English Dub Review: Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou “Curse-Deceiving Chapter, Part 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Satako’s demeanor takes a drastic change for the worse after her uncle Teppei moves back in. Most notable is that she stops going to school and moves out of Rika’s house. Confused and worried, Keiichi asks the others for details. As it turns out, Satako and Satoshi used to live with their abusive aunt and uncle, but then SOMEONE killed their aunt and their uncle left them alone for awhile to get away from the heat. However, he’s clearly abusing her now that he’s back so why not call in the social workers? Well, before THAT abuse, the siblings lived with their mother and step father, the latter of whom Satako did not like. So, she called Child Services on him, saying he was abusing her, and since then they haven’t really bothered with her even when there’s something serious going on. To everyone’s surprise, Satako comes back to school seemingly fine, but when Keiichi goes to pat her head to comfort her, she swats his hand away and begins to vomit, profusely apologizing in tears.

OUR TAKE

So, first thing: Keiichi has a “strange dream” about him beating Teppei to death even before meeting him or knowing he exists in this timeline. As we’ve seen a couple times this season, characters are remembering previous timelines where they committed horrible murders, so this is a continuation of that. It’s a minor thing in this specific episode but I felt it was worth mentioning, even if just briefly.

Now, as for the rest of the episode, we’re unfortunately back to covering old ground from previous arcs, specifically the overlapping set up of these two arcs where Satako is taken by her abusive uncle. This does serve a purpose that technically pays off later, but in the moment, it just makes me draw comparisons to the previous seasons and how they handled these events, namely a whole lot better than this. And that unfortunately brings this episode down as a whole. At the very least, they do seem to be keeping pace with the original version of the arc, as opposed to dragging their feet and throwing the pacing out of wack, but that doesn’t really earn them any points. For longtime viewers like me, it just serves as a reminder that a better version of this exists (while also looking for smaller details that may have changed to use as clues for theories later on, though the mileage of enjoyment for that may vary), and for new viewers, they’re just getting a worse version. Also, I was hoping this new art style was going to grow on me, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so it’s just going to grate more on me as the season goes on.

The ending with Satako coming back to school is worth analyzing though, for a few reasons. From its original use, it served as a sign that her abuse was so horrifying to see happen that it would driver Keiichi to murder Teppei and then proceed to lose his goddamn mind, as was a staple of those earlier arcs. In this instance, there is a small but key difference. In the original, Keiichi’s head pat immediately made Satako go berserk and throw up, showing that the brave face she had when she came in was just a façade and that legitimate affection made her have a breakdown. Now, she swats away his hand before her breakdown. As I brought up, characters remembering bits and pieces subconsciously from previous timelines isn’t without precedent, so this could be another example of that like with Keiichi’s dream, we’ll just have to see what Satako does with that memory, if anything.

But a final note regarding how this version was handled: This season seems to be good at replicating the gross factor, which was certainly part of the original story’s appeal, but it doesn’t seem to doing nearly as well at keeping the horror factor, which is arguably more important. The vomit scene is a definite example of that, but there will be bigger ones down the line and in quick succession. Essentially, from here on, don’t watch these episodes after you’ve eaten.