#most dramatic voice lines in the game and they’re for Mahjong

[that1nkyone]

Alphinaud:

Good gods… 😥😥did we invite this outcome with our hubris…?🥺🥺

WoL:

WoL: … do you want to play Triple Triad instead

[mesaprotector]

I finally finished the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni VN today after three-plus months of inching through it!

I'd already watched the 2006 anime (as well as every OVA I could find - yes, including Kira). I've also been intermittently watching the new anime, Gou, but with close to no knowledge of Umineko or any other related series.

My thoughts under the cut.

In short, the VN was absolutely worth playing even having seen the anime. While I still do love it, the shorter time it has to spend on comfy slice-of-life scenes and character backstories mean it does suffer a little bit, in particular:

Keiichi is so much better in the VN. In the anime he had his moments, but I almost felt like he was mostly there to make the cast into a pseudo-harem. In the VN, he's just great, right up there with all of the other kids (well, except Rena, but more on that later).

Meakashi was already my favorite arc in the anime, but in the VN the tragedy hits so much harder, especially with Shion's final line, "I wish I hadn't been born".

The Keichii/Rena fight in Tsumihoroboshi felt weirdly offputting in the anime, and I felt the VN did a much better job of slowly shifting from the dark mood of most of the arc to its almost-happy ending as Rena relearns how much she loves having fun with her club.

Irie's behavior is pretty concerning in the anime, but in the VN he feels a lot more like a genuine good person who just jokes around a bit too much.

I remember already feeling that Miyo was a kinda compelling villain, but the part in the VN where she just grabs all of her pain and hurt and channels it into an incredible drive to excel and succeed (Matsuribayashi, Chapter 4) is freaking amazing, and thanks to that I'm always going to associate its BGM with Miyo, even though it's also played when Akasaka rescues Rika.

There were a few pretty small things I felt the anime improved on:

The anime-original "Reunion" episode and the Yakusamashi-hen arc were really good, and in particular the latter has my favorite Ooishi scene when he just freaks out in frustration over how powerless he was to stop the disaster. I really like Detective Delicious in general, but that one scene, even more so than any of Rika's, was really the moment I felt most "God, please help these kids".

Some of the perviness is slightly toned down in the anime, or rather, confined to the fanservice OVAs. (The exception is Irie, as mentioned above.) I did start to tolerate the story's humor a little better as time went on, but it's still a little much on occasion. 

The VN getting more in-depth was generally good, but there were certain parts where I felt it could have been condensed. Like, instead of cutting repeatedly to Akasaka during Matsuribayashi, just have him show up and rescue Rika (it's set up well enough with the fragments mini-game).

Speaking of the pacing, I initially played the Steam version but at a friend's recommendation installed the "07th Mod" with full voice acting and updated graphics for Himatsubushi and Meakashi. But I switched back to unmodded afterwards, since while the voice actors do a really good job, it slows the story even more, which is generally fine during dramatic scenes but causes the comedic ones to be something of an ordeal (the mahjong chapter of Himatsubushi, not least since I have no freaking clue how to play, was slightly torture).

I also feel that having voice acting changes the atmosphere to something much closer to that of an anime. If you're planning on only playing the VN, I'd recommend doing it all with the VAs, but as I'd already heard Rika say "Nipah" about a million times I was looking for a bit of a different experience.

===Some Thoughts on the Whole Story===

Higurashi's overarching message - that all that's needed for a happy ending is for everyone to come together - is something I often disagree with, and a lot of my other favorite stories take almost the opposite perspective. One anime whose ending I absolutely adore has the main character go off by herself and talk the main villain into a puddle of tears, winning the "final battle" of the entire series thanks to character development gained mostly from introspection.

But in Higurashi, for all that, it really, really works. Ryuikishi07 absolutely goes the extra mile, and as idealistic as it often feels, you can't help but come out of the story feeling that just about everyone deserves more trust, compassion, and understanding. One of my favorite quotations, from a book I read in middle school about a rabbit, is "things only seem impossible before they happen". Maybe it feels like two people, or a village, or a nation couldn't possibly meet in the middle, but they actually can, and they can accomplish things nobody would dream of with their shared will.

(I guess you could nitpick and ask "hey, when does Teppei show up to help defeat the Yamainu"? - lol - but I think the story does a really good job nevertheless.)

One other thing I just have to praise Higurashi for is that it actually resolves nearly all of its mysteries with a minimum of hand-waving, which is pretty uncommon for a mystery story, and I know that at least when I first watched the anime I was sure it would kind of invent an ending out of nowhere. There are magical elements, but they're pretty well set-up, and the one "miracle" that occurs feels very natural.

Rena is still my favorite character, even though Tsumihoroboshi was middling as an arc (meaning still amazing). When she’s sane, she’s the best friend anyone could ever have - Mion and Keiichi try, but their specific flaws mean that they’re dumbasses sometimes when they just want to help. It takes a lot of skill to write a believable, super emotionally intelligent character, which is what Rena is. That - and the scene where she hides in her happy place in the car during the rain was atmospheric as all heck. Being all by myself somewhere out on a rainy night is my comfort and my healing. Fortunately my own problems are more manageable than what she had to deal with in Ibaraki.

Overall: 9.5/10, whatever you might imagine that number means to me. The anime gets one point less, but it's still really good.