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

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Satako is more than a bit confused meeting the horned lady in front of her, even more so when she grants her the power to time loop back to the time of the original seasons. Satako takes this a chance to live those years after beating Takano with Rika again and keep her from going to the preppy school, but she decides to trust Rika one more time and see if things go differently. But she also decides to not study properly or accept Rika’s help, leading to pretty much the exact same outcome, which she somehow blames on Rika. So, she decides to put her new looping powers to the test and kill both herself and Rika so they can start over and over and over.

OUR TAKE

Okay, so up until this point of this flashback arc, I could understand Satako’s actions and why she would make the mistakes that she made. As much as the dependency on Rika in this way seemed a bit out of nowhere to cause drama, I could buy it for a situation where Satako is trying to support Rika’s dream of living a new life outside of the village now that she is finally able to, which then leads to her not being able to keep up due to some clear learning deficiencies that the school isn’t accommodating, leading to a rift between the two of them as Rika flourishes and Satako is…imprisoned? Actually the school prison was a bit too much, and apparently a miscommunication with the studio from the writer (though how does one end up having THAT BIG of a miscommunication?). Friends, even best friends, drifting apart is unfortunately all too common in life as people get older, as well as a likely very relatable source of drama for a motivation driving wanting to repeat the “good times” with that friend over and over, even if what were considered the “good times” is disagreed about.

However, putting aside how this bumps up against how Satako’s character has been written the previous two seasons (which we will get to later on), she jumps over that relatable tragedy pretty much the moment she decides to deliberately screw with Rika’s studies in the second loop. She seems to sober up a bit after that and respect Rika’s wishes to go to the school and attend with her, but then she just swan dives down the crazy hole when she decides to BLAME RIKA FOR HER NOT STUDYING EVEN WHEN RIKA OFFERED oh yeah and THEN COMMIT MURDER SUICIDE to try and teach Rika some sort of lesson. Like…what did you think would happen if you didn’t get help for your studies? I bet a lot of people would dream of doing over a tough school year where they could at least get a bit more help and do better, but apparently Satako didn’t even do that and seemed to just ASSUME that Rika would just be around? But also didn’t take up the offer to help study? But it’s definitely Rika’s fault, yeah.

So, we are pretty well past any understandable reasoning on Satako’s part here. She basically just feels entitled to Rika being around, to the point that she doesn’t even want her to go away to a different school if Satako isn’t going to be able to be around her there, and I don’t think I need to tell you how selfish that is. And yeah, Rika is a bit pushy to have Satako go with her, but it’s not like she retained the memories of Satako falling behind, yet Satako is angry at her as if she did. Basically what we’re learning is that this whole business of starting the time loop over again and again and again is just Satako being consumed by petty selfishness. You would think putting your friend back in the same hell she spent collective centuries trying to escape would come from, for example, fearing that Rika was going to get killed anyway and trying to uncover how it happens, but…no, it’s just trapping your friend in the time basement until they get Stockholm syndrome. Kinda like the third Madoka movie, but worse because at least Homura didn’t choose to keep Madoka there until the end. Except more rants to follow as we close out this season.