English Dub Review: Higurashi – When They Cry: Sotsu “God-Entertaining Chapter, Part 2”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
As Eua makes a captive Hanyuu watch in horror, Satako continues to torture Rika until she relents, but even when she does, memories of her recent deaths still haunt her. Eventually, Satako accidently flinches at a birthday gift and reveals that she also goes through time loops, then pulls a gun on Rika in front of all their friends.
OUR TAKE
Okay, now we’re back up to speed, FINALLY. After a dozen episodes of retreading and padding out EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY MOMENT FROM THE LAST SEASON, we are finally back to where the seventeenth episode of Gou left off, with Satako’s cover finally being blown and her finally showing her true colors to Rika. You might be seeing the word “finally” a lot here because that is really the only word that has been going through my head as we got back to those moments. The only time it will be more present is when we are FINALLY done with this show and I can just repress it, but in the meantime, let’s try and break down as much as we can here before I have a breakdown myself. First off, the only new aspects of this part of the story, which would be Eua crucifying Hanyuu and making her watch this trainwreck happen, which I can certainly relate to. Still no sign of getting any clear explanation for how these two know each other or what Eua’s motivation is. She says that Hanyuu is a part of her and “her failure” but that is all we are ever going to get. And even Hanyuu being here and not being able to help Rika is not explained, since Rika was talking to some fragment that had to leave her. So things are really just happening to happen at this point.
The other thing is that, besides going through what is probably my pick for “worst anime moment” this year (soon to be surpassed by the remaining two episodes), we get to find out that Satako outing herself to Rika was not actually due to Rika having a clever plan to trip her up or, you know, TRAP her. It was just Satako is a friggin dumbass who gave herself away on reflex. I mean, we already know she was dumb as shit and apparently even trying to make her study is part of what caused her to throw such a huge fit that she reignited her best friend’s worst trauma, but this definitely takes the cake for how awful her plans have been. So we have a puppet master who has no actual goes or motivation whose existence makes no sense and has no explanation, and her Sith Apprentice who is dumb as a brick, has logic that makes no goddamn sense, and just played herself despite being known as a legendary trap master. Remember when Higurashi used to be a mystery with a supernatural twist? Well, forget all of that and just watch as everything just breaks down until as little sense as possible. Two more weeks and it only gets worse.
