Quote:
Originally Posted by Natsurin
Even if we were going off the basis of "no sin cannot be forgiven" as Higurashi's recurrent theme, the final interaction between Rika and Satoko feels bittersweet at best, I'm not too sure there's much forgiveness to be felt in a goodbye that's basically akin to "I'm staying away from you for a bit otherwise we're going to kill each other again".
Going by Ryukishi's interview, I do get what he was trying to get at, but the execution was poorly handled at best, outright terrible at worst. Saikoroshi-hen had a much better approach at ending the anime with a happy ending that still had a morale to add to the story previously.
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Adding to your point, whilst I can sorta see how people can find the final message that "all sins can be forgiven" a good one the big flaw I see was it missed a key detail. Forgiveness can be given yes, but an important part of this process involves the part of redemption. A person who commits a crime must redeem themselves in some manner either through punishment, remorse or good deeds to counter the bad acts they made. Only once a form of redemption has been made can one be forgiven. Forgiveness has to be earned in some measure. Satoko never redeemed herself in any satisfactory manner.
If the author had highlighted and put a redemption arc of sorts then the message he wished to convey would have been way more powerful. As it is, Satoko never really apologised for her sins and this made the ending message seem hollow even fake. Or at least it felt hollow for me.