Higurashi Episode 4 Discussion / Poll

[melange]

Oh crap.. I just started watching ep 4 while eating sushi... then all of a sudden I bit on a piece of cartiledge! For a moment I thought it was a needle! >_<

[Sushi-Y]

Originally Posted by DaFool

4.) Good atmosphere for a suspense / mystery anime. Not exactly horror as in horrifying, but the vibes fit perfectly. OP / ED are just topnotch.

This is probably a little off topic, but I just want to add that your impression of the "atmospheres" of each arc (game chapter) can change greatly once you learn more about the overall story.

Just like the game, Higurashi is probably one of the best example for animes that you should rewatch everytime you learn something new in the newest arc (chapter): these new revelations will help you notice things in the earlier arcs (chapters) that you wouldn't have noticed before, and behaviours + reactions from characters that were "confusing" or "made no sense" before will all begin to make sense to you, changing the overall atmosphere of the story significantly. (An example would be my comment before about Onikakushi being a "tragedy" rather than a "suspense horror")

Spoiler for another off-topic talk:

Now, to be off-topic again, what best portrayed the atmosphere of Onikakushi-hen for me would be the doujin MAD video "Nakanai Kimi to Nageki no Sekai".

なかない君と嘆きの世界

The melancholiness of the song (which was created specifically for this MAD) described this arc (chapter) best for me.

EDIT: Episode 5 images, fresh from the... oven(?)!

Spoiler for Episode 5 images+comments:

According to the official site's preview, episode 5 will run through the toy shop tournament,
the "doll" event,
Σ (゜д ゜；)
all the way up to the meeting between Keiichi and "Shion".

詩音かわいいよ詩音。^^
あとマゾ。

[physics223]

This be some scary shit, mon.

Behind those kids are murderers ... damn ... cool.

[solwyvern]

What is the best sub so far? Subs by wind seem to be lacking.
Anyone seen Ayu and Triads? comparison check please...

[physics223]

Well, sol, I trust Ayu ... remember Traumend? It's pretty good, too.

[SpaceDrake]

Triad by far. Theirs seems to be the most careful translation. However, they're also the latest group to get started on the translation, so they're only up to Ep.2. Don't feel bad using WIND, they're decent and also seemingly the fastest.

[Bron]

Hmm, i've been a long time lurker on these forums and this is honestly the first thread and anime that's made me want to participate in speculation here - The anime is incredible! the way its been written and directed, fantastic, keeps me on the edge of my seat and constantly guessing as to whats going on. I've had eps one and two on my hard drive for a while, and watched them today - I immediately got hooked and got ep three and raw ep four.

For anyone wondering if they should bother watching this anime, if you're the kind of person who enjoys a mysterious and well written plot, look no further.

As for my speculation:

Spoiler:

It seemed pretty clear to me that a good portion, at least, of what happened happened in keiichi's head. There are too many clues to this effect, although of course I could be misinterpreting them. At the start of the anime, I think he was perfectly sane. Something made him go insane, and I think thats the real mystery here.

For starters, lets look at rena's 'higurashi-mode'. I think a lot of these events were massively exaggerated by the state of keiichi's mind, and some of them possibly didn't take place at all - the ones in eps three and four with keiichi walking back alone from school are prime suspects for being total hallucinations, with nobody else around to question who he's talking to etc.

The shot and the forced injection that everyone seems to be focusing on, while i think is important, i dont think its the cause of keiichi's paranoid delusions. He was having paranoid delusions prior to his shot in episode 3, although they did get a lot worse after the shot, it does show that at best it just accelerated his fall into insanity. The forced injection of course is immediately followed by his murder of rena and mion, but at that point he had pretty much convinced himself they were out to kill him - they could have injected him with water and he still would have done what he did.

But what really made me think that it was mostly delusions are the two 'attempts' on his life - the needle and the hit and run guy. Despite actually starting to chew, there was no blood. In addition, why did his parents not ask why he threw them on the walls etc? It could be that there was never any visit from rena and mion at all - he was alone again so prime delusion time.

The second attempts, the hit and run. That was really obviously not a serious attempt at his life - if it was, he would have been hit. From the way the anime was drawn it did look like it wasn't going to hit him anyway. The drivers reaction etc was probably all in keiichi's head.

I also don't think that this anime will have too much of a supernatural element to it. I just don't think such a cop out matches the quality of the writing i've seen so far. We shall see.

So, as i said earlier, I think the biggest mystery isn't 'whodunit' but rather, why did keiichi go insane? My personal thoughts is, that its something physical that caused it. During keiichi's final call with the police guy, he sounded like something was very wrong with his throat (and what he was saying didn't make much sense, seems that he was having some pretty bad delusions at that point). In the end, keiichi killed himself by digging his fingers into his neck/throat, just like the photo guy (i'm terrible at remembering names...). If its just straight serial murder, how did two people die the same odd self-inflicted way? Maybe this was the final effect of whatever was causing his delusions? there are many drugs and infections/parasites that cause intense paranoid delusions. Perhaps it was the shot the doctor gave him that caused all this, but as i said earlier thats unlikely as it started before he had the shot.

Maybe then, its some kind of infection or disease? Maybe those people that showed up were some kind of government agency maintaining some kind of secret quarantine? The biggest problem with this theory is that they didn't do a very good job of it - they let keiichi get infected and allowed rena to leave the village. Clearly either rena wasn't a carrier, or its something that isnt transmittable from human to human, which raises the question of how keiichi got infected.

My final theory is related primarily to the guys in green. Maybe its a government test of a new biological/chemical weapon? I said that the shot coming after the start of his delusions makes this unlikely, but if the government is involved far more things become possible. Lacing the villages water supply with the drug? Contaminating food? Maybe the shot he got was a booster or something else to do with the experiment? Lots of questions on this theory.

So, as to what caused keiichi's insanity, i'm leaning towards a drug/infection explanation. Its possible he was just the type of person at risk from developing paranoid delusions and what the police guy told him triggered it, but i think that's too boring an explanation to make a full anime series about . It's also possible theres a supernatural explanation for it, but i really hope that isn't the case.

As far as burning questions goes, these are what i have:

- What caused keiichi's insanity?
- If one person dies, and one goes missing every year on the same day, why did Keiichi etc's deaths come out of this cycle?
- Who are those guys in green?
- How are the other members of the club involved? There was minor involvement of Mion, but i have a feeling the other members may be just as important, if not more important to solving the bigger mystery (otherwise why are they there? to fill the required loli slots? )

Lots of speculation here, not very well written - its very 'stream of consciousness' stuff - i'd be quite surprised if anyone actually reads all of it .

Great series so far, I hope the quality keeps up.

[Thewanderer]

I watched the raw of ep4 and I gotta say, I was enthused about the show till then.

Spoiler:

So the 3 main characters die and the universe is reset for ep5? I despise resets on every other show, so HnNKn will have to do a lot to make up for it. Meh, I was starting to like Keiichi till he went psycho too.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great anime and all and I will keep watching it... but all the fun just got cut short for me is all

On a side note: Rena and Mion = <3

[kj1980]

Originally Posted by Bron

Spoiler:

It seemed pretty clear to me that a good portion, at least, of what happened happened in keiichi's head. There are too many clues to this effect, although of course I could be misinterpreting them. At the start of the anime, I think he was perfectly sane. Something made him go insane, and I think thats the real mystery here.

For starters, lets look at rena's 'higurashi-mode'. I think a lot of these events were massively exaggerated by the state of keiichi's mind, and some of them possibly didn't take place at all - the ones in eps three and four with keiichi walking back alone from school are prime suspects for being total hallucinations, with nobody else around to question who he's talking to etc.

The shot and the forced injection that everyone seems to be focusing on, while i think is important, i dont think its the cause of keiichi's paranoid delusions. He was having paranoid delusions prior to his shot in episode 3, although they did get a lot worse after the shot, it does show that at best it just accelerated his fall into insanity. The forced injection of course is immediately followed by his murder of rena and mion, but at that point he had pretty much convinced himself they were out to kill him - they could have injected him with water and he still would have done what he did.

But what really made me think that it was mostly delusions are the two 'attempts' on his life - the needle and the hit and run guy. Despite actually starting to chew, there was no blood. In addition, why did his parents not ask why he threw them on the walls etc? It could be that there was never any visit from rena and mion at all - he was alone again so prime delusion time.

The second attempts, the hit and run. That was really obviously not a serious attempt at his life - if it was, he would have been hit. From the way the anime was drawn it did look like it wasn't going to hit him anyway. The drivers reaction etc was probably all in keiichi's head.

I also don't think that this anime will have too much of a supernatural element to it. I just don't think such a cop out matches the quality of the writing i've seen so far. We shall see.

So, as i said earlier, I think the biggest mystery isn't 'whodunit' but rather, why did keiichi go insane? My personal thoughts is, that its something physical that caused it. During keiichi's final call with the police guy, he sounded like something was very wrong with his throat (and what he was saying didn't make much sense, seems that he was having some pretty bad delusions at that point). In the end, keiichi killed himself by digging his fingers into his neck/throat, just like the photo guy (i'm terrible at remembering names...). If its just straight serial murder, how did two people die the same odd self-inflicted way? Maybe this was the final effect of whatever was causing his delusions? there are many drugs and infections/parasites that cause intense paranoid delusions. Perhaps it was the shot the doctor gave him that caused all this, but as i said earlier thats unlikely as it started before he had the shot.

Maybe then, its some kind of infection or disease? Maybe those people that showed up were some kind of government agency maintaining some kind of secret quarantine? The biggest problem with this theory is that they didn't do a very good job of it - they let keiichi get infected and allowed rena to leave the village. Clearly either rena wasn't a carrier, or its something that isnt transmittable from human to human, which raises the question of how keiichi got infected.

My final theory is related primarily to the guys in green. Maybe its a government test of a new biological/chemical weapon? I said that the shot coming after the start of his delusions makes this unlikely, but if the government is involved far more things become possible. Lacing the villages water supply with the drug? Contaminating food? Maybe the shot he got was a booster or something else to do with the experiment? Lots of questions on this theory.

So, as to what caused keiichi's insanity, i'm leaning towards a drug/infection explanation. Its possible he was just the type of person at risk from developing paranoid delusions and what the police guy told him triggered it, but i think that's too boring an explanation to make a full anime series about . It's also possible theres a supernatural explanation for it, but i really hope that isn't the case.

As far as burning questions goes, these are what i have:

- What caused keiichi's insanity?
- If one person dies, and one goes missing every year on the same day, why did Keiichi etc's deaths come out of this cycle?
- Who are those guys in green?
- How are the other members of the club involved? There was minor involvement of Mion, but i have a feeling the other members may be just as important, if not more important to solving the bigger mystery (otherwise why are they there? to fill the required loli slots? )

Lots of speculation here, not very well written - its very 'stream of consciousness' stuff - i'd be quite surprised if anyone actually reads all of it .

Great series so far, I hope the quality keeps up.

Spoiler:

All I can say is "wow." You figured this all by yourself? Without a doubt, I can say you are the first person to fall within the 20% range of closeness to the truth for Onikakushi.

Some parts to think about as you watch the following chapters:

1. The question is not "what caused Keiichi's insanity," but "what was the trigger point for Keiichi's insanity." This will become an important aspect in the future episodes.

2. One of the problems of the anime and the drama CD is the absence of TIPS from the original game. So, to help you in the quest, here is a TIP that you might find useful:

Spoiler:

Oishi: "Is there any drugs that causes a person to commit suicide?"

Forensics Doctor: "Directly, no"

Oishi: "The way you say it seems like there is an indirect way, then"

FD: "I meant to say, there is a way to cause a psychological effect that triggers a person to commit suicide."

Oishi: "Hmm...that's even a more difficult way of saying it. Can you explain what 'causing a psychological effect that trigger's a person to commit suicide?"

FD: "Okay, let's take a person that has bipolar disorder. A person with bipolar disorder is most likely to commit suicide at the point where his or her mental state switches from depression to mania."

The main difference from bipolar disorder to an unipolar disorder is that the former has an active and energized state in addition that kicks in interchangeably with depression.

FD: "If a patient is in the depressed state, he or she does not have the mental will to commit suicide. On the other hand, if the patient is in the hyper-active state, he or she will also not commit suicide as they are living an active life.

Oishi: "That's interesting. A bipolar person won't commit suicide in both states, yet they are most likely to at the stage where they change from the depression state to energetic state?"

FD: "When a patient is in depression, he or she has suicidal tendencies in their minds. But, they have no will to carry out the suicide since they are in major depression. However, as soon as the transition to the energetic state begins to kick in, they start to become active once again..."

Oishi: "Oh, now I get it! They start to have the active will to carry out the suicide!"

FD: "That's exactly right. So that is why it is imperative to give patients anticonvulsants during this phase."

Oishi: "So was was Mr. Tomitake a bipolar patient?"

FD: "Bipolar suicidal tendencies involve more normal suicides like jumping off a building or hanging oneself, not like an withdrawal symptom of scratching one's throat. That's sounds like an illegal substance to me."

Oishi: "Yes, Mr. Tomitake's suicide was quite unusual. So some kind of substance was used for his death. Can you explain the first one...the one about the drug that can cause a psychological effect that triggers suicidal tendencies?"

FD: "Methamphetamines are known to cause symtoms very similar to bipolar disorder. These are known in the streets as crystal meth. Some barbiturates also show signs of psychotic hyperactivity, but this is less common. This one is more known for inducing sleep. "

Oishi: "Strangely, the coroner's report did not show any signs of substances.. Any other possibilities?"

FD: "If you scratch off illegal substances off the list, then all I can think of is a disease. One suspect in this case is Graves-Basedow Disease, whose hyperthyroidism is reported to cause effects similar to bipolar disorder. However, in the case of Graves-Basedow Disease, there are many visual signs in a patient. The deceased didn't have those symptoms so that scratches off this disease from the list."

Oishi: "Are there any ones that break out more suddenly? How can I say...like ones that matches the deceased suicide in a more unexpected and sudden manner?"

FD: "How about acute organic psychosis? To say it bluntly, a person's brain gets damaged and becomes psychotic. While this can be caused by side-effects of illegal substances, it can also happen when brain damage occurs due to tumors or direct damage to the cranial area."

Oishi: "So there is a possibility of inducing a person's psychosis without reliance of substances?"

FD: "You said the deceased was surrounded by several assailants, right? The deceased may have an adrenaline rush compounded by a severe strike to the cranial area which may have induced his psychotic abnormality."

Oishi: "Can you say that in more simpler terms?"

FD: "Kakakaka (a laughter from a more older person). I'm saying the man got hit in the head as he was fighting off his assailants and his mind got fucked up."

Oishi: "Hahaha! So what you're saying is that the assailant(s) didn't have any motive to kill him! All they wanted to do was extort some money off the guy, but they hit him on the wrong side of the head!"

Two fat middle-aged men laughs.

Oishi: "....of course that can't be the reason."

FD: "Ahem. Indeed. Whether by illegal substance or by psychological symptoms, the deceased body itself hold the key to the clue. How's that going along?"

Oishi: "Oh shit, it's this time already? I'd better get going or Kuma-chan (Oishi's partner) will start to get pissed off."

FD: "Okay. Take care! Have a nice year!"

Oishi: "You too. Have a nice year."

[justsomeguy]

Bron's ideas are pretty well developed. But I have some questions/criticisms, even taking into account that TIP:

Spoiler:

* If it was some sort of government test spiking the air/water, why was only Keiichi affected? Why limit the test to once a year during the festival, having one person die and another go missing? Why bother leaving evidence behind, when the government can just have the victims disappear entirely?
* Some sort of drug inducing psychosis would make more sense than a natural psychological illness. But why would the toxicology report find no substances? Do they only test for known chemicals, or some kind of conspiracy is suppressing the results?
* Those guys in green. Knowing who they are would be a huge clue.

[Thewanderer]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

Bron's ideas are pretty well developed. But I have some questions/criticisms, even taking into account that TIP:

Spoiler:

* If it was some sort of government test spiking the air/water, why was only Keiichi affected? Why limit the test to once a year during the festival, having one person die and another go missing? Why bother leaving evidence behind, when the government can just have the victims disappear entirely?
* Some sort of drug inducing psychosis would make more sense than a natural psychological illness. But why would the toxicology report find no substances? Do they only test for known chemicals, or some kind of conspiracy is suppressing the results?
* Those guys in green. Knowing who they are would be a huge clue.

IT'S TEH CICADAS I TELLZ YA

Anyway, a couple theories of my own:

Spoiler:

Theory #1-Look back in... I think episode 2 when the girls were whispering. I only remember one line. It was like "I wonder if I'm next" or something. I think that might point to eather something supernatural, or someone's out to get their families. The trouble is, it has nothing to do with Keiichi, unless he was unknowingly sent as a kamakazi to kill them then kill himself.

Spoiler:

Theory #2-I think that the ppl that were killed at the annual thing are the real bad guys, trying to make the villiagers go insane. The 4 girls could be protectors of sorts, killing the bad guys off each year. The last one got a taste of his own medicine however, but not before he infected Keiichi. Dunno why they'd be so connected to the girls tho...

I know the theories may be a li'l farfetched, but they ARE different than anyone else's... anyone care to expand on them or tell me how full of shit I am?

[paTKany]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

Spoiler:

If it was some sort of government test spiking the air/water, why was only Keiichi affected? Why limit the test to once a year during the festival, having one person die and another go missing? Why bother leaving evidence behind, when the government can just have the victims disappear entirely?

Spoiler:

The local residents polluting the water with cotton once a year during the festival. Maybe it is a hallucinogenic mutant cotton.

[MarmoO]

The truth is that what happened during those episodes is in reality just Cthulhu and his cultists doing . I wonder if creators of the original game are big fans of Lovecraft's books .

[Bron]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

Bron's ideas are pretty well developed. But I have some questions/criticisms, even taking into account that TIP:

Spoiler:

* If it was some sort of government test spiking the air/water, why was only Keiichi affected? Why limit the test to once a year during the festival, having one person die and another go missing? Why bother leaving evidence behind, when the government can just have the victims disappear entirely?
* Some sort of drug inducing psychosis would make more sense than a natural psychological illness. But why would the toxicology report find no substances? Do they only test for known chemicals, or some kind of conspiracy is suppressing the results?
* Those guys in green. Knowing who they are would be a huge clue.

Spoiler:

Yes, there's lots of questions on these theories. Since there was so little information, I tried to think up explainations to the thing we had the most info on - keiichi's insanity - without thinking too much about the other things going on. I think the illness/drug explanation is the most likely at this stage simply because of the phone call at the end of ep four. Natural psychosis doesn't cause that, at least not to two people.

Of course, you can explain everything away by saying that its the shrine god's doing. But damn, that'd be the biggest cop out ever - it'd be the 'if all else fails, the wizard did it' style of writing.

The biggest mystery is the green guys. They clearly have a major involvement, and i suspect the missing person in each case was their doing. But we have next to no information about them.

At this point, i'm just going to see what happens in the next chapter before i speculate some more. There just isn't enough information to do anything else.

Things i'll be looking out for in the next 'chapter':

- I hope the chapters have significantly different outcomes. If each replay is just keiichi going insane, but slightly differently each time, its going to be very hard to get reliable information as we'll get a one or two episode window of sanity before we have to start assuming most stuff is in his head.

- More information about the guys in green dammit. Their existence is an almost complete mystery in onikakushi, very little information to go off. The clues just aren't there like they are for keiichi's insanity (or are in a form you won't see until you've seen later chapters and connect the dots).

- More insane rena please. That USODA~ is awesome. Ooh, ooh - make rena go as insane as keiichi did so we can see what its like on the other side of the paranoid delusions, that'd be good, and it'd be a lot easier to figure out whats real and what isnt.

Conclusions: More insane rena, less insane keiichi please. Oh, and hurry up with more episodes .

[Freakman]

Spoiler for when you'll see more insane Rena:

Sorry to disappoint you, but you won't see more wacko Rena until the last few episodes, in TsumiHoroboshi.

[Izzile]

I've been watching this show since the start of the series, and I LOVE IT! Anyways, here's my take on the first arc...

Spoiler:

Keiichi displays signs of paranoia and delusional behavior. The girls seem to be suffering from either multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, or psychosis. They are most definately NOT normal. Although I think some parts of the story are due to Keiichi's fractured psyche, there MUST be some reason as to why he and his group of "friends" are slowly driven insane. I do not believe it is a supernatural force, but merely the atmosphere of the town or some government experiment. Who knows...? I truly believe that the girls are not the murderers, and never were. How old would they have had to been 5 years ago at the dam construction incident? Most likely between 7 and 8 years old. If supposedly healthy men and women are taken down and strangled by a 7 year old, there's something wrong there. I suppose if the 7 year old had the element of surprise and sufficient training in firearms use or assassination, but when in god's name would that ever happen? Anyways, I believe that the loss of sanity in Keiichi's group as well as the other victims of the town are due in some part to the "Director" and his group of men in green jumpsuits. Although they could also be figments of the childrens' imagination, I highly doubt that theory. They seem to either be: 1. Covering up indications of conspiracy/higher government powers tampering/experimenting with the townspeople in order to keep the belief of the "curse" alive OR 2. A group attempting to cure the townspeople of this "curse." The scene in which Keiichi runs into the men in green jumpsuits reminded me of that scene in "The Truman Show" in which Truman's attempted escape is foiled by a "nuclear meltdown." It gives me an eerie feeling of conspiracy.

Anyways, my two cents. Discuss!

[Shiroth]

I haven't been talking much in this thread mainly 'cause its all speculation, but seriously no other anime has been able to suck me in like the first 4 episodes of Higurashi has.. i know there's a hell of a lot more to it - and i have some ideas floating around in my head... maybe i'll share them later. ^^;

[Dagger]

Wow... episode 4 was beyond intense. I've never seen a show that's developed itself quite like this one, that's for sure! I can't wait to see what happens next. And I'm really, really glad that I didn't watch ep 4 at night.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Magus IX

And I'm really, really glad that I didn't watch ep 4 at night.

You think thats bad.. i've been alone on my house since thursday. ;_;

[Cist]

Spoiler for ep4:

Anyone else notice that in her casual clothing in episode 3 and 4, Mion was carrying a gun? I mean, it really looks like a holster and a gun.




So the men caught Keiichi. But it doesn't make too much sense as to why the men tried to run over Keiichi and kill him before, but now only knocked him out and handed him over to Rena.

Then the girls inject him with a mystery drug. They are able to hold down Keiichi one second while injecting him, but after that he gets the strength to overpower them and bash them to death. Why would they even bring the bat to his room after caputring him?

The director and doctor seem to have a good chance of being the same person too, as Rena told Keiichi she called the doctor, and a few seconds later tells Mion she called the Director. Also, after the girls die, the neighborgood doctor from the clinic shows up with the white van men, so he's probably the key mastermind here.



Also, the game where Rika "killed" the person in the medical office slowly with poison seems too good a parallel to miss now, with plenty of ambiguous needles floating around. Also, she's clearly entwined in the temple, being the one who prepared the cotton at the now deadly festival.

Other missing things would be the ohagi game which Keiichi lost and was punished for with the needle, but the nature of the game is still unclear. All we know is that we have the letters ABCDE, where E had the needle.

My theory then:

So a perverted doctor in the country tests out new drugs in clinic on local girls, making them bipolar. He abuses the myth of Oyashiro-sama to "spirit away" people for his crazy schemes and removes those whose actions he doesn't approve of using his killer loli squad. Rena, too, was whisked away along with Satoshi, but she came back, as Mion mentions during the rain conversation, and now she's a part of the loli squad. Prehaps she survived some form of treatment that occurs to those spirited away, while Satoshi didn't. Now we flashback to a new arc and see the sad story of how these girls got involved with the evil mastermind doctor.

Eh?