Higurashi Sotsu - Anime Episode Discussion Thread (All Higurashi spoilers OK)
 

Welcome to the discussion thread for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu.

Please note this series is the direct continuation of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou, which was broadcasted on October 2020 until March 2021.
As such, it is expected that the plot will immediately resume from where the previous season stopped without any "catch up".
Additionally, considering the information disclosed in the previous season, this series will most likely expose critical information that are considered spoilers in regards to the older series (Higurashi, Kai, Rei and so forth). Because of this, spoilers regarding the previous series are allowed in this thread.

For those who have missed the news, the first two episodes of Higurashi Sotsu will be broadcasted back to back on Tokyo MX at 23:30 JST today.

Okay, Satoko actually injected Rena and Reina just went to do L5 Rena things.

NEW OP&ED are great. OP, especially, has many interesting scenes....AND....did I just see the Witches' battle?

As expected, the "answer" arc to Onidamashi is super boring since we already know everything. I mean, it's fun seeing Rena be crazy, but I'd like the actual plot to move forward.

The OP implies Satoko will eventually be saved by Rika. I really don't think she deserves it after all the shit she pulled. Her "don't worry, Rena-san, I'll make sure you're happy in my perfect world" pissed me off given that Rena already seemed perfectly happy post-Matsuribayashi.

Well the new OP/ED combo was alright. Nothing great, but nothing horrible either. Feels like a set I'm going to just skip over going forward.

I'd be shocked at Satoko leaving evidence of her actions in the same room as the victim. But...clearly no one is going to notice.

The episode is basically as simple as Satoko injecting Rena and then things happen. I suppose it's nice for those people that did jump in with the sequel to see how Rena could go off the rails when pushed hard enough. But even then it's not like it really is on Rena. She was drugged with something designed to drive a person into absolute madness. We get a little bit like Rina somewhat changing due to the loops (although frankly not very much). Enough to make her an easier victim that just walks into doom.

Honestly, it is just kind of ok. We're getting details that we could only have guessed at. That Rina was murdered by Rena is predictable once we see her getting injected. That she starts seeing Keiichi as a threat much faster than he sees her as one makes sense too. But we're just kind of going through the motions there. The inevitable reveals of Rena or maybe Satoko killing Rika before then preparing to kill Keiichi and then getting killed in turn. Then we'll move on to Mion getting clearly injected by Satoko, probably killing Shion, Rika, etc.

It just feels like the story has been parked for a long time. The gap between seasons is likely part of it. But ever since Rika figured out that Satoko was involved in all this...the story stopped and we've been in flashback mode.

That's the most annoying part. The story never progresses. We were given the answer to 90% of the mysteries shown in Gou, so going over the previous arcs in detail to answer them is just tedious.

Fully agree with you guys. While it's always fun to see Rena go mental, and while it's fun to see the reasons for her to go mental in this particular arc, overall it adds nothing to the plot and it's just a way of padding the runtime until we get to what everyone really wants: the resolution of the Rika x Satoko conflict that's been hanging ever since the second to last arc of Gou.

As you folks mentioned already: we know what's going to happen anyway.

And I can't even say this second episode was anything to write home about. Much as I love Nakahara Mai, some of the scenes in this episode felt really off character for her Rena voice. The scene where Rena was chasing Rina in particular stands out. Rena's laughing just felt weird, not so much a person going insane as an actor trying to give off the impression of such a person. I'm hesitant to draw conclusions but it almost feels like the actress in the booth didn't have a good reference to play off of, or the director failed in conveying what he wanted. It's not the first time I've felt the voice directing as a weak point in this show, but it might have been the first time it truly bothered me. But maybe I'm just being overly critical.

Well I for one felt those episodes were pretty good. Excellent even. It was a wise decision to air the first two episodes back to back though, because I would have probably felt a little differently if only episode 1 aired. Also the art and animation looked better than anything in Gou, tbh.

Kinda curious how they'll finish the rest of the arc in one episode, but we'll see.

I love Mai Nakahara, but I felt she sounded off quite a few times too.

The hope here is that these "answers" will have some unexpected development. For example it's not all too clear what happened with Mion and we don't really know the interaction they had before their "final" moments.

In these episodes the only real new info we got is that Rena killed Rina (People speculated that based on the idea that this was Tsumihoroboshi, but then we learned that it's not really the case as Rena reached L5 artificially).

And we also got further confirmation that there's a real epidemic of sudden moral realization. Everyone who was the absolute worst kind of person suddenly changes for the better, with no exclusion (safe maybe for Okonogi, but I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up rehabilitating himself as well).

In exchange as if absorbing on herself every evil in the world, Satoko became a true villain.

Anyway I hope to see something unexpected on the next episode, it's the part that raised most questions when Gou was airing.

But still everything would feel a lot less tedious if we hadn't seen the same story being narrated several times already from the old anime (and for some people from the novel as well).

Will these unexpected development even matter though? I'm personally expecting that nothing interesting will happen until we get to the third arc.

episode 1:

wondering if most of this season would be showing how evil Satoko f*cked up everyone with injection?

Personally I'm of the opinion that Nakahara Mai knocked this out of the park, and these two episodes again showed how no one in the biz cycles and delivers between incredibly cute and abjectly terrifying quite like her.

Right now I'm more concerned at how they will make any redemption for our resident time traveling yandere loli believablr and acceptablr considering how she has just proven that she's not above fucking up the lives of the rest of her friends just to prove a point to Rika.

episode 2:

this is sad, there's no need to kill Rina. She was already planing to stay away from Rena's dad.

Since I didn't see the thread when I made my comment/it wasn't there yet:

Preview Images for Episode 3 (Oniakashi-hen Finale):
https://higurashianime.com/story/006_003.html

The last preview image is probably something serious, but out of context looks really funny.

Each time Satoko smiles, a puppy died in Hinamizawa.

My guess is that the pieces (Rena, Mion, Shion and Keiichi) will start going rogue on both Rika and Satoko, killing both of them to the point where Satoko may be forced to bring back Takano to fix the paradox loop.

The OP does imply that with that shot of them with their eyes hidden. If looping again and again can make people better persons, can't the opposite be true? Being injected so many times and committing all those horrible acts might make them go crazy for good. Of course, I expect there'll be a solution to save them if that's the case.

That might be the only way to make this seemingly pointless series of flashbacks more tolerable. Not that it completely takes away from that empty feeling. But it would make for a twisted kind of amusing turn of events.

I'd wonder how that wasn't an issue in the original series. Or how Tomitake having been drugged consistently throughout Takano's reign didn't drive him nuts regularly. But best not to. Since I'd then have to wonder why Tomitake killed himself within hours of getting injected while Rena is going days without doing so. But maybe the vials have a spectrum of levels they can trigger and I just didn't pay attention.

It would be fairly appropriate punishment for Satoko to have things spiral out of control due to overusing those drugs. But of course this girl cares nothing for her own life and might not see it as a huge problem. So long as she can break Rika then she can spend a few hundred loops trying to ease down her "friends" and continue aiming for her utopia.