Unfortunately, Higurashi's final chapters are frustrating ones. When comparing Umineko and Higurashi, I think Higurashi has the higher highs. Chapters 3 and 6 are stronger than any individual chapter of Umineko, and while Umineko is certainly no slouch in terms of the emotional moments I think Higurashi's emotional highs do hit harder. However, as a complete work I think Umineko is the stronger one. This is partly because of their structure. While there is an ongoing plot progression in Higurashi, each episode is primarily focused on the story contained to the episode itself, with the progression of the overall story taking a backseat. This gives the last two episodes the burden of bringing everything together and ensuring that Higurashi becomes one story as opposed to a series of stories. Umineko's ongoing throughline gives its final episodes more of an advantage in this regard. The other problem is that Higurashi is an absolute masterpiece in terms of its character writing and thematics, but flawed at best as a mystery story. Ryukishi's writing is more about the emotional meaning than the logical meaning, and while he can integrate this well into his mystery writing, it sometimes leaves him at odds with his chosen genre. Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi are pretty disappointing when taken just as 'answers', but they manage to justify those answers within the context of what they're doing dramatically. The problem is that Tsumihoroboshi already brings everything together perfectly in terms of Higurashi's thematics and emotional throughline, and I would even argue if the rest of the story were modified to be smaller in scale it could have been a perfect ending. This leaves Minagoroshi as a chapter which has to focus more on bringing everything together plot-wise, and it often struggles in this regard. However, a weaker Higurashi entry is still Higurashi, and despite this entry's many flaws there's a lot to appreciate here.

While Tsumihoroboshi wraps up the character arcs of Rena and Keiichi (leading to them taking more of a backseat in these final chapters), Rika is still a character that we've been distanced from up until this point, being more of a mystery even in her arc Himatsubushi. Ryukishi makes a good decision to resolve the mysteries about her upfront in this chapter, leaving time for a greater examination of her resolve to end the loops and her weariness from her constant failure. Hanyuu is also an interesting addition to the cast. I'll admit I find some of her cutesiness and tics to be quite irritating, but her character has more complexities than on the surface. We often associate defeatism with struggle, but I think the point of Hanyuu's characterisation is that defeatism is far more comfortable than hope. It invites complacency - it's easier to not take action in the belief that there is no point than to take the risk of an action that could be rendered meaningless. While her character definitely doesn't have the depth of others in the series (particularly because Ryukishi chose not to include aspects of her character that could have rendered her more troubling), I think this comfort in defeatism is a well done character flaw.

The second and longest portion of Minagoroshi is the attempt to save Satoko, which is at once the most frustrating and most well realised aspect of the chapter as an 'answer arc'. There's a pretty big structural issue here in that the first few hours and last few hours move along very quickly and focus on major reveals. The middle portion isn't ENTIRELY disconnected - the chapter as a whole is about the conflict between hope and defeatism, and so having Rika and the gang overcome the 'worst case scenario' is a meaningful addition to this theme. But it does feel quite removed from the rest of the arc's resolutions, and the deliberate repetition and frustration of this portion doesn't help. However, a better way of looking at it is that this portion is a thematic kind of 'answer arc' for Chapter 3. Chapter 3 has plenty of mysteries in its final hours, but the driving question of that arc is "What am I supposed to do in a situation which appears hopeless?" The characters are put in a situation which nobody should ever HAVE to be in, and Keiichi's choice only leads to things becoming much worse. However, inaction is also clearly the wrong choice. Much like in Tsumihoroboshi, we see in the answer arcs that the outcome wasn't inevitable, that there was always another way. Everyone was just too lost in themselves and disconnected from each other to see it. This portion of the story is incredibly repetitive because that is the way of dealing with a dysfunctional bureaucracy. You can be cynical about the answer here given how much advantage the characters have (especially with the Sonozaki family's involvement), but the portrayal of the power of community is really quite moving, and you can tell it's something Ryukishi really believes in.

Another note on this portion: I really love the scene where Ooishi shows up at the protest. Keiichi believes Ooishi is showing up as an ally when it turns out that he's there to call it off. While I'm not going to claim Higurashi has particularly radical politics in terms of its portrayal of the police, this moment goes a lot further than most stories would. At this point Ooishi is no longer a suspect for the murders, and he does gain a more likeable presence. The story gives him something of a 'good cop' role. While this role inherently comes with issues, Ooishi is probably the strongest portrayal of a 'good cop' in fiction. He DOES have good intent, sympathetic motivations, a 'loveable asshole' kind of personality, etc. He's not a villain. BUT he also fucks up constantly, unintentionally escalates situations, makes wrong assumptions, and goes against his own morals because of his obligations as a police officer. He's only ever good when he ISN'T being a cop, as we see with him going against his duties to help the protestors.

On the other hand, a scene that I REALLY do not like is the Angel Mort scene here. While the majority of Angel Mort scenes are all pretty gruelling to get through, the one in here might be the worst scene I've ever seen in a piece of media that I otherwise liked. I think the majority of Higurashi fans can agree that these scenes are the lowpoint, though I think some fans go a bit too hard in trying to justify Ryukishi writing them. It feels as if people think Ryukishi was held at gunpoint by otakus until he wrote these scenes in, as if he had any obligation to include them. And yes, this kind of fanservice was accepted in the visual novels of that era and seen as an essential element of anything you'd release at Comiket, especially when starting out. But I think in overstating Ryukishi's progressiveness people forget that he WAS part of this culture. I'm sure he's different now, and probably regrets writing these scenes. I can't reach into his mind, and maybe he did have real disgust at writing these scenes at the time, but he also did have a choice to not include them. The best case scenario here is that he chose to sell out in order to gain more sales. He fucked up! We don't need to make any excuses for it! Usually the scenes are disconnected enough from the rest of the story that they don't necessarily 'ruin' it, but the one in this chapter is so closely connected to Satoko's abuse that it actually does seriously diminish the integrity of that portrayal. The otaku are portrayed as being sleazy and all, but the light tone of the scene ultimately lands on a tone of them being loveable goofballs. It feels like an affectionate jab from one otaku to another more than any kind of actual critique of fetishising a child abuse victim. At best it's a deeply distasteful and tonally failed comedy scene, and at worst it is complicit and inviting in that fetishisation.

My other bone to pick with this chapter is the Hinamizawa Syndrome reveal, which I think has issues on multiple levels. The most obvious of these is that it is incredibly far fetched as an answer to the mystery. This is actually my lowest concern - the mystery was never the biggest appeal of Higurashi to me, and I don’t necessarily mind that the answer isn’t realistic. The supernatural explanation for the time loops works fine because they explain an element that was ALWAYS supernatural. I think the problem is that Hinamizawa Syndrome is that it uses a ‘scientific’ explanation in such a contrived and specific manner that it feels even sillier than a fully supernatural explanation would be. I don’t have much to add as this is a very common complaint with the resolution to the mystery, and my analysis of Higurashi is more based around the characters/thematics than the mystery. For a review that picks apart Higurashi’s flaws as a mystery, I would recommend reading Jared E. Jellson’s analysis. His review is written with a much stronger knowledge of the mystery genre than mine, and while he is far more critical than I am of the series I find his critiques very sound.

My main issue with Hinamizawa Syndrome is how it functions as a metaphor. Hinamizawa Syndrome’s pseudoscience as an answer can be justified by the suggestion that its primary function in the story is a reflection of how the characters’ actions are the results of the environment that they’re raised in. This emphasises that the characters’ violent actions didn’t just happen for no reason, and that it is not inherent to them. The problem is that this is already in the story - we do not need the metaphor to explain this to us. Metaphor and allegory are often a strong way to render the abstract as something literal, but when we use metaphors for things that already have a literal presence in the story it feels as if we are being treated like children. In this context, metaphor becomes a way for us to more easily swallow the actual meaning. Hinamizawa Syndrome is an explanation for everyone whose thoughts on the characters began and ended with them being “psychos”. It’s a way to bash The Point into the audience’s head. And while a lot of Higurashi fans ARE bad at critically reading the story, I think catering to that kind of fan in the first place was a mistake. Sometimes you just have to accept that some people won't get it. Part of why Umineko is stronger as an overall story is that it has much more trust in its audience in this regard.

I also think Hinamizawa Syndrome is far too broad as a metaphor to really work. Of course all of the characters were influenced by their circumstances and their mental health, but the connections to Hinamizawa are wildly different. For Satoko’s case it makes perfect sense because the toxicity of Hinamiazawa as a social environment is directly connected to her family issues. For Shion, the primary issue is her family life, and the main connection to Hinamizawa is that the family is powerful there (though this would apply much moreso to Shishibone City and Okinomiya). Rena’s baggage with Hinamizawa is that she was separated from it, and this separation connects to her wider family trauma. Keiichi’s problems are from his mistaken belief that Hinamizawa as a whole is out to get him, causing him to lose his trust in his friends. All of these issues are connected to Hinamizawa, but the relationship to it is different in each one, and it can’t really be said that the village itself causes the issue in the latter three cases. This points to a wider issue, which is that the metaphor diminishes the specificity of the characters’ conflicts.

There’s a fine line between viewing mentally ill characters that hurt others as being inherently evil, and removing all possible accountability for their actions altogether. While the Hinamizawa Syndrome explanation implies that it exacerbates already existent problems, it does come a bit too close to the latter in providing a very convenient and direct explanation away for every single amoral action. Again, it’s a thing of making the already-existent meaning of the story easier to swallow. A reader who views Rena as being too ‘evil’ to be forgiven in Chapter 6 can now take solace knowing that it was the syndrome, not her. I personally think that it undermines some of the themes in the series, in particular the idea of accepting the sins of oneself and in others. Take for example the climactic scenes of Watanagashi and Meakashi: When Keiichi believes Mion is torturing him, he responds with a mantra of “You are not Mion!” He loves Mion so much that he cannot accept the idea of Mion the murderer, and instead chooses to believe in the Mion he knew before. In one sense, he is right to do this - it is in fact NOT Mion in front of him (though of course this isn’t what he actually means). But this is actually part of why his compassion fails to reach Shion. From Shion’s perspective, Keiichi’s compassion is moving, but it isn’t directed towards her. Her conflicts in Meakashi come from feeling unloved, and so Keiichi’s attempt at love here only comes across as more hateful. If Keiichi’s position was less “I love you, and therefore this is not you” and more “I still love you, even though you do this” then he might have successfully reached through to Shion. In the climax of Tsumihoroboshi, this is exactly what Keiichi does - he treats Rena not as a monster who has taken over his beloved friend, but instead treats her as still being his friend. I find Hinamizawa Syndrome is a bit too removed from the characters for it to keep this theme as powerful. However, one thing that Hinamizawa Syndrome might be useful for is that it handwaves some of the thornier aspects of how the series portrays mental illness. While Higurashi has a remarkably well done portrayal of trauma, its storyline is one that inherently does associate mental illness with violence, and it’s pretty hard to do that even sympathetically without going into some rough implications. So it probably is more tasteful that the murderous traits of the characters are applied to an entirely fictional syndrome than a real one (such as Rena’s implied schizophrenia).

While my issues with the Angel Mort scene and the Hinamizawa Syndrome reveal are major ones, I don’t want to come off as if I dislike the chapter. It’s just easier to delve into the flaws, since the positives of the chapter are mainly positives that exist across Higurashi as a whole. I don’t have much to say about the climactic scene in terms of analysis, but let it be known that this was yet another Higurashi chapter that had me sobbing by the time the credits rolled. Pretty much everything after the Hinamizawa Syndrome and Takano reveals is incredibly intense and well done (aside from the after credits scene, which runs a little too long and would work better as a tip). There are a few more issues I have with the final two chapters in general, but those ones will be more relevant to my Chapter 8 review.

As with Minagoroshi, I find Matsuribayashi to be a mixed bag, though a mixed bag by Higurashi's standards is still very good. These last two chapters are parrt of what prevent Higurashi from being a masterpiece for me, but ultimately I still love Higurashi just as much as I would if it were a masterpiece. I doubt even the most ardent of Ryukishi's fans would consider his writing perfect, and enjoying his work requires some acceptance of his imperfections. There are few writers who craft their works with this much love for their characters and this much thought in portraying the messiness of human experience, but there is a lot to accept in order to get to the highpoints. Some things will frustrate you, some things might come off unintentionally goofy, sometimes he overexplains and you want him to just move on already, sometimes he kinda cheats the rules of the mystery genre, etc. But while there are some things that genuinely frustrate me, I kinda love all the weird goofy stuff, all the parts where you feel he might not have been completely sure of what he was doing. The epic final chapter of Matsuribayashi is a point where the flaws and qualities have this weird kind of co-existence. On one hand, we could look at Higurashi's climax as a fantasy, a childish solution to a story that can often feel all too real. This is something Ryukishi concedes to in the Staff Room after the chapter:
"In other words, can you see that in the worlds of Higurashi, anything can be overcome when people talk to each other and help one another? Unfortunately that doesn't happen in reality. Helping each other creates friction, and often times, working alone is a lot simpler. However, we always hope that we can connect with other people and understand each other, so that we can face any difficulty. In that sense, this world is a fantasy."
He goes on to talk about his choice to make Takano the 'enemy' of this chapter, and how it suggests that he failed this worldview. He asks "What kind of ending would be the best outcome following the worldview of Higurashi? Perhaps it's something better than the Matsuribayashi chapter...."

From this perspective, the final chapter of Matsuribayashi is a failure because it fails to resolve the incredibly complex character and thematic conflicts in a believable way. It creates a fantasy of friendship and working together as a kind of spiritual power, a literal rule of the universe. It overcomes the highest of stakes and a vicious enemy. These kids are able to defeat a massive government conspiracy through tricks and traps. It feels much closer to reading a Shonen series than anything else up to this point. As Ryukishi himself admits, it partially comes from him not quite knowing how to resolve the story in a way that truly gives justice to its worldview. I think the other flaw here is residue from Chapter 7, which is that Higurashi just gets a lot BIGGER than it needs to be. Again, the draw of the series is really the character writing, and the conflicts are a lot stronger when they're contained between the characters. Tsumihoroboshi's climax is far fetched as well, but it's EMOTIONALLY believable because the conflict between Keiichi and Rena has been developed so perfectly. The whole chapter feels very true to the actual experience of trying to help a friend that's spiralling. The scenario is undoubtably a little silly, but the feelings are real. That feeling isn't really present here, and that's because the stakes of the conflict have sprawled into this massive conspiracy that exists way beyond the characters.

The other issue is Takano as a villain. This is also an issue in Minagoroshi but it's one which is more relevant here. I think Ryukishi writes himself into a corner with Takano's cartoonish levels of evil. The problem is that he ends Minagoroshi on a scene where Takano massacres an entire village while laughing maniacally, and then spends the opening hours of Matsuribayashi begging for our sympathy. My flaw is not with Ryukishi's worldview that even people who appear 'evil' become that way through trauma, and that there is always a possibility for redemption. The problem is that he writes a villain who is not a bad person in a realistic way. She is a bad person on an epic scale. It would be less of an issue if the final scene of Minagoroshi was cut down, or perhaps not even there at all. The opening hours of Masturibayashi overcompensate by aggressively piling on the tragedy. Unfortunately, it feels nowhere near as earned as the tragedy in previous chapters, and part of that is how it feels like Ryukishi is trying to MAKE us sympathise with her. Obviously all stories utilise some kind of emotional manipulation, but it's very different here to how Shion is written in Meakashi. At the end of that chapter, Ryukishi clearly wants us to cry for Shion. He's obviously directing us to feel that sympathy. For some people it didn't work, and Ryukishi acknowledges in the staff room that some readers won't accept it. For me it worked because we spend that entire chapter locked in Shion's head. It's not just that terrible things happened to her, but that those events took an incredible toll on her mindset and mental health, and that toll is really what we see in that chapter. And even though she suffers plenty in Meakashi, we still see what her day to day life is like - it isn't just an endless parade of suffering. Before asking us to cry for her, Ryukishi carefully builds up that mindset and that experience of overwhelming emotional pain. While Takano is given a psychological motive, the opening hours are more about the exposition - we get an explanation of how Takano became Like This, rather than actually feeling what it would be like to be Takano. It definitely feels a lot more forced in that regard, and it's where I find Ryukishi's portrayal of suffering to be overly indulgent (though I've heard the manga is much worse with this). A lot of these issues wouldn't be as bad if the story just had a smaller scale - if Takano were the culprit, but not someone in charge of a conspiracy to massacre an entire village, if her backstory was given more space to breathe instead of being a series of traumatic bullet points.

So with these issues outlined, we could describe Matsuribayashi as something of a failure. It doesn't quite give justice to the worldview and the emotional struggle that we saw in previous chapters. But if Matsuribayashi is a failure, it is a very enjoyable one. Perhaps a high stakes and action packed climax wasn't the right way to end Higurashi, but for what it is I think Ryukishi does it very well. He manages to keep an impressive balancing act of maintaining nonstop tension for around 5 hours, and while the climax is arguably bloated I found it never got tiring to read. And while there is a kind of childishness in its execution, there's also kind of a delight in the silliness of it all. Part of the point of Higurashi is that these are characters who have had their childhoods robbed from them, and the club games are a form of reclaiming that childhood. As I wrote in my Tsumihoroboshi review, this idea is best executed in the climax of that chapter. Matsuribayashi takes things even further, where the club game techniques are part of why these kids manage to win. It's like the story itself becomes akin to a child's imagination. The characters are often having so much fun that it sometimes feels like the stakes aren't even there, that the win is already sealed. At times, it makes the fight feel less like a fight and more like a victory lap. This is arguably worthy of criticism but I do find it really fun, and it adds to the borderline utopian vision of friendship that Ryukishi presents in this chapter. I can't believe entirely in what he presents here, and part of that is that I don't think he does either, but I still like the fantasy.

Much of what Higurashi's fans value about the series is this feeling that it breaks through being a story and becomes way too fucking real. It's not necessarily that the plotline itself is realistic, but that there are moments where Ryukishi captures something that feels so true to traumatic experience that it becomes overwhelming to read. Matsuribayashi has none of that 'realness'. It's pure story, pure fantasy. But what Ryukishi does maintain is a love for the characters, and a joy in just seeing them interact, to find beauty in the silly things that supposedly 'don't matter'. And so even though Ryukishi ultimately failed in some ways, I don't mind. He maintained his love, and I maintained mine.