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

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In more events we have already seen, Rika is told by the fragment of Hanyuu about the sword that can kill people who are trapped in loops. Satako and Eua overhear this, allowing Satako to steal the sword first (aside from a small piece that chips off for Rika to find later) and then proceeds to torment Rika in four more loops. However, in the other world, Hanyuu somehow manages to find and confront Eua.

OUR TAKE

Yep, we’re still doing over scenes from Gou, even though we’re nearly at the end of the season and series, and once again it is to give us information we basically already knew, namely that Satako was indeed the one who took the big sword. It really should not be a surprise to ANYONE that Satako was the cause of all the other bad timelines with Kimiyoshi, Mion’s mom, Keiichi, and Akasaka going crazy, considering we have spent THE PAST TWENTY EPISODES (including the last arc of Gou and all the episodes in Sotsu so far) CONFIRMING THAT SHE IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF EVERYTHING AWFUL HAPPENING IN THESE SEASONS. THE BULK OF NEW SCENES IN THIS EPISODE IS JUST EFFECTIVELY REPEATING THE END OF THE PAST THREE ARCS: SATAKO INFECTS SOMEONE, WATCHES THEM KILL RIKA, THEN SOMETIMES KILLS THAT PERSON AND THEN KILLS HERSELF. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. AND WE’RE STILL NOT CAUGHT UP WITH THE MOST RECENT CHRONOLOGICAL EVENT OF THE STORY BECAUSE WE’RE STILL TREADING WATER HERE. WE DID NOT NEED TO SPEND THIS MUCH TIME HAMMERING IN THIS POINT. IT IS AN UTTER WASTE OF TIME, ANIMATION, VOICE ACTING, AND WRITING. WHY ISN’T IT OVER YET?!

*SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH*

The only actually positive contribution I could find in this episode is us finally getting to see Hanyuu’s perspective on her relationship with Rika since Rika was born, as they became mentally linked when the ninth straight girl was born to the Furude family…which is a very odd and specific condition that I have a hard time believing anyone agreed to, but there it is. She then saw Rika first die and gave her the ability to reset time so she could stay alive, which at least came from good intentions and EVENTUALLY led to a happy ending, unlike Satako throwing back in the loops just because she is psychopathic clingy idiot. We also see her view of the events of the last arc of Higurashi Kai, where she finally joined the kids to beat Takano, and then apparently decided that she didn’t need to be a person anymore once it was all resolved and Rika didn’t seem to need to worry about dying again. But then Satako did her stupid shit and Eua was released and…well, people have been speculating Eua’s connection to Hanyuu since they seem to be very similar beings with similar powers. And we FINALLY have a breadcrumb of that when Eua calls Hanyuu “my failure”, which tells us BASICALLY NOTHING. So yeah, three more episodes and they’re all gonna get worse from here. Also, did you know this episode is the last time Satako and Eua interact? Crazy, right?