Higurashi is a flawed masterpiece. It's my first serious trip to the town of Hinamizawa since watching the anime in about 2014. Events of the first chapters rang clearly in my head, but the second half, especially the latter two chapters, I'm not even sure if half that information was stuff I knew or not!

As could be expected from a VN, it offers a much more detailed look at the characters and events of June of 1983. And it is brilliant. Ryukishi07 is one of the best authors of our time, even if he is at times, overly indulgent & questionable. That said, it's an incredible ride.

The horror is excellent, and executed so well. While the club games' do tend to slow the pacing, their setup contrasts the horrific nature of what happens that summer. Despite the dip in pace when you start up the next arc, you are always, met with that loading screen--nothing but the sounds of the Higurashi. The further in you get, the more dread & ominous that menu feels. The concepts themselves are horrifying, if you really put yourself into the muck & suspend your disbelief. The sound of an extra footstep behind you. The tension of being a lone newcomer, as two of your 'friends' stalk you. The idea that someone could follow you, having perfected your walking pattern to seamlessly blend in. There are a lot of outright great creepy ideas that up the tension.

Blending the concept of horror around children is also great. We have a subversion where we are left to deal with two truths. 1. It is scary, being a child. Having less agency over yourself, your friends, and their situations, and the fact that you can just be sheerly overpowered with force or mind by adults puts you at a scary disadvantage. But maybe more crucial is 2. The fact that children themselves are creepy, and scary. You can see this come into play with the first chapters especially--just the idea of a child staring into your soul and knowing you, knowing more than they should, knowing your habits, there is such a strange ominous nature that children can take on. And while Higurashi makes it feel intentional, in real life, sometimes children are just kind of odd in a non-intentional way. I think this work plays with both of these ideas interestingly.

But unfortunately there's also a lot, even for a veteran of suspension of disbelief such as I, that kind of breaks it. And a lot of that happens in those last two chapters.

As addressed in Umineko, Higurashi didn't really offer the most fair mystery. After reading the writer's rooms, I understand some of the logic, but it moreso made sense to me in hindsight rather than how to solve it with what was given. Some things just outright blindside you, and the discussion of the rules and how to beat them, honestly went over my head. It made some sense afterwards, but. At times the absurdity is hilarious and charming, and others, it's kind of like hmm ok. One of the big issues is that being in VN format, it is often hard to visualize the SCALE of events taking place. They would say "oh there's 20 guys here" but then it feels like an actual endless army in the descriptions. And maybe that is just the scale of putting danger to children, vs me reading as an adult, so maybe it does work? But at times it was hard to grasp, for me.

The last two chapters really take away that horror aspect, and replace it with intense, action. And it kind of suffers for it. There are still some wild and horrific elements going on, but it does sort of miss the mark for me. I was still gripped with the final conflict, but the tonal shift was very apparent.

All in all, I'm glad I went back to read this. Finishing just days before the fateful June 19th, 1983, I was able to re-explore and re-introduce myself to these characters. And there, I found much that I'd forgotten.

Something as legendary as Higruashi could be sort of brushed off as the years go by--not that it could ever be forgotten, but as more media has come out, or as you've grown older, it may be just a chuckle of your first horror in the rearview. I'd personally started to think of it as my own 'baby's first horror anime' and moreso thought of it as a meme. And while there are many, and much potential for memeing on it, it's regardless, a great work, that is intense, brutal, and... honestly quite forgiving. The characters are all interesting, with deep motivational things, and the more you learn about it, the more you get through these arcs, information is splendidly revealed.

I loved the playing with VN that I've come to expect. Text colors changing to indicate something. Subverting the reader with a new perspective that adds much more to it. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on.

And mostly I am glad to re-contextualize it with my knowledge of Umineko. There is so much I've discovered within Higurashi to now analyze at a higher level, now that I can see the threads that Ryukishi07 was working with, and how he took many ideas, even minor ones, and spun them from the imperfect thread of the Higurashi into the Gold of Umineko. It is amazing, that this guy produced these two works, and spun some of the best fiction I've ever encountered. In my heart it's a 5* even if I think objectively some of the pacing & fluff detract it a bit. Ryukishi is the GOAT, and I was able to appreciate this much more with my knowledge of these two works.

I had Mario Tennis (gbc) as a kid, and I really liked it then. But I didn't realize that the GBA release was also an RPG! This plus the knowledge both were done by Camelot of my beloved Golden Sun... seeing the Golden Sun style seep into this was really cool, I loved the music & the pixel art is amazing. Overall just an upgrade from the GBC game, I really liked the matches being shorter, 2 game sets vs 6 was such a good improvement as the GBC title dragged like crazy. I pogged out of my mind when late game opponents' power shots are straight up using Psynergy against you lmao, and I liked how the rivals were all jerks lol. Really fun game & cast.