the two of them. After those two arcs, the two characters were nearing the end of their character arcs. Gou was setting up Sotsu to conclude their arcs, but there was a major problem. With Sotsu’s 15 episode length, the series can’t stall Satoko and Rika’s growth to the point of unwatchability. Looking back on the original series, this issue seems irrelevant. While each story arc usually centered around one character, overall, it was about the people of Hinamizawa. The ensemble cast of Higurashi is part of the reason why it even works so well. Beyond all of the gore and horror, there is a unifying message of friendship and community that the relationships of every character helps to truly sell. Keiichi, Rena, Mion, and Shion along with Satoko and Rika share equal parts in what makes Higurashi what it is. With this fact in mind, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that Sotsu’s purpose was to justify the inclusion of the rest of the gang in the story. Sotsu does in fact try to go in this direction for most of its episodes. However, it fell completely short of justifying it. Aside from time spent on Satoko and Rika, Sotsu’s first two arcs, Oniakishi-hen and Wataakishi-hen are dedicated to showing Rena and Mion’s descent at the hands of Hinamizawa syndrome. This shouldn’t be an immediate problem, but it does come off as unoriginal as Rena had already gone through the syndrome in Tsumihoroboshi-hen. Mion going through her fits of paranoia on the other hand isn’t something the series has dipped into before. It is in the execution where things start to falter. In Oniakishi-hen, Rena doesn’t experience a new dive into insanity. Instead, she experiences events that read like a hybrid of Oniakishi-hen and Tsumihoroboshi-hen. While this wouldn’t immediately catch a viewer as something wrong in a vacuum, where things start to become far more egregious is with Wataakishi-hen. Since Mion hadn’t gone through the syndrome, she had the most potential of having a story be something that was truly unique. Instead of something truly tailored to her character, she gets an arc very similar to Shion’s in Meakashi-hen but instead of Satoshi, Mion goes crazy over Keiichi. Even though they are twins, Shion and Mion are very different characters. The massive gap between their personalities should say that by itself. To see Mion go through an arc so similar to her sister’s shows a disregard for what potential a story where she is the one taken over by paranoia can have. The existence of Hinamizawa syndrome plaguing someone usually shows the deepest insecurities of a character that get revealed more and more as they succumb to it. This complex nature of the syndrome gets lost in Wataakishi-hen since it shows a very simplistic outlook on Mion’s character that conflicts with what she actually would be like. Aside from the lack of respect to Rena and Mion being shown here, these two arcs don’t really reveal much in terms of new story details. A lot of the reveals from these arcs are shallow mysteries that could easily be understood by Gou’s reveal of Satoko being a villain. The reveals given are usually ones that can only lead to mild satisfaction rather than something that can carry a story. In a series previously flourishing with bombastic unpredictable moments, the series quickly becomes something that is a boring predictable slog. Up until the series caught up to post-Gou Episode 17, it only really took a little bit of thinking to what the series would mostly be made up of for the first 13 episodes. The first 56 seconds of a meme video predicting the plot of Sotsu below that released after Gou ended shows this accidentally showed Sotsu’s predictability. ~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2_StEd1Ivs&t)~~~ _~~~this video contains some umineko spoilers after 0:56 if you don’t want to see it~~~_ The first 56 seconds were created in a very non-serious manner. But it also provides a look into the mentality of many of what Sotsu was going to be in between the last episode of Gou and the first episode of Sotsu. While we may have expected a recap of this nature, the expectation more relied on it being something very quick. But with how the meme plays out, it unintentionally achieves just as much plot progression as Sotsu does in its first 13 episodes. While a lot of the details are incorrect, it doesn’t end up mattering by the end. Since most of the reveals in the first 13 episodes end up being so inconsequential, the end result of the first half of the meme and the first thirteen episodes of the show end up being nearly identical. The general events of Sotsu are a skeleton of a much larger story. It is easy to see what that skeleton was going to be after watching Gou. This skeleton needed flesh and tissue to this skeleton for it to even function. Sotsu ended up just being the skeleton. With only bones and nothing else. With the barren skeleton of Sotsu, it may not technically be a full recap of Gou’s first few arcs, but it may as well have been. After Oniakishi-hen and Wataakishi-hen came Tatariakishi-hen. It ended up being more of the same as the first two arcs. In terms of every arc that came before the events of Gou Episode 17, this was probably the best one. It should be noted though, that is only on account for it primarily featuring Satoko, who at this point is one of the only interesting characters left. Even then though, her character development stalls until the end of Episode 10 where one Sotsu's actual moments of intrigue occurs. She isn’t in a position for her character to progress far ahead yet, so she stays static for the most part aside from the aforementioned end of Episode 10. Teppei isn’t that interesting compared to Gou, since most of what made him intriguing in this series happened in Gou Episode 23. With that mini redemption arc over, he doesn't exactly have much to grow past that. While I am glad that the framework set up by Gou made his turn to a good guy make sense, that doesn’t stop Sotsu from feeling dry when developing him. Ooishi suffers from a similar problem as Mion in Wataakishi-hen but to a less disrespectful degree. Ooishi under Hinamizawa syndrome is more just a surface level understanding of what he probably would do when affected rather than a new interesting direction for his character. At least there wasn’t a fundamental misunderstanding as to who they are unlike Mion. Tatariakishi-hen doesn’t introduce any more problems, but it just continues old ones. This can also be applied to the first half of Kagurashi-hen. In my personal experience of the arc, Tatariakishi-hen represented the point as to where I realized that this season was going to fall remarkably under my expectations no matter what happened. There was nothing much to do but wait for the end where something good may actually happen. When looking at it all back, it becomes extremely hard to either justify why or explain how this even happened. Why would Sotsu slow its plot into oblivion to the state that it is like this? This can be drawn down to Sotsu’s converging priorities. With how characters other than Rika and Satoko are treated in Sotsu, it is clear that there is little interest in developing anybody else except for them. On the other hand, the series is also aiming to be similar to the original Higurashi, by being in the same general location of Hinamizawa as well as the month of June 1983 for a plurality of the runtime. This desire for familiarity is what I assume led to the conspicuous marketing of Gou as well as Gou’s first cour being composed of arcs that draw most of their plot from arcs that already happened. A familiar setting for Higurashi also will naturally require the ensemble cast of Higurashi to primarily be featured. This is where these two goals start to clash. With the apparent lack of interest in anybody except for Satoko and Rika, there would be no way for the familiar setting of Hinamizawa to work well with the story being told. Since Hinamizawa is linked to the people that live there, setting a story in Hinamizawa would mean to show the stories of those residents as well. However, the story doesn't care to do so, leaving the plot in a predicament that could only end in absolute failure. Gou managed to circumvent this by mostly setting Satokowashi-hen outside of Hinamizawa and having its first cour have at the very least, a slight allure of mystery. By Sotsu, this house of cards completely collapses in on itself. The story has to include Rena and Mion arcs, but it gives off the impression that it doesn't care enough to truly invest the effort into making those arcs truly worthwhile. After the grueling slog of Episodes 1-13, Episode 14 actually manages to be something exciting for once. Finally the continuation of the series after Nekodamashi. This episode actually manages to capture the quality of the second cour of Gou in just one concentrated instance. But if there is one image that can describe Sotsu’s main problems, it is this one. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/Zr6oJMG.png)~~~ It depicts one of the bouts of Satoko and Rika as they clash with Onigari-no-ryuuou. As good as this moment is for both Satoko and Rika, there is nobody on screen except for the two of them. As a matter of a fact, throughout all of the fragments where they fight, other characters don’t appear in all but one. The junkyard at this point is an empty stage just to serve in this battle. As good as this episode is, it can’t save what is already here. Episode 14, and I’d even say Episode 15, were each very good episodes. I feel extremely satisfied with the conclusion for the two of them, no matter how flawed it is. However, Sotsu’s primary purpose was not to make the last two episodes good. After Gou, that became nearly guaranteed. Sotsu’s purpose was to justify the existence of everything outside of that. But it failed to do that purely because it didn’t care enough to actually do so. I usually like to end negative reviews like these on a hopeful note, but for the longest time, the series screwing itself up this badly near the finish line made it hard to hope for this type of thing. Against all odds though, there is something to hope for. ~~~img300(https://cdn.animenewsnetwork.com/thumbnails/max650x650/cms/news.4/177768/higurashi.jpg)~~~ The Higurashi Gou manga is diverging from the anime. After Nekodmashi, instead of Satakowashi, there is going to be an alternative story, called [Higurashi Jun](https://anilist.co/manga/139623). Maybe it is just that this series has conditioned me to pray for miracles, but I have hope for this. From the little I know about the Gou manga, I know that it at least goes on a far more focused course than its anime counterpart. My hope is that the manga can provide a better resolution for what Gou had set up to provide an emphatic conclusion that a series like this needs. I need at least something to reinvigorate my passion for this show again. But ignoring the manga, Sotsu has to be one of the most underwhelming anime that I have ever seen. It is torn between two different goals that end up ripping itself apart. It has no regard for characters other than the ones that it wants to develop. It stalls to such an extreme that any good qualities that it has get severely dampened. It was facing tragedy, and did absolutely nothing to stop it. As it stands, this series is broken. And with the high hopes I had going into this, that is very disappointing. ___ _Thank you for reading to the end of the review if you did. If you have any criticisms of how this review was made, you are free to message me or reply to [this activity](https://anilist.co/activity/291624459) to critique what I had to say._ _Also, please don’t like or dislike the review without reading it._
I want to preface this by saying this is not going to be some fancy review that goes in depth about the inner themes of Higurashi or whatnot. I'm just someone who watched the original Higurashi anime and loved it and went on to read the authors other VN Umineko and loved that more than any other piece of fiction and want to express my immediate thoughts after watching the final episode of Sotsu. __Spoilers of course.__ Man, What the fuck is this? How do you spend 99% of the show rehashing the same exact scenes from Gou and then actually give us only 2 episodes of actual new story and rush through everything thats actually important? Is this ending supposed to be good? _None of this was earned._ For weeks I and many others thought Sotsu being only 15 episodes must be a ruse, that they'll pull a Gou and have a secret arc or that it'll end with an announcement for another season or movie because as they were going it became more and more clear that in no way could they wrap everything up. Why does Sotsu spend so much of its little time reusing scenes but when it came to actual mysteries or new content like Satoko injecting people or everything post-gun scene they rush through it and pretty much tell us not to think about it? Not to think when forcing us to think about every little detail _is R07's entire thing._ So much is just left unresolved. What about that scene near the end of Gou or start of Sotsu where Satoko is talking to Eua about how Keiichi and Takano were going to be very important pieces going forward? Nothing ever happened with that. They made Satoko the main character but did NOTHING with Irie or Satoshi or Shion all of whom are important in one way or another to Satoko and they were practically not even in the show. What about how the show kept brining up how more and more people were gaining memories of other loops? They hinted at this as being more and more important and just...nothing ever becomes of it. Yeah Satoko's uncle becomes nice and thats it. And even thats just used as a plot device to show how Satoko got the gun. Remember when we all thought Rena seeing everything at the end of Tatariakashi-hen would amount to something? What about the obvious and constant parallels between this and Umineko? The show shoved down our throats themes about witches and about miracles and certainty and...nothing became of that either! I remember the line where Satoko thought all the fragments were no more than like dreams and none of them matter as soon as she leaves them and thinking that Satoko would eventually get her comeuppance when she realized that those worlds DO matter and are not just dreams. But NOPE no such thing even happens. Satoko spends centuries watching Rika's struggles and then plotting and planning and murdering all her friends over and over and at the end its all okay because Rika forgives her? That such a cop out holy shit. Shes never held responsible for any of her actions. Rika never even acknowledges that Satoko ruined the ending they worked hard for after 100+ years of suffering or anything shes done at all, all the actual important parts are ignored for the sake of talking about studying. The entire fight between Eua and Hanyuu just...stops. She becomes a loli and then leaves and thats it. The entire fight between Rika and Satoko just....stops. Keiichi, Mion and Rena talk to them and then Rika leaves to go about to St. Lucia and thats it. Its like the writers just gave up. The original Higurashi spent 10 episodes setting up the main culprit and resolving everything and wrapping up the story nicely. All questions were answered and the story concluded. Sotsu just sits on its ass for 13 episodes and has 2 episodes that actually continued the story 1 of which was all DBZ fight scene and now this rushed ending where nothing is deserved. What was the point of ANY of this? Its not like they're was a mystery or answers in Sotsu as the answer was revealed to us halfway through Gou. The end of the episode with "You" playing and showing everyone from the series(even if they pretty much didn't even appear in Gou and Sotsu) makes me WANT to enjoy this, Sotsu wants me to feel emotional and have a sense of closure for the series as a whole but its failed in every possible way because it didn't earn this. This ending wasn't earned. This is immensely frustrating and disappointing. I can not understate how disappointed I am. What the fuck Ryukishi?
Kinda hard to go into detail with a spoiler free review so if you want to hear my thoughts on each episode you can find them all [here](https://anilist.co/activity/136377032) along with my thoughts on the rest of the series. Easily my most anticipated show this year, Higurashi Gou pulled me into the franchise and got me to experience the original Higurashi and I came out a massive fan and Gou only made me a bigger fan. But I'm not a blind fan that's for sure and Sotsu has honestly been so painfully disappointing, it's decline in quality is crystal clear now. Gou set up it's first three questions arc very well, it was a bit slow but the end was always so shocking to see and once we got to the Gou answer arc I was nothing short of amazed with how great the story still was. And yet when it was the question arc's from Gou's turn to get answered Sotsu answered them in the most boring way possible. They all feel the same now since how the characters get infected with the virus are the exact same throughout each arc. It's not as fun and engaging anymore since the answer is so plain and we've already seen the results of each arc to so there isn't much to gain by seeing a characters different perspective that is also barely different from the original perspective. Quite honestly these answer arc's are making me realize now that Gou's questions arcs besides the last one were not done very well, whether they showed too much or just weren't written well _maybe both_ I'm not sure of completely but with these answer arc's it's became so obvious that their isn't much else to add to them. Really thinking about it now, did we even need to go back at all? Once we got our one big answer to whodunnit we could easily fill in the rest on our own disregarding just one character this season spent building up. The only arc we went back to in the original series was Watanagashi just as Meakashi and was an arc that added so much to the story, every other answer arc from the original was new, Tsumihoroboshi, Minagoroshi, and Matsuribayashi all had new stories that still answered questions from previous arcs and I think if Gou/Sotsu was handled like this along with actually remembering it's other characters and having them involved more with the story you'd hear a lot more positive things about these two. But Sotsu tried to replicate Meakashi direction in going back to an arc to give it more depth and it didn't turn out well for it. Not helping Sotsu's case was how each arc was handled, Sotsu had 15 episodes to answer off everything else the series had remaining and myself and the fans _were not buying that shit_. It just didn't seem that likely to happen, still with how well Gou was handled I held out hope that maybe they could get their shit together and make each revisit short and sweet so we could get into the new strictly new content faster. That didn't happen until episode 14, the first three Gou answer arc's took up over half of the seasons run time. This only happened by showing too many scenes from Gou and stretching things out with bad slow pacing that did nothing but worsen the season. The only decent pacing was for the first answer arc, 3 episodes that's it but even then it could've been shortened into 2 if they gave more of a shit. And I do want quickly address this since I know it's often brought up but Umineko, Ryukishi07's other series. Do you need to read it to make Gou/Sotsu a better viewing experience? __No.__ Going through Umineko really only gives you a better idea of how Sotsu will play out and even then that isn't until the very end of the season. Reading Umineko does nothing to enhance Sotsu's overall quality _but you should still check it out Umineko it's amazing_. img800(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/905345690853605427/988173125583786084/unknown.png) With Sotsu being the way it is it became harder to enjoy the series and this is as someone who has Higurashi as their 2nd favorite anime. I may of just gotten into the series almost a year ago but I adore this franchise now and it honestly hurts a little to be this harsh and critical of it. Though not to say the season was complete shit, I still enjoyed watching this and it did have some great moments. The end of episode 8, the second half of episode 10, and all of episode 14 (I'll get back to you) all had moments I loved. It's just the overall package is not what I expected from this franchise, I may of had my expectations to high sure but to those who've gone through the series and Ryukishi07's other series can at least attest that my expectations for a series that has When They Cry in its title are gonna be a bit higher then other series. But my expectations sure were met completely with Episode 14, easily the most split I've seen a fanbase be in a while. People either loved it or hated it saying that the series no longer felt the same anymore, I'm sure you can guess with how I brought this up _I loved it_. Though I can completely understand why others say it doesn't feel the same anymore but I like to think of it as the series is growing and it's changing cause of that, I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me there and that's fine but I still wanted to mention the episode regardless. Overall Higurashi Sotsu is held back by it's unsatisfying answers to it's mystery, reused scenes about half of them didn't even need to be there, and stretching things out with bad pacing resulting in a more unfinished finale with a lot of unanswered questions. But I still could find enjoyment in the season despite how disappointed I was with its quality.
A short,sweet and simple Sotsu review from a short,simple,and bittersweet person .__There are spoilers for Gou,so if you havent watched that. Don't come for me if I spoil you. __ Let's just be quick with this, Gou was kind of messy in spots but had moments that stuck with me.But Sotsu is just a mess story wise. So much so that it makes Gou seem like a fluke. # STORY Sotsu is the prime example of an anime that doesn't know how to use it's time well at all. This is a 15 episode anime with about five episodes worth of content. Calling it a sequel is such a stretch..Sotsu is a gloried recap of the first season. But this time, it fills in the gaps for why the events in Gou transpired. Sadly though, these explanations start to screw up the pacing and it feels like the writer is stalling for time.Not only that, but the anime fully replays scenes from Gou like the audience all has short term memory loss and that messes up the pacing so much.Wanna know what's great about it though? The arc i enjoyed the least in Gou, had the most time dedicated to it in this season. And it's totally not boring, predictable,and a slap in the face of what I liked in the previous season. Not.At.All I will admitt the first couple of episodes were really good, it put a bit of a spin on Rena's arc that I thought made it more realistic and more brutal with the implications.The rest of this season takes away more and more tension. There are other aspects that do continue the story, but they make no sense with the context of Gou.And finally when the" sequel" part kicks in at the last two episodes, it was so stupid that it felt like a prank on fans of higurashi. I'm not kidding.The ending was just nuttier than a squirrels' used condom.And not in a good way.It almost impressed me how the finale was so over the top and contradicts the entire tone that made higurashi iconic in the first place.i can't even describe it.Just imagine The Shining,but at the end of the movie it turns into Avengers Endgame,Did you imagine it? Good, because it's even dumber when you see it in this anime.i enjoyed it a lot though, because it was just so silly and over the top, I had a dumbass smile on my face the whole time.It had references to the original and played as just a long round of Smash Bros with Higurashi locations.i could see an episode like that working better in an anime that wasn't…. y'know Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni,Did it make up for the other 13 episodes though? Lol no. Jokes aside,Its legitimately the worst feeling in the world to like something,get hyped for it,defend it,and then watch it turn to shit and feel so dumb for even liking it in the first place. I swear to Mother Mary that I don't hate everything, I just hate disappointment # ART AND OTHER TECHNICAL CRAP. -_- Funny enough, the technical aspects of Sotsu are basically the same as what I said in my Gou review.(probably because this season is half recap) but I digress.The voice acting is still strong at least.the op was catchy...Thats all i got for ya. You want criticism?. Everytime the detective was smoking, the cgi smoke looked weird,but that doesnt matter, ppl are literally dying. # CHARACTER "s" For Characters,I honestly didnt get too much more development for them outside of Gou. Most of them are just going crazy,then Satoko’s like “pew-pew” and the arc is over. The tension is just not there so when they try to replicate the brutal scenes from the original, it just doesn't have much effect outside of “ouch thats gotta hurt”.Point is, if you care about Rena, Keiichi, or Mion/Shion, just watch the og, it gives them more screen time. 90% of the scenes involving Rikka are just replayed scenes from Gou so no worries there. Lets talk about the true MVP, the deadliest sharp shooting sniper with over 2k confirmed no-scopes, Satoko Houjo. My favorite thing about Gou was the absolutely devastating relationship with her uncle, who ended up becoming redeemed after multiple time loops.While trying to make himself a better person, he tries to make amends with Satoko,but she couldn't fully bond with him after all of the trauma she has experience in the past loops.That episode in Gou destroyed me emotionally, i was on the verge of tears. But in this season, those tears were shed for nothing because Satoko straight up goes into full sociopath mode. Manipulating and gaslighting not only her uncle.but the entire village of Hinamizawa, and fucking with basically everyone.She doesnt even seem to grow close to her uncle, she sees him as just a pawn mostly to do what she needs to.I couldnt even enjoy them actually acting like a family,because the whole time i’m like “Satoko is lowkey manipulating you right now.” What truly frustrates me though, is that the actions she does almost contradicts her goal from Gou. Her end game basically was to live in a loop where her and Rikka can stay together forever , but this season,her actions just look like she is just causing trouble just for the sake of it.Her actions cause Rikka’s death many times,bringing her more and more trauma,and she legit says at one point that she's doing all of this to just make her suffer.There was this part in Sotsu that tries to explain the numerous time jumps is why she is acting so maliciously but when it happens, it doesn't make sense, isn't foreshadowed, and just doesn't get explained.Go figure.Even if i do go into detail, it just wouldn't make sense, its that messy.Its just a ripple of mess that makes me so confused, that i tone out. # ENJOYMENT Idk if I have said this before, probably have, but I think the worst thing you can do to an audience is bore them. I stand by that. I think the score I'm giving to this is a technicality. Its the heavy lack of tension or intrigue that really did it for me. Right now, I'm struggling to find that much i enjoyed outside of episode 14/15.I don’t hate this anime, like others do. It's not deeply disappointing like TPN s2, nor was it so bad it made me hate-watch it like GOH or Kaifuckyou.I was just bored through a large majority of this show. The violence or whatever didnt really affect me since the story was messy,sure there's fanservice to the ones who liked OG higurashi,but the only moments that gave me any emotions were just scenes from Gou that were replayed.The ending was enjoyable to watch but for all of the wrong reasons, instead of praise for ep 14, people are straight up memeing on it. So I don't know man. I'm disappointed ofc, but Sotsu made me too exhausted to even be disappointed. Guess that's the anime community in a nutshell: memes, exhaustion, and disappointment. Seriously tho, if Satoko gets put in smash, I will rate this 10/10
(OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL EPISODES) __Introduction__ Higurashi SOTSU is the quickly starting continuation of Higurashi GOU, in which provides an additonal story under the guise of being a "remake". Although the surprise was poorly done and had the potential to ruin a lot of things for new comers, I found it rather enjoyable that I could relive my original Higurashi watching experience and once again begin to create a bunch of theories and attempt to predict what happens next. Within SOTSU, lots of things start to develop including putting a heavy emphasis and added references towards other stories that are also apart of the When They Cry Series (Umineko). However, once you begin to go further into the story as someone who hasn't watched anything else besides Higurashi you start to feel more lost and begin losing the power to predict key plot points which was one of the main aspects of the experience. Furthermore, you also begin to realize the great majority of the "content" in SOTSU just constantly rephrases multiple points or things you already know, instead of giving the audience new perspectives, viewpoints, or straight new information. I have decided to divide the review into parts where Sotsu's extreme weaknesses lie. Naturally, there will be spoilers as that is where the majority of the story's weak points are. __Satoko is made much more smart than she actually is. __ Throughout this answers arc you begin to see how the format goes. Satoko injects someone, they go L5 and you follow the story of GOU but through mastermind Satoko's perspective. First off all, they needed to use time much better here. I don't know about you, but having to watch Rika's dance for the 10th time just seemed off putting. I feel like they definitely could have condensed a great majority of the arcs here and only put in the important bits with Satoko. Regardless of that, as in typical answers arc fashion we finally get to see how everything was done. I expect 100% clean details without any form of "glossing over" but you still see that here and there. For instance, in Wataakashi-hen Satoko decides to inject Mion except it was completely skipped over! Satoko had gone outside with Mion as they were getting drinks (that were already inside the vending machine) and Satoko takes out the needle...then the scene ends? Really? The majority of time when someone is injected its when their in a vulnerable state. Someone sleeping, or it was put in their drink. There was literally nothing here showing how Satoko injected Mion here. With such an important detail like this I am highly disappointed that something like this was glossed over. Regardless, a bigger issue presents itself. The story's plot just comes together to protect Satoko and make sure it fits her narrative and goal in a very artificial way. With every single victim that Satoko injects, they naturally go L5. But their delusions and extremities do not involve her 100% of the time. The fact that Satoko manages to perfectly deal with most people in L5 as if she knows what they are going to do is just not realistic. And the person who's L5 has delusions that perfectly protect and back up Satoko's plan for that fragment, as well as the truth that Satoko invokes certain narratives in L5 victims even though this should be impossible. Because of this, Satoko is made to look way too smart for what she actually does. img2200(https://i.imgur.com/ejJkPsJ.png) Picture is Satoko talking to Akasaka, because somehow Satoko knew that if he were to go L5 without a narrative he wouldn't target Rika? But also not to mention they completely cut out the syringe part AGAIN. I also think it's a stretch to assume that JUST because Satoko says a fake story to Akasaka about "parasites" that means his entire delusional is founded upon that 10 second conversation. There just has been no signs of risk at all for Satoko here. Satoko's narrative planting has so much plot convenience that it works with 100% success rate. There can be many ways for her to make someone go L5 and have that "plan" blow up in her face but it never happens, ever. I think if the story took time and effort to really develop Satoko's plan instead of making her incredibly evil and trying things out for "fun" then she could have been presented way more smart than she actually is. Because this is just plot convenience. It happened during Tatariakashi-hen as well, when Oishi just became Satoko's puppet because his delusion was him trying to solve the curse. And it happened with Wataakashi-hen as Mion's delusions involved being protective over Keiichi, and she managed to hear in on the conversation where Adult Rika and Keiichi were talking, which set her off. There just needed to be more Satoko instead of just her injecting someone and then the ball rolling 100% of the time in her favor. __Umineko forced into the story. __ I'm not going to spend this much time on this topic, since it's generally opinionated but I for one do not like having to watch additional side content to receive context for what's going on in this anime. I wouldn't have minded it as much but for Umineko's case it's special because it's quite a difficult one to really get going. You've got the choice of either a very poor anime adaption, a 100+ hour visual novel, or the manga which just spells out the mystery for you. Really poor choices here, and I don't think it's a good idea to make your audience go through this in order to understand what's happening. Luckily for us though, the story didn't incorporate as much Umineko as I thought they would, but of course they still made some references here and there like the theme of witches. It feels like they didn't really know what to decide on, whether or not to make Umineko an actual part of the story or just some short references here and there. __Satoko's Impossible Redemption__ Oh my gosh this is a big one. This is one of the most main issues definitely. Throughout the story and these answers arcs I have formed the opinion that no matter what, Satoko is irredeemable. Of course this is an opinion, but if the story wants to redeem Satoko smoothly they need to do it in a way that's valid and makes me feel bad for her. But with how everything was presented already, that task is actually impossible. Aside from the odd "Evil Satoko" thing they tried to pull, I hope you realize that the "real" Satoko still killed Rika with the chandelier because this was the first time she was granted the powers from Eua and that was before all of the tragedies started up again. The real Satoko still had a MAJOR part in the killings regardless of what you think about her as of now. Also, if the story wanted to put the blame on this "Alter Satoko" they should have done a better job in showing that off instead of the red eyes which could have meant anything. I mean, even in the scene where Satoko was about to kill Teppei she was fighting herself until the alter Satoko "won" but from the final episode that came out today you can clearly see that the "real" Satoko never died from her in the first place. So now, let's talk about some major issues with Satoko's goal in general and why this makes it almost impossible to redeem her anyways: Satoko's goal is ultimately impossible for Rika to realize. Satoko wants Rika to give up her dream and live in Hinamizawa with her forever but then you'll begin to notice how do these tragedies give any nod to what Satoko wants? The only way that Satoko actively tries to say anything is with her weird monologues that she uses to "guide" Rika by saying that her "nightmares" are the way they are for a reason. It's still pointlessly ambiguous and that is still not enough to make Rika realize what she wants. And the funny part about this is that her speaking and acting like this is just highly suspicious in general. If Rika had realized that Satoko was more or less blaming her own thoughts that haven't happened yet Rika would have caught onto Satoko much faster. img2200(https://i.imgur.com/4QcWOfp.png) The only thing I can get out of this situation is that she wants Rika to give up. EXCEPT, that whole entire concept is flawed because if Rika notices the tragedies are going to stop, she's just going to fast forward and go towards her dream again. It's a whole back and forth process without any meaning. The whole entire foundation just doesn't add up. How can you equate mass murders to the message of trying to stay in Hinamizawa? Also the funny part about this is the tragedies are the whole reason *why* Rika wants to leave the town in the first place. She's sick of the town, I mean come on that's a naturally feeling after staying forever in a death loop in it for years and years. Don't you think doing these tragedies again will just make her hate the town even more? She's been going through repeated loops for a very long time anyways what makes Satoko think she's going to give up so willingly? __Reused Footage__ What an absolute trainwreck in regards to the usage of time. SOTSU had so many instances of reused footage I don't even know when to begin. Quite frankly, I was thinking the gun confrontation scene would be in the SINGLE digits in terms of episode count but oh boy I could have never been more wrong. We had to suffer through a ridiculous amount of Rika dances and terrible usage of time in each individual answers arc. And then once when we finally get to the fantastic "plot" we've been waiting for in Episode 13 what happens? Eua makes Hanyu suffer the same thing we the audience have been suffering. More reused footage. On Episode 13... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP. Like, I would complain about the horrible time record and lack of unique scenes in the early episodes of SOTSU but this completely overshadows that issue. img500(https://i.imgur.com/CkydSjm.png) __Category of Miscellaneous Annoyances __ This section is just here for annoying and weird plot holes that happened through the story that I found out of place or extremely odd. I'll just list them off since there's not really any other good place for them: 1. Satoko's Weird Dodging Skills she acquired out of nowhere 2. Satoko and Eua knowing that Rika could remember her loops - I'll just elaborate on this further and just rant about how this harmed the story's growth. There was an argument to be made that Satoko probably had pulled out the gun prematurely under the pretense that she could just "restart" the loop like nothing happened due to the fact that she thought she got caught. (Even though there was such lack of evidence at the time). But realistically speaking, this means that Satoko NEVER had to have pulled out the gun in the first place, and could have denied the indirect accusation outright. I'm just putting this here because it was really frustrating to see the one wildcard that Rika had just be thrown away immediately. There was no reason why Satoko and Eua should have been able to know about Rika retaining her memories but they did it just to give even more power to Satoko because that's been the entire theme of the story. Putting Satoko on a pedestal. I just think that would have been a cool dynamic to see in the story. Satoko overtime in each loop has progressively gotten more blatant and cocky and it would have just been nice to see it blow up in her face in a way that made logical sense. But I guess they wanted to close off that possibility entirely and just focus on Rika having an "anime moment" and suddenly remembering parts of the Ooishi loop. 3. Satoko leaving blatant evidence behind (the syringe, MULTIPLE times) 4. Characters act stupid to make Satoko look smart 5. Because Rika remembers her loops now, Satoko would now have to perform 4 flawless executions on getting the syringe without being spotted or messing up. 6. During the unnamed loop with Keiichi going L5 in Angel Mort, Satoko is able to shoot herself and have a tiny little monologue next to Rika's body with a gun before any of the police notice that she's alive. 7. Important details are told to the audience last minute instead of in the moment when it matters or in a smooth way, which worsens the impact of everything. Example: Rika's memories of the Ooshi loop for example 8. Weird and out of place Dragon Ball-esque fight scene that is just completely out of theme for Higurashi. 9. Rika manages to somehow guess what she did in St. Lucia even though she has no memories in it: img2200(https://i.imgur.com/r5st1lG.png) "Must've" here implies that Rika doesn't actually remember what happened in St.Lucia but she's assuming that she reached out to help Satoko. Satoko reaffirms this by saying "you did" which she wouldn't need to say if Rika actually did remember what happened in St.Lucia. img2200(https://i.imgur.com/rt4QrZB.png) Again "I bet" is her making a guess that Satoko just straight up didn't like her friends. I really hope it's not a translation thing because they are really making it apparently that Rika doesn't remember what happened at St.Lucia. But back to the main point: Rika flawlessly guessed one of the reasons why Satoko was angry, without even having the memories. __Satoko vs Rika__ We get two episodes of this extremely underwhelming final confrontation. All of the seriousness from before has been stripped away due to that weird Dragon Ball fight scene and for some reason the characters are focusing on the most pointless things instead of addressing the main concerns that the audience is wondering. While Rika and Sakoto fight and punch each other nonsensically over "studying", the audience is dying to have them address ANYTHING regarding the loops or the tragedies. Why did you make everyone murders? Because you suck at studying? Nope, not a single thought is given to address any of that. AND SOMEHOW RIKA FORGIVES SATOKO for no reason. She said she was going to "force" her to study, which already implied from the beginning that she had forgiven her. Funny how they say that, and yet here they're having this weird death battle which isn't truly representative of what they are saying. How can Satoko justify her looping and atrocities so easily? Why isn't Rika doing ANYTHING to counter Satoko's ridiculous mental gymnastics? Who knows, not even the story does. The thing with Satoko is that she's parasitically co-dependent on someone. So she's overly dependent on Rika and of course if anything happens Satoko can easily blame Rika for "abandonment" to avoid any responsibility. How convenient. It reminds me of the dynamic with Satoshi in a way, but this one is far more malicious. But anyways, these tragedies starting up again and her being thrown back into them should have been an absolute GIANT wound for Rika that should have really made her emotional. She should have absolutely hated Satoko, or at least have killed her with Onigari-no-ryuuou. But instead, she prefers to still stay friends or "contacts" with someone who had dissected their intestines slowly and painfully. And once again, Satoko has no justification for this. Rika had offered help and Satoko had denied it and thus she fell behind in her studies. It was her own fault that she lacked the initiative. But whenever someone asks why Satoko did what she did you should just say "Because she really hates studying, that's it" because that is literally the truth and what a sad thing it is. Moving forward, the ending was surprisingly dull. I figured it would be way worse than what it could have been, but this ending didn't really attempt to do anything special. Nothing fundamentally changed with this ending. Rika still went to her dream school, and Satoko actually managed to grow up and be away from Rika for a little while. I said a little while because Satoko couldn't even last an entire day before she wanted to go ahead and find Rika again. How absolutely insane is it that just having these two characters talk makes them reach this odd middle ground which doesn't even complete Satoko's true objective. It's the definition of pointless. And lastly, evil Satoko randomly leaves Satoko's body without any context and gets away scot-free. Don't ask me what that means because I have no clue either. Now that all of that is addressed, let me summarize this whole confrontation for you in a neat little nutshell: Rika: I will make you study Satoko: I don't want to study Rika: Yes you will Satoko: no Rika: ok bye lol __Conclusion__ And that wraps up the review. I really wish I could have said more positive things about SOTSU, but unfortunately it just dropped the ball on so many different things that it's hard to really avoid it. Same thing with the fact that this is an answers arc, so naturally it lacks the substance and deep discussions that you could have with Higurashi GOU. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed my review and that it made you learn something new.
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu is the continuation of the previous season (Gou) in which to be one of the biggest trolled anime I've ever watched since WEP and Darling in the Franxx. At first, I thought it would be a great season because of the trailer but the content was so awful that I almost skipped the episodes. This season and Gou destroyed the Higurashi franchise Story: The story followed the beginning of the events of Gou. Actually... there's no story at all because most of the episodes are just recaps from Gou in Satoko and her victims' perspective. Ryu07 wasted 13 episodes of the series for some pointless recaps. The gore and the thriller were still there but some gore parts are censored but not in Gou. The only interesting happened was in Episode 14 but it turned out to be a mainstream shounen because of the fight scenes. Episode 15 was one of the disaster endings I've ever seen because of the power of friendship, destroyed yet saved them. Some shounen tropes like the power of friendship and punching each other faces while shouting each other's side are so freaking hilarious in this anime. This picture was from a scene that is referenced from Naruto Shippuden which is so ridiculous: ~~~img620(https://i.imgur.com/BcKLwZM.png)~~~ ~~~img620(https://i.imgur.com/CFdMB8c.jpg)~~~ Art and Sound: The art was solid and kudos to Passione for animating the "shounen" fight scenes. The lips of every main characters were so creepy as heck but I like the OG designs more than Passione. The soundtrack is still fine. The OP sequence is also a banger but not a creepy one, just like the old OP in OG series. The ED is also amazing, especially the piano part at the beginning. Characters: They are the same as ever, nothing new for all the characters in the Higurashi franchise. Satoko's point of view is also good but they should stick for the new story about Satoko. Other main characters like Keichii, Shion, Mion, Rena, and the others were like side characters now in this season and they didn't have enough screentime for them. It feels like Rika and Satoko are the main protagonist of the whole Higurashi franchise, not Keichii. Overall, it is still good. Enjoyment and Last words: Do you think this season is worth watching? I recommend watching the second half of Gou and start Sotsu from the beginning. It can help you save time from watching this garbage anime. Ryu07 shouldn't milk the series in the first place because the ending of Kai was satisfying. Higurashi was famous for being a horror thriller gore anime, right? Why the heck this season became a slice of life drama with some awesome fight scenes? The first two seasons of Higurashi were better but all the hate was shoved in Gou and Sotsu. Sotsu had the potential to be a great season if the pointless recaps are removed. It's a pain in the neck to say this but one word will describe this entire season and Gou, __DISAPPOINTING!!__
~~~_Well, this is a tough one._~~~ First of all, in classical When They Cry-fashion, and as it was already known, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Sotsu contains the answer arcs to Gou, there to solve or give insight into the mysteries given there. And it does exactly that. I've read it a-plenty in other reviews, but that's mainly what the answer arcs are, while "recapping" from another perspective, usually the one of the culprit, or someone in control of them, it gives you the final pieces to the questions _"who did it?"_ and _"how did they do it?"_. The main problem with Sotsu is, we already know since the ending of Gou who _"""most likely"""_ is the culprit of things, and that makes the entire thing feel really repetitive, and with the superweapon H173 that already crosses out both of these questions, Gou pretty much ends with that being straight shown to us. I had a pretty hard time going through this, I must say, and up until the ending of Tatariakashi-hen I was up to just outright slander this sequel, but the final chapter turned my opinion by 180 degrees (or something in-between, as I still will rate this for the whole experience, not just the ending). Sotsu isn't about answering Gou, in fact I think even less that Sotsugou is a continuation of Higurashi in the classical sense. It's way more a tie-in of the series into the rest of the When They Cry-franchise than anything else. Especially what we learn about everyone present in the Sea of Fragments makes even more sense if you know the other series, Umineko, and its characters. All of that makes it incredibly hard to be judged, especially for fans only of Higurashi, or people that are entirely new, because...on it's own, up until Episode 12, which answers things, __Sotsu isn't good, it is...as others said before, _repetitive_.__ If you know the franchise however, then the final episodes actually give a lot of answers, not even to Higurashi, but to things that people will have theorized for for quite some time, and even if they are not served up on a fancy platter, plainly obvious to the eye of the beholder, it helps the entire picture being drawn. Ryukishi surely is a clever one. **But, would have turnining Sotsu into a 4-episode OVA helped, only giving us what we want?** _Probably not._ In the end, someone would have been disappointed by it, no matter what. Higurashi fans that are confused on why a solid ending like Kai needs a character being trampled on, and WTC-lovers that want on-the-nose _certainty_ on the identity of our characters. An impossible task to be solved just right. And for what was given here, it ended up being okay, nothing perfect and not horrifyingly bad. ~~I really just hope we won't get anything related to Umineko in anime form ever again.~~ ---- # ~~~_We'll cross paths someday, when something else cries_~~~
__Higurashi Sotsu is perhaps one of the most disappointing anime I have watched in recent memory. It is far from the worst anime I have seen, but it is apparent that Sotsu is a lazy final season for a cherished series. Be aware this review will contain spoliers for all Higurashi seasons, both old and new. __ One of the most pervasive arguments surrounding the prequel to Sotsu, Gou, is that the very existance of a new series of Higurashi was entirely pointless from the beginning. The original story of Higurashi was completed many years ago, and really it did not require any more new material. While this is an argument I agree with to an extent, I don't think that Gou and Sotsu were destined to be pointless sequels to an already complete story. In fact, I found many aspects of Gou interesting and I believe the basis for a good second season were laid in Gou's 24 episodes. However, Sotsu dropped the ball, in a big way. To begin with, the first 11 episodes of Sotsu are essentially re-animated versions of Gou's first 11 episodes, but with a few extra scenes added in order to present these episodes from Satoko's perspective. These 11 episodes are perhaps Sotsu's biggest flaw. Realistically, these episodes could have been quite easily condensed into 3 or 4 episodes at most. Having to drag through these almost identical episodes ripped from Gou detracts from any of the interesting content added to these 11 episodes. If you thought Haruhi's Endless Eight was bad, this is even worse. Worse still is the fact that much of these 11 episodes in Gou are reanimated versions of the events which took place in the original Studio Deen series. This makes the bulk of Sotsu's content boring, repetative and lazy. For the last 4 of Sotsu's 15 episodes, we do get some original content! Of course, we focus on the conflict between Satoko and Rika in these episodes, as well as Hanyuu and Eua. Even then, it takes until episode 14 to reach the point where Satoko pulls her gun on Rika and friends, a cliffhanger we received far back in Higurashi Gou. It is at this point where the new content were receive can perhaps be best described as out of touch with the rest of the Higurashi series. Satoko and RIka's fight scenes quickly evolve into something more suited to Dragonball for no real reason. Coming from a series known for its brutal and intense interactions between characters, this feels like a terribly tone-deaf conclusion to the series. What's more, the events of Gou and Sotsu seem to have very little consequence for the development of any of Higurashi's characters, even Satoko and Rika. It is such a shame that Gou turned out the way in which it did. I am a big fan of the new Higurashi artstyle and character designs. I think every one of the re-designed characters look fantastic, and both Gou and Sotsu look fantastic from a visual perspective. However, this does not make up for the fact that Higurashi Sotsu let down the Higurashi series in a big way.
"Be careful what you wish for." Higurashi Gou and Sotsu are exactly what people mean when they say that phrase. I love Higurashi, but admittedly the original adaptation has aged poorly. I always wanted to see one of my favorite stories remade. And now that it finally has gotten a reboot, I wish it hadn't been. Over a decade after the original anime aired, they have resurrected the franchise for no reason other than profit. Gou was purposefully mismarketed as a remake to attract curious new viewers—then it rebranded itself as a sequel to get the old fandom's attention. Occasionally it had scary moments, but it never proved why it should exist. Sotsu is supposedly the "answer arcs" but it is 90% reused footage with slight alterations. These reboots focus specifically on Rika and Satoko. Rika wants to leave Hinamizawa and go to a prestigious high school. Satoko dreams of staying in Hinamizawa forever, but she will not let Rika leave. What ensues is endless torture porn. With the help of an enigmatic spirit, Satoko gains the same looping ability as Rika. Every time they enter a new loop, a comically evil version of Satoko makes Rika suffer as much as possible. The end goal is for her to give up her dreams of escaping. That's it. That's your 39 episodes in a nutshell. I could end the review here, but we need to discuss what turned this from a lukewarm spin-off to the worst thing that has ever happened to When They Cry. Higurashi's first two seasons were a nicely completed story. There's no reason to watch Gou. I only finished it because I wanted to see what would happen to my favorite characters. Sotsu had the same problem, and it failed to justify its existence. Supposedly, these anime are the bridge between this series and Umineko, but it would be less exhausting to read a Wikipedia summary. There's a common argument that this show can't possibly be crap because Ryukishi07, the original visual novel author, co-wrote the show's script! That's a pretty awful excuse; I shouldn't have to explain why, but I will. Writers mess up from time to time. Sometimes they lose their spark altogether. Have you ever heard of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? George Lucas co-wrote the script, and it ended up being the worst received film in the franchise. There's nothing new here; Keichi, Rena, Mion, and Shion have the same character arcs, except their personalities are stripped to outlines of their former selves. In terms of character development, do you remember Satoko's abusive uncle? Well, they gave him a redemption arc! Great work, guys. The only thing that distinguishes this as a sequel is Satoko's intervention. She injects various friendly faces with Hinamizawa Syndrome, the virus that causes psychosis. There's no deeper meaning for why the loveable cast of maniacs loses their grip on reality—wacky old Satoko pulls the strings. Water down themes from the original to act as set dressing; cycles of abuse, cultural preservation, evil government, harmful traditions, etcetera. The new theme is a shallow 'good versus bad' conflict. No nuance, Rika is the good guy because she wants to save everyone. Satoko is the big bad because she will kill anyone to keep Rika from escaping. Satoko turns from an abuse victim to faking getting abused to manipulate her friends. This sharp turn into foul territory makes me question the sincerity of the anti-child abuse messages in the original. Even with a stellar presentation, this would've still been an unengaging turd, but that's not good either. The directing deserves its fair share of criticism too. Higurashi has always used tonal shifts to its advantage; half of the show is upbeat slice-of-life with family-friendly comedy. At the drop of a hat, it could turn sinister—Rena curses Keichi under her breath, then returns to her happy-go-lucky self. The reboots utilize this same technique to build tension, except WAY too much. It's cool to see Satoko go berserk after two whole seasons of her being the sane one. But we get it. She's bloodthirsty, evil, and manipulative. You don't need to beat us over the head with it every two seconds. At least Satoko's voice actress is trying, and that's all I'll say. I don't object to using violence in a horror anime. In Gou and Sotsu, I frequently wondered why the gore was there, just as I questioned why the rest of the show was there. Why use so much violence when Higurashi's strength was creating tension and shock without it? Sure, it has always had its fair share of violence, but they used it sparingly. Gou and Sotsu are filled to the brim with serial killers, stranglings, bloody knives, shootings, and immolations. In Gou, they censored it. Sotsu uncensored much of the carnage. I'd say it's better to watch it as a slasher thriller, but it gets trite quickly. You can only watch so many crazy people go on murderous rampages before it gets mind-numbingly banal. I love Higurashi because no matter how many times I watch it, I notice new details. It foreshadows its twists; you can predict they're coming, but rewatching it will feel all the more rewarding. Sotsu and Gou are not like this. Their narratives are a means to get to shocking scenes. They never considered if the twists would linger with the audience. The most foreshadowing in both seasons is in the opening credits. Both seasons have dubstep theme songs that do not fit the show at all. The new art style doesn't work either. Sure, Studio Deen's adaptation left a lot to be desired, but it was an artistic representation of the mundane cute slice of life contrasted with violence for shock factor. They could've achieved the same effect with an art style similar to the visual novel remakes. Instead, they went with something generic. The use of visual effects, like CGI flames, was distractingly cheap. Higurashi Sotsu could've been a two-hour movie—cut out the recaps, all that's left is Satoko screaming and people going crazy. It is a grossly mismarketed and unwatchable sequel. Unless you have seen every season of Higurashi (16+ hours) and read the Umineko no Naku Koro ni novels (110+ hours), do not bother watching these. The final arc of Gou set up an intriguing premise, but Sotsu never had a payoff. Even diehard When They Cry fans will be disappointed with the direction it takes. If you must see how it ends, start from episode 14 of Sotsu. It becomes Dragon Ball, equipped with neon color battles, super strength, and fighting that'd better suit a kids cartoon if you removed all the blood splatters. Gou and Sotsu regurgitate as much of the imagery we expect from Higurashi as possible. It successfully drew the attention of long-time fans, only to waste our time on an absolutely meaningless sequel. The few effectively staged gory scares provide passing entertainment, but the rest is bland and tedious. The brief burst of spontaneous insanity in the final episode of Sotsu serves as the last gasp of air for this decaying, mutilated corpse of a franchise. Yet I doubt we've seen the last of When They Cry.