[Judas]

Originally Posted by Rias

here's my take on Taraimwashi-hen...

Spoiler for Taraimawashi-hen & Watanagashi-hen:

Since you have watched the anime then you should know what happened in Watanagashi-hen, and the truth behind it. Taraimawashi-hen is very similar to Watanagashi-hen, as we can see that there's something going on with Mion/Shion. Only thing is, before we jump back to present day, no one was killed. (Well maybe they were, during the empty gap, who knows. Also, Tomitake ALAWAYS get killed anyway)

Anyway, as readers, we were given a single task in the beginning: to discover and explore all the mysteries surrounding Hinamizawa. The serial killings, Oyashiro-sama's curse, great Hinamizawa disaster, and so on. However, if we refuse/failed to do that, by selecting choices that would enable us to "run away from the truth", we would enter Taraimawashi-hen. Afterall, the only way to enter Taraimawashi-hen is to not meet any requirments to enter the other arcs.

In the beginning, it's easy to enter Taraimawashi-hen. Just by not going to the dam to help Rena after the pinic, we would get that. However, I think most people who doesn't know any Onikakushi-hen story, would choose to help out Rena. People who don't help her are probably ones who know that that we find out about the dismemberment killing becuase of reading Onikakushi-hen before(which is the first thing that made Keiichi paranoid in Onikakushi-hen). Whether we wanted to "see something new happen by choosing the non-obvious choice", or just wanted to have the happy days go on as long as we can, we have ran away. This is also why you can only enter Onikakushi-hen or Taraimawashi-hen on the first playthrough.

Once we enter Taraimawashi-hen, we start to see various events. Mion's shift in personalities, and Shion giving you the digest version of all the events of the serial killings and mysteries of Oyashio-sama. Even though we "ran away" from the truth (in the beginning), the unforgiving world still moves on: Tomitake is still dead, and people are still going missing. As the events goes on, and finally seeing Mion on the hospital bed, we know that Watanagashi-hen's has occured, but slightly different. There isn't much point to the ending, but the whole general theme of this arc was the main point. I think that's thre reason why Taraimawashi-hen is set as Chapter 1; for people who have some knowledge of the story already. People who don't would probably fall into Onikakushi-hen first, then Watanagashi and Tatarigoroshi-hen (those 3 chapters are also in that order to unlock in the PS2 game)

Spoiler:

so basically we should really just think of any possible watanagashihen-like development at the end? that's what i thought at first... no really! however i thought that would leave too many questions unanswered even for a question-arc and only those who know the original or the anime/manga could imagine what happened >_> but then... it's okay to make an ending like that since it's only a scenario to show that the tragedy also happens when you try to run away... argh now i'm trying to figure out what really happened between oishi's call and the hospital-scene XD