Review of Higurashi: When They Cry – Kai
Higurashi is an interesting mystery horror story. It is composed of a first half that raises all questions, and a second half that answers all of said questions. That is, on paper only. Sadly, aside from the concept, absolutely everything falls flat for several reasons. STORY Higurashi is one of those series with childish/innocent vibes while they're actually creepy and mature, like Made in Abyss, Madoka Magika, and many others. But while the other series of this kind make a good job at handling the mix between childish mood and creepy stories, Higurashi absolutely fails at that. I can give a few examples of things where the mood wentwrong:
- Sometimes, a nice scene has a creepy music which doesn't fit the light mood the series clearly wants to set at this point.
- On the contrary, childish stuff happens during creepy moments, which totally breaks the horrific mood. Bad jokes put at bad moments, basically.
- the enemies are ridiculous: they all make evil laughs, and they are even making like "fun bad guys", like Team Rocket in Pokemon.
While I have absolutely nothing about the mix between childish and horror/thriller (I loved Madoka Magika), the mood in Higurashi is all over the place!
That said, some horrific scenes are definitely disturbing. Whenever it involves torture stuff, the show isn't shy and becomes really gruesome. The same for psychological damages inflicted to the characters.
On the other hand, whenever it tries to be fun and childish, it just utterly fails. Most jokes fall flat (either due to bad timing, or bad execution, or sometimes the joke itself is just a bad idea that simply can't be funny however you do it). The Slice of Life part of this show is truly HORRENDOUS.
It's not all bad though. I really loved the concept, and that's actually the one main reason I decided to watch all of this series.
The first season is good at setting mysteries, and the fact that there's barely any explanations forces the viewer into trying to put the pieces together by themselves. It was a really interesting experience. It often changes the point of view (sometimes we follow one character, sometimes we follow another), this was really well done!
The second season also does a fair job at answering the questions the series raise. While it is more linear than the first season, the mystery it unfolds is really interesting.
... That said, it sadly does NOT answer all the questions. I didn't read the VN so maybe it's because it's an anime adaptation, but there was still a lot of unanswered questions even among important things. That's a shame for a mystery story.
ART
The anime is old, so I may be too harsh, but... it's really bad. Sometimes the lip syncing is awful, sometimes the shadows are still whereas the surface they're reflected on moves, sometimes the characters' motions are weird, ... Even for a 2006 show, I felt it was quite bad.
Season 2 felt better to my eyes though. There's less obvious mistakes, and there's a lot of gorgeous images.
SOUND
I often hear the OST is great, but honestly? I only heard one interesting track (the main theme, luckily). The rest is poorly composed. Not all of it is bad, but there's no memorable themes, nothing really stands out.
I do have a weak spot for the psychedelic 1st opening, and the refrain of the second opening. But even those aren't really good music, I just like their vibes.
As for the seiyuus, they're great.
CHARACTER
This is the most interesting point, because that's where we can clearly see what went wrong with this show.
While they have a bunch of interesting characters with interesting stories, most of the cast is useless in the grand scheme of things. As a result, most of their stories don't matter as well, which ultimately makes it feel like most of the show didn't need to happen...
But the main problem of these characters is their binary behaviour. All of these characters can go insane, and that's what makes the show interesting. HOWEVER, whenever a character goes insane, it always happens almost instantly. Like, it goes from "good" to "bad", the shifting is done awfully. There are exceptions, but overall, the character development is way too abrupt, hence it doesn't feel believable.
Sometimes the irrational side of things is justified ; but even then, it should feel more believable than that.
Aside from that, I do like the characters. Satoko and Rika are adorable, Rena and Mion are awesome, but Shion is definitely my favourite.
As for the rest, they didn't grow on me. They often come and go randomly, which makes them more like "guest stars" in the show: sometimes they do something useful, then they disappear for a while until the next time we need them.
Another issue is how stupid the characters can be. Sometimes, bad guys have a gun but don't use it when they clearly could. Sometimes, the characters have completely non-believable behaviours. I already mentionned the evil laughs, but there are many others :
- sometimes, the characters give information when they clearly shouldn't (or on the contrary, DON'T give information when they should).
- sometimes, the make obviously bad decisions, which ultimately leads to a bad situation. For example, at some point, the teacher (who is basically the only adult in the school) decides to LEAVE THE SCHOOL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY without warning anyone. What could go wrong, right? Well, watch the show, you'll know what I mean...
Overall, all these issues can be summed up in one word: DIRECTION. On one hand, the author wanted a childish-like story. On the other hand, it wanted horror. But the author failed to juggle with those two sides of the story, which ultimately results in a stupid show full of stupid characters making stupid decisions.
ENJOYMENT
You guessed it, I really didn't like Higurashi. Worse, I was disappointed. Because the concept is really interesting. Because I did like the characters and their stories.
Honestly, there IS some interesting stuff. But everything just falls flat due to how stupid everything is...
Anywy, Higurashi is definitely not a show I would recommend.