Onikakushi-hen by Karin Suzuragi

I think this adaptation is Fine. Onikakushi is one of my favorite arcs, and I read and watched many adaptations of it. My favorite versions besides the original, is the audio drama and the anime. I think this adaptation is mostly okay, my big issue with it is that it gets real shlocky when it goes to the horror. I don't think it actaully fits with the tone it is supposed to be, but I suppose that is just my interpretation of the scene. But like, you have to admit this rena that looks barely even human looks a bit ridiculous.

I often see people criticizing the deen anime for similiar things as I said above, and recommend the manga instead. While the anime has its flaws, some inherent to the medium like the inevitable cutting of content, it is a billion times more subtle than this.

I didn't dislike this adaptation, I love onikakushi, and it was just an okay adaptation of a story I love, which isn't a bad thing. But I *was* really concerned that this same artist had done tsumihoroboshi and matsuribayashi. Onikakushi is a relatively straightforward arc, but I felt like I didn't necessarily trust her to handle the other two arcs well.

Watanagashi and Meakashi by Yutori Houjou

Yes, I read these back to back.

Partly because I enjoyed watanagashi so much that I wanted to see more of the artist immediately, and partly because I always felt like watanagashi feels like half a story. Since this is a reread anyway, it hardly matters.

I really love the art style in this. It has a softer look, and also makes the characters look a bit older. It fits the arc, especially the first volumes of both stories where its more focused on teenage drama and relationships. I enjoyed the first half of watanagashi, which I generally dislike, because of the stellar art. But the artist is equally talented in drawing horror

This was also amazing to read physically because it does some really cool things with page turns like in this instance, where the image is mostly the same in the next page besides mions face slowly creeping up. It does a great job of pacing you through it. The paneling is used to great effect both for horror and comedy. Some pages feel rather crammed which I normally hate, but I think it works because of the hectic pace of the comedy scenes and when it does slow down and shows you a full page it feels more impactful.

I did think meakashi was slightly worse, as it had some pacing issues and some things were ordered in a strange way (might be the same as the vn but in any case it didn't work), I also think a lot of pages were too busy, probably because of how much longer meakashi is

Tatarigoroshi-hen by Jirou Suzuki

tatarigoroshi was not great, this was from what I remember my favorite arc in the vn. the manga is 2 volumes with the 2nd volume being almost twice as big as the first. the first volume is just slice of life stuff, and this has some of the worst slice of life parts of higurashi (the cake convo). the 2nd volume despite its length doesnt feel like it has much room to breathe. it doesnt feel well paced, I think the 1st volume should have cut some of the slice of life stuff. As it is, a lot of the tension doesnt translate onto the page well. the art was hit and miss, sometimes it looks really good, but even then often it feels inappropiate. takano car scene is one of the best parts of higurashi but in this it feels cartoonish (similiar problem with onikakushi adaptation). takano DOES look great but it doesnt really fit. sataoko at least looks consistently cute andw ell drawn. mion looks atrocious. a stick with boobs. genuinely distracting anytime shes on the page. also it's impossible for me to talk about my experience reading this manga without mentioning how physically awful it was to read the copies. This manga had the tiniest font ever, and the 2nd volume was hard to read due to its size towards the middle. In combination it was like torture designed for people whose favorite arc is tatarigoroshi and not super vibing with the adaptation and are also not that amazing at japanese and have bad eyesight. The font especially I'm still baffled by, it feels like a printing mistake. I never saw font like this in any other manga before or after.

If we ignor the phsyical issues, I would say this is on the level of onikakushi for me. Passable adaptation, but not my favorite version of the story by far.

Himatsubushi-hen by Yoshiki Tonogai

I never liked the aptly named himatsubushi-hen much. There is some interesting stuff in for sure but I feel like any of that could have been integrated to the other arcs instead. It doesn't even feel like a question arc, but more like an answer one. The story behind it is that ryukishi didn't initially plan on this arc, and I feel it shows in every aspect. It also brought us akasaka, whom I hate, and continues to stand out like a sore thumb as out of place for the rest of the series. Fuck that guy.

This adaptation itself, honestly it's hard to be disappointed by as I already don't care but I didn't care about the art, mion and rika strangely look older than their usual selves.

Tsumihoroboshi-hen by Karin Suzuragi

My worries about Karin Suzuragi were completely assuaged. This was my favorite arc in the manga. I think it does a great job depicting Rena with nuance (something the anime adaptation fails to do). Her art style also really matured, and while it isn't my favorite style, it works much better than in Onikakushi.

Minagoroshi-hen by Hinase Momoyama

Good adaptation, one of my favorite styles for higurashi. only downside is the 2 volume part where the pov switches to keichi REALLY drags. A whole volume and half is dedicated to him talking to the village elders and oryou. It makes sense to include this all in the vn but in the manga I feel we could have sped it up. All of onikakushi is 2 volumes, as is watanagashi , for reference. (tatarigoroshi is also 2 volumes but well, one of them is a behemot that really should have been split in two)

The final section with Takano killing the villages however is much less sanitized than the anime. I thought it was really horrifying.

It's depiction of Bern (which is a new addition, not in the vn, according to friends who read it recently) is also more in line with later works. I thought it was an interesting addition, I wish the postscript talked a bit about that decision but nope.

Matsuribayashi-hen by Karin Suzuragi

After Tsumihoroboshi-hen being so amazing I came into this with any worries I had before assuaged. I was excited to read Takano's backstory, a part that I love both in the vn and the DEEN anime.

It was awful. The way it was depicted was so over the top shlocky, and I felt zero investment in it. Even scenes I love in other versions just had 0 impact. Something about the art style felt hard to take seriously, I genuinely felt like it was significantly worse than her previous adaptations.

But that's fine, Takano's backstory is not the whole story after all. The rest of the manga...is mostly about Irie, Akasaka, and the other adults. Rika and the rest barely feel like they are relevant for most of the manga. I know *some* of this is from the vn, but even if so, I don't remember Rika and co ever feeling *irrelevant*. Akasaka has a whole 40 page chapter dedicated to his bad-future self that sees a phantom rika so he can transfer his wisdom magically to matsuribayashi-era akasaka or whatever the fuck WHO CARES I HATE AKASAKA.

This looks funny out of context but in context it makes it impossible to take seriously no matter how much the scene calls for it

The best part of the story is proabbly the portion of the story that focuses on the previous few years of murders. Irie is one of the more interesting adult characters when he actually, you know, isn't ranting about maids.

But overall, this felt like torture. This adaptation did the worst thing an adaptation could do: made me doubt my love for the original.

I know matsuribayashi is controversial, and while it was never my *favorite* arc I always felt satisfied and happy with it. This manga though..... I don't know anymore. Is it this adaptation, or is it me? I guess I'll find out once I reread the vn.

in conclusion: