Higurashi Sotsu - Anime Episode Discussion Thread (All Higurashi spoilers OK)

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

That’s your subjective opinion.

Animation is a quantifiable thing (you can count it by frame).

Are you saying that Recap is technically better than newly-animated episodes??
Are you saying that More animation is worse than less animation??

[Archon_Wing]

Dang just when I thought Jun Maeda turned himself into the biggest meme, we have R07.

[Dextro]

Well, I got to say that I at least ended Fam not hating the show. This... this was just absolute, unnecessary, trash. It only seems to exist to redeem Uncle of the freaking century, and to character assassinate Satoko (taking Rika along for the ride).

I honestly wish I had completely skipped this. I liked Higurashi before.

[MCAL]

Anyway, I'd give Gou an eight an Sotsu a four; and SotsuGou a 5/10 as the whole.

Having had a day to stew over the ending my thoughts have definitely trended more positively, so 6/10 for SotsuGou on the whole.

Originally Posted by Gerard07

I read for now that they are going to release 2 new Higurashi manga, and one of them is 35 years after the original story with Keiichi's son as the protagonist, could someone confirm it?

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...wa-era/.177876

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Blood-C.

Last Exile Fam, the FLCL monstrosities, the current Inuyasha debacle... The bar is pretty high.

I haven't watch the FLCL and Inuyasha sequels but Sotsu is definitely worse than Fam and Blood-C. It managed to retroactively ruin the original work, that's no small feat. I'm trying really hard to dissociate Gou and Sotsu from the original, but it's difficult given that it's a canon sequel written by the author.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Well you see, I don't agree that it's all that clear. You can see that connection if you want but you can also see it differently. There's nothing that clearly shows that Okonogi is going to found a food company, what Bern and Satoko said could simply be a homage to Umineko. Nothing clearly suggests that they will become the witches of Umineko. Hell for some reason the name Bernkastel wasn't even mentioned once ins sotsu/gou in spite of the fact it's the first name you see in the original visual novel of Higurashi. Likewise Lambdadelta was never mentioned (a lot of other names were mentioned like Vier, something that can be connected to Lambdadelta "LD" was mentioned, but never "Lambdadelta" itself).

There's also nothing that suggests that Rika has transitioned to the personality of the Bernkastel of Umineko, she is still fundamentally a good person that never did anything that could be considered truly evil, Meanwhile the Bernkastel from Umineko is a total psycho.

EUA is also fundamentally different from Featherinne. Featherinne would have never laughed like a maniac as we have seen in this series.

To me this was just throwing a bone with some hints to all those who want to see a connection, without providing any substantial evidence to support it.

So you think it was all fanservice? That could very well be the case. I personally don't think so because there were many references. Bernkastel being different in Umineko can easily be explained by the fact she's going to live for 900 more years and get tortured further by Eua/Featherine.

Honestly, although I don't like it as their origin story, I want it to be because at least it would justify making this completely pointless sequel. On the other hand, if it's not, I guess I can just pretend Gou and Sotsu never existed.

[Gerard07]

Originally Posted by MCAL

Having had a day to stew over the ending my thoughts have definitely trended more positively, so 6/10 for SotsuGou on the whole.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...wa-era/.177876

Thanks, if they are going to make a new manga, is it because I assume the series was successful in Japan or not? if that's the case, it would be nice if they took advantage of that and made a remake of Umineko, and from what I've read, her anime adaptation was not good,although some may have given up hope that they will make a good adaptation of the franchise.

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by MCAL

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...wa-era/.177876

New manga? I wonder what direction they plan on taking here.

[Guido]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

I'm honestly not sure how to think about it.
After reading that interview, the themes of Gou and Sotsu sort of makes sense in a way. Likewise, all that stuff explained by Keiichi and the rest are fitting. But they really went apeshit when it comes to the starting point and the execution of all of this. As I and some other people stated, Sotsu could have been condensed into 3 episodes, with simply rushing through the howdunnit with Satoko + some scenes with Eua, then have the actual confrontation and other stuff. I think it would have been much better if Satoko wasn't revealed to be the antagonist so early.

I'm not sure if Ryukishi was completely at fault or not, given that certain choices were 100% on the anime staff. For instance, Ryukishi himself stated he never expected the Rika-Satoko watanagashi torture scene to have the gore shown like that. He thought it would have been like the VN or first series when you can see shadows, hears the gruesome noises and then see a glimpse of a quick blood splatter on the wall. So I'm honestly wondering whose idea was the whole Endless Eight-esque structure.

Either way, it wasn't particularly great and not exactly necessary given the conclusion of the original series. I'd have honestly preferred an actual remake or a prequel / spin off.

How the studio pulled out such resolution in order to have both Rika and Satoko reach a middle-ground agreement turned out quite anti-climatic and unearned.

Spoiler:

At the end both looper girls settled for a fragment where not only everyone survived but also reaped their personal happy endings: Teppei, Rina, Satoshi, etc.

(That last bit with Satoshi waking-up from his 4-years, sleep comma made me sob to near tears.)

Rika chose to still going to St. Lucia without forcing Satoko to go with her, and Satoko chose to stay in Hinamizawa without force-binding Rika not to leave.

From what I understood, witch Satoko relented from repeating another loop because doing so would've provoked Rika into another DBZ-style disaster of killing-murder in another fragment, and thus making each successive conflict rehashed and repetitive which would have inevitably ended up boring witch Satoko.

Is Witch Satoko gone for good? Mmh... I don't think so. Most likely she went into hibernation once returning Satoko back into her life within the fragment that both she and Rika settled for as effect of their reconciliation.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I haven't watch the FLCL and Inuyasha sequels but Sotsu is definitely worse than Fam and Blood-C. It managed to retroactively ruin the original work, that's no small feat. I'm trying really hard to dissociate Gou and Sotsu from the original, but it's difficult given that it's a canon sequel written by the author.

Frankly, I'm not sure I've ever seen an anime made by a real studio and serious staff as bad as Blood-C. But it's probably easier for me not to be that offended by Gou and Sotsu "ruining" anything because I'm a casual fan and not a diehard.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Frankly, I'm not sure I've ever seen an anime made by a real studio and serious staff as bad as Blood-C. But it's probably easier for me not to be that offended by Gou and Sotsu "ruining" anything because I'm a casual fan and not a diehard.

That definitely plays a part.

I was crazy about Blood+ back when it was airing, but Blood-C was completely unrelated to it and I held no special attachment to the OVA. So I didn't really mind that Blood-C turned into a non-sensical gore fest. I mean, it was terrible, yes, but it didn't feel like it ruined anything that came before it.

On the other hand, I was a big fan of Higurashi, so this sequel being a total trainwreck hurts.

[Natsurin]

I think I'm going to be on the "it never happened" wagon. I don't really feel this ending made up for a whole lot given that even though it has a "happy ending", it's pretty complicated to rationalise two childhood friends staying friends after one took an immoral pleasure killing and making her other friends suffer as they'd only become pawns in her looping game. Just because they never addressed it because "woe is me, studying?!?!?!" doesn't mean the actual issue didn't lay in Satoko basically experimenting with Hinamizawa Syndrome on her own friends.

Even if we were going off the basis of "no sin cannot be forgiven" as Higurashi's recurrent theme, the final interaction between Rika and Satoko feels bittersweet at best, I'm not too sure there's much forgiveness to be felt in a goodbye that's basically akin to "I'm staying away from you for a bit otherwise we're going to kill each other again".

Going by Ryukishi's interview, I do get what he was trying to get at, but the execution was poorly handled at best, outright terrible at worst. Saikoroshi-hen had a much better approach at ending the anime with a happy ending that still had a morale to add to the story previously.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Kanon

That definitely plays a part.

I was crazy about Blood+ back when it was airing, but Blood-C was completely unrelated to it and I held no special attachment to the OVA. So I didn't really mind that Blood-C turned into a non-sensical gore fest. I mean, it was terrible, yes, but it didn't feel like it ruined anything that came before it.

On the other hand, I was a big fan of Higurashi, so this sequel being a total trainwreck hurts.

That's fair, but from my perspective it's hard to see how this has really ruined anything when R7 can just hit a reset button whenever he wants (and probably will).

[Ayu-ayu]

Welp, that sure was a waste of everyone's time. An interesting idea perhaps, but poorly executed as possible. What a waste of the cast and artists in particular. I never liked how Deen handled the series, but Passione...just completely dropped the ball.

[Katsu Koneko]

Yeah I haven't posted here in a while.

I thought Gousotsu as a whole was trash. Made me question if I can continue being a diehard fan for Ryukishi works after this whole mess and the fandom too. I hated everything. Teppei was the best character. Satoko became the worst character for me and didn't even get punished for what she did.

I'll still love the OG series, but I'm going to pretend this series doesn't exist.

Using "You" like that wasn't earned.

Gou - 4/10
Sotsu - 2/10

The lowest I've ever scored a Higurashi and Ryukishi work. (Though I guess you can count Gerokasu too since I gave it a 3 on vndb)

At least there is the new manga coming out soon.

[Marina2]

I am amazed to see how Gou/Sotsu managed to drag out it 'plot' so long with recap scenes and still ended up with very rush ending. Very disappointing sequel to original Higurashi overall.

Somehow, my favorite part of Gou/Sotsu is the St.Lucia arc (Ep.18-22 in Gou) because it was only part that truly feel "new". I think Ryukishi07 should've made the entire sequel setting in St.Lucia instead of brought us back to Hinamizawa. New setting and new group of characters can bring many new interesting things to the Higurashi world.

[blitz1/2]

Originally Posted by Marina2

I am amazed to see how Gou/Sotsu managed to drag out it 'plot' so long with recap scenes and still ended up with very rush ending. Very disappointing sequel to original Higurashi overall.

Somehow, my favorite part of Gou/Sotsu is the St.Lucia arc (Ep.18-22 in Gou) because it was only part that truly feel "new". I think Ryukishi07 should've made the entire sequel setting in St.Lucia instead of brought us back to Hinamizawa. New setting and new group of characters can bring many new interesting things to the Higurashi world.

My point exactly here! St Lucia should have been the new plot here. If you want to make Satoko the new looper here, she can face what Rika was facing in Hinamizawa, with a new antagonist if you wish. Or, again, have Satoko the antagonist here.

At least, it makes more sense of if Rika gets tired in St Lucia, then she can return to Hinamizawa.

[Liddo-kun]

Originally Posted by Marina2

Somehow, my favorite part of Gou/Sotsu is the St.Lucia arc (Ep.18-22 in Gou) because it was only part that truly feel "new". I think Ryukishi07 should've made the entire sequel setting in St.Lucia instead of brought us back to Hinamizawa. New setting and new group of characters can bring many new interesting things to the Higurashi world.

fully agree with that. Should have stayed longer in St. Lucia.

got tired and dropped on the first few episodes of Sotsu, because it all feels reused stuff.

[MCAL]

https://mobile.twitter.com/AnemoneAm...52449045188610

New interview with Ryukishi about SotsuGou.

Apparently, Satoko injected Mion by pretending to trip and fall on top of her. lol!!

[AC-Phoenix]

Finally managed to finish this and have a new name for the series:

Higurashi:When they Naruto

I would have honestly preferred an ending where Satoko grows up, and stays with Rika at St.Lucia.

[Jan-Poo]

I think it shows more maturity to accept that your friends have their own life and they need to follow their own path, instead of expecting them to follow you wherever you go like puppies. In that regard both Rika and Satoko needed to grow up.

I don't hate that part, and I think the final message is a good one, I just hate the way it was executed. You can't really think that Satoko has become a better person through her experience after showing her becoming a mass murder with absolutely no repentance and remorse.