Welcome to the discussion thread for Higurashi no Naku Koroni, Episode 14.
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Discuss your expectations of the episode if not aired.
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Spoiler Tag Usage
Using Spoiler Tags is easy. Using this...
[spoiler=title]Don't forget to use the spoiler title[/spoiler]
Feel free to utilize the info on the TIPS section as a complement to this series.
Feel free to share your theories and speculations. In fact, I encourage you to do so as this is what makes this series interesting.
I am designating Sushi-Y and Freakman to lead the discussion in the correct path without spoilers as they have played the game in advance. I put confidence in them that they will recognize a member has spilled the beans too far if any other members has begun to play the game.
SPOILERS FAR ADVANCED THAN THE CURRENT AIRED ANIME EPISODE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. THIS INCLUDES THOSE IN SPOILER TAGS!!!. People tend to peek at spoiler tags; especially when they do not know such tag is meant for the episode, only to find it spilling the beans too far advanced in the game storyline.
Although I thought the baba's face was weird, and that wind effect on Rika was over the top, the episode managed to squeeze most of what Himatsubusi has to offer.
Noticeably :
Spoiler:
The head of the Sonozaki finally gets a proper introduction
All in all, it should be a much needed break for the viewers, after the rollercoaster ride that Tatarigoroshi is.
After seeing this episode I had to do a total rewrite of my theory from scratch and I’m still actually not done, but here it is nonetheless. My theory on what is happening in Hinamizawa:
Edit: Thanks for pointing that out, LostBlue. I guess I just though that I caught Rika in a strange position when I heard her make that statement and went off to type up my theory right away. Anyways, now that part of my theory is debunked guess its time to rethink and rewrite.
…see into the future, or something sort of to that degree. Yes, yes, I know it’s a little far out, but I think that Rika’s “dark” side gives her this power, or more specifically I think she has these powers because she is the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama.
This hasn’t been the only time that Rika has shown us her power of being able to see the future. We see in episode 07 with the conversation between Rika and Keiichi that Rika knew that Keiichi had went into the shrine with Tomitake, Takano, and Shion. Another time is when see we learn how Dr. Irie dies:
Place of murder = Medical office
Weapon = Sleeping Pills (Poison)
Murderer =…Rika
Now this was exactly how the club game went that we see in episode 02. And yes, I do believe that Rika killed Dr. Irie, or more reasonably that it was Rika’s Oyashiro-sama side that killed him. I also think that Rika’s Oyashiro-sama side killed Takano, Tomitake, Oiishi, and destroyed the entire village in Tatarigoroshi-hen (I'll explain this in my speculation for the Tatarigoroshi-hen part).
Now before I go into what I think happened in each question arc, here is what I think is triggering the stuff in them overall. What Rika said in episode 07, “He may have become lost (the village chief) somewhere, as I do from time to time…” makes me think that Rika is not only talking about the village chief, but also about herself and how she becomes “lost” in herself and the struggle that she has with her Oyashiro-sama side. That is why I hypothesis that Rika is waging sort of an internal war/power struggle with her Oyashiro-sama side. So I’m thinking that in each of the arcs so far Rika has lost control loses to her Oyashiro, by either dying or just failing to suppress it within herself, and that is why all of these events are happening in each of these question arcs.
Also I saw a post by KJ1980 asking saying that the restart of each chapter is actually one of the main mysteries. Here is my reasoning for why the arcs restart, it is when Rika loses control of her Oyashiro-sama side, by either way dying or failing to supress it within herself, a restart is then triggered to the last point at which Rika was in control of it, before the Watanagashi festival.
Anyway, here is what I think happened in each of the individual question arcs:
Spoiler for Onikakushi-hen:
Onikakushi-hen is actually one of the chapters where my theory is at its weakest mainly because we are never given any indication that Rika lost control of herself, but I still think that Rika lost control of her Oyashiro-sama side, without dying, most likely because of it being time for the Watanagashi festival and the mistake (as Mion said in episode 06) that Rika made during her performance. Then her Oyashiro-sama side went out and fulfilled the curse, killing Tomitake and Takano for trespassing inside of the shrine.
While it wasn’t clearly stated how Takano died in Onikakushi-hen I assume that it was just like all the other times, she was burnt to death. Now this could possible be by a normal person or Oyashiro-sama. But what makes me think that Oyashiro-sama killed both of them, and not a human, is in the way that Tomitake dies. As it states in the More than 4 criminals? tip, Tomitake had a log that he was swinging around at his “multiple assailants” yet he didn’t even make contact with any of them. Why? Because Oyashiro-sama was playing with his mind, giving him the illusion that he was under attack by multiple persons. I’m also speculating that I think Oyashiro-sama was trying to control of Tomitake’s body, but somehow failed at it, causing Tomitake to kill himself.
Also after the Watanagashi Festival and Tomitake and Takano’s death is the first time that Keiichi goes “insane.” I’m guessing that the same thing that happened to Tomitake is happening to Keiichi, Oyashiro-sama is trying to take control of him. Although, during the first arc Keiichi had done nothing to provoke Oyashiro-sama’s wrath, so the only think that I can think of as to why Oyashiro-sama would want to take control of him was because he was basically an outsider to the town, just like Tomitake was. Another thing is that Keiichi only began to see the “possessed” versions on Rena and Mion after the Watanagashi Festival and after, what I think is, a failed possession attempt of Tomitake.
I also think that during this time Rena and Mion were actually acting normal towards Keiichi, but because Oyashiro-sama was working away at his mind he started to slowly loose his sanity. Starting with Rena’s “Liar”, going to the needle in the food, and continuing to escalate to Keiichi mistaking a syringe for a marker.
Another thing to note is that during this arc, just like in the Tatarigoroshi-hen, Keiichi was hearing footsteps. I believe that these footsteps, and just the sense that Keiichi had that he was being followed/watched, was Oyashiro-sama presence.
Also, when Keiichi was running away from Rena in episode 04 he runs into those guys in the grey suits, I believe that these are figments of his broken mind, and then he subsequently gets knocked out by one of them. I don’t believe that it was a blunt object that made Keiichi be knocked out, in episode 14 we see that once Rika manages to gain control back from her Oyashiro-sama reincarnation side she faints/gets knocked out, I believe that that is what happened to Keiichi. Oyashiro-sama was starting to take hold of his mind, but wasn’t able to fully causing Keiichi to black out. He was then found by Rena and taken back to his house.
Once Keiichi wakes up, his damaged mind starts causes him to place the blame on Mion and Rena, since he didn’t know any better, and made him mistake the syringe for a marker, causing him to finally causing his mind to completely break down and to kill both of them.
Finally, we have the phone booth scene. I believe that this is point at which Oyashiro-sama is making his move on Keiichi’s mind, which is why Keiich keeps on saying that it’s getting closer and closer to him. But I think that Oyashiro-sama failed with this attempted possession as well causing Keiichi to claw out his own throat.
Spoiler for Watanagashi-hen:
Going to post my hypothesis on Watanagashi-hen later when I finish writing them…
Spoiler for Tatarigoroshi-hen:
Now for Tatarigoroshi-hen I believe that Oyashiro-sama was really carrying out the curse that Satoko invoked on herself (by entering the shrine and breaking off the hand of the Oyashiro-sama statue). Her uncle coming back was just apart of the curse on her as well. I’m speculating that Oyashiro-sama didn’t just straight out kill Satoko because it wanted her to suffer (Oyashiro-sama killed her parent, made brother leaving, and made her receive abuse from uncle). Keiichi becomes involved with this when he unknowingly tries to help alleviate the curse on Satoko by killing her uncle. Him becoming her new “nii-nii” also forced Keiichi’s involvement in her curse. These acts then invokes Oyashiro-sama’s wrath on Keiichi as well.
Now nothing really strange starts to happen until after Keiichi murders Teppei. Once he gets out of the car with Takano is when it starts, he hears a footstep behind him for the first time. Oyashiro-sama’s curse begins on him here. At this point I’m also thinking that Rika was losing control of Oyashiro-sama, causing this entire mess, because of the mistake she made in the Ritual that she performed.
I’m not really sure what is going on with Mion, Rena, and the rest of Hinamizawa when they tell Keiichi that he was at the Watanagashi festival, I believe that Keiichi really did murder Teppei. I couldn’t really come up with any motive for them to lie to Keiichi other than them wanting to cover for him because he murder Teppei, doing a favor for Satako, and keep him from getting caught by Oishi and the police.
As for the reason why the body disappeared…I got nothing for this as well, sorry. Maybe someone did dig it up and took it away, or maybe it was all Oyashiro-sama. I still can’t form a coherent hypothesis on how that body disappeared.
To start off with why each person went disappear, I believe Takano and Tomitake’s death is just because they went into the Shrine and were then subsequently cursed and dealt with by Oyashiro-sama.
For Oishi’s disappearance I believe that it wasn’t because of Oyashiro-sama, but was because he got a little too curious in his investigation and the Sonozaki family made him “disappear,” In episode 04 we see Mion saying that she should have killed Oishi when she had the chance, I’m guessing that it could have been her that got rid of him.
I believe that Rika’s death was performed by the Sonozaki family as well. I think that maybe Rika could have made some sort of grave error or crime and that made her be targeted, Watanagashi’ed (stomach split open, etc) and put on display in from on the shine (as a warning maybe). The fact that Rika was Watanagashi’ed as well suggest the Sonozaki family being responsible for it since they are the family that are the enforcers of the practice and customs in Hinamizawa. For the time that she died I’m placing it on the night that Keiichi went to dig up Teppei’s body to check on it. I figure this because you can’t just Watanagashi a person at the drop of the hat, it has to take some time at least, plus the crows that were at Rika’s body indicates that she had been at the base of the shrine for awhile (the crows wouldn’t just jump in and start picking apart the body right away after it was dropped there it would take some time before they start in as well).
Because Rika was now killed, she wasn’t able to keep in check the reincarnated Oyashiro-sama side of herself and thus after the night that Keiichi went to dig up the body, stuff started to go down the crapper. Satoko’s Curse was now beginning to be fully enforced, starting with Dr. Irie (Another thing, Keiichi began to hear the footsteps again). Since Dr. Irie was trying to help Satoko by adopting her, he made himself a target for Oyashiro-sama, since that would take away from the suffering that his curse was supposed to have on her.
I’m speculating that Oyashiro-sama made Dr. Irie kill himself by overdosing on poison (and not clawing out his own throat) just in order to play it out like the way the little murder game went in episode 02 (maybe because it was in Rika’s memory?).
As for why the entire town was destroyed, I think it was because Oyashiro-sama sacrificial ritual wasn’t carried out properly. Instead of a body being sacrificed to Oyashiro-sama in the Onigafuchi marsh, Keiichi put the scooter and Satoshi’s bat inside of the swamp...wrong offering Keiichi. Now because of this Oyashiro-sama destroyed Hinamizawa because a sacrificial ritual wasn’t carried out. I speculate that Keiichi survived the gas eruption because Oyashiro-sama wanted him to suffer more for what he had done and then he was finally killed by Oyashiro-sama, and just before he died he was still hearing Oyashiro-sama’s presence "...And yet another footstep..." just like in Onikakushi-hen (I’m willing to speculate that Keiichi is hearing the footsteps
Finally in the interview, it makes it seem that the reporter died because Keiichi wished it on him. I believe that that isn’t true and that he died because he got involved with Keiichi and beckon Oyashiro-sama’s curse onto himself.
Spoiler for Tomitake and Takano:
About Tomitake’s and Takano’s involvement in all of this…first off I’m going to have to wait until next episode to see if this is true, so I’m just going to be purely speculating about this part.
I believe that Akasaka will either be killed or go missing in Himatsubushi-hen and thus that will prompt someone, such as Akasaka’s wife, to hire a private investigator to go into Hinamizawa and find out what happened to him. This private eye will be Tomitake, or at least Tomitake will be his cover name. This is why Oishi isn’t able to find out any information on “Tomitake.” He is unable to find the magazine that he works for and that is why there is no one going by the name of “Tomitake Jirou” at his supposed residence of Tokyo-Chiba. “Tomitake” probably did all of this in order to pass any background checks that might be done on him by the current household in power in Hinamizawa, the Sonozaki family.
As for Takano I’m speculating that she is just “Tomitake’s” mole inside of Hinamizawa. That is why “Tomitake” only shows up a few times a year, because he is getting the information that Takano has gathered for him. “Tomitake” then only makes a brief stay in Hinamizawa in order to not draw suspicion on him, since he is an outsider.
And so that is why I believe that "Tomitake" and Takano are just minor players in what is really going on in Hinamizawa.
Sorry if there is some lack of coherence in my writing, I was just putting down what I was thinking as I went. I also know that there are a few holes in my theory and that I rely on a lot of speculations and what ifs. Heck all my theories may be crap, but one thing I believe is that Rika is the “key part” to this mystery. She is the person whose actions affect everyone else in Hinamizawa, it is her "clock" and she is the main gear that turns all the others.
Awsome episode btw. I nearly soiled myself when Rika did her thing this episode. I love watching this anime late at night
Just to clear somethings up
The story takes place 1 year before the dam project was canceled. Tommy was around and about by this time.
You're not too far off on Rika's rep. The senior citizens believe she's Oyashiro-sama's reincarnation and think she can read the future. Whether that's true or not is up to you to decide. The TIPs for this chapter are pretty interesting. =)
Also,
Tommy had bruises on his body and it was definitely done by bare hands (according to the Courner). It is Oishi who believes there must have been at least 4 assailants to do such a task efficiently with just their bare hands to take down a man with Tomitake's build swinging a log.
One thing about Higurashi is most things are just opinions (supported or unsupported) or articles that support a person's opinion. This is the "gameplay" in the Higurashi game. You gotta decide which "facts" are really worth its value.
Now saying all of that...
Oishi is rumored to be quite a fighter back in his days. His opinion is quite valued on these subjects. In Chp 3 K1 experienced this first hand. =)
All that matters is that they kept the "mi~" and "nipa~☆" exchange between Ons... I mean Akasaka and Rika at the bus stop. ^^; Although it would've been nice if they could kept Akasaka's monologues for this scene too...
Dark Rika's voice wasn't Rika at all, it sounded more like Tamura Yukari trying her best to sound scary. ^^; For what it's worth, that Dark Rika voice is the one that does the episode previews too, so I was prepared for it. But still, it felt really unnatural.
(Rather, when Rika said "Akasaka" right after the wind gust (before her voice totally changed) in a calm and low Rika voice, I thought that would've made a perfect voice for Dark Rika, too bad )
Any particular reason for the delay? did they lose a translator or something?
[WinD] is cursed I tell 'ya! cursed by Oyashiro-sama!
two translators this time
One went missing, and the other is on vacation and busy with real life stuff...
Anyway, I went ahead and watched the next episode, but there was so much talking, I understood very little. =( I'll just re-watch it again when a sub comes out.
The sub is out now.
Okay, so I can safely say that I guessed Rika was Oyashiro-sama in the first arc. I mean, there a fair amount of hints...
Spoiler for everything:
1. Opening song, takes of KITSUNE mask, don;t need to elaborate as I've balthered about this too often.
2. Her being the most "innocent".
3. Her exclaiming the word "Mi" may be just a cute thing, but doesn't it also mean demon?
4. Her trying to stop The Demon in Watanagashi-hen "I'll have a word with older sister cat" could be looked at like this: Two powerful entities exist in Hinamizawa, The Demon and Oyashiro. Oyashiro could be in Rika, and the demon in Mion. Now, ONLY in Wata-hen does the demon manifest itself in Mion cuz of the weird incident. Now, Oyashiro may not like this demon too much, which is why she/he said what she/he said to K1. For once, K1 didn;t really incur the wrath of Oyashiro in that arc. He did pretyy much piss of the demon in every way.
5. Rika being punished in the flashback. If Rika is the manifestation of Oyashiro, she would hold a grudge against Satako for what she did to her back then.
6. The "Preview" voice may have a connection to Oyashiro.
I gotta admit I really enjoy watching these episodes late at night, it gives me the chills like no stupid Hollywood movie. Getting back onto the episode we finally got introduced to a few influential people in the town. Mion already seems to be developing that cold personality when it comes to the Dam project. I wonder if this is during the time period when Rena had moved away. Also for them to get such leaks about the PSIA's plans they must be extremely well connected. There's no doubt that something is inside Rika having her say all those things.
Location: Near Cincinnati, OH, but actually in Kentucky
Age: 36
... Wow. My hopes of a logical (non-supernatural) explaination are slowly being chipped away. Unless everyone in Hinamizawa suffers from MPD, there may really be an Oyashiro-sama and whatever's inside Mion. I like killerloli's idea of a rivalry between the two, also. Interesting.
Although my theory of a military experiment isn't quite dead yet
I do not think there is a logical explanation for this. Ever since the last arc, they've been pointing it out that all this is happening because of supernatural stuff. This messed up a lot of my theories.
Anyway, even though this episode wasn't that eventful, it was really informative, so I give it a 9. Just Rika's uber cuteness could've given this episode a 9 alone. But I do agree that she is somehow connected with Oyashiro-sama.
2006-07-05, 11:55
Scanlator
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