Bleakest of all so far — and while it starts out saying it's the shortest, it's so far also the longest one, too. It even has credits and everything — I imagine that Higurashi initially ended here, now that it's playing all the mystery cards at once.

Ch 3 opens with an overwhelming sense of "mono no aware"; even as the slice of life days happen, Keiichi knows those days are numbered and will one day just disappear. He starts to act with increased urgency to preserve those days. He even recognises Oishi from the onset as a herald of those days ending.

It's almost like the stories are connected ...

This story from the onset is trying to shake up your assumptions from the previous chapters. Events coexist with other events; the chapters are interrelated; and other "continuities" bleed into each other here. Or do they?

Tatarigoroshi actually perfects the blend here from the previous chapters. The slice of life doesn't suddenly shatter into the mystery; it gradually gives way, erodes off. Keiichi seems so easily tilted that it seems more like he has inexplicable psychological bruises ... in this chapter I started to think that perhaps Keiichi isn't really real; perhaps he's someone else stuck in hell, since the pleasant daydreams of life always inexplicably go sour...

There's so many intensely memorable moments here. The longest day and the longest night feel long as you're trapped with Keiichi slowly planning out and executing a murder, and it's done perfectly. Having the cops appear from the shadows to find a corpse that isn't there, and then recede just as easily. Satoko being slow boiled, stuck outside a hospital in a towel, staring at you in disbelief, almost herself...