English Dub Review: Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou “Village-Destroying Chapter, Part 5”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Satako’s timeline resets once again, eventually bringing her to when Rika first proposed going to St. Lucia’s, so she forces Rika to choose between staying with her in Hinamizawa or going to the school. Rika persists in bringing Satako with her, so Satako throws herself in front of a truck to reset again. In the next go around, she takes Rika to watch the sunrise to try and get her to stay, but that only makes Rika bring up the school even faster. So Satako resets again. She tries to stop Rika from studying by tearing her book in half, but Rika persists. Another reset. Satako is dumbfounded as to why Rika keeps picking going to this school. Eventually, her nameless horned companion informs her that Rika has been through these loops for over a century of collected time, so Satako decides to go through every single failed timeline to understand just what Rika has been through before they were finally able to break through.

And still decides she’s going to make Rika suffer to eventually change her mind. She even has her spirit guide change the rules so that Rika will maintain memories from the previous loop if they both die at around the same time. She then goes back further to start messing with previous loops Because eventually this plan HAS to work, right?

OUR TAKE

Wow. Holy shit. If it wasn’t clear that Satako has gone full crazy evil, we now have her essentially binge watching the series and becoming more connected and understanding than anyone else of Rika’s horrible unending fate (aside from Hanyuu) and STILL deciding to put her through it over and over and over again until she gets her way. And it’s not even a case of simply accepting that she and Rika are going two separate ways and having to deal with the emotions that come with that, but FORCING Rika to stay with her as the only option available. It’s also gone straight past the actual reason for this meltdown, Satako feeling like she’s losing her best friend, and become this sort of holy mission in her mind of PUNISHING RIKA FOR FORSAKING HINAMIZAWA AND OYASHIRO FOR DARING TO LEAVE HER SACRED HOME. And this AFTER learning that Rika has been fighting for a way to leave the specific timeframe she was stuck in for over a hundred years, which should have given Satako a pretty good idea as to WHY RIKA MIGHT WANT A CHANGE OF SCENERY. Not only that, she’s decided that she’s going to make Rika AWARE of the loops, meaning she’ll be triggering the exact trauma that her friend specifically wanted to avoid. So whatever tragic or sympathetic angle Satako could have possibly had here has vanished. She’s just straight up evil now, and not even a smart evil, just plain sadistic and idiotic.

Look, I’m also dealing with the falling out of a close friendship that I also thought would last a lot longer, but didn’t. It’s not quite the same as losing a childhood friend, but the pain is similar. You think that this person is going to be with you for a long time and suddenly they’re drifting away and you don’t know what to do, so you end up making things worse accidently and push them away, possibly for good. It is, no exaggeration, a fucking horrible feeling I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies. But I would kill for the chance to reset things and handle my feelings better to preserve the friendship in some form, because at the end of the day, I want my friend to be well, even without me. Satako gets potentially DOZENS of resets, and they all become increasingly about TERRORIZING Rika into going against what she wants in favor of Satako preserving her own comfort. And all that ends up proving is that Satako was NEVER Rika’s friend in the first place if this is what she is continuously choosing to do.

And I realize that I’m in my late 20’s while Satako is mentally in her mid teens at most, but considering how much more emotionally intelligent she and her friends were at younger ages, she gets no excuse. It’s also worth noting that even when the kids DID go off the deep end, it was pretty much due to the local brain parasites that drove people crazy if they got to stressed, something that this arc decided to make EXTRA SPECIAL SUPER CLEAR that Satako was completely cured of. So this is ALL her. As I mentioned, this story will not conclude with the end of this season and will go on into Higurashi Sotsu later this year. And honestly, as a season ending cliffhanger to lead into that, this episode might have gotten a few more points from me by doing that send off effectively. But we still have two episodes left in this batch, and they are ONLY going to make things more confusing and horrible.