Hello everyone,
Let's go ahead to talk and review one of the series I literally devoured in less than two days (even if it's 52 episodes + OVA) due the suspense that the story was creating.
The series is called "Higurashi no naku koro ni" and is based on a game by "07 Expansion" and got a 2-season + OVA anime adaptation.
Let's start with a synopsis :
On one hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi comes to a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There, he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the "club," Keiichi and the gang plays all sorts of activities ranging from card and board games to hide-and-seek. But just as Keiichi was beginning to be assimilated in simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa. As Keiichi dives deeper into the mystery, he finds that his new found friends may not be all what they claim to be.
Yeah, from this synopsis looks almost like Keiichi is the main character. Well forget it, all the student in that school are the main character depending on the arc you're encountering (it's divided into multi-episodes arc).
If we really want to designate the real main character it should be Rika Furude as she is the one who set the things in motion and make the changes to the timeline.
The story by itself is quite interesting and focus itself as a detective story as our characters strive to search the reason of the fall of Hinamizawa and try to prevent it while trapped in a time loop in the summer of 1983.
The story for sure will keep you on your chair, there are some gruesome scenes, but nothing exceptional (there is a lot of more gore in other works).
The main characters are seven (even if in the first season you'll only see six of them) and each one of them have a rather complex backstory that is perfectly explained in detail from the anime (and the game).
You'll be liking and hating each one of them as you see in different arcs take the role of the evil or madman due the sickness that affect that village, but in the end you'll be overjoyed when the mistery is solved and everyone's happy.
My favourite character is Rika Furude due to her cuteness and her famous antic "ni pah!", but pretty much all of the girls are pretty likable and you'll find to encourage one or another depending on the arc.
The visual quality isn't the best of the time and has some screw up here and there, but it is still enough enjoyable to keep watching. The animation is mostly consistent, but there are some minor problems.
The seiyuu quality is pretty much top notch even thought most of them are not the most famous around here, I liked mostly the Furude Rika voice (Yukari Tamura) and the Sonozaki Twins voice (Satsuki Yukino).
The songs are wonderful, this series is what initiated me to the Eiko Shimamiya cult. Her songs are fantastic, the one I most love is "Naraku no hana" that is the opening of the second season.
Concluding this is an anime that I can suggest to anyone that is already introduced to this world (this is for how people can bash it, one of the masterpieces of the last years), but not to who is going to start anime right now as the gore scene may prove too much for many of you.
See you soon,
feal87