Tear Jerker / Higurashi: When They Cry

"We'll always trust each other."

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Tearjerkers for Higurashi: When They Cry.

• Plenty, notably Keiichi remembering a past iteration of their "Groundhog Day" Loop where he went insane and murdered Mion and Rena. Rena's "Believe me" as she stretches out her hands to Keiichi (right before he bludgeons her with a baseball bat) makes it heartbreakingly clear that the events leading to this end were a series of terrible mistakes. Luckily, the scene that follows turns it right around into a massive Heartwarming Moment.
• Onikakushi is overused as an example of sadness and horror in the series...For good reason. It comprises everything that makes the manga, anime and visual novel so stupendous; but if we take a step back it also has the job of introducing people to a new world with new characters and situations to get you to care about them. This results in a truly tragic first arc that is particularly upsetting for how normal and genuine the entire first half is in comparison to the rest, especially upon a second visit. Sure, in the visual novel the prologue doesn't let you think of it as anything but horror, but then you start to let your guard down. Keiichi was a pretty happy guy with friends he loved, playful banter happens left and right and it's all so wholesome. It might trick the audience into thinking this is just a case of toying with your audience with unnecessary fluff for shock value, but it's not. It's because this is how it should be. You're supposed to want them to be happy. It's a tragedy through and through. And the twist that Keiichi went mad doesn't make this better; if anything it makes it worse, because he really thought his best friends had betrayed him. He killed his best friends for no reason at all...
• The ending of Onikakushi is tragic enough in the game and the anime, but the manga pushes it right into Tear Jerker territory when Keiichi's final letter is read over a montage of flowers being placed on Keiichi's desk, the teacher announcing the deaths to a shell-shocked class, Keiichi's parents mourning their son's death, and as if you aren't getting misty-eyed already, it finally ends with Rika comforting Satoko as she sobs her eyes out over losing three of her best friends.
  • To add a Fridge Horror to that, you remember that the same day or the following day, Satoko will find Rika's mangled naked corpse at the shrine. And die in a Gas Chamber the day after that. Poor Satoko can't have a break…
  • To add a little bit more to that, although it's not stated in the anime, all this is happening within a day or two of Satoko's birthday. Poor kid indeed.
• This still-image video kicks the Tear Jerker factor up a notch. Or ten. It's Onikakushi from Rena's perspective, and shows just how saddening and confusing it was for her to see Keiichi look so scared and not be able to do a thing to help him.
• The original scene of Rena and Mion's death itself is pretty heartbreaking too. Especially if you go into the series not knowing about the series hitting the Reset Button with each new arc. Revisiting that scene, seeing Keiichi break down and apologize to Mion (who is unaware of what he is crying about), and especially witnessing Rena's last moments and words in the flashback makes it even worse.
• Another Onikakushi-hen example. After you know the twist behind Onikakushi-hen, rewatch the scene at school where Keiichi yells at Mion for hiding the dam construction murders from him. It's much easier to feel bad for Mion when you know that she was never actually threatening Keiichi.
  • For that matter, Rena's visit to Keiichi's house is immensely more difficult to watch once you realize what's actually happening. To a first time viewer/reader, it seems like she is a psychotic stalker trying to force her way into Keiichi's home to do who-knows-what to him and it's only through his own forceful response that he's driven off. In reality... she was asked, by Keiichi's own mother no less, to check in on him and bring him some dinner. And her reward for cooking him a meal and delivering it to his house is to be locked out, yelled at, and eventually to have her fingers repeatedly slammed in the door. Perhaps even more heartbreaking is her reaction: she stands outside in the rain, silently (from Keiichi's perspective) repeating "I'm sorry" over and over, despite the fact that she had done nothing wrong. And the next day at school, despite this treatment, she isn't angry or even distant, despite the fact that she has to come to class with her hand covered in band-aids from the wounds she received from Keiichi.
• The entire Yakusamashi-hen arc, if only because nothing bad actually happened until the Yamainu came for Rika, and especially the scenes with poor Satoko near the end when she sees the corpses of everyone in the entire village in her school. Oh, and the first episode of the second season that shows the true ending of Tsumihoroboshi-hen. The flashback with that music playing in the background... * sniffle*
  • Rena screaming her last breath as the scene of her death cuts to the cliff next to her and her hat falling to the river below.
• The end of the Minagoroshi-hen.
  • It's more of a tear jerker in the sound novels, as this piece of music plays the moment Takano shoots Keiichi in the head and it continues throughout the murders.
  • And paradoxically, the fact that everyone is shot with one bullet and dies instantly]] makes the punch to the gut all the more brutal. Usually in this series, either the characters' deaths are offscreen or there is some kind of "preparation" (madness or torture). None of that here. Everyone is healthy and talks with the murderer… and the second after they stop breathing.
  • What makes the ending of Minagoroshi-hen so awful is the knowledge that the characters were so fucking close to smashing the cycle. And even after the main characters are killed, in the manga, the final chapter focuses on the Hinamizawa Gas Disaster. You see the villagers being rounded up in the guise of an "evacuation". What makes this worse is the fact that it's clear that not all of the Yamainu are entirely okay with what's happening (one of them is actually crying under his mask and another leads a prayer for one minute before it begins). Finally, once it starts, people in the classroom start dropping dead until Tomita (you know, one of Those Two Guys? The one with the glasses that has a crush on Satoko?) is alone, terrified and confused about what's happening... and he suddenly falls over.
• Shion torturing and stabbing poor little Satoko to death in front of the imprisoned Mion, because of Satoko's attitude towards the whole thing. "Nii-nii! I'm strong now!"
• Towards the end of the Meakashi-hen arc when Shion remembers Satoshi's last words to her, just a little too late. She only recalled them after she has tortured Satoko to death... and Satoshi actually asked her to protect his sister.
  • Satoko's last words about her nii-nii are even sadder. She just... felt so bad...
  • The manga version of this is pretty tough to sit through. After the rush wears off, Shion has this kind of dazed and disbelieving look on her face, which gets worse when she sees a vision of sorts of Satoko and Satoshi, who sternly reminds her of his last request. She then touches the stab wounds, and when the full realization of what she's done hits, she embraces Satoko's body and absolutely bawls her eyes out over what she's done and become. Of course, that all goes right out the window a few minutes later when she's all "Screw it", but still, tough to watch.
  • Despite everything she did in this arc, Shion's death, and her last minute promise that next time, things would be different is incredibly sad. They somehow managed to make it worse in the manga, where after falling from her balcony, Shion has a series of fantasies about being part of the main group; having lunch with them, treating Satoko like a little sister, all the things she never got to do because of her estrangement from her family. This culminates with her asking, "But... is this okay? Is something like this... really okay?" Cut to her shattered, lifeless body at the foot of the building. One thing that was left out from the anime in this scene is the brief part where Shion actually falls on top of a roof, still alive, and it's here that her fantasies begin, only to then roll herself off the edge and thus fall to her death. In effect, Shion is given a brief moment of salvation, but chooses to end her life. And of course her final words printed on that page over her lifeless body: "I'm sorry for being born." At least we have the Heartwarming in Hindsight fact that by the end of the series, reality rectifies itself and Shion does get to have those experiences, and it is "really okay."
• The ending theme of the anime.
• So, bad news. You are deep in the throes of Oyashiro's curse. You've been hearing phantom footsteps, you've heard the incessant whispering of strange apologies on the wind, you've begun to feel maggots chewing at your flesh and find yourself prone to bloodlust and hysterical fits of psychotic laughter. You know the demonic god of Hinamizawa is coming for you. Except the 'demon' you fear is a cute little girl who is trying to save you. Those sinister footsteps are her striking the ground in frustration that everyone thinks she's an evil murderous goddess that drives people insane. All she wants to do is save you from the insanity that is slowly consuming you. But she's insubstantial and invisible. All she can really do is watch you go mad, kill your friends and eventually claw out your own throat. Those whispered apologies you keep hearing? That's her crying over your fate and her inability to help you. That's her begging for your forgiveness.
• "I just want to live a happy life, that's all I want. I want to have fun, and laugh, and spend my days surrounded by all my friends. Nothing more than that. Am I asking for too much and I just don't know it? ...I don't want to have to die." Oh, Rika...
• Whenever any character asks the question, "Why did it become like this?" It's one of the most tragic lines in the entire series.
• The ending of Himatsubushi-hen. When Rena finally realized that her friends were there for her and helping, they all died and left her the only person alive.
• In episode 13 of Kai, Keiichi getting shot by power-crazy Takano; the fact that he tells everyone to make a run for it and Mion crying and then sacrificing herself as well doesn't help things at all.
  • The VN and Manga version is worse. Hanyuu stops time, so everyone sees the bullet before it hits him, and talks about it. Keiichi gives a speech, everyone is either bawling or ready to bawl, and then time starts flowing again. He's shot, and Takano's men go at the gang for the last kill.
• Hanyuu's past in a game-exclusive arc, where her own daughter calls her a demon and then kills her. The fact that said daughter cries at the end and says she loves Hanyuu makes it worse.
• FINGERNAIL. PUNISHMENT. After Shion boldly admits to her family that she likes Satoshi despite his stigma as a Hojo, Mion coldly tells her that her bodyguard Kasai and her manager Yoshiro are being held hostage and she must rip out 3 fingernails for each person for each person she's burdened since escaping from boarding school. Shion's determination to save the others quickly does down the drain after the removal of just one nail puts her through the worst pain in her life. She starts begging Mion for forgiveness, but only receives apathy. She musters the urge to rip off the second, which only partially came off and has to be redone. Shion completely breaks down and begs for it to end, even hysterically screaming for her mother to no avail. The whole thing just hammered in how unimportant she is as the (supposedly) younger sister... and then Satoshi goes missing shortly afterward.
  • Mion's role in it. She is completely cold, emotionless, and unmoved by Shion's crying and pleading, and helps to force her through the whole ordeal without any apparent remorse. But a while later, we learn just how much she was suffering beneath this mask, and that she had three of her own fingernails ripped out afterward as penance. This is all revealed as Mion breaks down into tears, sobbing to Shion "It wasn't fair that only you were punished! We're twins!"
  • In the anime, Mion doesn't quite last the whole ordeal with her stoic mask fully on. After Shion's second fingernail is ripped off and Shion starts to break down, Mion grabs her by the shoulders and says, with a hint of emotion, that she must hang in there and that it's almost over. When Shion continues to cry, Mion actually has to signal to her men to finish the job for her because she apparently can't even look at Shion anymore...if she continued looking at her, her uncaring facade would doubtlessly have cracked completely.
  • Satsuki Yukino mentioned that everyone else had to step out of the room because her cries were too painful to listen to.
  • The third fingernail Shion had removed was not for Satoshi. It was for herself. The Sonozaki family had absolutely no sympathy for anyone in the Houjou family. Even children that had nothing to do with the dam project, other than being descended from people who were. It's no wonder Shion goes batshit and leaves dead the village head, her grandmother (by accident), Satoko, and (presumably) her own twin sister. That last one is confirmed, when Keiichi is asked if he was sure it was really Mion who gutstabbed him, since her body was found in the well and had been dead for some time by then. Later on, in Kai, we find out that the Sonozakis weren't involved at all in Satoshi's disappearance. Still, if someone empathizes with Shion, who has no idea about this, and never seems to find out...
• Heck, almost every time a character's Dark and Troubled Past is revealed, it's a Tear Jerker if you like the character enough, the strongest ones being Shion's past, Satoshi's disappearance and Miyo's life in the orphanage.
• The ending of Watanagashi-hen in the manga was absolutely heartbreaking. Keiichi had bought another doll just for Mion and was wishing that things hadn't screwed up so badly so he could give her the doll and they could be happy. When he sees Mion, actually Shion, standing outside, he goes to give her the doll, only to be stabbed in the gut. The last pictures with him trying to clean his blood off of the doll makes it even worse.
  • Likewise with the sound novels. Not so much with the anime though... He doesn't bring a doll in that adaptation.
  • Special mention in the sound novel goes to Keiichi mentioning that Mion and Shion's parents (along with their followers) showing up at the Maebara house every day to apologize for what their daughter did.
  • The music in the sound novel for this part only made the pain worse.
• The doll in itself qualifies in Watanagashi and Meakashi. The club members go to town to a toy store owned by one of Mion's relatives for a big event, and though they only have time for the first round, it's a fun day for them and a good day for the store as well, so the store owner brings out dolls for everyone but Mion, who is his relative. Keiichi considers giving his doll to her so she can have one, but decides against it because as he tells her, she is too boyish for dolls, and Rena (who already has one but likes cute things) gets it instead. Mion laughs it off, only to later cry about it to Shion. When Mion announces the store activity in Minagoroshi, Rika is already resigned to her fate/their fates, and her hopelessness is only broken by Keiichi giving the doll to Mion that time after he catches her hints that Mion might like it. Then they bump into/see Houjo Teppei, Satoko's abusive jerk of an uncle...
• The song "You" and its lyrics are bittersweet as well, reminding the listener of the Good End the characters finally earned.
• Miyo's arc in itself is a Tear Jerker. Also in this arc we see Satoko's parents, and how, and why, they died in an almost-flashback.
  • The manga version of Miyo's arc is just heartwrenching. The punches start when the recently-orphaned Miyo is dropped off at her new orphanage. The anime plays this fairly ominously, with the orphanage worker glaring at her as soon as the social workers leave, but the manga version decides to have a brief Hope Spot to make things worse. "Oh, oh look! He's patting her head, just like her dad used to do! Surely this guy can't-" SMACK but what's truly the saddest thing in this arc is seeing Miyo trying to adjust to life with her "grandfather". After he rescues her from the Orphanage of Fear there's a scene showing the two eating, and remembering her punishment, the girl vomits. She then freaks out and tries to clean it up, thinking he won't want her if she's "dirty". And when the man tries to comfort her like her dad did, little Miyo can only remember the jackass from the orphanage, and recoils in fear. This shouldn't happen to a little kid. At least she escaped. Eriko, Kikuko and Tomomi didn't (in the manga at least).
• Tatarigoroshi-hen's ending in the manga. Keiichi and Satoko find Rika's]] half eaten open corpse. After a few moments of crying, Satoko notices Keiichi is holding a hooked machete (Rena's too). Enter more crying and pleading here. Then Keiichi being pushed off a bridge. To make matters worse, a few hours later a battered Keiichi wakes up and walks to town. He sees the dead body bags and after a bit comes to notion that his friends and everyone he loves are dead. His life can never go back to normal. The arc ends with Keiichi saying he wants everyone to die.
• How about most of Meakashi, mixed with terror?
• In the Tsumihoroboshi manga and VN, Rena denies she's sad, and keeps saying that she finally got her happiness.Then she tries to laugh, but ends up crying.
  • The bit in this scene where everybody is talking about their sins and apologizing for not being there, especially Mion.
  • The entire duel between Keiichi and Rena on the school roof. Especially when Rena says, "If I win, I'd like for it to be the same reward as yours... I'd like you to greet me in the morning with "Good morning", and "Good night" at night" as well as her breakdown and recovery afterwards.]]
• Okay, final arc of Kai, the nakama is in the Sonozaki basement, and Kasai and Shion are buying them time to escape. Mion starts yelling for Shion to come down already. Gunshots. LOTS of gunshots. Rika, on the verge of tears, says "No, no, I don't want to give up anyone! ...This is the final world. I don't want this! I don't want a future in which Shion or Kasai die!" and starts bawling. That's bad enough, right? But it gets worse. When Irie is about to give himself up so everyone else can escape, Rena says, "If you go, then what did they (Kasai and Shion) fight so hard for?" and Mion shouts back, "Then what? Are you saying Shion should die?", Satoko delivers this tear-jerking masterpiece: "Please, stop it, Mion! My heart is about to burst as well. After all, Shion is my Nee-Nee." Mion and many viewers BURST into tears.
  • If you've gotten used to the violence and death at this point, you might not care much about any character deaths. After all, everyone is always okay again in the next world, right? Right? Then you remember that this is the final world.
• Episode 4 of Rei when Rika wakes up in the hospital to see Irie there. I started shedding tears believing Rika had actually done the action. The rest of that scene was so heartwarming though.
  • There's still a chance that she actually did it though.
• There were a few fanfics that won a contest and were officially made into non-canon manga. "Limit" mixed horror with Tear Jerker, however Hinageshi-hen and Nienagashi are this. In the former Mion is off at college and comes home for a festival. A tradition of the village is that everyone makes a doll representing themselves and send it down the river to celebrate Watanagashi. If a person's doll goes missing, however, then that person will die. Mion returns, but her friends are avoiding her. She finds where the dolls are one day, and finds hers is gone. She becomes paranoid. Turns out hers broke and they were fixing it. The Tear Jerker is the end, which is post "gas accident" and Mion is the only survivor- but she's comatose, and will never leave her dreams because, in the waking world, everyone she loves is dead. For the latter, the Tear Jerker comes when Satoko almost drowns in a river. Keiichi comes to get her, but due to the rapids and the fact he can't swim, he isn't much help. Keiichi remembers a story he heard on how a boy let go his friend to save himself in that river some time ago, and he begins to think of that. He lets himself go. He ends up in class, but is a ghost. He thinks everything is fine until he sees his friends crying, then figuring out how stupid his decision is. Turns out it was All Just a Dream after he sacrificed himself to save Satoko, and both of them are safe.
  • Hinageshi convinced some people that doujinshi can be as good as canon. The part where Mion just breaks down, thinking that they don't love her anymore and that the village doesn't have a place for her just hits you straight in the heart. It effectively portrays what it feels like to be a leader without a group to lead and be part of.
• In the penultimate episode of Kai, Satoshi is revealed to be alive but comatose due to a high level of Hinamizawa Syndrome. Irie says he's too far gone to be cured (though he promises to keep researching). Shion begs to be allowed to visit him and read stories to him, and insists she'll be there for him until he wakes even if it takes years.
  • If the lyrics in the series of songs in the Yours album (Sorayume, Sora no Mukou, Confession, Thanks) are to be believed, and if they're canon, then Satoshi does indeed recover. Though equal chances are they're all just Shion's Imagine Spot as she sits there by his bedside, reading and waiting...
  • It's hard to tell in the anime, but it looks like Satoshi starts crying while she's talking.
• When Shion beats Satoko in episode 16. Satoko's just a little kid. She and her family have been shunned by all the people in the village except for a few people, and now one of her friends (Shion disguised as Mion) is beating her up and telling her to suffer and die alone. Regardless if Satoko was a crybaby or if spilling your lunch isn't a good reason to cry, considering what she and her brother were going through, she doesn't deserve to be screamed at that the world would be a better place if she was dead. And even worse, the fact that everyone thought it was Mion was just more salt in the wound in that one of their closest friends is actually screaming at Satoko to die for being a selfish, repulsive monster. It feels like one of those moments when someone actually blames a rape victim for being raped. Thing is, Satoko actually takes Shion's comments about how "crying won't solve your problems, it only makes you a burden to your brother" to heart, she demonstrates this much later in the arc when she's showing her strength towards Shion's torture. In the visual novel, after Satoko dies, Shion points out that Satoko had become mentally stronger than her, because she never gave up hope on seeing her brother again whereas Satoshi "was dead to Shion in her mind" which made the "demon" take over her body. Shion continues praising Satoko's strength in a later arc (Minagoroshi-hen), after she has become her loving surrogate older sister.
  • Satoshi's tearful breakdown afterward as he's hugging his sister sums up just how horribly these two have it in life.
• Most of the versions of Dear You are this, but hope, Rika's version, is the worst.
  • And then we have her first Image song, Mugen Kairou.
• Kokoro Musubi. Now the song itself is heartwarming, but then there's that very last verse that represents Shion telling Satoshi that everyone is waiting for him to wake up. Cue the escaped tears.
• Rena's confession about the murders of Rina and Teppei Houjou to her friends in Tsumihoroboshi arc. When Keiichi asks her why she did not tell her friends about her struggles, her response is especially heart-rending.
  Keiichi: Why didn't you ever talk to us about it? We're your friends, right? We're supposed to be like family! If you had talked to us, we could have helped! We wouldn't have let you get your hands dirty! If we had worked together, we might have reached a better future than this one!
  Rena: A future better than now? There's no such thing. This is the best future.
• Also, her belief that you can't rely on your friends for help; that you have to suffer alone and solve your problems by yourself. Who knew that under her cheerful facade; Rena was feeling so much sorrow and bitterness?
• It was only a brief moment, but Mion's death at the end of Minagoroshi-hen, which was as if she was following Keiichi at that. Mion silently waves goodbye to her sister, right before getting shot by Takano. Poor Mii-chan.
  • It's made even worse when Mion touches her blood-covered hand just before that, the one that Keiichi held when he was dying. Really, poor Mion.
• Takano's breakdown after Tokyo has abandoned her research, and the Yamainu are being arrested. She's scratching at her throat from repressed level 5 Hinamizawa Syndrome, Okonogi smugly tells her to shoot herself (because her sponsor plans to make her a scapegoat anyway), and when the Banken come for her, she desperately screams and grabs at her grandfather's notebook. Luckily Tomitake notices she's sick and arranges for her to be sent in for treatment, but damn was that pitiful. "I just wanted someone to tell me...that it was okay for me to be alive..."
• "Which is green? Broccoli or cauliflower?" "Broccoli." "Correct." For those who don't understand, Takano is about to shoot Satoko but will spare her if she gets this question correct. Why this question? Satoko is said to be a bit color blind so she can't tell the difference between the vegetables. However, even if she did make the right choice, Takano still kills her.
  • To make this a bit sympathetic to Takano, even if she did spare Satoko, the girl is infected with the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Satoko already lost all her friends and would be subjected under heavy experimentation. Even if she escapes that her insanity would leave her all alone and eventually drive her to suicide. Takano simply chose the lesser of the two evils; ease Satoko's eventual suffering by Mercy Killing her.
• The ending song of the first season (Why, or Why Not?). The lyrics sound like they're describing Hinamizawa Syndrome. "The sound of footsteps became louder every day, then I realized the fact that there was no time." There's also this heart-wrenching part:
  Give me a reason why not
  To adapt in this way
  Or judge me to be guilty of
  So many incurable sins.
• Any time Keiichi brings up his awakened memories of his situation in Onikakushi-hen in Tsumihoroboshi-hen. Worst of all is when Rena is bleeding all over, she still doesn't give in and keeps on trying to help him, and at the final moment, she doesn't even cover her head when he hits her.]]
• The song 'Dear You- Feel' is a rare example of this trope- it's sad, but it actually makes one feel better after hearing it. It emanates this sense of calm melancholy, of acceptance.
• Satoko's PTSD reaction to Keiichi rubbing her head, after less than a week of living with her uncle.
• Throughout Higurashi Outbreak, Rika had been acting incredibly peculiar like she had before when she gave up hope on worlds. When her friends finally found her, she told them to leave her and run and said that she'd see them again when it was all over. It's incredibly hard not to cry when she says "Fight-o ON, nano desu~" as her friends leave and she fades out of sight.
• The fate of Satoshi in Outbreak, it's implied that Outbreak is the world where Bernkastel stopped Miyo from losing her parents. However, everything is still fine and Keiichi, Rena, Irie and everyone are still there, as well as Satoshi's lack of presence. Since Satoshi isn't around, it's safe to say that similar to worlds before, Satoshi had come down with Level 5 of Hinamizawa Syndrome and was kept in the Irie Institution. However, in the world of Outbreak, after Hinamizawa was quarantined, Irie along with the soldiers working in the institution, came down with the virus they were working on and against and it's implied they all ended up killing each other except for Irie, who Ate His Gun in front of Rika. With the one person who was working on saving his life and bringing him home to his little sister gone, Satoshi's pretty much dead.
• The door scene with Keiichi and Rena. While mostly scary due to it's intensity. It becomes sad when you find out what really happened. Keiichi was suffering from the Hinamazawa syndrome and acting out of fear induced paranoia, that Rena might come in and kill him. Rena's joke about stalking him didn't help and she got her fingers nearly broken by him slamming the door on them. She tried to tell him it was a joke and she was sorry, but he was too far gone to believe her. Even before people found out the truth you can still hear her hurt cries while in Keiichi's perspective.
• Just as Onikakushi-hen is way more sad from Rena's (and a bit Mion's) perspective after knowing the twist, so is Watanagashi-hen and especially Meakashi-hen (which tells the same events actually) from Mion's. All the terrible things that happened were not her fault, but everyone, including Keiichi, believe Mion to be the culprit, and she is forced to watch/listen as her sister prepares to torture and kill Keiichi.
  • Worse, Mion becomes so mentally broken that she believes it IS all her fault. She already had a massive guilt complex about failing to help Shion and Satoshi when she had the chance, and all of this just makes it that much worse.]]
• The Saikai episode adds a whole other level of sorrow for the survivors. While Rika has the ability to transfer her consciousness when dead, other people are not able to traverse the timelines so easily. So survivors of all those horrible incidents have to remain stuck in their awful timelines with loved ones dead, which was the case for Rena who had no idea why Rika was so willing to die. Rena had to live until adulthood in utter despair at her friends dying and the guilt of going insane eating away at her.
• Thanks to their medium, the visual novels add an extra level of tragic and terror in several instances, because in the editions without voice acting, the lines are colour-coded so the reader can tell who is speaking (although the PC patched version keeps both the voices and the colored text). The narration (in first-person) is usually in white, but for example in Tsumihoroboshi, it starts getting pink after a while to show Rena's Sanity Slippage, and ends up crimson red. The red text is used in earlier chapters to indicate the narrator has gone off the deep end as well.
• Hanyuu's death]] in Miotsukushi-hen is one of the biggest departures from Matsuribayashi-hen's happy ending. Hanyuu envisions the fun times she could have had with the Club while Rika desperately begs her not to leave her alone.

Gou

• The opening theme "I Believe What You Said" is actually about the gradual drifting apart of Rika and Satoko which becomes apparent towards the second half of the season. The lyrics make it clear that the song is being told in Satoko's POV.
  • There's also the ending theme, which is also depressing in its own right. We are treated with visuals showing the gang having a happy time, then gradually shifting to an insight on some the character's less than happy personal lives. The two that are strike out the most are Satoko looking terrified being around her abusive Uncle, and a terrifying image of Keiichi beating his friends to death from the climax of Onikakushi-hen.
    • Then there's the lyrics, which if you pay attention to them, can be interpreted as what it's like for Rika or Satoko being a time looper.
• So you've watched the first episode of Higurashi Gou and it seems like it's gonna be a pretty good remake, right? Cue episode 2. Teenage Rika wakes up back in the realm of kakera with Hanyuu. You know how Hanyuu physically entered the world in Matsuribayashi? Well now she's a spirit and says she's basically fading out. Oh, and Rika has to go back to June 1983 for unknown reasons. And in the previous episode she already had. After struggling so hard for the world where everyone can be happy, who knows where we're heading?
  • In the manga version, the above scene is even more harrowing, as it has been moved to after the end of arc 1... so when Rika is talking to Hanyuu, she's already had to see her friends go insane again, and herself getting killed. The scene has Rika break down weeping as she realizes she's once again going to be forced through her ordeal.]]
  • And it only gets worse from there. Keiichi is forced to kill Rena after she goes crazy and tries to stab him to death. Made worse by the fact that he was convinced to believe in her heart-to-heart with Rika and there was no way either of them could've predicted the way things would turn out.
  • And to top it off, both Rika and Satoko have been found dead afterwards, as revealed by Mion.
  • Higurashi Gou doesn’t even bother to sacrifice Rika in front of the shrine, opting to just kill her and Satoko offscreen with fatal stabs to the neck.
  • Higurashi Gou continues the tradition of killing Satoko a day before or on her birthday.
  • As of episode 7, it would appear that Rika, after failing to prevent the deaths of Rena and presumably Keiichi, has finally allowed despair to consume her. She drops her cute girl facade and informs Keiichi that regardless of whatever choice he made, the world will end for both of them.
• Higurashi Gou episode 9 begins with the introduction of Teppei, Satoko and Satoshi’s abusive uncle, so all of the wonderful moments shared with the group— the dinners shared between Rika, Satoko, and Keiichi, the games they played, the wonderful barbecue they had; the promise Irie, Shion and Keiichi made to always keep Satoko smiling and to never make her cry—are all for naught, as the episode ends with Teppei forcing Satoko back into her family home.]]
• Higurashi Gou Tataridamashi-hen seems to be an entire retelling of the first part of Minagoroshi-hen, with Keiichi rallying everyone together to save Satoko from Teppei. At the festival, people in Hinamizawa greet Satoko warmly and ask about her well-being, and there’s even a cute scene reminiscent of a love confession, where Satoko asks Keiichi if she can call him “Nii-Nii” since he protected her in the same way Satoshi would and she even takes him back to the family home to give Keiichi something that belonged to Satoshi that she didn’t mind her new “Nii-Nii” having. Keiichi, being told to wait in the living room, fumbles with the light switch and is met with multiple hits from Satoshi’s baseball bat to the back of his head, swung with enough force by a released and angered Teppei that Keiichi’s blood covers the ceiling light fixture. Right in front of a horrified Satoko. Satoko is forced to witness her abusive uncle try and kill her “Nii-nii” and even though Keiichi overpowers Teppei and bashes his head in, Satoko is left there, covered in blood, in a room with her dead uncle and her injured friend before scurrying off for help.
  • In a scene almost reminiscent of the ending of Onidamashi-hen, it’s now Fall as evidenced by the fallen autumn leaves and Keiichi is in the hospital, where no one refuses to tell him where Oishi or any of his friends save for Rena, who has been visiting him, are. Rena finally tearfully discloses what happened: After Keiichi was attacked at Satoko’s house, Oishi went into the crowd after Watanagashi, shot and murdered Shion, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. And Rena witnessed it all. The episode and the whole arc ends with Rena tragically lamenting over why this is the result of all their hard work to cross the finish line.
• Nekodamashi-hen starts off with what the audience missed: another POV of Oishii's attack, from Rika. Everyone is celebrating as the festival comes to an end and even wonder where Satoko and Keiichi ran off to. Soon, they see Oishii come up from the Shrine steps and he's dragging Keichii's bat behind him while scratching his neck with a crazed look on his face. Soon, he's pulling his gun on everyone including the kids. Especially Rika, who's dangling from Oishii's hands and is tearfully lamenting why everything must end this way once more, while Oishii's screaming in her face about how Rika, as the head of the Furude clan, worked with the Hinamizawa Great Families to orchestrate the tragedies each year and how she must be exterminated and eventually she breaks out her big girl voice and gives up.
  • Immediately after being killed by Oishii, she's sent back to the sea of kakera only to be told that Hanyuu can no longer be with Rika anymore and has used the last of her strength to provide Rika with as much power as she had and gives her the location of a sword that can end the life of those who endlessly loop like Rika: in Hanyuu's statue in the Shrine shed. To Rika's misfortune, all she finds is a shard and decides to wait five loops before deciding to end her life and essentially, the story permanently.
  • It honestly seems like Nekodamashi-hen is just one big Trauma Conga Line for Rika. Every loop she enters, she gets killed by a loved one who comes down with the illness. Rika manages to get Akasaka to stay in Hinamizawa instead of go with his wife to the hot springs like he did in Minagoroshi-hen, and he kills her. Sonozaki Akane kills her and the entire Sonozaki clan, including Mion, in the next loop. Village Chief Kimiyoshi bounds Rika away and takes her to a boat, just to simply cast her overboard with a heavy stone rock tied to her foot, in the next loop. And in the last loop, Keiichi goes insane with Hinamizawa Syndrome and murders everyone at Angel Mort, including Rena, as Rika watches Rena try to invoke the same pattern before where they were able to talk each other down from the edge, only to be struck so mid-sentence by Keiichi with Satoshi's bat. And as Rika's fingers slip silently to "one", the audience is reminded that after this loop, Rika once again, only has one final chance to beat fate and give herself back that happy ending where she got to grow up once more.]]
• Episode 16 is just one big tearjerker. The infected this time is Satoko, who disembowels Rika and performs her own version of the Watanagashi ritual to appease Oyashiro-sama in atonement for Rika's "sin". And what was this terrible sin Rika committed? Wanting to leave Hinamizawa and study abroad. After a century of repeating the same events over and over again, after repeatedly being violently murdered, watching her friends either go insane, die, or both, Rika finally broke the cycle and was able to move on. And now in this latest loop, the universe has decided to punish her, in the form of her deranged best friend, for daring to want to leave those awful memories behind.
  • That said, it's not hard to feel bad for Satoko in this loop. Consider all that this girl has been through - her parents are dead, her brother is missing, and she's been horribly abused and treated like an outcast for most of her life. It's not hard to imagine that she saw Rika wanting to leave as abandoning her. She even breaks down in tears during the "ritual" and asks why she and the others weren't able to make Rika happy.
• Episode 18: With the events of season 2 resolved, Mion leaves the club after graduating thus leaving Keiichi to pick up the mantle. With the way that Hinamizawa has changed after its tragedies, the only person who appears to have some issues with this is Satoko especially when Rika tells her that she wanted to enroll at St. Lucia ergo leaving the village. All this change could explain why Satoko became the second looper and desired some return to normalcy...even if it meant driving her best friend back to her endless suffering.
• Episode 19:
  • The episode is just one, large Trauma Conga Line for Satoko; she does successfully attend St. Lucia with Rika, but after the opening ceremony, her grades fall, and Rika ends up gradually meeting up with a group of girls who snobbishly speak behind her back. Worse, Satoko is given the option of either attending remedial classes in order to improve, or leaving, no strings attached. Worse, when Rika does notice that her friend was suffering, she offers to assist her in her classwork, but because of her stubborn pride, Satoko declines her offer as well as her invitation to a tea party. With her mental state deteriorating, Satoko comes to resent Rika under the belief that she ruined her life by not honoring the promise the two made.
  • It also shows that despite growing physically, Satoko is still mentally stuck as a child, her obsession with making traps no longer being charming and her Noblewoman's Laugh being criticized by her peers as unbefitting of the academy. While Rika and her friends are maturing, Satoko appears to be the only one staunted.
• Episode 20:
  • In an effort to get Rika to remember the good times in Hinamizawa, Satoko stages a trap involving bowls so she could surprise Rika. Unfortunately, that results in her unwittingly causing one of the girls' foreheads to bleed]], and Satoko is forced to endure solitary confinement until she learned the error of her ways. Even when she and Rika have a reunion with the rest of the game club, it is otherwise bittersweet because it meant that once it was over, Satoko would be back to her hellish life at St. Lucia.
  • When Satoko is sent to solitary confinement, she incorrectly assumes that Rika told the teacher what she had done not knowing that it was one of Rika's Girl Posse. With that, Satoko has a full mental breakdown and cries uncontrollably finally wondering why she said yes those years ago.
• Episode 21:
  • Even after looping back to 1983 and having a heart-filled conversation with Rika, the events play out the same with Satoko pushing Rika aside when she started to get involved with her groupies. It is apparent that Rika never did intend on making the promise empty and rightfully points out that Satoko had denied her assistance due to her assuming she'd do it out of pity. Unfortunately with her mental state worsening, Satoko obviously does not take what she said in consideration and drops the chandelier killing herself and Rika]]. This would lead to the events of the second episode of Gou.
  • Speaking of which all of the girls who saw Satoko drop the chandelier are now traumatized for life. You can't help but feel sorry for the groupies who realized that it was because of them that Satoko killed herself and Rika.
  • In the original timeline, Satoko seemed to have resigned herself to her situation at St. Lucia's and drifting apart from Rika. But when she first loops back to 1983, it's clear how devastating the whole experience really was to her. She almost breaks down immediately when remembering how Rika treated her, and just barely holds herself together by desperately assuring herself it was all just a long, horrible dream and the real Rika would never do anything like that.
• Episode 22:
  • Satoko takes a trip through the different shards and pays a visit to Satoshi to say goodbye to him. For someone who was so attached to her older brother, and likely resented him for "abandoning her" like with Rika, Satoko being so desensitized when meeting with him for the last time just shows how far Satoko sank into the madness.
  • The loops where Satoko tries to force Rika to choose between her (and Hinamizawa to an extent), or the academy. If Rika chose to not make one, Satoko would then kill herself undoubtedly leaving her best friend to be traumatized.
• Episode 23:
  • Surprisingly enough the show somehow makes you feel bad for Teppei of all people. After having nightmares of his multiple deaths in the different loops due to Satoko's looping, he realizes that he was an awful excuse for a human being and caretaker and attempts to reconcile with his niece. However, him offering her a handshake only triggers her trauma. Understandably, Teppei backs off and goes to leave hoping that his next meeting with his niece would be different.
• Episode 24:
  • There is one loop where after her defeat, Takano is forced to kill herself and she succeeded. As a result of recurrent nightmares, she would eventually defect from Tokyo. Her genuine breakdown over the realization that she never had any associates and was used as a hapless pawn is greatly upsetting.
  • Satoko is at first taken aback by her uncle's sudden remorse over his actions, but instead of letting that deter her, she decides to use him as a pawn in her plan.

Sotsu

• Episode 1:
  • Rena is the first victim to be subjected to an injection of L5 of the Hinamizawa Syndrome and falls into insanity.
• Episode 2:
  • Rina's death is also somewhat pitiable. While she at first was leeching off Rena's dad much like in the original anime, this time around, she seems to consider ending things for his daughter's sake. But unfortunately for her, Rena did not stick around to hear that last part.
• Episode 3: After hoping that her attempt at preventing Keiichi from killing Rena would work, Rika is horrified to learn of the savage attack that lead to Keiichi being rendered unconscious and Rena deceased. In despair, Rika grabs a knife from the kitchen and repeatedly stabs herself to end the loop.
• Episode 5: Upon being injected with L5 by a curious Satoko, Mion deludes herself into believing that Shion directed Oyashiro-sama's curse to Keiichi, and strangles her to death. She has a moment of clarity of what she had done, and her wails of anguish at the realization is gut-wrenching.
• Episode 7: For once, one cannot help but feel bad for Teppei due to him legitimately trying to be a better caretaker for Satoko up to and believing her claims of being bullied by the villagers unaware that his niece has him wrapped around her finger, especially due to his horrified reaction to her claims. As much as an cruel, miserable, selfish asshole as he was in the past, this Teppei seemed to truly seems to want to redeem himself and put in the work to do so.
• Episode 10: Satoko fights with her witch self when she first attempts to kill Teppei, even pleading that they should stop all this pain and misery. That they are only hurting someone they love dearly, only for Witch!Satoko to reject her human half.
  • This is made especially tragic, as this can be interpreted as Satoko being betrayed by an amused Eua, and being usurped and dying at the hands of what is implied to be Lambadelta, who is her witch half. For all intents and purposes, the Hojo Satoko we know, the one who just wanted to have her best friend back and prevent their eventual separation and her horrifying high school experience, is dead.]]
  • Throughout the episode, the split between Satoko’s human and witch sides was foreshadowed with red, violent cracks on a black background that appeared every time Satoko and Teppei shared a touching family moment. She was regretting everything and just wanted to live these peaceful days with her friends, who she loved and albeit, lied to, and her uncle who was infamously abusive in other timelines, but has grown absolutely regretful and gentler, wanting nothing more than to atone and protect the dearest treasure to him: his niece, Satoko. You wouldn’t be blamed for crying at his death if you previously cheered for it in earlier arcs.
    • The fact that it's Teppei that's the only thing that seems to get through to Satoko is especially tragic in its own right. The fact that not Satoshi, Rika, or any of Satoko's friends who love her dearly would be enough to get her to realize what she's doing is wrong, it's her finally getting a parental figure that sincerely cares for her that manages to crack through things. Too bad it's far too late to stop things, and the happy life she could have had disappears before Satoko could truly change the path she was on.
  • We finally see Rena's reaction to Ooishi's massacre is- it's far from pretty, the poor girl's scared and confused, begging for anything to make sense as her whole world comes crumbling apart. The real kicker is her utter despair upon seeing Satoko shoot the deceased Rika in the head, leaving her a miserable weeping mess right until Satoko kills herself. It could make anyone want to give her a hug.

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