Review of Higurashi: When They Cry – Kai

Kai is an improvement over the first season, but not by much. The story is much more focused. We aren't switching between multiple, mostly unrelated arcs. The one detour we get provides needed backstory and context for our antagonist and their motivations. That's about it for improvements story-wise; the main cast is still bland and underdeveloped, the SoL moments are uninteresting and out of place at times, and ending was ridiculous. The combination of the main cast's unreasonably powerful combat capabilities and the antagonists incompetence made the last several episodes hard to take seriously. I didn't notice significant differences as far as the animation goes,still not a fan of the art style. The voice acting is solid. None of the music stood out to me, but I thought it was fine.

Can't say I really enjoyed any parts of this season. I spent the first half annoyed with Rika's inaction, and the second half baffled at how awful the antagonists were. A bad experience from start to finish.