• The episode summaries what Satoko could witness. "Black Rika" lamenting no one can do anything, the various times she saw the stalker, Irie's suicide.

• Everything start when Satoko hears her alarm noise, she tries to wake Rika up. Satoko hurries, but Rika just woke up slowly, and with calm, which surprise satoko. Rika opens a hidden exit in the ceiling, and asks satoko to hurry.

• Satoko goes in, but Rika then goes back on the ground, saying she is okay. Satoko doesn't understand what she is doing. Rika says these guys are after her, and Satoko might be left unharmed if she doesn't get near and run away. Satoko doesn't approve this and asks her once again, extending her arm. Rika then reverts back to ner "nipa" mode, and says everything is alright, and it will be repeated again. despite what she claims, Rika is almost crying. She then closes the trap door.

• Several "janitor" henchmen are outside, and they are assaulting the house. They quickly barge in, and rush at the first floor, seeing rika. they kidnapp her. Satoko knows it and is almost crying out loud, which almost make her spotted by a henchman. But they quickly withdraw with their target.

• The henchmen put rika (who was restrained in a "bag/mat") on the front of the shrine, and they draw out their knifes towards her...

• Satoko leaves the house and calls out rika. she slowly makes her way to the shrine. She hears a weird noise, and as going upstairs, she sees blood...She sees Rika corpse and then... simply the yell of the most cruel thing which could happen to her.

• The henchmen were going to get back in their van, but they heard satoko's cry !They quickly make their way back to the shrine. Satoko hears their footsteps and tries to make her escape. Once upstairs, the henchmen split, and 2 are going to the left, where satoko fled to.

• Satoko runs in the woords, then one of the Henchmen wears some binocular (nightvision most likely). He sees satoko and three of them are chasing her. Satoko feels on a "cliff" (much like how teppei did in tatarigoroshi). She sees the bridge, but she can't get up because of a deep wound on her left leg. She suddenly hears the henchmen, and sees them afar. She tries to withstand the pain, and slowly makes her way to the bridge

• The henchmen arrive around the bridge, but they can't see anyone. they are walking on it, but satoko is under the bridge, gripping on some cable, struggling a lot. As they walk just above her, the Binocular guy doesn't see her, so they keep going. this relieves satoko, but she then trips, and barely hold a bar with her hands. this alert the henchmen who heard the noise.

• They walk back where Satoko is, and one draws out his knife. however, they still don't see anything, so they keep going. Satoko cannot hold anymore, she has lots of pain and begs anyone to help her. She then release her grip, and she fell in the river...

• The scene switch back to several army trucks and soldiers (much like what it was shown on the trailer 1) Meanwhile, Satoko has been washed to the shore. She manages to be conscious, but she he bleeding on her head...

• she walks back to hinamizawa, where there is a lot of activities... There are many soldiers with full isolation suit and Gas Mask. Satoko is completely speechless. She sees some soldiers leaving the school with "something", she makes slowly her way to the school then...

• She sees the classroom by the window... several person on the grounds, on of them is chie sensei... Satoko doesn't understand what's happening, then she looks at the right and sees Mion, Shion and Keiichi, eye wide opened, bearing a painful expression, mouth open, they are dead. Satoko is crushed, and can withstand the shock, she yells. (here are pictures of the scene... again, do NOT look at it, it is really huge... )
  
  
  the soldiers hear her, and are surprised to see a survivor. They are quickly helping her.

• Some people in a hospital are watching the TV. the current reportage is about Hinamizawa disaster as you might expect. The presentator also makes mention that Houjou Satoko is the sole survivor and is currently treated in the hospital.

• Ooishi is discussing with a doctor, and asks why he can't interrogate Satoko. of course, the Doctor explains that Satoko received an horrible emotional shock, which makes her close her heart. the doctor can't do anything and everything depend on satoko. Ooishi then understand

• Satoko is in her chamber, laying on her bed, with various breathing devices, but her gaze is simply dead. Ooishi then enters and pays her a visit. He then talks about the disaster ans satoko, but he knows she won't answer. He can't help it, and asks satoko to listen to him. Ooishi then shows her Rena's hat, which was stained with blood.
  Ooishi talks where he found it and is wondering why they found her hat in such place, with blood on it. He wonders also why she was there in the first place.
  Ooishi believes Rena let her hat as a message. Ooishi makes various theories about the hat. But Rena is still missing since the Disaster. Ooishi knows it isn't a natural disaster, grabs satoko and yells to know what she saw. but he quickly gave up. A nurse arrives, and ask if there is a problem, Ooishi assures there isn't

• Ooishi then says he will be back, and will interrogate her about the murder of Rika. Suddenly Satoko reacted to this. Ooishi is caught off guard, and ask to the nurse if she saw it. But the nurse says it is something like a reflex. Ooishi is disappointed and makes his leave. As he is parting, the nurse has a weird look at satoko.
• Back in the Okinomiya police office, a collaegue says Kumatani is still missing. Ooishi asks if Kuma let a message or something, but the collague says no. suddenly he remember that they should have dispatched some policemen for Rika. Then ooishi remembers about satoko's reaction when He mentionned her murder.

• Ooishi then asks about this, and the policeman answers that it appears someone was stalking Furure Rika and Houjou Satoko. Ooishi then understands that something is wrong, and realizes that he should have understand this before : Satoko didn't witness the Disaster, but Rika's murder ! He quickly goes with his partner back in the hospital.

• At the hospital, a weird man is lurking in... Meanwhile, Ooishi and the other cop are rushing by car to the hospital

• Satoko suddenly wakes up and remembers what Ooishi said about the hat. she remembers herself running in the woods, and then we sees Rena doing the same. but Rena got outwit by the henchmen and some of them stops her in the front of her, drawing out their knives... We then see her hat, falling in the river...yelling...

• Satoko suddenly wakes up, saying she understood Rika's message. Satoko push the nurse button, but the earlier weird nuse goes to the room board, and push the button, ceasing the alert.

• Ooishi finally arrives in the hospital, while running, he sees some commotion in front of Satoko's Room... Ooishi is too late, Satoko died, and the Doctor says the cause of it. Ooishi collapses, in angst...

Looks like Satoko figured out Rena's connection to the Hinamizawa disaster just before she was killed.

I was surprised at seeing Rika not putting up any kind of a fight - after all it seems there isn't anything to make her hopes go up. After that, it's just Satoko's desperation, and her *snap*, if you cna call it, by seeing everyone die, just as Rika predicted. It is also a kind of Tsumihoroboshi-hen solution : it's explained why Keichi was the lone survivor of the disaster, which proves that there isn't any gas in the end.

I understood praticaly everything- as to Part B, there's way too much talk going on and I get the feeling there's an heavy amount of information being revealed - especially about Rena. (I'll have to check a fansub later ^^) Oh well.

Even so, we actually got to see who's responsible for Rika's death. And, we get to deduce that the same organization also killed Satoko. I guess it's because they don't want any information leaked. MMM... Well, I want it leaked. I still don't know what happened that night, and this episode further confuses me, because I see way too many different deaths, and I can't say for sure what caused them.
Also, who was the stalker after all? It didn't seem like he was part of that organization at all....

Rena! Why was she being followed around like that, ~kana? ~kana?! As far as I recall, she didn't have any contact with Takano in this arc... right? So, it's not possible that she was being followed because of the scrapbook like in Tsumihoroboshi-hen...

Though I wonder what Satoko knows about Rena... is it possible that she knows more than us?... I'm confused... this made yet another question pop up in my mind! What's Rena doing running around at a place like that when she was supposed to be with all her friends at school?....

Which also prompts yet another mistery: Since the attack was during the night, what was everyone doing at school past midnight?... Were they carried over there, or is it that this followed a different arc direction?

I believe satoko remembered what she had done. Considering what Ooishi said about the location of the hat, she could imagine what happened to Rena.

Basically, Satoko was able to "emulate" her situation with Rena's, and finally understood the meaning of her blood stained hat.


As for her location, considering her clothes, it appears she was happy hunting in the trash yard.
by the way, don't you think it is weird that Mion, Shion and Keiichi have their "casual" clothes, and not their seifuku? why they weren't with Rena in the first place?
Think about it, it is probably related with the reasons why so many people are in the school

great almighty screams of doom...poor poor satoko!! :sad: she went through all this mental and physical shit only to be killed off right when she had the answer! i cannot accept this ~ *someone pushes the reset button*

may her memories be carried forward in the afterlife >_<

So does this mean that for this particular arc it is finish? Minagoroshi-hen begins next week? Well at least thats what happens in season 1, a new arc begins when someone kicks the bucket.

Excellent episode! Despite the fact it's patently obvious this arc hardly adds anything to the plot, I think it delivers a powerful alternate version of Tatarigoroshi-hen.

Nevertheless, what's the point in showing Rika's kidnapping? The viewer doesn't really learn anything, because the fact someone had her tagged was pretty much a given.
Furthermore, we'd already established the GHD wasn't a natural disaster back in Saikai. Unless the director spills the beans, it's all a hopeless mess. Revealing these tidbits here will most certainly impart on viewers ability to be truly surprised in the next arc....at least the shock won't be nearly as great as it'd normally be.

Well... uh... pretty much everybody but Ooishi is dead... so... uh, yes.

Rika....Satoko....pretty sad way that things ended there is no question about that. Tough to see them all go down like this. In the end Rika got nothing to hope with and went down without a struggle. Giving into fate though with the slight hope that Satoko might find a way out of it.

On one hand we finally have the information about who committed the actual act of killing Rika. Those guys are really pushing it and I want a nuclear warhead to blast them into oblivion with. Just who the heck are these guys? I mean come on night vision goggles and everything has me completely baffled as to who they are working for.

Did get a view in a way to what happened to Keiichi after he fell from the bridge. Could probably imagine a similar scenario with him seeing all the dead friends and such a horrible sight. You really know it's back at this point. Just looking around with everyone dead. So much death it'd be impossible for one child to handle it.

This conspiracy really is spreading out. How many of the hospital staff were on Satoko's murder? This guy goes all out of his way just to finish her off. She battles on through all of it and still can't make it out alive.

Guess we'll see next week. If it's the start of a new arc at least we'll have some happy moments to cheer us up again.

First of all, I would like to thank Ryukishi07 for formally coming into this as an advisor to the series to fix the errors of the previous season. The previous season was dogged with mistakes that made Higurashi fans cry in disgust - from so called "killer lolis" (it's not supposed to be that type of story!), awkward emo facial features, leaving out primarily-subtle-but-nevertheless-very-important scenes...the list goes on. Higurashi is supposed to be focused on murder-suspense-horror...not a story that is focused on "killer lolis" (whomever thought of this term should be drug out to the street and shot) going around becoming psychotic and killing people.

Anyhow this is episode's outline was pure Ryukishi's format of writing. You have the thriller scene, the descent into anxiety and then into helplessness. What was the most pure Ryukishi moment was the cruel twist of fate that is at the end -the answer to everything being in sight of Oishi-san, and BAM!! It would've been more powerful if they had done the "Higurashi explosion" at the end just like in the game, but what the hey.

And not only that, this episode has given the game players a better insight to what might've happened to Kei when he died of his supposed "heart attack" at the epilogue of Tatarigoroshi.

Hopefully we'll get to see more Hanyuu action in the next episode or two.

If whatever disaster occured at bedtime, why were there people at the school?O_o