[Sushi-Y]

Originally Posted by lommm

what is this poll exactly? and why is Rena all the way down at 5?? I expected her to be 1 or 2... is she unpopular?

It's just as I said, a popularity vote: official/non-official votes that take place for a certain periods of time that allow people to vote for their favorite characters over the internet.

That particular vote was the 4th official Higurashi popularity vote held on the game's official site (07th Storming Party), and took place between March 28th - April 8th 2006.

Rena used to be on top, back during the 1st popularity vote. But by the time Tatarigoroshi-hen came out, the spotlight has shifted to Mion, Keiichi and Satoko. By the time Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi-hen came out, Keiichi and Mion was pushed up to become the top two (to be fair, since Tsumihoroboshi-hen is Rena's story, she did manage to climb up from 4th in the 2nd pop. vote to 3rd in the 3rd pop. vote). In Minagoroshi-hen, everyone pretty much got an important role (especially Keiichi). In comparison, Rena sort of fell back to being a support character again, and so it was reflected in the 4th popularity vote.

Originally Posted by lommm

anyhow, i had an actual question:
do the character designs vary much from the games to the manga to the anime?
or did they make it a point of keeping the designs constant?
(i guess i'm thinking in terms of other game to anime series where the characters looked quite different)

The design itself didn't change, but the art style is greatly different between the 3 media. Those character portraits you see in the popularity vote page are the official character arts used in the game.

Originally Posted by lommm

ALSO, more importantly:

Can someone post the titles of all the chapters with the RED part of the word displayed?... as in the series title "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" or the chapter title "Tatarigoroshi-hen"
They do put a part of each chapter title in red, too... right? i'm not just making that up, am i?
is this relevant?

No, the chapter titles do not have reds in them.

Originally Posted by [ ]

I know I read this somewhere.. or maybe it was pointed out in the fansubs at some point in time.. but what are the flowers that are falling in the intro? I know they exists but I just can't think of their name...

Any input would be GREAT!
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Some say they are pomegranates flowers, but it's not certain. I think the important thing is that they're falling. Falling flowers usually represent death (as is candle fires dying out).

Originally Posted by laxxy

I wonder, what would be a good source to buy these outside of Japan (e.g. in the US)? Would anyone care to provide links?
I can't find any on cdjapan or amazon.co.jp, or perhaps I am not looking in the right place.

Also, do these require Japanese Windows?

Himeya has them. They may be a little expensive compared to others, but I haven't had any problems with them.

Palet Mail has them for cheaper, but their order process is a little more complicated.

You don't need the JP version of windows, but you do need to have Japanese language support (downloadable from microsoft's site). You may also need to set your system language/region settings to Japanese.