History Headscratchers / HigurashiWhenTheyCry

** Ooishi seeing Takano is pretty much fully explained way down the line in the last two chapters of Higurashi Kai, partially in Minagoroshi-hen (the VN version anyway), and fully in Matsuribayashi-hen. [[spoiler: Takano is seen by Ooishi (and Keiichi/Shion) not because he (or they) are suffering from Hinamizawa Syndrome, but because she simply isn't dead. The body in the mountains that is found the next day was '''never actually Takano's'''. It was rather a different woman of similar build who was burnt to a crisp and could only be identified by her dental records. Takano, who was attempting to fake her own death, simply switched those dental records with her own with the help of the Yamainu (Mountain Dogs) task force, this is helped by the fact the body was recovered by police in a different prefecture than Ooishi -- with a more incompetent, or rather, unsuspecting police force and the autopsy is done haphazardly with no suspicion of it being a fake or cross-examination of witnesses. This is the discrepancy noticed by Ooishi which makes him suspect of Keiichi and Shion. Takano, even knowing that this conflict could put her at risk of being discovered, chose the body specifically because the idea of being discovered to "have been dead for 24 hours" when she ''knows'' people saw her at the Watanagashi festival the night before would stir up superstition of Oyashiro-sama's curse in the village, which Takano herself idolizes and sees herself as becoming.]]

* Just re-read Watanagashi-hen (Sound Novel) and found something that's bugging me. Takano was found [[spoiler: dead in the Gifu Mountains, and the autopsy showed that she had been dead for over 24 hours when she was found on the night of the festival, meaning that she never actually attended the festival that night. We're supposed to take this and conclude that both Keiichi and Shion were both hallucinating Takano's appearance entirely, but how in the hell does that explain how Ooishi saw her? We know that the rest of those involved in the investigation simply think Takano's death is related to Tamitake's because she was found dead on the night of Watanagashi and she works at Irie Clinic, so she lives in or adjacent to Hinamizawa, and that would explain why the two incidents would naturally be lumped together even if no one actually saw her with Tamitake at the festival that evening. However, when Ooishi confronts Keiichi, he says that he saw him and Shion specifically talking with Tamitake AND Takano on the stone path before parting ways for the night, as a way of implicating that he and Shion were the last people seen alive with them and therefore could be taken as prime suspects. Does this mean that Ooishi is also suffering from high levels of HS, as he was able to see Takano? Or is it just something the author didn't consider? Or am I missing something else regarding the nature of Takano's death in Watanagashi (again, I am re-reading these as I have not read them in quite some time, so feel free to remind me of anything that was explained in later arcs).]]

* For those who read Kageboushi-hen (VN, but Manga also works),[[spoiler: is it ever said who was the person that killed Tomoe Mami? Unless I skipped the part where they reveal the culprit, it's never mentioned at all. The only lead given to the reader is that the culprit had the figure of a woman. Natsumi Kimiyoshi is NOT the culprit, because it's nowhere mentioned that she was the one who did it (in fact, there was a small scene of her where she was waiting for Tomoe to show up in order to continue their "touching conversation") and I don't think Takano would expose herself like that for a random police officer who just happened to be working on her case (it's not her style, as seen in the main "scenarios").]]

** In the Visual Novel, he didn't want his parents to get hurt, fearing that they will be the next to disappear from the curse.

** Because of how delusional Keichii might have been at that point, the car may have actually been far away or not even there, and he just hallucinated that he was nearly run over by a car. Unless of course the [[spoiler: Yamainu were in it, and Miyo ordered them to? They were connected with Irie, and it makes sense that they would have access to the same or simiar cars.]]

** Okay so-- different troper here-- if that was anti-Syndrome medication [[spoiler: and it backfired on Rika when she tried to inject it, how the hell did it turn out to be a live enough version of the Syndrome that it shot her up to level 5 or whichever, causing her to take the suicide route?]] [[YouFailPharmacologyForever Vaccines and medication don't work that way.]]

*** I had just gotten passed that point in the VisualNovel and I believe the syringe was the LV5. I don't think the above tropers were talking about the [[spoiler: placebo vaccine Tokitake]] took, I believe they mean [[spoiler: the medication Satoko took]] when they said vaccine. And for the record, [[YouFailPharmacologyForever vaccines in general do not cure a person.]][[labelnote:why]]Vaccines give a person a weakened pathogen, and the body makes antibodies to kill the pathogen. Because the pathogen is weakened, the human body does not need to suffer from it while waiting for antibodies to be made. Giving someone already suffering from any disease a vaccine to the same disease does nothing to cure it. All that is ignoring the fact that the vaccine Tomitake took, like the people above me said, was just a placebo and did nothing.[[/labelnote]] The [[spoiler: medication used to fight the syndrome]] would not give a person LV5 and make them [[spoiler: claw out their throat if they did not have the syndrome]]. In the VisualNovel, after Rika stabbed herself in the neck, [[spoiler: she clawed at her neck to speed up her death]], just like those with LV5. However, Rika could have just wanted to die in a way other than being drugged in her sleep and killed. In the tips in Himatsubushi-hen, one can infer that Rika loathed anything that was the same in every arc, including the weather. She could have easily gotten bored of how she died and when confronted by the "torture maniac," she chose to kill herself LV5 style for kicks. Or am I over thinking this and falls under OurDiseasesAreDifferent?

** Uh, she wet herself. [[YouFailBiologyForever Women don't ejaculate.]]

*** But Shion didn't know that Rina's current victim was Rena's father. In any case, the Sonozaki family would likely have been all too happy to help Rena, as evidenced by what happens later. [[{{Dentaku}} I]] consider this quite a serious plot hole.

** Remember two things: Mion was locked for days and was "witness"to the murder of some people fhat her sister killed. A normal person would be shocked and mentally unstable in that situation, instead of being like "Oh, okay. I'm locked up here and I saw people get killed in front of me in gruesome ways. Hm...I wonder if Shion will give me a hamburger to eat today".

*** Rena made it clear she was interested in finding the truth, [[spoiler:so Takano gave her some of her EpilepticTrees. Some of them were accurate but most were just laughably off. She probably did it to discredit Rena in case she actually did find anything that could be incriminating. Aside from that, Takano has some pretty bad MotiveDecay (Her plan is some bizarre mixture of a FruedianExcuse, AGodAmI, ForScience and to prove her grandfather right, even though she managed the last one before Showa of 58 even began) so making sense of her actions isn't always an easy thing.]]

** HigurashiDaybreak reveals that Takano enjoys causing chaos and confusion, so likely she just did it ForTheEvulz.

** This scene is actually used again in the Visual Novel. From what we know,[[spoiler: Mion comes from a family of gangsters, and we also know that everyone in the village hates the police, namely Ooishi himself.]] I think it's safe to assume that Mion did indeed say that, but the way she acted was all due to Keiichi's paranoia [[spoiler: (such as when Rena confronted him about "lying" to everyone else, which lead her to shout her famous "USODA" at him. The conversation did indeed took place, but Rena's reaction, such as Mion's, are all part of Keiichi's paranoia).]]

** This scene is actually used again in the Visual Novel. From what we know,[[spoiler: Mion comes from a family of gangsters, and we also know that everyone in the village hates the police, namely Ooishi himself.]] I think it's safe to assume that Mion did indeed say that, but the way she acted was all due to Keiichi's paranoia [[spoiler: Such as when Rena confronted him about "lying" to everyone else, which lead her to shout her famous "USODA" at him. The conversation did indeed took place, but Rena's reaction, such as Mion's, are all part of Keiichi's paranoia.]]

* For those who read Kageboushi-hen (VN, but Manga also works),[[spoiler: is it ever said who was the person that killed Tomoe Mami? Unless I skipped the part where they reveal the culprit, it's never mentioned at all. The only lead given to the reader is that the culprit had the figure of a woman. Natsumi Kimiyoshi is NOT the culprit, because it's nowhere mentioned that she was the one who did it(in fact, there was a small scene of her where she was waiting for Tomoe to show up in order to continue their "touching conversation") and I don't think Takano would expose herself like that for a random police officer who just happened to be working on her case (it's not her style, as seen in the main "scenarios").]]

* In the fourth episode of Onikakushi Mion makes a comment about how she should have killed someone when she had the chance, and it's inferred by her comment about retirement that she's talking about Ooishi. However, this is never addressed or brought up again in any other part of the anime as far as I remember. Is this more delusion from Keiichi's Hinamizawa Syndrome, or is this just a plot hole? Or was it addressed somewhere else?

** The Yamainu, first to the crime scene, seem very plausible. The missing part of the note suggests Tomitake died as a result of something given to him in a syringe, [[spoiler: which was accidentally true]]. There is no evidence Ooishi knew about the disease and was covering it up.

* Am I the only one who finds it odd that there aren't compilation movies for each arc of the anime adaptation? Most people probably watch each arc in one sitting anyways (for the first half of the anime, anyways), so why not just make it easy for them by letting them watch an arc without having to sit through the opening more than once?

** That wasn't a hallucination, but it's clear from later scenes that Mion hated doing it. In this case it's because she was ordered to by Oryou (their grandmother). If she had refused, there would have been even more dire consequences, for Mion as well as Shion. She may be the designated heir, but the Sonozaki family in general, and Oryou in particular, are not people to be crossed and are capable of doing some extremely nasty things (they ''are'' a {{Yakuza}} family, remember). Her "emotionless" state was most likely a result of her trying to psychologically distance herself from the act.

** She probably speak like that due to her uncle and aunt, then become an habit. Alternatively, she picked up from Satoshi.

** If she knows enough, it's probably to aviod them getting a vivisection.
* I'm currently in the middle of Kai (season 2), and every time we're reminded that Mion is a Sonozaki and that she is the future head of the family, I can't help but remember how she turned completely cruel and emotionless when she had Shion's nails ripped out. Is this something that only happened because of Shion's illness and paranoia? To punish Shion in such a cruel way for doing nothing wrong made me hate Mion, and I've basically despised her ever since, but Mion doesn't seem like the same twisted person that she was in the second story arc. In short, is Mion evil like most of the Sonozaki family, or was the nail-removal incident basically just a delusion that Shion's illness created?

*** Does that really cut it? Higurashi is split into question and answer arcs. All logic suggests that the first season should have been the question arcs. (Though it probably would have taken two seasons to do the answer arcs then, which would have left them extra room to adapt manga/PS2-only arcs or something as filler.) Considering most of the character development and huge amounts of story were cut out from Tatarigoroshi, Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi in particular, we could have had a far better series. Most arcs were missing the beginning and ending, too. Japanese fans seem to hate the Higurashi anime as much as everyone hates the Umineko anime, for many of the same reasons (such as completely missing the point of scenes or the entire story).