Time for a slightly more serious review of this chapter. This is the only chapter in Higurashi thus far where I’ve felt the need to write an actual review as this one specifically feels far more “complete” to me compared to the previous two. It has its own themes and messaging, things I failed to grasp in the previous chapters.

I believe this chapter is simply about the sheer powerlessness of humans. Not just individual people but entire communities and governments are completely powerless against certain problems, and the chapter goes about painting this idea by showing various crisis’ and what characters are able to do about them.

We first see this with Satoko’s abusive uncle, which is the crux of this chapter. We know that through the characters dialogue and reasoning that there is nothing they can do to help Satoko. They don’t have the authority or power to get her away from her uncle, and nothing anyone can think to do can provide a lasting solution. Keiichi resolves himself to kill Satoko’s uncle, but that does not save her. Regardless of whether Keiichi actually killed her uncle or not, which is something the chapter leaves ambiguous, Satoko’s abuse plainly continues. Despite supposedly getting rid of what caused the problem, it still manages to inflict pain on Satoko. So to put it simply, individuals have the “will” to solve the problem, but not the power. Then what about the government and other public institutions? They should have all the power in the world to solve a case like this. The problem is public institutions and the government might have the power but they don’t have the “will” until a problem is proven to exist without a reasonable doubt. With Satoko lying to public authorities and trying to hide the evidence of abuse, it is impossible for the government to gain the “will”. So despite having the power to help, without the “will” it is worthless. They are just as powerless as the individual under these conditions and completely unreliable.

We see another, much more extreme example with Hinamizawa’s destruction. This is very similar to Satoko’s abuse in that, even though there are signs of what is happening, both individual and government are too slow to act upon given warning signs and as a result a catastrophe occurs. It is noted that government action was particularly slow with them not detecting signs of a disaster on this scale until it was far too late. Should the government have been more vigilant and quicker, they would’ve been able to save a good portion of the village, if not more. But because of their lax nature they were unable to detect the problem or gain the “will”, and thus become powerless to prevent the destruction. It should also be noted that regardless of how fast they find out about the issue, the damage will still be done. A small amount of people will likely die and Hinamizawa will become inhospitable. No matter how fast the government response is, they can’t prevent all the damage.

This is again similar to the case with Satoko. With her being missing from school for three days and Rika refusing to tell what happened to her, there are already big warning signs. However because of assumption that everything is fine they discover the abuse too late. But let’s say they do discover the abuse day one and are immediately able to find everything out. How does this change things? Not by too much. Maybe they could’ve convinced Satoko to report her uncle, but the damage would still be done.

In both this case and the volcanic gas case, the “helpers” were too slow to realize problems were occurring and even if they realized it sooner irreparable damage would still be done. They are ultimately helpless and completely powerless, just like the people they’re attempting to help.

Don’t expect another review of this length or depth for any of the other chapters in Higurashi as ironically despite this chapter being the most difficult to figure out in terms of the mystery, it has been by far the easiest to understand thematically of the three chapters I’ve played.