#Yoigoshi-hen

[dawn-in-the--adan]

higurashi no naku koro ni: yoigoshi-hen (beyond midnight arc) vol. 1 - 2

[rougeprunea]

[connan-l]

Long Rant incoming, but I finished playing Yoigoshi from the Higurashi console arc and god, it really reminded me of how much I hate how it handles Yae Towada's character.

I like Yoigoshi in general, I even think it's one of the best Higu side-arcs, but man the entire abuse narrative has such an insensitive and gross undertone and framing.

There’s always been criticisms about how Ryukishi handles abuse, especially in Umineko, and generally I'm more lenient than most on the topic because I think that Ryu still manages to portray it in a very nuanced complex way, but damn Yoigoshi is the only instance where I’m really like "hey fuck this." The story is just so insistent to tell you it was Bad that Yae killed her abuser that it ends up feeling like insidious victim-blaming.

I have no problem with humanizing abusers or portraying abusive relationships as complicated. I think it's even important, because that’s often how it is in real life. But there's a difference between giving depth to an abuser, and putting the abuser's feelings over those of the victim and then downplaying and shifting the blame of the abuse, and Yoigoshi 100% fall in the latter. I think what pisses me off the most is especially... the implication that Somehow her boyfriend was about to get better; that if she'd just waited long enough instead of taking matters into her hands then he would have stopped abusing her and their relationship would have turned out for the best. Even though there is zero evidence that he would have stopped hitting her, and that we know how these stories turn out in real life, with the girlfriend dead. But here we're supposed to believe that she's in the wrong for killing him, and so the story put the blame on her for not… loving and trusting the guy who put her in the hospital enough somehow??

And like, okay, obviously it's awful she ended up having to kill him, and usually I always respect and appreciate Ryu's insistence that violence only breeds further violence and is never a good answer to problems, but here the general vibe feel so much like a "well okay it sucks he was abusing her, but murder is still worse" and highlighting the fact she "made a 'mistake' instead of properly trusting him," which comes across as just so unsympathetic towards her situation and how she was still the primary victim in all this. Honestly fuck the boyfriend, he had it coming

The other thing that bothers is the other characters' reactions too. Like okay Journalist Dude is an asshole so him victim-blaming makes sense, but none of the others actually defend her? Everyone agrees she’s 100% in the wrong?? The most sympathetic is probably Otobe, but even then he’s pretty mild. I genuinely feel it's insulting that Mion, who has a personal experience with abuse victims via Satoko, doesn't try to defend Yae at all, even saying Journalist Dude has a point, like what.

The console arc actually makes it worse tbh because we're stuck in Journalist Dude’s head who is just The Worst + Miyuki having this horrible speech at Towada and victim-blaming her even more, wtf?? (which, okay,  she's a cop to be fair so that does feel in line with what cops do orz, but that still feel so wrong because Miyuki within the story is portrayed as a pragmatic, intelligent person, like she’s a voice of reason, and no one call her out on her bullshit speech either, so that just frames it as if she’s Objectively Right about this when. She’s just not!!)

And then Yae’s sidelined after the reveal, play no role in the final confrontation when even Journalist Dude get to play hero and just show back up at the end so that we know she'll "pay for her crimes" and go to prison.... urgh, I hate everything about it. The only way I’m staying sane with this ending is by headcanoning Shion afterwards being all "nah that’s bullshit" and busting Yae out of prison thanks to her Sonozaki connections so that she can live free without having to throw away years of her life because of her abuser.

To continue on this, suddenly it hit me how Yoigoshi actually feels pretty similar to Tatarigoroshi regarding their narratives about abuse; however the difference is that to me Tatari manages to works in what it’s trying to say, or at least that it manages to say it in a more sensitive and compassionate manner, whereas Yoigoshi fails badly at it.

The two arcs have that same premise of having a victim stuck in an apparently inescapable abusive relationship, and the solution the characters comes up with is to remedy to it via violence in killing the abusers. Doing so result in the situation becoming worse and making them lose what they wanted the most. The message put forth that in the end violence only ever creates more violence and problems, and that no matter how horrible the situation is there are always (peaceful) alternatives to be found.

Ryukishi always had a general emphasis in all of his stories that violence only breed more violence and for a push to find other alternatives solutions instead (with a few exceptions and muddy framing here and there), and this is something I usually like. Tatarigoshi/Minagaroshi are specific narratives that function really well when it comes to this, and manages to do so while being (mostly) respectful to the abusive circumstances and the victim it portrays. The reason why I believe that Tatari/Mina is able to work compared to Yoigoshi comes down to two central differences:

First, there’s the fact that in Tatari the one killing the abuser is not the victim of the abuse (Satoko), but an outsider (Keiichi). Tatari’s second part really highlight the fact Keiichi becomes increasingly self-righteous in thinking he’s the only one who truly cares about Satoko and that he can solves the problem by himself; he doesn’t consult his friends or any adults properly (not about the murder), and more importantly he certainly doesn’t consult the primary concerned, Satoko --- something the narrative reproach him, and in the end 'punish' him for in how he completely wreck his relationship with Satoko and ultimately even fail to protect her at all, when that was the goal in the first place.

In Yoigoshi, the killer, Yae, IS the abuse victim. Unlike Tatarigoroshi, she’s the one with the agency deciding to carry out the murder because she feels she has no other ways of escaping. Neither of these are ‘better’ than the other per se, but that’s an important distinction, because Tatari puts into perspective the thing Keiichi’s murder really does in the end is denying Satoko’s input and agency as the victim and dismissing her own feelings on the circumstances; something a lot of people tends to do in these situations, thinking they already have the whole thing figured out without actually listening properly to what the primary concerned feels and what they want to do.

The second point is the entirety of Minagoroshi. Tatari has the benefit of proposing an actual alternative on the murder, and by doing so emphasis it has to be done with 1. the help of a community; even with the system failing Satoko badly, the story says there’s still hope in relying and working with people he trusts. 2. It finally let Satoko have agency and highlight her feelings as the victim; SATOKO is the one who has to makes the final decision to leave her abuser, to tell the social services that she’s abused. No one can makes that for her, and this is what saves her. In the end, the others can offers her help, but SHE’S the one who has to save herself.

But Yae, on the other hand? Yoigoshi doesn’t have a ‘Minagoroshi’; the only alternative Yae is offered is that she should’ve... just trust that her abuser was going to be ‘better’ now, because he said so and found a job he hasn’t even started yet. That she should just believe he was going to stop hitting her; despite the fact even in the brief scenes we're shown with them together before his death he's still seen as having to actively force himself to not be violent with her. No community or support is offered to her; she vaguely mentions having friends from college but she never seems to be in contact with them, we're told nothing about her family, or about having any kind of support network who could help her, really; we’re told she thought about leaving, but the story never really explore that more that it. Yae’s only alternative to murder is just... to blindly hope that her boyfriend was truly going to 'change.' (I suppose you *can* make an argument the story say it was just the murder that was bad and that she could’ve left him afterwards, but it’s never hinted at anywhere, be it in them manga or the VN). And there's nothing offered of the sort a the end of the story once she committed the murder either, except for her going to prison.

Tatarigoroshi/Minagaroshi and Satoko’s original arc are very important to me and ones of my favorite aspects of Higurashi.

I’ve seen criticisms of it because of how passive Satoko seems to be in them, only being there to be ‘saved’ --- hell, even Ryukishi himself said last year GouSotsu had kind of been written because he wanted to give her more spotlight because she felt too much like a ‘damsel in distress.’ There are some ideas and premises about GouSotsu I do enjoy and respect, and Satoko never having a proper spotlight in the original Higurashi is a fair criticism, but calling her a ‘damsel in distress’ actually annoys me, because as I’ve said here, she was anything but; she’s an abuse victim whose story is entirely about how her agency should be prioritized and how in the end she’s the one who saved herself, and I’ll always cherish how much Higurashi consistently make a point  in saying and showing that she is genuinely a very strong and brave person.

And Tatarigoroshi/Minagoroshi is able to do all this all while acknowledging that yes, generally, murder and violence are wrong, but even in Tatarigoroshi the narrative never entirely blame Keiichi for coming to this solution --- and that's pretty clear in how it treats Satoshi too, whose situation was pretty much the same as Yae’s, and who is offered a lot more compassion and understanding on the matter, here too emphasizing that even if he did murder his aunt it was only because he was a child everyone around him failed and that he felt he had no other options.

Yae Towada’s story /should/ have been more like this, because in the end what she did was very similar to what Satoko did. She saved herself, the only difference being that there was no community to help her out like Satoko had, and so she had no other choice but to resort to violence.

The story does makes a point in saying she’s determined and, in some way, a strong person, but it seems to be mostly there as a weak attempt to parallel Rena, and the attention focus more on the fact that she made a ‘mistake’ that she has to pay for at the end. What Yae was led to do is definitely a sad thing, but one that was done out of desperation; and as it is, the framing only makes it seems like the narrative’s punishing her for this, when just like Satoshi it certainly should not be something she should be blamed for.

[dancers-7]

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Yoigoshi Hen by Mimori and Ryukishi07

[hilts-blog]

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Yoigoshi-Hen(Beyond Midnight Arc)

[villapaitapeli]

Finished reading Yoigoshi-hen and I'm too tired to make a coherent post of it so here are some notes I made along the way. Negative stuff is mostly just nitpicks and I liked the arc overall 👍

The addition of Miyuki, changing the mc and differing ends make the reading experience worthwhile even if you've read the manga

Arakawa works as a MC surprisingly well, they toned down his comic relief -ness and fleshed his character but he still feels like the same failguy from the manga

My boy Akira however was kinda done dirty and ends up being kind of annoying and pathetic and not even in a funny way. The voice they picked for him also doesn't help, he sounds kinda dweeby and not sadboy enough

The arc is based on a weird fragment, which is apparently Tsumihoroboshi gone wrong + Tatarigoroshi, since K1 (and Shion for some reason??) thinks he can curse people.

The above is probably because they wanted to make it Really Clear that it was Arakawa's dad interviewing K1 in Tatarigoroshi epilogue, which is just unnecessary imo. They could've just mentioned that Arakawa's dad interviewed the survivors (just not K1 this time because he's dead) and drowned later and readers would've connected the dots (and also realized that K1's "curse" is just a coincidence)

Milfon hot

Was this supposed to be read before answer arcs? If so it's a poor choice since there are so many supernatural elements that can muddy the waters. Many of the console arcs suffer from this, spoiling the mysteries and twists of the original in the content that's supposed to be read along the original arcs

[07th-info]

Mangaka of “Yoigoshi-hen”, Mimori (Marimoto), illustrates Mion Sonozaki!

[sean-gaffney]

What the Heck Was With That Last TIP in Yoigoshi-hen?

I recently finished playing the DS-exclusive Yoigoshi-hen arc for Higurashi, which you can now do provided you've bought the game on Steam and go here.  I highly recommend playing the game, even if you've read the manga.  It's a fantastic arc, develops Ryukishi07's themes (it feels like the first non-canon arc he actually had a hand in writing, if only in part), and is a gift for fans of Mion, showing her being a badass, saving the day, and pu8lling off multiple impossible things.

(Spoilers for Yoigoshi-hen's VN route follow)

For those who have read the manga, there's an extra character inserted into the plot.  Arakawa, the annoying reporter guy (he's less annoying in the VN as he's the "reader" character, but he still grates a lot of the time) is traveling to Hinamizawa with a fellow reporter, Miyuki.  She's cute, but quickly we realize she's a bit suspicious.  As it turns out, she's an undercover cop who specializes in yakuza, and is trying to stop the war the Sonozakis are having.  She's also, as we find out right at the end, Akasaka's daughter Miyuki, all grown up.

After the credits roll there's one last tip called 'Unruly Girl'.  Most of it is Akasaka chiding his daughter for taking risks, as well as establishing they're from a family of police.  At one point, Miyuki's recklessness reminds Akasaka of Yukie, and he says that she reminds him of his dead wife, mentioning her grave.  (Wouldn't she have a shrine instead?)

What happens next is very weird.  Miyuki notes that Yukie is, in fact, not dead.  Which stuns Akasaka.  She then gives him these pills he apparently needs to take, which Yukie told her to give to Akasaka because he tends to forget.  And now, crying, he recalls that Yukie is, in fact, alive.

What the fuck just happened here?  First of all, it's worth looking at the world Yoigoshi takes place in.  It's meant to be "read", in the VN, after Tsumihoroboshi.  After this there are only four arcs left:  Minagoroshi (Yukie is alive), Matsuribayashi (ditto), and the two arcs tied together that are DS/PS2, Tokihogishi and Miotsukushi (ditto).  

Yoigoshi takes place in a "failed" Tsumihoroshi, where the school blew up.  Rena, Mion, Satoko, Rika, and the other kids all died.  K1 (possibly as he was on the edge of the roof) initially survived, but died a few days later.  Shion wasn't at the school, so survived, but was hospitalized for a while due to shock.  The family decided to pretend Mion survived and kill off Shion, which must have come as a surprise to Arakawa, who has read news articles saying that Mion died in the explosion.  But I'm picking nits.

Mion, as we see at the end of this episode, did not pass on like the others did (which we literally see them all do in Minagoroshi), but stayed with her sister, becoming a calming presence and sometimes appearing in dreams.  She's the one who got Shion to go to Hinamizawa, and when her life was in danger, she possessed her sister for the majority of the arc.  In the manga she pretty much does everything herself, but in the VN she is aided by Miyuki, who is a crack shot, and it can be argued that there might have been a bad end without Miyuki there.

I've talked before about how it's easy to go from Higurashi to Umineko but hard to go the other direction.  Those who have read Umineko find it very hard to shrug off all the "it really is fantasy" aspects of Higurashi:  Hanyuu, the time loops, Hinamizawa Syndrome in general, and, in this arc, ghosts coming back from the dead to give rousing "live for me" speeches and possessing their twin.  Higurashi's "mystery" can't be explained by Knox or Van Dine, you have to roll with "and then magic happened".  Umineko fans dislike this, I think.

The last TIP in Yoigoshi-hen sees time literally being rewritten as we watch it.  Here's what I think happened.  Mion is grateful to Miyuki, and now that she has "passed on", has hooked up with Rika and Hanyuu.,  They can't save themselves, but can perhaps fix things so that Yukie doesn't die - either Akasaka goes back to see her and doesn't rescue the kid (Minagoroshi), or he talks to her on the phone so that she's not restless and going to the roof (the other arcs).  So now Akasaka has his wife and Miyuki her mother.  And Akasaka's medicine may be for lingering effects of Hinamizawa Syndrome (though it's surprising they'd promote him so high with that going on).

This doesn't really mesh well with the canon arcs, where Hanyuu's power is pretty low, but it's a cute idea that explains why we see a baffled Akasaka find his wife is dead one moment and alive the next.  And I'm always happy to have Yukie alive.

[atomicmoofin]

o yea i uploaded these to my twitter but these were my 07th expansion miracles zine pieces

[releasemefromthesemortalchains]

Satoshi lookalike, Akira Otobe, from Yoigoshi-hen + the digital version I did of it.

[azumi-kun]

Higurashi Yoigoshi hen Mion and Yae (but I hate how I drew her haha...)

[bitchoftruth]

so i got 

higurashi character guide book (its so good!!!!! i love it its my fave) all of the light novels some duplicates of light novels in kondansha box edition 3 volume anthology of fan submitted stories, with some art (each volume around 500 pages) all of the main manga up to and including tsumihoroboshi  onisarashi hen manga, 2 volumes the st. lucia shion manga (just 1 volume as it was discontinued. rip) kokoroiyashi hen manga  yoigoshi hen manga 2 light novel shorts, the ones with nekogoroshi. i coudlnt find the name right now  some anime tie in book? it has cards and stuff...and a cd. not sure what it is  rena nendo....gonna arrive in summer. 

meanwhile for umineko i dont even got the complete light novels. this is a higurashi blog foremost from now on 

[rougeprunea]

🌅 🎍 あけましておめでとうございます 🎍🌅

2023 New Year Art of Mion and Shion Sonozaki by Mimori, mangaka of Yoigoshi-hen

[norcani]

I watched a bunch of losers best games of 2020 videos and decided I can do that too

except I don’t play recent releases so only a few of these are 2020 releases and out of those all of them are vns.....I did play these in 2020 though..I think... 

10. Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Miotsukushi-hen

I also read  Yoigoshi and Tokihogushi but they fucking sucked! The rest of the console arcs I had played beforehand. What to say about this? It’s been a real mixed bag and by this I mean its been a pile of shit but in the middle of a shit there is this puzzle piece that you needed for a puzzle you completed the rest of 10 years ago and you grab the shit covered piece and go “holy shit! look at this! I’ve been looking for this all along!” but of course it’s still covered in shit and you’re not even sure it’s quite the right piece, it’s not made by the original puzzle maker but with some cleaning wiggling it fits into the puzzle perfectly and you can finally rest assured that the stupid puzzle you thought would never work out is completed. (And then the puzzle maker is like, hey here are a bunch of new pieces and drops gou on you but irrelevant) . Anyway this got translated this year so I say it counts as a 2020 game. 

9. Witcher 3

wow i played this game this year apparently! Or at least, steam tells me so. Honestly I never had any intention of playing this game because people are annoying about it but I somehow ended up playing it anyway....and it was...fine? I liked it, especially the blood and wine dlc. I like geralt as a protag a lot. And I somehow spend 100 hours on this thing. So you know, I liked it. People are still annoying about it though. The best part of finishing it is that I can now call it overrated with the confidence of someone who played and even enjoyed it! 

8. oneshot I got this one from the bundle of racial justice though it was on my radar for quite a while. In this one, you are god, and there is a cute cat child that talks to you directly, which rules. 

fuck yeah!!!!!  (there is also a huge light bulb in this, for the moths in the audience)

7. the ghost of you

This is a text based vn with minimal visuals. A uh.. lesbian horror survival romance story? Is that too many genres. I was utterly obsessed with this for a short while. The gore and body horror stuff in this were top notch but towards the end it got a bit too over the top campy and silly for me, though still enjoyable I mainly wasn’t expecting it to go that route. I also thought ironically the romance was by far the weakest part. The villains were super fun though I still think about them...

6. iwaihime 

i really thought i would end up disliking it until about halfway through but afterwards it was really good except when it was kinda fucked up to the point of I made a cw list for the vn. This is like a shameless mishmash of half of ryukishis previous works and the worst part is it *works* and i love it. I ended up being suprisingly attached to the cast even though they seemed super generic at first glance. Also at some point someone puts the actual yugioh shisha sosei(monster reborn) card in someones coffin so yeah you know..... this one was actually released in 2020 too so goty 

5. Cyberpunk2077 Dry Drowning

another one from the bundle. This is a cyberpunk noir detective mystery / sorta political drama? One of the rare games I replayed immediately after finishing, Great setting, solid plot and cases, great art, kinda generic characters but they grew on me. My fave was a cool trans lesbian character but the circumstances surrounding her were a bit *vague hand gestures* . Definitely a shame not more people know about this one! 

4. Vampire the Masquerade: Shadows of New York

first of all incredible art and music! 2nd of all.... its just a really well written vtm story with a goth girl in a toxic lesbian relationship of course I love it. This vn also justifies coteries of new yorks existence which is a great accomplishment since that vn itself just felt like a introductory course to vtm. Also another 2020 release! No one can criticize my list now. 

3. Fire Emblem 3 houses

I’m still playing this one but I put 60 hours in already so I think I can include this here. This is the main thing I’m playing the past few weeks and  as with all my favorite games I could complain about it for ages , However its really fun and compelling in a way I can’t quite articulate and also Rhea and Sothis I love you both

2. Assassins Creed Vallhalla Expeditions: Viking

this fucking ruled!!! Solid 40 hours or so of solid story and characters that ends exactly when it should. really unique protag a lot of different ways to “win” would. Also one of the few rpgs where the evil choices make just as much sense as the good ones. Would have replayed immediately if my switch hadnt arrived just when i finished my first run. I wish the cast had more lines but at the end of the day Roskva is adorable as is.  10/10 would tell my enemies to not fucking talk to me again.  1. Demon’s Souls Dark Souls 2 

(I coudln’t find any decent screenshots I took for this so enjoy this meme. Trust me my character was really cute. )

 I’ve been playing this for 2 fucking years and i was somehow still sad that it was over....I played for around 140 hours and approximately died every 6 minutes. If you do the math you might notice I’m not very good at this game. I also don’t know what the fuck the story is even about. But hitting things is fun, and I beat fume knight twice which was great. Too bad I will never play the other games since steam never puts them on FUCKING sale. 

[dancers-7]

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Yoigoshi Hen by Mimori and Ryukishi07

[whentheyart]

By ゆりんご on Twitter

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