English Dub Review: Higurashi – When They Cry: Sotsu “Demon-Revealing Chapter, Part 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Rina, the call girl scamming Rena’s dad, visits Rena to tell her dad to stop visiting her at work, but Rena uses this to lure her out to the dump and kill her. Later, Keiichi helps her uncover the Kenta-Kun statue, but Rena’s paranoia leads her to think that Keiichi saw where she buried Rina’s remains. On her way home, Oiishi asks her about Rina’s disappearance, driving up her stress even more.

OUR TAKE
I feel like I’m going to be repeating myself quite a bit this time, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Higurashi Sotsu so don’t blame me! As mentioned last week, this is a POV change from the first arc of Gou, only this time from Rena’s perspective instead of Keiichi’s. Also as mentioned some time ago, that first arc of Gou was a mash-up of the first and sixth arcs of the first season, which were in turn based on the first and sixth visual novel games this series originates from. I’ve gone on before about the inherent pitfalls of trying to smoosh these stories together, one of those being that those two arcs are VERY different stories, with the main overlap being about the trust between Keiichi and Rena (and Mion to a lesser extent). The first arc, Spirited Away by the Demon, covered the first four episodes of the first season and was mainly about establishing the tone of the series and the pattern of a peaceful and warm daily life quickly being shattered into a bloody and paranoia filled disaster, showing Keiichi’s suspicions about the hidden scandals of Hinamizawa leading him to turn on his close friends.

The sixth arc, Atonement, covered the last five episodes of the first season and also focuses on that from Rena’s view, along with her murder of Rina, an alien conspiracy, and a school hostage situation. It was a whole thing. So, since that first arc of Gou is mashing up those two arcs, now we’re getting the side of it that takes more from the sixth arc, but with the episode count nearly halved, most of the content expunged, and the ending already spoiled for us by Gou. We already know where this is leading, that being Rena dying during an attempt to murder Keiichi. And we already know who’s behind Rena getting this way: Satako injecting her with the thing that makes her Hinamizawa Syndrome go into overdrive. AAAAAAND, spoilers for next week, we don’t learn anything new about how this timeline ended other than seeing some things that were only described before. There is no new information here, not only because we know how this ends, but also because it’s just repackaging bits and pieces from arcs that were handled better by STUDIO DEEN of all people. So, all this really does is just make me pissed at Satako for being a sadistic moron who is making everyone around her suffer for her own petty ends, which she is desperate to believe is for a greater purpose. But slightly more, since even Rina seemed to be learning her lesson from multiple trips through the time loop, but Satako just needs her to die anyway. Whatever, let’s just wrap this part up.