Higurashi Episode 4 Discussion / Poll

[Imaginary_num6er]

Ok, I've been surfing the net and relized once again, that animesuki forums is the only serious place for series discussion. (That other place that starts with a 4 was a mistake.)


First of all, there are a few assumptions one needs to make before I give my asssumptions about the entire case in ep04. Remember, EVERY SCENE in the anime has a reason to it. Obviously, there are tons of Japanese websites dedictaed to this stuff.

Spoiler for Assumptions:

Assumptions:

• The true culprit is not the "Oyashiro-sama"
• Assume, that the suspect is not one of the members of the club.
• Assume what Keiichi expereinced was real, and not something of an intrinsic mental disorder

With that said, lets go look at some of the clues we have.

Spoiler for The entire page what Keiichi wrote (from ep03):

私、前原圭一は命を狙われています
なぜ、誰に、命を狙われているのかはわかりません。
ただひとつ判る事は、オヤシロさまの祟りと関係があるということです。
レナと魅音は犯人の一味。
他にも大人が４～５人以上。白いワゴン車を所有。
バラバラ殺人の被害者をもう一度よく調べてください。生きています。
富竹さんの死は未知の薬物によるもの。
証拠の注射器はこれです。
どうしてこんなことになったのか、私にはわかりません。
これをあなたが読んだなら、その時、私は死んでいるでしょう。 。
これを読んだあなた。どうか真相を暴いてください。それだけが私の望みです。

前原圭一

(Tled)
I, Maebara Keiichi, am in danger of being killed.
Why, and who, wants my life, I do not know.
The one thing I do know is that it has something to do with the Oyashiro-sama's curse. Rena and Mion were part of the criminal ring. Also, four to five or more adults own a white van.
Look at the victims of the dismembered killings once more. [They/he/she] is/are alive. Tomitake-san's death is due to an unknown drug. This is the syringe as evidence.
How things became like this, I do not know.
If you are reading this, by that time I would be already dead.
To whomever reading this, please uncover the truth.

Maebara Keiichi

Spoiler for Question: Who could have taken the note paper?:

Possible suspects:

• Keiichi's parents: They could have searched his room before or after the killing. (To have it be before, you have to assume what he wrote the full text before.)
• The "director" and others: Definatly possible since they didn't go after Keiichi despite owning a van and having 4-5 people. Probably during the time Keiichi ran, they searched the house.
• Rena or Mion: Assuming that one of them was alive, and was able to see Keiichi hiding the memo and syringe in the clock.
• Some 3rd person: In ep03, the window on the first floor and the 2nd were both open despite K1 closing them before. Assuming that someone hid into the house while he was not looking, they could most-certainly see where he hid the note later on. If the syringe was indeed something that's non-lethal like a tranquilizer, the 3rd person could have killed Mion and Rena during Keiichi's sleep, and make him think that it was he, who killed them.

Now, the fact that the suspect didn't take the entire paper and took only certain parts further limits the possibilites, since the suspect wanted to leave some parts of the message, and others out:

• "Look at the victims of the dismembered killings once more": Obviously, the person that got lynched would not be alive, but this also includes vicimts of the subsequent killings and the such. Therefore, the culprit is someone invovled in the previous dissaperences/killings.
• "This is the syringe as evidence": Now, any culprit would not want the syringe to be left as evidence to avoid it from being a simple Oyashiro-sama's curse case, but the main question is: Who could have get the syringe in the first place?

Considering these two facts, and assuming that it is none of the club members, there is only a few people who could do this:

• The Director and his men: reasons as before.
• Takano-san: Although she dissapered in ep02, if she was indeed alive after her dissaperence, it would make her a very potential suspect or an accomplice. In ep03, Keiichi discovers that Takano-san was a nurse working at the same hospital where the doctor who gave the flu shot worked at. Also, since she was near Tomitake-san before he died, she could also be responcible of his death.

Spoiler for Question: What was inside the syringe?:

There are generally two theories, one of which it contained some kind of psychiatric drug/poision, while the other is that it contained something else. Assuming Mion didn't intend to kill Keiichi, it would have to be the latter.

As for the possibilites, it was either a tranquilizer or depressant. There a a number of reason why Mion would not necessarly intend to kill Keiichi.
1. The Ohagi incident:
The needle was contained in the nice-looking Ohagi, compared to the others. If you think about the types of games Mion and others played at the club, its hard to think that the intended clue would be in the nice-looking one. Also, in ep04, Mion was suprised about what Keiichi said about the Ohagi. This is probably because the needle was not really intentional.
2. Whispering during K1's sleep in ep02:
Mion and Rena were talking about a dissaperence after the Watanagshi Festival, but didn't talk anything about Tomitake-san's death. Wouldn't it be weird if Rena and Mion were the same criminal ring as the "director", to not be informed of the details beforehand?
3. Keiichi's Mental state:
At ep03, Keiichi recieves a "flu shot" by a doctor. Now, usually in Japan, they don't give "flue shots" to help get over a cold. Therefore, if the shot contained some kind of psychiatric drug, it would explain why Mion and Rena had a huge difference in what they said in the "Higurashi mode" (hallucination) and in normal mode. Mion and Rena probably were very scared, and by the help of a doctor, they were able to get a syringe that was suppose to be a depressent or tranquilizer (ie. Rena's previous medical conditions). Now, despite their intentions, the syringe might contain something different though.

Spoiler for Other Mysteries::

-Keiichi's death: The first mystery is that he called Ooishi-san on the public line when he could have used the free emergency line on the public phone? In addition, the line seemed to have ended due to the lack of coins, and Keiichi knew Ooishi-san's phone number and remebered to bring enough coins despite being pursued. Why? The second mystery is how Keiichi's killings resemble Rena's behavior in her previous school. Broken windows = Broken walls and shoebox with a bat, suspecion of friends trying to kill him, and Oyashiro-sama being behind them.

-Who is the "director":
At first, one might think the "director" was Oyashiro-sama himself, but you would see in this scene:

That the person in the labcoat is probably the "director" and also a doctor. Personally, I think the whole incident was a coup by Takano-san and the "director."

[kj1980]

Originally Posted by Imaginary_num6er

Spoiler:

Who is the "director":
At first, one might think the "director" was Oyashiro-sama himself, but you would see in this scene:

That the person in the labcoat is probably the "director" and also a doctor. Personally, I think the whole incident was a coup by Takano-san and the "director."

Think of other homonyms/synonyms of the word "kantoku" in Japanese. The word "kantoku" can mean a lot of things, you know?

If I were the translator, I wouldn't translate "kantoku" in this sense as "the director." I would use the word...."the manager." What kind of managers are there? It important to keep that in mind as we get to Tatarigoroshi-hen. By the time we get there, "the director" translation will make no complete sense as opposed to "the manager" translation.

[Blue_Mercy]

Spoiler:

I think Mion was surprised about the needle in the ohagi because she wasn't involved in making it. Rena and her grandmother made it and the one with the needle was the "special" one that Rena prepared.

Spoiler:

What I'm not sure about is whether or not Mion actually injected Keiichi?

[FubaredByAnime]

I would use the word...."the manager."

Ah, so that's why Mion makes the swinging bat or playing baseball (can't remember) comment in his room before he goes ******* on them. That makes more sense now.

I guess it's the manager for the killer loli baseball team.

[Freakman]

To Imaginary Number, about your theories about Keiichi's parents, here's a piece of info from the game that wasn't given in the anime :

Spoiler for episode 4 / game content:

In the game, Keiichi tells his mother something in the event he were to die / disappear. I can't remember the details exactly, but he pretty much gives away the fact that he hid something in his clock (or at least in his room).

[Green²]

Spoiler for General live notes -Ep.2-4:

If (She) usually hangs out around the dump, where also a murder(?) also took place, possible may be that (She) may be an witness to the event.

(Detective) working what appears to be solo, starts prodding around some boy whom doesn't appear to be related in any way to the past events.

(She) near the end gives strong warning to the boy for the boy to drop his own investigation into the matter.

Guy with camera killed. Killed probably related to his photography work. Also seen by dump site at times.

-Detective using boy to get to (She)?

-What happened to the previous year student, -Friend of (She)?

-If (She) is a major witness, then why (She) not go to authorities?

--(She) = Murder relation ... Or ... (Detective) = Murder relation


===End of Episode 2===

(Detective) is investigating the girls.

(Girls) appear to know nothing about the boy's lunch with the detective. Appear to be doing a shake-up to get around the deception.

~Tainted food (Sewing Needle). By Rena, or by the grandmother?


===End of Episode 3===

Jesus Christ...


===End of Episode 4===

Many questions,.. many dots -beyond the general stuff. But one thing that appears for certain, replay value in the end will be most high.

[Imaginary_num6er]

Originally Posted by Freakman

To Imaginary Number, about your theories about Keiichi's parents, here's a piece of info from the game that wasn't given in the anime :

Spoiler for episode 4 / game content:

In the game, Keiichi tells his mother something in the event he were to die / disappear. I can't remember the details exactly, but he pretty much gives away the fact that he hid something in his clock (or at least in his room).

It seems like in the game:

Spoiler for episode 4 / game content:

Keiichi tells his parents to bury the clock with him in his coffin.

Yeah, since that wasn't in the anime, I only limited the possibility of his parents being involved to just speculation. The final letter Keiichi write is a little different from the game, but its very insignificant.

[orion]

Yeah, this arc definitely plays with your mind. But I have some questions/ thoughts after reading the TIPS for the 1st chapter.

Spoiler:

1. There is some segregation of the student population. Some students are in the school in another town and others remain in that village. Could this also be due to those likely to be affected by the curse? Those likely to be affected are kept in town and those of low risk can go out of town. Rena went outside and destroyed another school and injured people and then came back and is stable. Could there also be something in that environment or medication in that village that stablilzes those prone to the curse?

2. What if Keiichi was being injected with a stabilizer or cure and the shortness of breath was a reaction to the medicine, you know tracheal swelling , with the clawing an attempt for him to open his airway? In ep. 3, he was slightly paranoid and went to the doctor and given a shot for a cold and became better with a flare when he was talking to Oishi and after the ohagi incident. In the last episode, he was having full blown paranoid delusions before the injection. best exemplified with the bat swinging at the school. They were worried about him since Satoshi was acting like him and went missing and decided to give him a "cure". At that point, he isn't thinking too clearly, hears "director". Attempts at restraining fail and he acts like Lil' Slugger. Medication takes hold, has a sane moment and writes a last note. Makes it to phone booth, calls Oishi and then side effects start. *Cue gross sound effects.*

3. You guys were mentioning triggers. I think that they were multiple triggers reinforcing each other to put him over the brink. I think that the first trigger was the coverup of the newpaper article about the dam murder by his friends. Then came Oishi who continued to rot away his confidence in his friends and his environment by telling him facts that he can't verify because he can't discuss it with anyone in the village. This probably weakend his grasp of his environment and continued his downward spiral. Oishi was considered an agent of Oyashira-sama in one of the TIPS.

So, am I on the right path?

[molitar]

Well it's not my cup of tea so to speak.. But I will probably read the threads on it to find out what was going on. But the one piece that makes absolutely no sense except to trigger it would of been the photographer. First of all did anyone see the body? Secondly their was no reason at all for him to tell about the murder that would get him started into investigating and nothing suspicious would of happened. So no matter what the real cause of his whole downfall is the photographer.

I imagine the photographer is the entire key to everything. If he never met the photographer he wouldn't of heard of the story. If he didn't hear the story their would of been nothing to feed his dillusions. If he didn't have delusions he wouldn't have been investigating.. If he didn't investigate he would of never suspected the girls of anything.

After all the girls didn't really start getting weird on him until he got to suspecting them and than they started acting weird on him. It's almost as if they knew that if he suspected something than he would disappear or die next. After all they watched the same thing happen to (forget name was it satoshi?) well anyways you get the point. So EVERYTHING began with the photographer that is the one undeniable fact. Secondly he knew they were at the dumps for old newspaper to be laying around to be found near the top after 4 years is not a believable incident meaning they had to be planted for him to find.

[orion]

Originally Posted by molitar

Well it's not my cup of tea so to speak.. But I will probably read the threads on it to find out what was going on. But the one piece that makes absolutely no sense except to trigger it would of been the photographer. First of all did anyone see the body? Secondly their was no reason at all for him to tell about the murder that would get him started into investigating and nothing suspicious would of happened. So no matter what the real cause of his whole downfall is the photographer.

Well, the TIPS section did mention that...

Spoiler:

the body was dismembered with the killers each being given a piece to hide. The last arm couldn't be found because the last killer who has the last piece is missing.

Also...

Spoiler:

Keiichi did make a joke in episode 1 that brought out the comment by the photographer about the murder.
(Transcript via fansub translation.)
Tomitake:"Oh, you had a friend with you. What's she doing there?"
Keiichi: "Who knows? Maybe she's checking out the corpse she chopped up."
Tomitake: "It was a horrible crime. I hear they still haven't found one of the arms."
Keiichi:" What did you....."

Yeah, an intact 4 year old newspaper at an open air dump with the murder in it is suspicious for being a plant.

[Dracil]

About the letter his wrote, related to ep 3

Spoiler:

Someone mentioned that he'd written ahead of the script. i.e. he wrote the part about having the syringe in ep 3 before it occurred in ep 4. Is this a goof by the animators, or is this intentional? If intentional, then this is pretty important.

[Freakman]

You can safely assume it's a mistake.

[Arimfe]

Ugguuuu I just saw eps. 1-4 and I feel so sorry for Rena...
The saddest part...She never got that mannequin out of the garbage dump...uugh Rena chan
And on top of that she got her fingers crushed, ouch, standing in the rain apologising again and again
And when she made a pass at him, saying she would listen to him and save, and propably just wanted a kiss... what did he do? nothing. Poor Rena went crazy and got pushed down on the ground uuugghhh
And she ended up getting the baseball bat......hidoi

Rena chan is so moeee... If it wasn't because I already :fear:&:heart: Kaede, I would probably break down and surrender if a Rena would ever approached me in her higurashi mode....:fear:

[FubaredByAnime]

Just watched parts of Ayu's version of ep 4 to check out difference in translation, such as using word "manager" instead of Wind's choice word of "director". But here's the thing I noticed that I wanted to mention for those who were interested.

Keiichi's last words are translated: "Don't come ..."

[ploki]

This series it great. I'm one of those "closet" anime watchers (will never admit it to their friends, never discusses it, even online ;P). I only read posts on this forum AFTER I've completed a series to prevent reading spoilers cause some people jstu can't control themselves but post them anyway. This series is really unique though, so I'm willing to make an exception here

I've only seen up to episode 4, I haven't read any of the tips or any posts here... Perhaps the same thoughts have been speculated by others. I might even be WAAAY off. I just wanna get my thoughts down so I can look back later at the discussion or revise it as I continue watching

Spoiler for thoughts:

It seems like most of it is a delusional trip, with perhaps oyashiro-sama being the name of the disease or whatever it is. There's a lot that points to it being part delusion. I'm nto willing to go backwards to check (cause I wanna keep going forward after this) but for episode 4, if you strip a lot of the emotion out of the dialogues, it seems as if Keiichi's friends are trying to help him, such as the dialogue between Rena and Keiichi starting at 10:10 to 12:20. I'm sure there are more instances like that in earlier episodes, but it didn't occur to me that it could be a delusion until the beginning scene with Rena. If Rena really had her fingers slammed at the beginning of the episode, I would think there would be some reaction the next day when she sees him swinging the bat. Instead, she's holding her bag perfectly fine at 6:26 and walks right past him.

I'm starting most of my assumptions from there. I really can't figure out an explanation for everything else jsut yet, but it seems like the town is in on it. The doctor (shots for a cold? and he was called to the house...), the police, and the guys in vans all appear to be some sort of containment crew. Maybe he was only afflicted after learning about it, like an intense paranoia disease (something along the lines of Paranoia Agent and Shonen Bat). Keiichi only started going crazy after learning about it. The past murders may have been committed by those who were "spirited away" but really killed themselves liek Keiichi did and was later covered up. That would include Satoshi, and even the photographer. No mention of him ever came up among everyone. Only Keiichi and the police guy knew.

I can't really figure out the other kids' roles in this but it seems like the anime is gonna go into that. I was thinking maybe Rena had been afflicted but recovered?

Actually, the more I write down, the less I feel like I can explain everything else. What a series! ;P I hope I got some of it right though... I really can't wait until it's over so I can read everything that's been posted and find out I'm completley wrong... must... control... self =p

I just began episode 5 and I'm completely confused. I'm assuming this is gonan do Mion's POV?

Another edit... is there a post with all the answers? cause I really don't want to stay speculating after the series is over. I'll never sleep at night =(

[kj1980]

Originally Posted by ploki

Another edit... is there a post with all the answers? cause I really don't want to stay speculating after the series is over. I'll never sleep at night =(

No and no one intends to (even if they did, that post will be deleted promptly). But as I said in the wikipedia article, there are two answer chapters coming later to answer Watanagashi-hen and Onikakushi-hen. Along with other chapters, you can gain hints and clues to the previous chapters. Also, feel free to utilize the TIPS section of this thread for each corresponding episode to obtain valuable information.

[Forever]

Just went and watched ep 1-4. Hmm I already got the feeling that from ep 1, that keiichi is a goner, but didnt noe it will be so soon...

I probably guessing it is some government psychological experiment, but I wont fry my brain cells thinking about it. My guts say the building of the dam was intended as some trigger point.

I simply love it when rena's eyes goes orge! She looks so cute!

[madlobster]

Originally Posted by Arimfe

Ugguuuu I just saw eps. 1-4 and I feel so sorry for Rena...
The saddest part...She never got that mannequin out of the garbage dump...uugh Rena chan

I understand everything now. The murder over the dam has nothing to do with it, the whole thing was caused by the death 2.5 years prior of

Spoiler:

Harland David Sanders

[Li Jianliang]

Originally Posted by orion

Yeah, an intact 4 year old newspaper at an open air dump with the murder in it is suspicious for being a plant.

Not really. Newpaper in dumps can survive for decades. From the looks of the Hinamizawa dump site, villagers pretty much leave the place alone except to dump more garbage around the edge.

[Arimfe]

Originally Posted by madlobster

I understand everything now. The murder over the dam has nothing to do with it, the whole thing was caused by the death 2.5 years prior of

Spoiler:

Harland David Sanders

Ehee^^;;
I don't know what you are talking about, is the mannequin part of the plot? I only thought about it because I remembered Rena wanted it so much

And who is

Spoiler:

Harland David Sanders?

*is clueless of any advanced plot theories*