English Dub Review: Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou “Cotton-Deceiving Chapter, Part 4”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Concern over the mayor’s disappearance is overlooked when Rika also goes missing, so the school goes searching. But when it seems like there’s something on the roof, Mion holds the ladder for Keiichi…but then goes on an odd rant about Rika being the cause of the murders, and then starts shaking the ladder. Keiichi is naturally unnerved by this, while also feeling guilty about what sneaking into the shrine might have caused. The next day, he gets a call from Mion to come over, where he admits sneaking in. Though it seems she already knew, and while she isn’t too mad, she warns him that others might. To protect him, she brings him down to the family basement, which has a cage that she wants him to stay in for the time being. She also explains that the Three Great Families used to carry out rituals to punish outliers, including with the original Watanagashi festival, though that’s since been retired.

Before he can really question any of this, she forces him in, then wanders off because someone has “sent someone” for her to keep carrying out the ritual, which she believes is the reason the deaths during the festival keep happening. Keiichi eventually breaks out of the cage, leaving some major head wounds, but he’s found by Oiishi and the police. Upon waking in the hospital, Oiishi explains he found Shion and her grandmother Oryou in the well near the basement along with Mayor Kimiyoshi, while later finding Rika in the septic tank at the school (where Keiichi had been searching before Mion led him away), then finding Satako and Mion both dead in the Sonozaki mansion. Oiishi plans to ask Keiichi more questions and will keep him in the loop, but Keiichi is just left with dead friends and unanswered questions.

OUR TAKE

The Cotton-Deceiving Chapter ends a bit earlier than expected, at least since I had gotten used to these bi-weekly releases instead of the regular weekly ones. The animation style still shows its limitations and it crams way too much into this one wrap up episode, along with a rather sudden ending, but it gets the job done I guess. And hey, now that the arc is over, I can get into a bit more detail here. See, for those who haven’t seen the first two seasons, it’s revealed later that this Mion who is at the center of all these deaths is actually Shion, who had gone off the deep end after some business with her family and started methodically killing several people in the Three Great Families in order to get to the bottom of where Oyashiro’s Curse is coming from, as well as get revenge for…somebody who I don’t think it’s time to mention yet. Problem is, all that ended up happening was that she eventually lost it completely and ended up slipping off a building even after getting away, with everyone of the main case aside from Keiichi and Rena biting it. However, as the following arcs started to give the characters some of their memories back in strange ways, she learned from her mistakes somewhat and didn’t go full murderous rampage in future timelines.

On a related note, a pattern that looks to be forming based on the last arc with Rena and more clearly with the arc after this is that there seems to be a blending of the Question and Answer arcs that were present in the first and second seasons, which usually have different plots with similar character focus and a thematic follow up. What makes the Question and Answer for this arc stand out is that they’re the same events, but from different perspectives. So in the Question arc, we see things from Keiichi’s perspective, whereas in the Answer, we see them from Shion’s, which thereby answers things that the Question did not. So here, in this new version, we still only see things from Keiichi’s eyes, yet there seems to be some difference in Shion’s motives for killing, now seemingly being what Rena was in HER Answer arc, namely someone desperately seeking the truth about the murders and trying to take down the Great Families.

We also have some notable changes in the deaths, with Rika drowned in a septic tank instead of stabbing herself in the head with a knife repeatedly (one of the more famous/infamous scenes from the first season), while Satako died with Shion, which is the second time that Satako has died in a strange way this season. Whether all of this changed because of Keiichi giving Mion the doll or some other bigger change that is causing the time loop to start again, well, we’ll have to wait and see. With this arc concluded, we’re doing the time warp again to start a new one, where hopefully Satako can finally catch a break.