English Dub Review: Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou “Cotton-Deceiving Chapter, Part 3”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In the ritual tool shed, Keiichi learns about the rumored demonic origins of the village. Shion knocks over the head of one of the statues, but they put it back before leaving. Keiichi then lies about not missing Rika’s ritual dance, which she seems to see through. They also ask him if he’s seen Tomitake and Takano, which he denies. Before he makes it home, he’s stopped by Detective Oiishi, who asks him the same thing. That night, Shion calls him and says that Tomitake and Takano have gone missing, wondering if they’ve become the victims to go missing during Watanagashi, which could mean that Shion and Keiichi are up next to be killed, but when Keiichi grills her about this, she hangs up. The next day, the town’s mayor, Kimiyoshi, also seems to have gone missing. Wracked with guilt, Keiichi tries confessing sneaking into the tool shed as it being something that happened to some cats, but Rika’s eyes glow red and she creepily tells him that everything is doomed, but while Tomitake and Takano are dead, Shion is probably still alive.

OUR TAKE

Three quarters through the arc and they finally learn to give us an actual creepy ending this time. As mentioned before, this is going a considerably slower pace than the first take on this arc. There, we had the first (or rather fifth) episode to introduce Shion and show the impetus for the arc (Keiichi giving the prize doll to Rena), the second to show sneaking into the shed ending with Shion hanging up on Keiichi, and the third and fourth, well, they’re farther along with this but knew how to make each part feel like the end on an even more chilling progression. Pacing seems to be the big issue with this season, at least so far, as things only feel like they’re actually getting more tense now when we’re more than half done with this particular story. We’ll see how that resolves itself next time with this arc’s conclusion, but it certainly has a lot to cover in only about twenty minutes.

However, one thing I can credit at least this episode for is emulating the ever encroaching feeling of terror in needing to cover up a lie that was also prevalent in the early arcs of Higurashi Season 1. Keiichi knows he has to hide that he went into the shrine, which he initially sees as no big thing but was still against the rules. However, what first starts as covering his ass for missing a Rika dance quickly escalates into unknowingly hiding potential evidence of a murder, as well as the possibility that he may die for his actions. It’s a relatable feeling of horror that this franchise is able to play on well. This is not made any better by Rika basically telling him he’s screwed now, which longtime viewers will understand her feeling quite frustrated after it looking like she was trying to avoid having this scenario happen again, one that she’s seen happen enough times to know when it has started spiraling towards tragedy. Getting Mion the doll, was seemingly a step to stop this, but Keiichi has still snuck into the shed like he always has in this scenario, so even with her help, all is lost anyway. Though as for what that means exactly for this new version of events, we’ll have to find out in a couple weeks when the Cotton-Deceiving Chapter reaches its end. Hopefully with less torture this time.