If you’ve ever been around me for more than twenty minutes, you’ve probably heard about this fucking show.
Even though I’ve probably gone on about how awesome Rena Ryuguu is for taking her school hostage or what a fucking bitch Shion Sonozaki was in her story arc, I’ll admit, it won’t make you bleed ecstasy or furiously masterbate to every animated shot of Rika.
It’s still my favorite show. Not because of its fantastic animation (lol) or its overuse of their cicada_cry.mp3 they play twenty times an episode. whoa shocker, it’s actually the plot and characters that make this show fucking amazing.
Since most people out there probably have no idea what this is about, here’s a fun intro to the characters:
This is Keiichi Maebara. He moves to Hinamazawa (location: middle of fucking nowhere japan) after he goes crazy and accidentally blinds some dumb schoolgirl with his bee bee gun. He explains his actions as a way to relieve stress for constantly getting top marks at his school, which is stupid and this is exactly what our main character for the first half of season 1 is.
This is Rena Ryuguu. Her real name is Reina Ryuguu, but she changed it after another unfortunate LOLFUCKINGCRAZY moment in her life. She originally lived in Hinamizawa, but her parents decided it was too boring and gay so they moved to a bigger city. In Shishibone City or whatever, she lived an awesome life with her awesome parents, until her mother decided to take her to the ice cream parlor. As Rena’s eating some awesome ice cream, her mother tells her that she’s pregnant with another man’s baby.
DRAMABOMB HAS SET.
The reason for the ice cream was to get Rena to pick her over her father, since she had the choice who to go with after the divorce. Rena didn’t take kindly to this other man business so she started to fight her in court, since this bitch wanted all kinds of shit from Rena’s father. But Rena started to go crazy from STRESS and broke all her shit and started cutting herself and had hallucinations. Her father didn’t seem to notice until she beat the shit out of four of her friends and broke all the windows of her school. So she and her father moved back to Hinamizawa after getting Rena xanax and everything was hopefully awesome again. As you can see in the screenshot, everything really isn’t that awesome.
This is Shion Sonozaki, who is quite possibly the most awesome character in anime.
She was born alongside her twin sister Mion. The Sonozakis are like the ultimate yakuza family of Hinamizawa. Basically, she was never supposed to be alive, since the daughter of the head of the Sonozaki family was to get the mansion and all of the family’s power, which is pretty much limited to scaring people into giving them shit. But since there were twins, there would most likely be a huge fight between them for the position, so the youngest was to be killed. Shion survived because their grandmother felt too much compassion for killing my favorite character at the ripe age of 12 minutes.
So they just ship her off to a boarding school for a long ass time. She also has huge tits and doesn’t give a fuck about anyone, except for this one guy who she wanted to bone all summer in 1982.
This is Shion’s twin sister Mion. She’s a tomboy and that’s pretty much it god she’s boring.
This is the most important character to the anime, Rika Furude. There’s not too much you can say about her without ruining the entire plot, but basically she knows a lot of shit but hides it by talking like a retarded 5 year old. She also gets drunk every night. I’m not kidding. Oh and her parents died so she lives in some shitty cabin.
This is Satoko Houjou. She got beaten and raped everyday last year, but her aunt was killed by a “drug addict” and her uncle ran away with his whore, Rita, so she lives with Rika now. She’s probably had the worst past of the gang (except for Rika) so she vents her anger by planting dumb traps for Keiichi to fall in and laughs at him. She was really close to her brother Satoshi, but he ran away last year right after her aunt was killed (WOW WHAT A COINCIDENCE) Before her aunt and uncle came to town, her parents “fell” from a balcony and died.
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry) takes place in 1983. Basically, everyone’s scared shitless of the town God called Oyashiro-sama. Every year on a certain Sunday in June, they have a festival to give thanks to him for not killing them. However, every year there is one person who is killed and one who goes missing. These “sacrifices” started in 1979 when a dam that was going to flood the city was being built. On the festival, the head of the construction was killed, thus the construction ended. The next year, Satoko’s parents died on the same day. In 1981, Rika’s dad died and her mother apparently committed suicide, although her body was never found. And the next year, Satoko’s aunt is killed and her brother goes missing.
It’s now 1983, and it’s Keiichi’s first Cotton Drifting festival. After he meets two delightful people, they end up dying on that very day. Now his friends are starting to act crazy, and he gets paranoid that they’re trying to kill him. Welcome to Hinamizawa.
But back to what I was originally talking about, this show is my favorite show. Not because of its stereotypical “loli killers” or Rena’s bad haircut. It’s my favorite show because it had a definite start and a definite end. There are absolutely no plot holes (there are in the show, but there are none in the game) and everything eventually gets explained. I love it because it answers every question you might have had by the end. And I can’t be the only one. There are two seasons, a movie, an OVA, two remakes of the original game and countless manga out there. Not to mention that there will be a sequel to the movie and another OVA coming out, so I can’t be the only one obsessed with this show.
It’s about friendship and trust, and what can happen to a group of people who can’t stick together, which happens to involve drugs, paranoia, and a lot of fucking murder. It’s a tragedy with hope, to put it in lame man’s terms.
If you like anime, this show is pretty original and worth looking at. I guarantee you’ll be hooked after episode four, and you shouldn’t be disappointed by episode 50.
