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Whoa, more than one year is not “very soon” in my opinion but here I am! The controversial anime that took “fish-eye” camera and extreme angles. . .well. . .to the extreme! Here in Hinamizawa you will enjoy enjoy your stay; with all the fascinating scenery, interesting people, and the constant repetition of the same week-long timeline for more than 40 episodes you’ll surely be entertained!

Studio DEEN is responsible for the anime adaptation of this great series; the first season was aired in 2006 and is 26 episodes long; the second season was aired in 2007 and consists of 24 eps. The series is based on the amateur mystery game by 7th Expansion and, by the nature of the game, you’ll have had to play all scenarios to understand the story and it’s exactly what the anime does! It’s interesting to watch the same scenario over and over again with subtle changes in the story.

STORY

It all starts in the small town of Hinamizawa. The male lead, Maebara Keiichi just transfered to town and rapidly makes new friends. Everything is going well until news of a murder in Hinamizawa start to expand. After that you’ll have to see for yourself because it;s almost a spoiler minefield our there!

GRAPHICS

Character design is standard at most: colorful clothes, wide variety in hair color, huge heads in contrast to the body, etc. In season one the proportion flaws were far more evident than in the second season: whenever a far away shot would happen, the girl’s head would often be seen almost twice as big! Now, when any of these girls gets angry, we’ll get a very weird camera style, often in Fish-eye, other times with extreme facial marks (meaning anger), extreme camera angles and maniacal laughs.

 Click to see “The Laugh”

Season 2 fixes the 2x-head mistakes and continues the animation in an excellent manner compared to the first season.

I wonder what these girls are seeing (notice Rika’s surprise [left] and Rena’s fear[right]), different strokes for different folks!

SOUND & MUSIC

The first season’s OP was “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni” sung by Eiko Shimamiya. The ED, “Why, or Why Not” sung by Rekka Katakiri. The main composer for the tracks was Kenji Kawai and the albums were produced by Frontier Works

The second season’s opening theme was “Naraku no Hana”, Eiko Shimamiya singing again.

This is a very interesting play of words: in the OP of the first season, if you played it backwards, you could hear the words Nigerarenai (逃げられない [You] can’t escape?). These words were also part of the second season’s OP. An interesting way of playing with music (words mainly; doing music backwards has existed since the baroque era).

Don’t be deceived by those full-pupilled eyes! Always watch your back and carry a baseball bat around!

OVERALL

An excellent choice for hardcore anime fans and a very interesting selection to attract someone to the genre, since it has mature themes with loli-looking characters, a pretty nice contrast (although over-exploited nowadays). Watch this if you don’t mind blood and want to have the Higurashi experience! I doubt you’ll be disappointed!

As an interesting note, the second season aired at the same time as School Days and, since both anime series had murder scenes, they were “Nice Boat-ed”, although some TV stations ceased to transmit Higurashi. When it was re-transmitted, they changed a scene in the OP song: when a bloody hatchet appeared, they changed it for a van in a dumpster.

May the “Ni-pah” be with you.

STORY   9.5

GRAPHICS  8

SOUND & MUSIC 8

OVERALL   8.5 Diamonds

Great job!