#teppei hojo

Prior thoughts here…

Look, I love Higurashi. I really do! But I can’t be the only person to hate Satoko Hojo when it was discovered what she did in Gou. That really tainted Higurashi Gou, which was doing okay up until that point. Now, does Satoko redeem herself and realize that she was petty, vindictive, misunderstood everything, and is absolutely in the wrong? Judging by what some of the seiyuus said after recording and reading the script, they felt weird and off by the material.

That’s very troubling!

Moving on! Our main story tonight is about Hinamizawa. A rural Japanese town with a rich history in religion, colorful characters which you can tell from the hair, and annoying, screeching cicadas! We see you, you dirt-bath twats!

Sorry, I really wanted to do a John Oliver moment here.

PREVIOUSLY ON HIGURASHI GOU: Rika’s suffering has gotten exponentially worse than in previous seasons. We’ve seen Rika die continuously and worse than what was shown to us in the original series. Not only that, but she was murdered by people who never caused Rika any harm prior including Akasaka, Akane Sonozaki, Chief Kimiyoshi, Ooishi, and even Keiichi. Who is to blame for this? That would be Rika’s best friend Satoko Hojo. Satoko was willing to make Rika happy by going along with Rika’s endeavors of leaving Hinamizawa and attending a prestigious all-girls school. And while Rika adjusted to her surroundings perfectly, Satoko was slipping through the cracks. Rika offered a helping hand to her, but Satoko was so stubborn and jumped to every wrong conclusion, thinking Rika abandoned her.

It wasn’t until the girls took a trip back to Hinamizawa that Satoko’s world changed. In the altar of Oyashiro, she is transferred to the limbo and comes face-to-face with a deity much like Hanyuu. We’re pretty sure her name is Featherine…but for some reason Satoko called her Eua so I guess that’s her name in the Higurashi universe. Eua gives Satoko the special power to control her fate and she literally abuses it at every turn to force Rika to stay in Higurashi and change every outcome from every timeline Rika’s been through.

SOTSU: I think we were all thinking throughout the Gou series, we haven’t watched enough episodes of Rena losing her shit and go on a murderous rampage. Or for that matter, we haven’t even watched Mion strap someone down and take off their fingernails! So remember episodes 1-4 of Gou? Apparently the first 3 episodes of Sotsu show how Rena lost her mind in that timeline, the next three episodes followed Mion’s descent into madness, and we follow that up with Teppei living with Satoko. Gou only told part of the story. Satoko drugged all of these people in order to screw with Rika. I mean no one needed to see Rika get strangled and thrown in the outdoor toilet. Yet we got that scene. Thanks series, thanks a fuck-ton for that.

And yes, we indeed got the fingernail scene.

But don’t get it twisted with what I just said. Only some of these scenes are new compared to what was given and shown in Gou. To be mean about it, Sotsu is on par with Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzumiya. But give Endless Eight some credit. It was only eight episodes. We’ve got 13 episodes of almost the same exact crap we watched six months prior in the previous season.

MORE REDEMPTION: Last arc, we kinda got redemptions of several characters near the end from Miyo Takano and Teppei Hojo. I obviously didn’t believe the latter. Teppei was scum in the original series. Not a redeeming thing about him and everyone knows it. This character however was runner-up as scum of Hinamizawa.

Rina Mamiya or Ritsuko dated Rena’s father and it set Rena off. In the original series, Rena’s father would spend butt-loads of money on Ritsuko. And the original plan was a bit of a badger game. The man would spend amounts of cash on Ritsuko until eventually her real man comes in and yells at the other man for messing with his girl until he pays the real man off to leave him alone. And that system was put out by Ritsuko and Teppei.

Sotsu worked a little differently. Due to Teppei’s…redemp…redemp…Nope, can’t do it! Teppei’s out of the picture and now Ritsuko is working in a gentleman’s club. Rena’s father goes there constantly and showers Ritsuko with gifts. Ritsuko gets concerned. That never happens. We see a shred of humanity with her. She mentions that she was raised by a single parent and came to Rena to convince her father to stop doing this. And if Satoko didn’t drug Rena, it would have been awesome to see this happen. I want Rena to be happy.

I WAS AFRAID OF THIS: As this season progressed, I noticed these previous arcs that we’re watching are coming from Satoko’s point of view. Unfortunately, it’s just making myself and many others lose every respect we once had for Satoko. She goes through different timelines drugging people and fucking with Rika. So once we got to the third arc, I was afraid of seeing something with my own eyes. Satoko faking abuse! She is not being abused by her uncle. She is not being abused by the townspeople nor her classmates. She is faking abuse to both piss off her uncle and worry her friends. That is some sick-ass shit!

ENDING: Up to this point, we watched Satoko’s hand in ruining Rika’s perfect timeline. During Higurashi Gou, we weren’t sure who the true culprit was. Higurashi Sotsu came in and had Satoko drug Rena, Mion, Detective Ooishi, Akasaka, Akane Sonozaki, Chief Kimiyoshi, and even Keiichi. Not just that, but lie and manipulate people, particularly in the second-to-last arc of Sotsu.

Many of us (myself included) were a little disappointed in the carryout of the story. Sotsu was essentially Gou, but from Satoko’s angle. In every other Higurashi story prior to this train-wreck, the timelines felt like they were their own story and not recycled garbage. It wasn’t until the episodes with Hanyuu leaving Rika that we got a few questions answered. The sword Hanyuu left Rika was in Oyashiro’s statue. It’s just that Satoko got to it first and a baby piece broke off, leaving Rika unsatisfied. Also, Rika’s flashbacks are giving her some clues. Or could it be Hanyuu leaving Rika the clues?

Hanyuu went to investigate these messed up timelines and sure enough, she encountered Eua. But Eua is clearly more powerful and has an upper-hand in her own realm so she does overpower Hanyuu. Hanyuu learns the truth that Satoko was behind everything and that Eua has been manipulating her along the way. She also watches Rika fall into despair and give up her future goal of one day leaving Hinamizawa. Instead, Rika is going to stay in Hinamizawa and Satoko gets what she wants. Never count out luck when Hanyuu is involved! Rika has been getting flashbacks of the timeline when Ooishi went on the rampage. And sure enough, one of those flashes were of Satoko shooting Rika in the face to make sure she was dead.

Rika knows Satoko is the reason behind the influx of deaths in these timelines. What now?

Satoko kills Rika. REPEATEDLY! And it just goes from timeline to timeline, from Hinamizawa to St. Lucia, from the Cotton Drifting Festival to the classroom! Now, I will admit some of these fights were funny to watch. In one of those times, Satoko kills Rika and in the distance, Rena, Mion, and Keiichi are not noticing a damn thing. That was funny! And then you have Rika and Satoko killing each other over the fact that Satoko doesn’t want to study.

This episode-long slug-fest was like Peter Griffin vs. Ernie the Giant Chicken. It went on far too long. And it was worse because you know Satoko is in the wrong.

Yes, I am on Team Rika in this fight. Rika offered a hand to Satoko. Satoko refused help. Rika didn’t snitch on Satoko. Rika wants to go as far as humanly possible away from the town that caused her so much pain. If you spent hundreds of years in the same year, the same month, in the same town, suffering a myriad of ways to die, wouldn’t you want to take the next bus the fuck outta there? Satoko took a petty fight into a full-blown, time-leaping, friend-killing, witches and Gods holy war! Oh yeah, let’s look at Eua and Hanyuu. Eua seems to have the upper-hand here, but Hanyuu and Rika always have miracles on their side. It might be a 1 out of 1000 shot for them, but they have miracles coming out of their asses. Thankfully, Hanyuu was able to defeat Eua and the girls stopped their fight. After some wise words from Rena, the girls came to a sensible conclusion of giving each other some space to keep being friends.

Rika’s going to St. Lucia and Satoko isn’t. They will remain frenemies, I guess? Satoko will stalk Rika if she’s away too long or doesn’t phone home as often. Geez bitch, clingy much? And we end the series with the classic Higurashi song “You” as we see all the other minor characters we loved from the series. Ooishi is visiting his friend’s grave, Takano (not pregnant) and Tomitake coming back to town, Ritsuko’s alive, Teppei’s alive (and not a horrible human being anymore), everyone’s alive, and Satoko doesn’t learn her lesson. The bitch gets what she wants. This series is shit.

And what’s this? Of all the arcs for Satoshi to wake up and have Hinamizawa Syndrome clear up, it had to be this one! I can’t even begin to describe my disgust here. But I couldn’t because the scene was so fast, I had to contain myself.

OH MY FUCKING GOD! I FUCKING HATED THIS ARC! I HATED THIS ANIME! I HATED, HATED, HATED THIS ANIME! HATED IT! HATED EVERY SIMPERING STUPID VACANT AUDIENCE-INSULTING MOMENT OF IT!

Sorry to get all Roger Ebert on you guys but it had to be said.

Higurashi once had an art to telling the story with repeating and similar timelines. It made it feel like you’re not sitting through 13 episodes of something you already sat through with only a few minutes of new footage. Sotsu went the route of Haruhi Suzumiya’s Endless Eight. You fail, dude! That’s a fail! Each episode up until episode 13 or 14 is primarily the same shit we saw in Gou. With the exception of a few scenes like with Ritsuko, Kimiyoshi’s horrible torture, and evil Satoko moments, it was a shot-for-shot repeat from last season. And it was especially slow and repetitive during the Satoko abuse arc.

I know I went off in the last review about how much Satoko sucks, but she really fucking sucks here. Satoko wasn’t like this at all in the original series. She loved all of her friends, not just Rika. She loved her nii-nii! She cared for Keiichi and sees him as a pro-temp nii-nii. And she cared for Shion, Mion, and Rena. This season with Satoko all I see is manipulation of every character that cared for her, even the minor ones and only care about Rika. Satoshi wasn’t even a passing thought. In fact, not once did Satoko feel the need to talk about her nii-nii except when it was to manipulate Keiichi. She fakes everything! She faked her nii-nii talk with Keiichi, doesn’t give a crap about Shion’s love for her, faked being bullied and lying about it to a numerous amount of people, all to fuck with Rika!

Now then, this really upset a lot of fans. I mean, a fuck-ton a lot of fans. I’m just disappointed that this exists and will spend the next several anime seasons trying to forget about everything I watched here. Eventually, I’ll move the fuck on and pretend this didn’t exist and continue to rewatch the Studio Deen version and reading the manga. But some others aren’t so lucky. This really struck a nerve to those who have been with the franchise since day one. I have a friend that’s so depressed by Gou and Sotsu’s existence, I’ve never seen her this wrecked before!

I cannot give this a good review. I cannot recommend this. It is just unwatchable. Unfathomable! Inconceivable! Unbelievable! In fact, here’s a list of Higurashi stuff I would highly recommend watching or reading before you should ever touch Higurashi Gou and Sotsu.

Higurashi Visual Novel Higurashi Manga Any Higurashi video game Higurashi Season 1 & 2 (Studio Deen version) Higurashi Rei episodes 2-4 Higurashi Outbreak Higurashi Cat-Killing Special Higurashi Rei episodes 1 & 5 The live action TV series from 2016 Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (anime) A 10 hour loop of Keiichi’s sea bear dangling Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kira That one episode of Last Period featuring the cast of Higurashi Live Action Higurashi from 2008 Staring at a still-shot of Detective Ooishi wearing a thong from Higurashi Rei episode 1 for five minutes Scratching your neck until you see maggots come out

THEN…no, I don’t think you’re ready to watch Higurashi Gou and Sotsu.

Avoid it like the plague.

(a.k.a. When They Cry Gou)

I know what you’re thinking. Why the heck am I reviewing this anime again? I’ve already written a review in 2009 and re-polished it in 2016. (Here it is BTW) I’ve made my point on who I like, hate, what ships are worthy, and poked fun at all the deaths that happened throughout the series. I think some time has passed that I should say some thoughts on this…um, story. After all, Higurashi is one of my favorite animes.

STORY: Ah shit, here we go again!

Higurashi or When They Cry is about a boy named Keiichi Maebara who recently moved to a place called Hinamizawa. And ever since moving to this town, he’s found his days are filled with fun mischief with fellow friends Rena Ryuuguu, Satoko Hojo, Mion Sonozaki, and Rika Furude. But little does Keiichi know that there’s a little murder mystery that surrounds the town. During a town festival known as Watanagashi (or Cotton Drifting), there’s usually one or two people that go missing or turn up dead. And this year, Keiichi is next. So let’s relive the horrors that plague the town of Hinamizawa and…

One episode later.

Wait, what the…?! It’s episode 2, why are we seeing Hanyuu? I don’t remember that in the manga. The visual! THE VISUAL! WHAT THE FUCK?! ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A REBOOT? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY IS THERE AN ADULT RIKA?! WAIT, IS THAT ADULT RIKA OR BERN? IS THIS GOING TO BE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE TO THE WITCHES OF UMINEKO?! THE SHADOWS IN THE OPENING ARE TOO FAMILIAR FROM OTHER WORKS! Ryukishi07, you magnificent, fucking troll master for keeping this hidden until the second episode’s air date!

Many of us did not see this coming. When they announced a new Higurashi series that was going to be done by a different studio, many of us speculated whether this was going to be a reboot or a sequel. But then we got the PV trailers and it looked like we were going to get a reboot to correct the mistakes Studio Deen made years ago. Rika’s head doesn’t look like its gonna snap off because her body is so small in comparison. Improvements! I mean, they showed everything we were already used to like the yandere girls, the original soundtrack, the original freakin’ cast, and death by baseball bat. Hell, the first episode ended with an Eiko Shimamiya song! It was on track to being a reboot! A better looking reboot!

Here in lies the sequel aspect! After episode one, we get a scene that isn’t usually seen until the Kai part of Higurashi (a good 4-5 arcs away). And they give away the secret that Rika Furude is repeating the timeline of June 1983 over and over because she keeps dying. And as the series progresses, you notice little things different from the original series. Many of the well-known storylines end much differently than what you remember. Instead of Keiichi killing Rena and Mion with a baseball bat, you’ve got Rena going psycho on Keiichi. And Rika’s fate is somehow worse than the stories of the original series. So let’s head back to Hinamizawa to hear the cicadas cry and watch a murder mystery unfold.

THE SUB: All the original voice actors have returned to voice their respected roles. Perfection in a nutshell!

LICENSING: You’ve gotta be shitting me!

As I’ve mentioned years ago in my review, the original Higurashi anime went through a turbulent time being licensed in the states. It was originally licensed and dubbed by Geneon. But once Geneon collapsed, FUNimation licensed it and did absolutely fuck all with it. Geneon could only manage to squeak out one season. At this point, FUNimation was picking up titles that Geneon used to have before it fell under including Familiar of Zero, Kyou Kara Maou, and yes, Higurashi. All of these titles mentioned here were done absolutely nothing with despite having cult followings, second seasons, and OVA’s.

A year or two after licensing it, the license expired for Higurashi. For nearly six years, the only copies you could get were out of print and estimating at $500 at the very least for a full collection. Single DVD’s could be found in rare shops, but it would take like 13 years to complete the fucking collection if you did it that way. And that was only for the first season. Second season, the best all of us could do was bootleg DVD’s from Japan Town or fansubs with glaring errors for the best season to Higurashi. We had to deal with this shit until Sentai Filmworks licensed and released the first 2 seasons and the Rei OVA’s.

AND NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME FUNIMATION IS CLAIMING HIGURASHI ALL FOR THEMSELVES?!

Where the shit was this love 10 years ago when we were asking politely to release Kai? People ignorantly blew Higurashi off for years because season two was never released in the states until 2016 because they thought the damn anime ended after Rena held up the school. I’m already irritated with FUNimation after the Interspecies Reviewers debacle and I’m still quite butt-hurt over them re-releasing Nichijou with a dub to make a quick buck. Licensing Higurashi just brings back old anger. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Higurashi is legally licensed and can be seen on at the very least Hulu. It’s just that I hold grudges and this was a big one.

THE DUB: Holy…um, okay! This is a rather big gulp to take in. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in past reviews, the Higurashi dub was a mixed bag of okay, bad, and oh gasperts kill it with fire. So, not great! The good folks at Geneon (before bankrupting in America) dubbed the first season with a good chunk of folks that put their fake names to the credits. Again, not great! To me, there were some aspects of Megan Hollingshed, Mela Lee, and Grant George’s performances of Mion, Rena, and Keiichi that were okay. SOME! John Snyder and Karen Strassmen as Ooishi and Takano were the best out of that dub. Everything else was just irredeemable! It needed a redub, an overhaul, and a spit-shine. For years, I’ve wondered who would be the dream cast. Sentai Filmworks unfortunately never dubbed the remaining seasons when they released them. Would Luci Christian be the heavenly voice to do Rika Furude? Could we get Hilary Haag to do Satoko? Okay, that never came to pass.

This dub is a breath of fresh air. Rika doesn’t sound like Mihoshi. Satoko doesn’t sound fake, Keiichi doesn’t sound like a weird Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s perfect. ESPECIALLY BRITTANY LAUDA AS SATOKO! I knew the second she was cast as Satoko that she was going to excel the fuck out of this role. And I was not disappointed! The only voice I’m still not quite used to is Michelle Rojas as the Sonozaki twins. Probably because I was somewhat okay with Megan Hollingshed’s voice in the 2006 version that it’ll take some time! And we FINALLY got a voice for Hanyuu. I am super excited that Xanthe Huynh is the voice and I know she’ll do great with this role! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Keiichi is now played by Khoi Dao (known for Kiriyama on March Comes in Like a Lion, Murata on Demon Slayer, Chaka on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, and Iskhan on SAO: Alicization)

*Rena is now played by Emi Lo

*Mion/Shion is now played by Michelle Rojas (known for Shizu Delta on Overlord, Touka on Assassination Classroom, Minase on Psycho Pass, Kanan on Love Live Sunshine, and Kusakai on Keijo!!!!!!!!)

*Rika is now played by Apphia Yu (known for Rio on Assassination Classroom, Marie on Black Clover, You on Love Live Sunshine, Victorique on Gosick, Natsumi on Danganronpa 3, and Laki on Fairy Tail)

*Satoko is now played by Brittany Lauda (known for Riko on Made in Abyss, Meidri on Interspecies Reviewers, Lessar on Index III, and Ichigo on Darling in the FranXX)

*Hanyuu is played by Xanthe Huynh (known for Menma on Anohana, Haru on Persona 5, Hanayo on Love Live, Hidomi on FLCL: Progressive, PallaPalla on Sailor Moon Super S [redub], and Sachi on SAO)

ANY CHANGES IN YOUR HATE-O-RADE:

Okay Medea, let-a-rip!

*inhales and exhales*

Teppei Hojo is trash. He is ultimate trash. This fucker needs to be murdered in every timeline. He is a turd in a Glenn Quagmire shirt. Him and his wife are trash. And when this pile of trash is cheating on that pile of trash, he sleeps with peak trash named Ritsuko. Teppei Hojo needs to die in every timeline. Whenever Keiichi bashes this cum-burger’s head in with a blunt instrument, I scream at the top of my lungs, “DIE SCUM, DIE”! And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will change my opinion of Teppei Hojo.

Episode 23.

Oh, fuck you Higurashi Gou!

MUSIC: Okay, thank you for proving me wrong. I did not despise the opening theme. Having Higurashi with no Eiko Shimamiya is like having Pokemon with no Rika Matsumoto. Or Rozen Maiden with no ALI PROJECT. But this new opening is fine by my standards.

That’s right, get the niceness of the review before I get angry down below.

THESE TIMELOOPS: Rika tries to find solutions to end her time-loop in June 1983. Much like the original series, we follow stories from the Onikakushi-hen, Watanagashi-hen, and Tatarigoroshi-hen arcs (the first three stories to Higurashi, although now these have different names). However, all of these arcs have different endings. And after a positive turnaround with Satoko escaping from her abusive uncle, shit goes south when Detective Ooishi, who up to this point has never suffered under the Hinamizawa Syndrome or died a painful death goes on a murderous rampage. Higurashi style! That means, he’s after Rika Furude, will slaughter anyone in his way, and scratching his neck because he sees maggots (part of the hallucination effect).

What the shit? Ooishi for the most part has been a great guy. With the exception of the Tatarigoroshi-hen storyline, he was a nice guy! In the limbo with Hanyuu, Rika now remembers who has killed her. Every time Rika dies up to this point, she never remembers who was the cause of her demise. Hanyuu implanted that power to remember the deaths and a clue for Rika to use and then she disappears.

Now seriously, imagine Rika’s plight here. She has been repeating the month of June 1983 for over a hundred years. And each of these times she repeats, she’s horribly murdered. Rika got the shit-end of the deal in the murder department in the original series, including being dissected on while alive. Then, leaving her bloody, naked corpse out in the open of the Oyashiro altar! She’s tired of this shit! She wants to live a happy life away from Hinamizawa. She wants to grow older, become a teenager, and have fun. And this series made it worse by having her die four times in one episode. Not just that, but murdered by the most unexpected people including Akasaka, Chief Kimiyoshi, Mion’s mother Akane, and Keiichi. Keiichi has never killed Rika in any of the timelines up to this point. He has killed Mion and Rena, but never Rika. Keiichi loves Rika! Welcome back to A Million Ways to Die in Hinamizawa.

I’ll just add decapitation, drowning in a lake, set on fire, drowning in a sewage pipe, and death by…um…

Alexa, play Chandelier by Sia.

ENDING: We all know by now that in the original series, Miyo Takano is the betrayer and the reason behind all the murders during the Cotton Drifting Festival. This time, it’s someone closer to Rika that’s causing Rika so much pain. After we watched the worst kinds of murders happen to Rika, the episode after gave us our answer. Satoko, Rika’s friend and confidant is not happy that Rika is turning her back on Oyashiro and Hinamizawa. All the while pulling out her intestines!

Oh Higurashi, don’t stop being gory!

Yes, Satoko is aware of past timelines much like Rika and is almost on a god-like state. So what the hell happened to her? I know Satoko’s past has been a cluster-fuck of horror with her brother disappearing, her parents dying, and every form of abuse from her uncle. But she was able to prevail after all that. After surviving 1983, a lot has changed in Hinamizawa. The three big families of Hinamizawa put an end to the Cotton Drifting Festival and claiming there is no curse of Oyashiro. Mion and Shion moved on and are going to high school. And Rika decides she wants to move away from this village. By attending St. Lucia! And she wants to do this with Satoko.

Oh, if you don’t recall St. Lucia, Shion attended this academy until she escaped during the Meakashi-hen arc. It was also the same school that Ange from Umineko attended. But of course Ange attended it in the 90’s and we are clearly in the 80’s. Moving on!

Rika and Satoko studied their butts off for years and their hard work paid off as both were admitted into St. Lucia. Now Rika was able to prevail and fit in with everyone. Satoko on the other hand couldn’t do the same as her grades took a dip, her manners are atrocious, and she doesn’t seem to fit in with anyone. And this caused a drift between Rika and Satoko! And so during a trip to Hinamizawa, Satoko went to the old shrine where she ended up getting sent to that limbo place Rika and Hanyuu were at many times before. There, she meets Eua (God, I hope that really isn’t her name). She’s much like Hanyuu except a lot more condescending. Oh, and she’s that mysterious shadow during the opening theme. She bestows the power to Satoko of reviving on death and returning to a certain point in time. In the hopes that Satoko is able to stop Rika from going to St. Lucia! But Rika is not going to budge. She wants out of Hinamizawa no matter what. And Satoko just wants to be with her friend no matter what. Satoko is even shown Rika’s past and still no dent in…Okay, this is bugging the fuck outta me. Pause the Ending portion!

MY GRIPES WITH SATOKO: Satoko, girl, the fuck is wrong with you?! I know Rika is like your main chick and everything, but for fuck’s sake loosen the grip you have with Rika. This season has changed you and not for the better. You made a connection with ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS from Hinamizawa. Big connections! At least in the original series you did. Look at your moments with Keiichi and Shion. Are you just going to shove them off? And what really sets me off is that Satoko literally had the opportunity to learn about Rika’s hundred year’s loop of death. And feels nothing about it! Only that it’s a challenge to break her herself! God damn, at the end of season one, Keiichi learned the truth and he was remorseful. This bitch doesn’t care that her friends were murdered in such a way. And Rika’s been shot in the head, had a live dissection performed on her, and other forms of torture…AND IT DOESN’T FAZE SATOKO!

I know in my original Higurashi review, I felt sorry for Satoko as she did seem to get the short-end of the stick living in Hinamizawa. I mean, her parents died right in front of her, she suffered abuse from her uncle, abuse from her aunt, ostrisized by the town for years, and a myriad of all types of shit to befall her. But Higurashi Gou has ruined this character. Rika didn’t really do anything wrong to Satoko. She didn’t snitch on her when Satoko got in trouble. She offered help to Satoko when she thought her grades were slipping. Satoko just held onto this petty vendetta. Satoko acted like Rika sexually assaulted her and have two other people gang rape her while drugging her. Okay, that’s a call for revenge, not your petty shit.

YOU SEE WHERE I’M AT WITH YOU SATOKO?! Your actions are so bad that you have me siding with the protagonist from Redo of Healer.

REDO.

OF.

HEALER!!!

I’m done with you! Girl, bye! We now return you to my talk about the ending already in progress.

BACK TO THE ENDING: Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Yeah, Satoko is leaving a bad impression on many of us who have been following the Higurashi story for years. And it just gets worse as she uses her new power for petty shit and abusing it at that. I mean, we saw Rika use her power in order to find a way to live past June 1983. Satoko is just using that shit to win some games and have things go her way. What else could this series bless us with? How about an epiphany from Teppei Hojo?

What?!

Teppei changes for the better.

What?!

Look, I admit that these moments with Teppei and Satoko were tame compared to the shit she’s pulled in the last several episodes. But this is Teppei Hojo! The same guy that used Satoko as his personal punching bag! The same guy who fleeced Rena’s father! The same guy many of us who cheer every time we see him on a moped because we know someone’s going to bash his head in with a baseball bat. Even my best friend knows how I am with this guy. When she gave me Higurashi free swag, I took everything except for Teppei. I don’t take trash. So seeing him so remorseful makes me…conflicted.

So now Satoko’s got things turned around for her. Her uncle has…changed?! Add to that, her God-like power. Satoko decides to change the past for her own advantage. This includes changing one of the biggest stories in Higurashi Kai with the kids vs. Miyo Takano. If Rika doesn’t experience the pain in those timelines, she won’t think about leaving Hinamizawa. And if she doesn’t leave Hinamizawa, she’ll stay with Satoko forever.

Oh what a tangled web of crazy Higurashi Gou was! I gotta tell you, Higurashi got me excited all the way up until we learn it was Satoko. And then it went straight to Hell. They turned Satoko into a straight-up selfish monster. Totally unlike the Satoko we’ve all grown to love in the original series. Yes, Satoko had those moments where, yeah, you would want to throw a chair at her and beat her ass with it. But that was only temporary! You would always see the good in Satoko despite that mischievous laugh and those episodes in Higurashi Rei. And God help me, I was a shipper of Rika x Satoko 10 years ago. Not a big one, but a supporter of it. Now, I would rather support Amourshipping from Pokemon than root for this. And I despise the living fuck out of Amourshipping. That should tell you something!

If original Satoko were bestowed the powers from Eua, I think things would be different. Satoko would probably use her powers to prevent all the bad stuff from happening to her friends and to her brother Satoshi. I mean, my goodness, not once did I see her think, hey maybe I should find a way to help my ailing brother. Change a few timelines, make him all better! And of course, feel sympathy for Rika’s plight. Do it for Rika’s sake, not your own selfish desires! Rika has died horrificly for hundreds of years. And I seriously just can’t get over Satoko’s reaction to that when she learned the truth. Instead, she wants to treat Rika like a caged bird. Best friend my ass!

Now can Higurashi SOTSU fix the hot mess of Satoko? Time will only tell! And good on them for having Higurashi air in the summertime. Summertime is for Higurashi! Autum is for Umineko. Speaking of, it’s been since 2009. Any chance you want to give Umineko the old reboot or sequel it sorely needs? Oh forget it! My likeness for this season is conflicted. I was annoyed by it, but I didn’t fully hate it. It’s just that last arc with Satoko really burned my beans. And I’m sure a lot of you all feel the same way.

Guys, if you want to watch Higurashi Gou, do yourselves a favor and watch the original series first. Let that swirl around your heads for a while. I know the creator tricked us at the beginning of this series thinking it was going to be an honest-to-God retelling. It is not! It is a sequel. And a sequel that isn’t based off a game or manga of all things. So fans are jumping into this with eyes closed! And if you’re a fan of Satoko Hojo, I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.

If you want to check out Higurashi Gou, it is available to watch on FUNimation and Hulu. But please, if you haven’t watched the original series, go to HI-DIVE now and watch “When They Cry” and “When They Cry Kai”. I think you can manage without watching any of the OVA’s.

I’d rather watch that Kira OVA where the fanservice is thin, you can practically lick off the whipped cream from the Sonozaki’s tit.

That should tell you something if I’m starting to say something nice about Higurashi Kira.