I wasn't sure how to go about discussing Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Eventually, I decided the easiest way would be to post about each arc separately. I'm watching the same fansub I watched years ago, so I want to point out that some of the translations could be a bit off, which means some of the things I say may be incorrect.
I don't watch a lot of anime, but what I have watched, I've enjoyed immensely (especially FMA/FMA Brotherhood and Ouran High School Host Club). That being said, I'm pretty much open to anything and if something looks interesting, I'm more than willing to give it a chance, especially when it comes to the horror genre. That's what led me to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (and Another, but let's give that series its own post).
This series is incredibly disturbing and gory. And confusing! Not just because there are some really cute scenes in between all the brutal murders, but because each arc follows a different timeline and in each instance where the loop resets, things completely change. (I had to rewatch the series before writing this post because I was so lost the first time.) To be honest, I could do without the gore, even if it is only animated. But as far as everything else goes, Higurashi was exactly what I was looking for and I wish there were more series like it.
The first arc, Demoned Away, consists of four episodes. For my own sanity, I am going to summarize each episode so that going forward, I'll actually remember what happened and maybe I can make sense of it this time around.
Episode 1
As far as the plot is concerned, not much happens in the first episode. Keiichi, the main character, meets Tomitake, a photographer, who begins telling him about a death that occurred during the dam construction in Hinamizawa, where Keiichi and his friends live. Keiichi questions his friend, Rena, about it, but she claims to have no knowledge of the incident, saying she lived somewhere else until last year. (This is important, remember it.)
Keiichi, unsatisfied with Rena's response, then asks another friend, Mion, about the dam construction. She tells him the town fought against the dam construction because Hinamizawa would have been underwater. Keiichi questions her further, asking if anyone was murdered. And then! Mion does the thing that everyone in this anime does when they're being totally questionable and creepy, and her eyes disappear from her face. (See Rena in the first picture in this post for an example of what I'm talking about. Sometimes they also have cat eyes, which is just as disturbing.) Mion, wearing her evil face, of course says no, no one was murdered.
As the episode ends, Keiichi finds an old newspaper with an article about people who were murdered at the dam, cut in pieces by an axe. Cut to Rena standing behind him with a machete. I'm sure she's totally harmless though...
Episode 2
On the night of the Watanagashi Festival, Keiichi searches for Rena, and instead finds Tomitake speaking to a woman named Takano. Keiichi, not taking a hint from his machete-wielding, cat-eyed friends, again asks Tomitake for details about what happened during the dam construction.
Tomitake tells him it happened 7 or 8 years ago when they began planning the construction. Hinamizawa would have been flooded, so people protested and it was brought to court. Corruption was revealed and the construction was halted. Then 4 years ago, during the Watanagashi Festival, there was a murder. "The seniors all believed it was the curse of Oyashiro-sama." Tomitake adds, "It's probably about how Hinamizawa's guardian punished those who tried to sink the town."
After that, someone died every year on the day of the festival. A resident of Hinamizawa who supported the construction fell off a cliff and died. Another year, a shrine owner died of a "mysterious illness." The year after that, they found a woman beaten to death. The husband of that woman is the younger brother of the dam supporter who fell off the cliff.
The next day at school, a detective named Oishi calls Keiichi out of class and questions him about Tomitake and the woman he was with the night of the festival. He tells Keiichi that Tomitake died that night, he cut his throat with his own fingernails. However, he believes that multiple people were involved in his death due to wounds covering his body. The woman he was with is missing. Oishi warns Keiichi not to let his friends find out they spoke about this, as he does not know to what extent the townspeople are involved.
Later on, half asleep in class, Keiichi overhears Mion and Rena discussing the curse of Oyashiro-sama. Rena is worried that she'll be next, and Mion says, "But you came back home." (Oh really, Rena? "Back home" implies you lived in Hinamizawa previously. Did you lie to Keiichi?) Keiichi overhears them mention someone named Satoshi, and he asks Rena about it later on. Once again, Rena's face goes blank and she claims to know nothing about him. Keiichi stupidly accuses her of lying and hiding something from him. Rena then accuses him of the same thing, saying she knows about his meeting with the detective.
Oishi calls Keiichi that night and Keiichi wants to know if he's heard of people being "demoned away." He discovers that every year during the festival, someone is murdered and someone else goes missing. And one of the people who disappeared was a boy named Satoshi!
Keiichi ends the phone call when his father knocks on his bedroom door and says that Rena was at the house and he sent her upstairs to Keiichi's room. Keiichi is noticeably worried, knowing Rena overheard his conversation with Oishi. She is seen standing outside Keiichi's house, staring, as the closing credits start.
Episode 3
Rena meets Keiichi at his house before school in the morning, but he knows that machete-wielding lunatic overheard his conversation with Oishi the night before, and he's not completely stupid, so he fakes being sick and stays home.
He then proceeds to meet Oishi for lunch. (Has he learned nothing yet?) Oishi informs him that since Satoshi disappeared last year, he has been investigating Keiichi's friends. The first year's victim had an altercation with Mion. The second year, another of his friends, Satoko, was at the site of the accident. His friend Rika is the daugher of the shrine owner who died the third year. The woman who died the fourth year was a relative of Satako...And Satoshi was Satako's brother. Every person who has died has a connection to Keiichi's friends.
Oishi tells Keiichi that before Rena moved back to Hinamizawa, she was suspended from school after breaking all the windows there. She then received counseling. In the doctor's notes, Rena frequently mentioned Oyashiro-sama.
Back home, Rena and Mion ring Keiichi's doorbell. Rena gives Keiichi food she helped prepare and then questions him about his lunch with Oishi. Once they've gone, Keiichi, once again proving that he isn't that bright, decides to eat the food the girls gave to him. After taking a bite, he spits it out and finds a sewing needle inside.
Keiichi, justifiably worried, writes a note saying he is in danger of being killed and tapes it to the back of the wall clock in his room.
The next day, as he is walking to school, a man in a white van tries to run him over.
When Keiichi returns home from school, his parents call to let him know they had to go to Tokyo for work and won't be home until the next night. Oishi then calls and asks if anything strange has happened. Keiichi tells him about the needle in the meal Rena prepared for him and how someone tried to run him over. As he is speaking to Oishi, someone begins to repeatedly ring his doorbell.
Episode 4
Rena is at Keiichi's door and asks if he has eaten yet, saying she brought more food over for him, but Keiichi is onto her now and he lies and pretends his dinner is almost ready. Of course, like everything else, Rena knows this is a lie. She puts her hand through the opening in the door and attempts to get in, but Keiichi slams the door on her.
He gets back on the phone with Oishi and learns that Rena hit three male students with a bat the day she broke all the windows at her old school. Keiichi looks out his window and sees Rena standing outside in the rain, staring at his house and mumbling to herself.
At school, Keiichi tells Mion to leave him alone while he practices swinging a bat that once belonged to Satoshi, as a way to defend himself. He accuses Mion of hiding what happened to Satoshi from him and says she lied about the murder at the dam. He then demands to know whether it was Mion or Rena who put the needle in his food. Mion, looking possessed, says, right out in the open, that she should have already killed Oishi and she will definitely kill him now.
On his way home, Keiichi hides in the trees and sees Rena walking by with a machete. She disappears for a moment and then reappears behind him. (Don't question it. That's not even the strangest thing to happen on this show.) He asks why she has a machete and she begins to laugh maniacally. For some reason, our genius main character decides now is as good a time as any to demand to know who committed the serial murders and Rena says it wasn't a human, it was Oyashiro-sama. Rena claims she transferred because Oyashiro-sama came to her. At this point, Keiichi has had enough and he pushes Rena to the ground and takes off, running through the trees and eventually coming across the men who previously tried to run him over. They hit him over the head and knock him unconscious.
When Keiichi awakens at home, Rena and Mion are there. Rena says she called the "Director" and Keiichi asks who that is, which prompts the two girls to laugh hysterically. Rena grabs a needle and stabs him with it. Somehow, Keiichi manages to break free and he beats Rena and Mion to death with a bat.
The white van pulls up outside Keiichi's house. He removes the note from the back of his clock and adds that Rena and Mion are part of a criminal organization along with the men in the white van. He claims Tomitake was killed by an unknown drug (presumably the same one Mion just injected him with). He then replaces the note and runs out his backdoor, attempting to escape from the men in the van. Keiichi calls Oishi from a payphone and Oishi dispatches someone to go to him. Keiichi tells him that Oyashiro-sama committed the murders. Like Tomitake, Keiichi claws at his own throat. He dies 24 hours later.
TL;DR Keiichi's friends are so incredibly disturbing that his totally justified paranoia causes him to snap and kill them.
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