Higurashi Spoiler Discussion (for people who have read the clues/finished the series)

[Ithekro]

Answer for Tsumihoroboshi-hen..

Spoiler for :

K1 moved to the town in I think May, and the festival is in June I think...so less than a month since they are friends already.

[Klashikari]

Since we are in the spoiler thread, I think the tags aren't exactly required.

Originally Posted by KoiYuki

Questions for Onikakushi-hen (what really happened, I mean)..

Spoiler for .:

1. Why did the van with the yamainu guys try to run Keiichi over?
2. Why did they chase him after he ran away from Rena?
3. What happened to the ohagi? I can't remember if his parents were still home, so this question only needs an answer if they weren't.
4. Why was Rena pulling on the chain in the first place, especially if he was yelling at her?
5. Why did Rena have the machete in episode 4? Was she trying to show him that she'd protect him with it?

1. That was an accident and due to Keiichi's moderate paranoia level, he mistook this as a hit and run. Note that the anime screwed this scene: the yamainu never stopped the van before leaving.
2. The yamainu is still working for Irie until Takano activates the manual 34 emergency measure. Irie most likely heard that Keiichi went erratic from Mion and Rena's report, so it is very likely that the yamainu got orders that they must seize him.
Why would they send Keiichi back home with Rena and Mion? That is because they can't let their cover being blown like this, so forcing Keiichi to be send in the clinic right away is way too suspicious, and considering how it might make things worse with Keiichi, Irie probably gambled with this decision as Rena and Mion are his best friends, but... bad decision.
3. The Ohagi was stuffed with tabasco, which gave a very sharp "pain" impression. Being red, Keiichi mistook it for some blood and went literaly berserk upon seeing this. The ohagi later on, was trashed away, as nothing suspicious was inside, originally.
4. She didn't expect that grabbing the chain would worsen his paranoia.
5. Rena wanted to show that Keiichi was scaring everyone with his bat. that is to say, she didn't use the best method.
If you imagine her saying the same things with a caring and worried tone, everything makes sense.

Questions for Watanagashi-hen/Meakashi-hen..

Spoiler for .:

1. When Rika had the syringe, what was in it? The same thing Satoko uses for Hinamizawa Syndrome?
2. Why would Keiichi be dumb enough to go outside and see Shmion when she clearly told him not to?
3. Why did Rika get so weak after being injected with the contents of the syringe?

1. Yes, the C120 (improved version of the original C103 antidote). This is the same serum Satoko is using (through under the guise of vitamins).
2. That is because Keiichi is way more impulsive and caring, and didn't think she warned him that he was going to be in big trouble for real.
3. The C120 has a drawback that cause fever and hallucinations to anyone who is not affected by the syndrome.

Questions for Tsumihoroboshi-hen..

Spoiler for .:

1. How much time passed between Rena's murders and Rena "snapping"?

1. There was never a real timeframe, but we can say that 1 or 2 weeks at most. That is still only a wild guess.

General..

Spoiler for .:

1. Is Hinamizawa Syndrome real?
2. Is the "queen bee" story true?
3. How can Keiichi get Hinamizawa Syndrome?
4. Did Shion get Hinamizawa Syndrome or was she just crazy/obsessed?
5. What happened to the one person believed to still be at large from the dismemberment murder?
6. How was Hanyuu able to become human?
7. Can everyone see her horns? Do they just ignore them?
8. Why has Rika never tried leaving Hinamizawa (as far as we know)?
9. What's the point of Takano's scrapbooks? Why does she give them away?

That's all I can think of for now.. Sorry for so many questions.

1. Yes in the anime, obviously not in reality.
2. No, it was a plain wrong theory that Dr Hifumi Takano thought to be true.
3. There is no explanation how people are afflicted by the disease though Irie implied that being infected by the Hinamizawa syndrome is quite easy.
4. Actually, her grudge over the years just "feed" the syndrome. Both just "stack" each other, which turned her extremely psychotic.
5. He was taken into Takano and Irie's custody as a sample. That guy is actually their very first living sample.
6. It is a "miracle" or rather, how Hanyuu finally allow herself to be a "piece" on the chessboard. From my understanding (since it is never explained completely), materializing herself taps a certain amount of power, and it might lead "faster" to the "game over" since both Rika and Hanyuu loses powers over the course of the loops. Hanyuu never thought she would be useful so that's why she never "indulged" herself to barge in the fray. That said, the end of Minagoroshi proved her otherwise and she finally enters in the stage.
7. Yes they can see them.
8. That is because she had absolutely no knowledge that the queen carrier theory was false to begin with. Considering how Irie, Takano etc always "die", she made the assumption that things go always sour because of her being the carrier.
She did try to escape through the woods, but she obviously didn't make far (she survived until july IIRC).
9. Part of her messed up hobbies, and it is actually a good method to disrupt any "guess" of her plan. Furthermore, not only it helps her to manipulate someone (to make them go in L5), but it also has the effect that she might be considered as a "prophet" as she "foretold" the disaster.

[KoiYuki]

Thanks for all the answers. I have a few more questions though.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

3. The Ohagi was stuffed with tabasco, which gave a very sharp "pain" impression. Being red, Keiichi mistook it for some blood and went literaly berserk upon seeing this. The ohagi later on, was trashed away, as nothing suspicious was inside, originally.

Who cleaned the ohagi? I can't remember if his parents were home then or not.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

7. Yes they can see them.

Do they just ignore them, and why has no one asked about them?

Originally Posted by Klashikari

8. That is because she had absolutely no knowledge that the queen carrier theory was false to begin with. Considering how Irie, Takano etc always "die", she made the assumption that things go always sour because of her being the carrier.
She did try to escape through the woods, but she obviously didn't make far (she survived until july IIRC).

What killed her in July?

Also, in Onikakushi-hen, did the whole "USO DA" scene happen the way we saw it? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to believe that it was real or a delusion of Keiichi's. If it was a delusion, what did Rena really say?

What was the ripped out part of the note Keiichi left on the back of his clock?

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by KoiYuki

Who cleaned the ohagi? I can't remember if his parents were home then or not.

No indication.

Do they just ignore them, and why has no one asked about them?

They just didn't mind. No real explanation past this point, though Takano did mentioned she looked like a monster (in the game version of Matsuribayashi) which sparked Hanyuu's memories of Minagoroshi.

What killed her in July?

Since she doesn't remember of her own death, we don't know.
Either she couldn't survive with the horrible environment or she was found out by the yamainu.

Also, in Onikakushi-hen, did the whole "USO DA" scene happen the way we saw it? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to believe that it was real or a delusion of Keiichi's. If it was a delusion, what did Rena really say?

All scenes with "oyashiro mode" eyes in Onikakushi hen are obviously delusions.
There is no use to ask "what the characters really did" since we never had a proper demonstration of what happened, except few glimpses from Tusmihoroboshi. Still, since these are hallucinations, we can say that the characters were there and talked something "remotely" similar.
Rena most likely said "it is a lie", but was never acting threatening or so.

What was the ripped out part of the note Keiichi left on the back of his clock?

You didn't pay attention it seems... they removed the part where keiichi mentioned he has another proof, which was the syringe (the marker actually). We can speculate that if they let that portion of the note there, it could lead the police or so into a lead for "hallucination" or something of that kind.
Leaving it vague as keiichi first wrote would make them think there are just some crazed believers working behind the curse.

[KoiYuki]

Oh, okay. Thanks. One more question and then I'm done.. Why didn't Satoshi kill Teppei along with the aunt?

[ganbaru]

I see 2 reasons why:
-It was his aunt than was causing most of the problem, not Teppei.
-Teppey was not a Hinamizawa on the watanagashi's festival's night.

[Eryops]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

9. Part of her messed up hobbies, and it is actually a good method to disrupt any "guess" of her plan. Furthermore, not only it helps her to manipulate someone (to make them go in L5), but it also has the effect that she might be considered as a "prophet" as she "foretold" the disaster.

And I think it's also that she simply enjoys driving people insane. After all, she is pretty sadistic considering that she also enjoys vivisecting people.

Originally Posted by ganbaru

I see 2 reasons why:
-It was his aunt than was causing most of the problem, not Teppei.

Yes. As long as Teppei had the aunt taking care of household chores, he was content to be out with his friends and not interfere with Satoko. He only recruits Satoko for the job after Rina dies and he has nobody to do them for him.

[kewlgurl4ya]

okay i don't know if this is already in here (bcuz i'm too lazy to read through it all XDDD) but,
in i think it was the very last ep of kai, when the doctor (i can't spell his name XD) was talking to shion he said something about satoshi-kun still being there. So i believe that satoshi-kun

Spoiler for if you haven't seen the whole series:

was found gulity of killing his aunt, (which is more than true since we all saw this in the "eye opening" chapter episode 17) and was merely sent to jail.

[tobiast88]

No. You are wrong, and I'm not going to waste my time explaining what happened on your screen.

[rogerpepitone]

Having just finished Sonozaki-Futagotachi's translation of Onikakushi:

- The yamainu didn't chase him. I think Keiichi stumbled into preparations. After they knocked him out, they left. Rena helped him walk home. Irie didn't know about it until Rena called him.

As for who damaged the note:
- Why did X even look behind the clock in the first place? If X was making a general search, why were there no signs of it? If X was searching the clock in particular, how did he know to look there?
- Why did X want to conceal mention of the dismemberment victim and syringe?
- Why did X take the time to read the note at the scene of the crime, remove part, and tape the rest back? If X was concerned about it, why not remove the whole thing?
- When did X do this? It can't have been that long from when K1 left to the police arrived.


- Oishi damaged the note. He definitely concealed some things (he knew the meaning of "Was there a needle?"). From later chapters, he had a connection to the dismemberment victim. He was first at the scene at the crime and would have looked behind the clock in the course of a typical search of the crime scene. Another officer probably saw him remove something from the back of the clock, so he couldn't destroy it completely. (Also, his sense of duty might have led him not to destroy evidence that wasn't damaging to himself personally.) After seeing the note and marker, he quickly realized the truth about what happened and his own culpability.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned: After K1 gets the shot at the clinic, Oishi tells him a ghost story. K1's response is not to react with paranoia, but to calmly point out the inconsistency. This supports the "shot was vaccine" hypothesis.

[theacefrehley]

That is one thing we can never say for sure. Who damaged the note.

But I still think it was the Yamainu. Even without any syringe there (the marker), there was still information about unknown drug there, not to say they were involved with the 1st years case. Reactivate investigation on that would not be very interesting for them.
Without these, all that would be left would be babbling from some paranoid boy.

And they had plenty of time to search around the house too (who know how long the police took to find Keiichi and then go to his house). And behind a wall-clock is not any place beyond any suspicion as well...

[rogerpepitone]

If the Yamainu did it, why didn't they rip out the "There are four or five adults. They have a white van." part? That's the most directly incriminating thing to them.

Why would they search the room in the first place? What would they expect to find? And while the wall-clock is an obvious hiding place, there are several others. Any sort of search in a room covered in fresh blood would be likely to leave traces. (There was no mention of, say, a bloody footprint not matching K1's shoes.)

It took five minutes from when K1 called the police to when they found his body. He said he'd run from his house without stopping, and he was mentioned as not being an athlete, so that couldn't have taken too long.

[theacefrehley]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

If the Yamainu did it, why didn't they rip out the "There are four or five adults. They have a white van." part? That's the most directly incriminating thing to them.

'4 or 5 adults' means nothing. (Later, we see the yamainu has much more people than this). Why would '4 to 5 adults' lead to the Yamainu and not other people anywhere else?

As for the White Van;
If I'm not mistaken, Yamainu's HQ or whatever is not in Hinamizawa, just as the Police Station and other services are not in Hinamizawa, but in Okinomiya, that is very close. Like Okonogi Gardening.
And Okinomiya is much bigger than Hinamizawa. Could it be that Yamainu is the only people there who own a White Van? (Heck, Keiichi did not even idicate the plate number)

Why would they search the room in the first place? What would they expect to find? And while the wall-clock is an obvious hiding place, there are several others.

Any sort of search in a room covered in fresh blood would be likely to leave traces. (There was no mention of, say, a bloody footprint not matching K1's shoes.)

It took five minutes from when K1 called the police to when they found his body. He said he'd run from his house without stopping, and he was mentioned as not being an athlete, so that couldn't have taken too long

What would they expect to find? What they did.
If Keiichi was so important as to make them scout Irie there (who knows what Rena told Irie, and who knows what Irie passed to them...), they wouldn't just let him go and that's it, let's go home...
And Yamainu is an Intelligence Group. They are not so stupid to as to mess everything around leaving hair, footprints, fingerprints.

And there's no indication of the time passed between Keiichi leaving the house and finding a payphone, let alone the time talking with Ooishi and the police arriving to his house.

As I said, we can't know who damaged. Both Ooishi and Yamainu could have done it. I just think it's more likely to be the Yamainu, since I think it'd be difficult for Ooishi do it with people of the police around, like coroners (It's like a commandment in the police to not touch anything before the coroners).

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by theacefrehley

'4 or 5 adults' means nothing. (Later, we see the yamainu has much more people than this). Why would '4 to 5 adults' lead to the Yamainu and not other people anywhere else?

As for the White Van;
If I'm not mistaken, Yamainu's HQ or whatever is not in Hinamizawa, just as the Police Station and other services are not in Hinamizawa, but in Okinomiya, that is very close. Like Okonogi Gardening.
And Okinomiya is much bigger than Hinamizawa. Could it be that Yamainu is the only people there who own a White Van? (Heck, Keiichi did not even idicate the plate number)

Let me rephrase: Under what circumstances would they think that the comment about the dam foreman was more dangerous than the comment about the white van? And why didn't they just destroy the whole note?

What would they expect to find? What they did.
If Keiichi was so important as to make them scout Irie there (who knows what Rena told Irie, and who knows what Irie passed to them...), they wouldn't just let him go and that's it, let's go home...
And Yamainu is an Intelligence Group. They are not so stupid to as to mess everything around leaving hair, footprints, fingerprints.

You have it backwards. The yamainu didn't summon Irie; he summoned them. Either Rena asked him to come, or he recognized the symptoms and told her he'd come. In either case, he asked the yamainu to accompany him in case he needed help restraining K1.

I will grant that the Yamainu could make a thorough search without leaving traces in ordinary circumstances. But these were not such. Those searches take time in the best of circumstances. This case was far from it.

- Moving any bloodied object, even a little, would leave traces in that the bloodstains wouldn't exactly match up.

- Keiichi's room was upstairs, and the bottom of the stairs was probably close to the front door. The yamainu would have had no idea how much time they had left, and it would take a little time to get clear.

- Where was Irie when they were searching? He would have either left with all of them or had them chase after K1.

And there's no indication of the time passed between Keiichi leaving the house and finding a payphone, let alone the time talking with Ooishi and the police arriving to his house.

As I said, we can't know who damaged. Both Ooishi and Yamainu could have done it. I just think it's more likely to be the Yamainu, since I think it'd be difficult for Ooishi do it with people of the police around, like coroners (It's like a commandment in the police to not touch anything before the coroners).

And? Ooishi had all the time in the world. He would have been making a normal search after the bodies had been removed. If nothing else, he could have bagged the evidence and modified it at headquarters.


In short:
Yamainu: Had little reason to search, risked much in taking the time to search, and failed to get rid of the part that actually was incriminating against them.

Ooishi: Had good reason to search, risked little in making the search, and got rid of the part that was connected to him.

[Eryops]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

In short:
Yamainu: Had little reason to search, risked much in taking the time to search, and failed to get rid of the part that actually was incriminating against them.

Ooishi: Had good reason to search, risked little in making the search, and got rid of the part that was connected to him.

What? How does a mention that Tomitake was killed by an unknown drug and of the "syringe" link this to Oishi? How could this possibly damage him? And Oishi has shown an extremely strong dedication in the pursuit of justice, being willing to endanger his carreer in its pursuit (e.g. in Watanagashi-hen, Meakashi-hen and Matsuribayashi-hen) so him tampering with evidence from this case seems extremely unlikely to me.

Keiichi was crazy but he did actually stumble upon the truth regarding Tomitake's death and the "syringe" would have indicated that he was hallucinating which might point towards the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Both of these would have been potentially damaging to the Yamainu. Since they were professionals, they should have been able to search through the house in minutes.

[rogerpepitone]

The link to Ooishi was "Please reinvestigate the dismemberment victim. @ He is still alive."

And search a large house in minutes? No way. They'd be hard pressed to search a small room in that time.

They didn't think K1 was a threat when they ran into him earlier, or they would have just made him (and possibly Rena, if she'd caught up too quickly) disappear, like they did to Ooishi in some arcs.

In your scenario, why is Ooishi denying all his conversations with K1? Why doesn't he bring up the fact that K1 was convinced Rena and Mion were after him? Surely that would be crucial evidence!

[theacefrehley]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

The link to Ooishi was "Please reinvestigate the dismemberment victim. @ He is still alive."

This is much more harmful to the Yamainu. This is a case they were directly involved and was like stalled. Only Ooishi was on it, like in particular investigation. (they even put pressure to stop the investigations with their influence, if I remember well).

4 or 5 people in a white van means nothing without a plate number.

They didn't destroy it whole to make it a red herring, misleading the police, or to make it looks like the boy was just crazy.

And you're making baseless guesses about time.

How can you be so sure it was so little time? They wouldn't need 15 hours to do the job (they are many) to look around the house and, 'cmon, his room is pretty much the obvious choice to pick.

[rogerpepitone]

I just realized that the sentence "Tomitake-san's death was caused by an unknown drug." is damaging to Ooishi, and it isn't damaging to the Yamainu.

How is it damaging to the Yamainu? The police would have surely have theorized just that when they saw his murder. (Either an unknown drug or somebody hypnotized him.) K1 gave no evidence to back up his claim. Also, the Yamainu know that, in a few days, they'll set off notebook 34 and disperse. So long as the police can't find direct evidence against them before that time, they're safe.

But it is damaging to Ooishi. Remember, Tomitake's death is not public knowledge. He was going to be leaving town that night, after all. On day 12, at the clinic, gossip had it that Takano had eloped with Tomitake. And K1's note revealed that he knew that Tomitake was dead and that he had died in an unusual manner. It's a natural conclusion that either K1 had an inside source from the criminals or the investigation. And Ooishi's the obvious inside source.

[Bern-chan]

I thought I understood Hinamizawa Syndrome, but I read on wikipedia that Hanyuu is actually and alien and the syndrome is actually caused by aliens?

Can someone explain this to me? :S

[Proto]

Can you please look that way sir? Smile! You are on candid camera!!