English Dub Review: Higurashi – When They Cry: Sotsu “God-Entertaining Chapter, Part 4”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rika and Hanyuu finish their fights, and Rika and Satako go their separate ways.

OUR TAKE

Here we are at the finale and it can’t wait more than a couple minutes to remind us that Satako is somehow sympathetic in her horrific actions, if not totally morally justified, and that the only solution to this is for Rika to continue bending over backwards to keep her around instead of the more obvious and healthy solution of wiping her off the face of existence with that special sword. No matter what this show is trying to say about how Satako is just another victim in all of this, the reality is that she’s become a threat to everyone else that should be either locked away or vanquished entirely, but I guess we won’t be getting that kind of ending. Nor are we getting any proper resolution with Eua, who is just suddenly beaten by Hanyuu “finding a miracle”, AKA summoning the power of plot convenience to finally end their weird and vague battle. No clear explanation for where she came from or why she hates Hanyuu, no real punishment for enabling Satako into all of this in the first place. But no no no, the real issue is that Satako doesn’t like to study, that’s the actual problem and not…any of the awful crimes and acts of violence she directly caused.

However, the one bright spot I can possibly find about this finale (aside from the fact that the torture that I’ve been through watching and covering it is finally over) is getting to see Satako have a somewhat happy ending with her newly reformed uncle and newly awakened Satoshi. This is pretty hard to reconcile with their friends saying that they’ll always be friends when they shouldn’t even be-within the same solar system, or her last scene with Rika where she swears to track her down some day despite very clear instructions not to, showing that she hasn’t learned anything at all. But if I try to forget all of what’s happened here and look at her as the Satako who I followed in the first two seasons who really does deserve all the happiness in the world, it’s easy to see this pretty close to a good ending. That’s way more work than should ever be needed to see it as good, but it’s just about the only thing I can do to mentally stomach that I sat through this abhorrent filth of a retcon show. They can try throwing some of the older songs of the games in and give everyone possible a happy ending, but it’s not going to erase all the wrong it did, and I’m just glad it’s finally over. Looking at it over one more time to just put it all behind me is probably my best bet of not jumping out a thirty story building, but I’d rather do that than ever think about these last two seasons ever again.