Review of Higurashi: When They Cry – Kai

Its weird for me to do this but since i haven't watched that much anime that came out in this entire year i decided to make a review for an anime that i just finished watching a few weeks ago. But what makes this so weird is that i'm making a review for an anime that came out like 13 years ago but nonetheless this anime still holds out to be timeless (Kind of). So this is my review for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai and this is my first anime review in the past months considering i haven't opened my MAL after thewhole guidelines thing, now you can consider this my entire review in both seasons of the anime.

Story:
Now for those who is reading this, this is the second season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni so if you haven't watched that I totally recommend watching the first one.
A quick explanation on how the story of Higurashi works is that it is separated in arcs, there are two types of arcs The Question Arc and The Answer Arc each of these arcs featured a different MC and Antagonist. Now how this work is that the setting of the story is that its in a time-loop which resets for when everyone dies (And of course everyone dies in this anime like all the time) so each reset would feature a new story arc with a different Question and Answer arcs with of course different scenarios and mysteries to be solved.

Higurashi is quite different from any other Visual Novel Adapted anime, for example is Fate/Stay Night UBW (I'm not gonna use the 2006 since it has combinations of the three routes of the VN) when it comes to UBW they take the best part of the routes and the true ending of the VN. And almost other Romantic VN adapted anime is that they take all the best part of each Route combine them and make a new ending with it. Higurashi isn't like that it takes every part of the VN and shows it to you in a perfect way, It will show you what it wants to show you and in the perfect time

What makes Higurashi incredible is just how the story is built up to create tense and mysterious moments and perfectly gives you the answer, remind you this while i was watching it i had a notebook and pen all the time and i wrote every hint they give me and try to figure out the conclusion before they could give it.

Though the main flaw of this is that it can make you expect something big but sometimes get disappointed at the end but after re-watching it i haven't faced this problem yet considering i haven't watched the OVAs
But nonetheless the Story is written and built up great, if you are the type of person who likes to solve mysteries rather than waiting for it to be told to you this is your cup of tea
i would give it a 9/10 in the story

Art:
Now unto the animation and ooh boy this is really difficult to explain, now when it comes to animation when someone ask me the question "What do you consider a bad animation" my immediate answer is if its not appealing to me at all. But that doesn't mean its a bad anime and in fact Higurashi's Animation is perfect for the theme and story of it let me explain.

What makes Higurashi's animation perfect for it is how it can transition to a happy and fun type of animation to a much more darker and disturbing look to it, and in fact with having not a very good animation fits perfectly as gives off this disturbing look when the scene is disturbing but also when it comes to happy moments it uses those weird animation style to make it more upbeat
my point is that even if the animation of the anime is bad in appearance it doesn't mean its a "Bad Animation" since the animation fits perfectly with tone and story of the anime and Higurashi's animation is really on point with scenes, if its supposed to be disturbing the animation would be disturbing and if its more happy it would be more happy and that's perfect for higurashi's setting
plus in each opening including the first season has one of the gorgeous visuals i've seen.
I give the art a 10/10

Sound:
Incredible is one of the words i could describe the OST having a very melancholy theme to it fits perfectly and its just like with the animation It can be a very dark tone to its OST and it can a more upbeat theme to it. I also like to point out the openings, this are one of the masterpiece of anime music of all of time having the sad tone to it but also giving a faint disturbance in each of the OP is truly fitting for the anime with its amazing visuals

The Sound gets a score of 10/10

Characters:
This is one of the interesting parts of this anime other than the story, Higurashi has very big cast character with arranging from different age and personality but what separates them from each other is each one of them have their own mental issue and dark past. It really tells you much on their personality on each arc that some of them can easily breakdown from their usual selves and with the eerie and disturbing setting and a large of mentally unstable characters and you get a perfect combination of Thriller, Psychological, Mystery, and Supernatural Story. And thing about this is that each character a quite relatable and understandable from each of their action and choices. The Characters of Higurashi are quite likable and easy to be attached to and this is perfect especially since you can consider this a good horror anime, when it comes to horror you mostly need to have the characters to be relatable to the viewers as it gives it more tension for every dark scene and Higurashi does not fail at that as most characters in this anime is i never saw quite bland and lacking any personality.

I give this a score of 9/10

Enjoyment:
My expectations of this anime was really turned around at first impression i had mix look unto this with its disturbing and very graphical moments into it but past that it is quite fun to trying to figure out the mystery before the anime tells you the answer. And i may say this really weird but i wish it had more gore in it just to be more darker to it but overall i enjoyed this anime its really the type of show that will make your head spin with the twist and turns and every Answer Arc is always satisfying to watch as it connects all the dots in the mystery and gives you a good conclusion (Though don't expect everyone to be alive).

Enjoyment of this anime is a 9/10

Overall:
This anime is truly the closes thing we can get of a good horror anime as its really difficult for anime to make a good horror since it needs to be very realistic and since its animated you don't really care for them cause they're aren't real (Yup Anime isn't real) but this anime captures of what to do when tense moments come, it has a very good mystery that will keep your head spinning.
I highly recommend this anime however if you are the type of person that can't handle disturbing and graphical violence that much i do not recommend watching this, but if you can bypass those things then this anime will not disappoint you to an extent.