#i wanted the pov to be of shion lol

[chippycore]

i think ill post this how it is

[zaenaris]

it's sad to see that, when inupi got out of juivie, he didn't even look if he was seeing his parents, no he was ready to go on his own until he sees Koko. And he seemed kinda surprised to see him too like if he thought "he's really, seriously here?". Did he thought he was abandonned by everyone? I have the sad headcanon that his parents see Akane when they were looing at him.

He ran to the BD founders, and then in Izana's gang, then in Shion's gang and got arrested.

It must not have been a serious thing, he didn't seem to be in juvie for long.

but maybe his family kinda give up on him after he got in juvie.

I mean, one one side it's really sad his parents weren't even there but on the other, at this point, I guess it was just Wakui not giving a damn about showing parents in general, we don't even see Takemichi's parents when he's in hospital lol (but this is just me being bitter at Wakui now that the manga is over for many of his(?) choices)

But yes, given the situation I HC/want to believe it that his parents kind of gave up on him as well. They lost a daughter, their house, all their belonging, had financial problems after losing everything, they probably weren't in the best place mentally to take care of a traumatized child that survived a fire and got mixed up in gangs and violence as a way to cope. Inupi himself says to Koko to go home every once in a while since he's not like Inupi, implying he doesn't go home so often (it's so sad Wakui never gave us a better explanation on Inupi, nor his POV on many many things).

But I also HC that, differently from the other timelines, in Bonten and Mabu timeline, once Inupi starts working at D&D and retires from gangs, he kind of tries to rebuild a relationship with his family.

While when he was younger he couldn't stand his parents for many reasons, growing up, while he doesn't immediately forgive them, he realized his parents were human as well. For sure they haven't been the best parents after the fire, but they were traumatized as well and they did what they could at the time. His parents as well admit their mistakes and Seishu too admits it wasn't easy dealing with him and with his aggressiveness at the time. It's slow and not always easy, but I like to think in those 2 tl, they somehow make things work

[livecharliereaction]

Urgh i cant play anymore today but well this is a worrying situation like from my perspective bcs im not sure at all how itll end up... Teppei seems a little sick of it already so he might leave BUT he might also snap n KILL HER i still think this somehow. And also? We havent seen his pov before maybe he just thinks like that it might not be a sign of anything working... Im glad keiichi seems more strong willed obviously #growth n stuff n im sure theyll get this sorted out. I think it wants me to believe that sonozaki family is in their way but i dont think so... Cos like teppeis a houjou too???? Wouldnt u want to get rid of him lol its not like its someone theyd want to protect thats abusing satoko?? So yeah im not super worried about that. But it might be trying to show what happens when nobodys killing oryuo (see shions chapters) similarly to well teppei (see chapter 6) like its just events are preventing other events in other worlds and the pieces just wont fit in a way that EVERYONES happy u know. So idk. Interesting. Still waiting for that satoko pov. Im sorry satoko again i think i blamed u for the timeloop again... SO RUDE OF ME. Didnt i do the same shit back in some other chapter i was like ooh satoko behind the slaughter (i dont even remember which slaughter...) but shes just a girl. Ugh ugh ugh. Keiichi rena shion mion rika cmoon cmoon lets handle this. oh also wataganashi should be exciting (auction shenanigans maybe) yayyy

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep5

This week on Higurashi Sotsu, we witness the most irredeemable of all crimes:

A little girl pushes over someone’s pot of curry.

Thoughts under the cut.

On the one hand, the actual answers for this arc have ended up being way more straightforward than I expected after how unclear a lot of it felt back in the question arcs, but on the other hand it’s probably a good thing that they’re not doing anything convoluted with this when they’re already doing this a lot faster than they probably should, lol.

I’ve said it a lot of times before, but the fact that they’re spending so much time on stuff that comes across as unnecessary and predictable still feels like proof that they actually meant it when they said that this is meant to be accessible to new fans. I think the execution is kinda clunky and they probably should have committed entirely to it being a sequel, but they’re clearly trying to spend time on stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be obvious to people who haven’t read the VN.

Although even then, this episode kinda highlights how the new series hasn’t really gone into Shion’s entire backstory or character arc at all, which isn’t necessarily gonna stop new fans from understanding what’s going on here, but it does make her feel a lot more unimportant as a character, and the narrative themes and parallels set up in this episode don’t come across to the new fans who don’t know how Watanagashi and Meakashi went the first time around.

Anyway, the gist of this answer arc is basically that Mion was indeed the culprit this time, and killed basically everyone. It’s not very surprising at this point, but it’s really neat to actually see what it looks like for Mion to succumb to the syndrome. It feels very different to how basically everyone else handles it, since she’s way more cold and calculated about things, and has more self-awareness of her actions. The dramatic irony of how she didn’t even want to kill Shion and just got carried away in a moment of anger was cool, and on a related note it’s kinda funny in a morbid way to imagine that she probably killed Oryo with the taser without realizing it as well. I think something similar happened in the VN where Oryo dies before Shion can actually torture her for information.

Which reminds me that this is all making it really clear how foggy my memories of the original Watanagashi and Meakashi arcs are, lol. I was hoping to reread the VN when Gou started so I could compare them properly, but that got derailed by my laziness and real-life stuff coming up, so now I don’t really remember enough to confidently compare how this went to those arcs. From what I do remember, though, this feels like a bit of a reversal of how those arcs went, where this time Mion wins her confrontation with Shion and goes on to kill everyone else.

There’s still one more episode left, but the next episode is probably going to show that Mion killed Kimiyoshi after Oryo, then probably killed Rika after watching her rant at Keiichi, then Satoko will go off to confront Mion at the mansion and they’ll both end up dead. I’m still not entirely confident about why Satoko would bother going there in the first place, but my best guess is that she wanted to confirm what Mion had done, especially if she ends up not being sure about whether or not Rika’s dead if she didn’t witness Mion killing her.

Speaking of Satoko, we also got to see how even after the injection [or however she managed to drug Mion], she had to keep monitoring her and pushing her buttons to try and get her on the track to paranoia, since at least at first she seemed to be completely normal. Mion still ended up going L5 anyway, but it makes me hope that the next arc will go even further with having Satoko’s plans mess up.

Also, from what I’ve seen people say, the curry competition scene was actually very similar to the VN, except Satoko used more indirect methods of messing with everyone’s curry. I think this was actually pretty in line with how ruthless the club members can get, and how tolerant they are of blatant cheating, but it’s kinda funny seeing people get way more mad about it now than they ever would have before, lol. There’s also something funny about Satoko clearly just not giving a shit about subtlety anymore and just knocking stuff over and messing with their curry right in their faces. I think in her own way, Satoko’s getting kinda tired of all the looping [like in the last episode where she seemed bored of the card game], and her restraint is slipping.

In a lot of ways they seem to be setting up this idea of Satoko being careless and risky with her actions, and it makes me wonder if that’ll play into the next arc or two, and how Rika might end up ‘winning’ against her. But we’ll see.

It’ll be a little while before we actually get to the next arc, but it’s probably still the one I’m most excited for. For one thing it’s gonna be five episodes long so even if it also covers Nekodamashi I don’t think it’ll feel quite as fast-paced as these first two arcs have, and I feel like seeing Tataridamashi from Satoko’s perspective would feel much more different to what’s been going on in these arcs. There’s also be less competition between ‘the Satoko stuff’ and ‘the answer arc culprit POV stuff’ in the next arc since Satoko herself is basically the culprit of Tataridamashi. 

I at least hope that the next arc is where Satoko’s plans really start messing up, and she starts doubting herself. For one thing it’d be a little boring to have all the answer arcs go in the same sorta way with her doing exactly what she sets out to do, but if they’re setting up for any sort of redemption for her, something along those lines is going to have to happen eventually.

Maybe I’m just giving her too much credit, but I like the idea that maybe her resolve wavered and she ended up wanting to stay in that fragment, but Ooishi went L5 all on his own and fucked things up. Probably because of something like him getting into contact with Teppei and realizing that [in that arc] he hadn’t actually done anything to Satoko, which would fuel his paranoia about the village engaging in witch hunts. I think it’s at least safe to assume that Teppei really did attack Keiichi at the end of the arc, after how the fight between Keiichi and Rena ended up not having any tricks or misdirection to it, so Teppei probably became convinced that the village was just out to get him.

But anyway we’ll get to that when we get to that, lol.

[ccsthemovie2]

trick or treat 2021 letter

DEAR MY KIND AND HARDWORKING GIFTER,

hi there my ao3 is zagspect and thanks in advance for making me a piece of fic or art in this fun little exchange! heres some food for thought to munch on.

i loooove slice of life, character moments, outsider povs that make things we’re used to in canon seem absurd or funny or weird or scary, humor, horror-in-fluff’s-clothing, sweetness-found-in-horror, and also just plain sweetness. feel free to get weird or experimental with your writing if you think the moment calls for it :3 im not really requesting anything sexy-nsfw in this exchange so pls keep things down to a nice pg13 (high-rated gore for higurashi work is an exception, lol, like, it’s when they cry. that’s just part of the deal.)

🌸✨

cardcaptor sakura (trick or treat!)

clear card manga spoilers are fine with me! manga and anime canon are both fine, and mashing them up is cool too. no aus past that though, please!

clow reed

the big man himself! scare me with his his manipulative tendencies, his eternal pushpull fear of both being eternally relied on and being no longer needed, the way he treats other people, especially people who love him. (yue! the madoushi! i am into both of these being unrequited romantically on his end, but he’s not gonna just gonna tell them that, you think he’s straightforward like that?) what’s daily life like in the clowse? creating a new card, what’s that like? does everybody get along with the normal, non magic neighbors? 

yelan li

what’s up with her??? what’s her relationship with her children like, what are the responsibilities of a magician family’s head, how weird is it that clow is kind of back all of a sudden, what’s her thoughts on sakura? fleshing out a minor character is always fun :]

eriol & li

okay, so, we get to the end of the original series. syaoran returns to hong kong. ????????. syaoran is in cahoots with eriol to (vaguely alluding to cc spoilers in case you haven’t caught up in the manga), do some pretty serious magic behind sakura’s back.

so, like... what went down in the ?????

kero & sakura & yue 

they’re FAMBILYYYYY. magic found family i love them so much. show me the depths of their care for her, and hers for them, the way there’s absolutely some ice to break with yue but when he gets loyal he will DIE for you, the way sakura can mend the rift between kero and yue, the way the two of them are balancing this wonderful openness and equality with oh yeah, she’s eleven, we kind of said some seriously dark stuff in the haze of sleepover talk didn’t we? 

ruby & spinel & eriol 

pre-canon or mid-canon or post-canon! what’s the dynamic between them, a quiet night in, a day out telling people that you’re connected by whatever lie you find funniest. going to tomoeda and having to pretend youre a kid, a teen, and a cat, but goddd you could all go for an elegant and adult glass of wine right now (especially the cat). what horrors are lurking in that house from the clow era that no one cares to address? like emotionally and also because it’s a magic wizard house with magic stuff in it. 

touya/yukito/yue 

i am here for any and all angles of this ship- all together, your touyukis, your yuetouyas, your yuekitos if you wanna get in on a rarely seen angle! (but pls have touya and/or yukito be 18+ at a time where yue shows interest in them). i wanna see the way they interact! how they deal with, you know, the everything! pre-relationship pining, going on a date, touya and yukito in college wondering if they’ll end up having different majors, different paths for the first time. yukito seeing yue on video for the first time (OH NO HES HOT), yukito and yue figuring out internal boundaries, etc etc etc.  

naoko and touya 

the girl who loves ghosts and the guy who sees (or, used to see), ghosts! does she follow him to one of his haunts (pun intended)? does he have to go to her for ghost sensing advice now that he’s a regular old human? does he have to save her from a ghost that means her harm? how excited is she to tell sakura about the COOL GHOST I MET WITH YOUR BROTHER OMG U DIDNT TELL ME HE LIKES GHOSTS??? and how much does sakura wanna sink into the ground lololol

🌹⚔️

revolutionary girl utena (trick or treat!)

ohh, what a place of scary happenings! tell me a fairytale, even if it’s not such a good idea. pre, mid, postcanon, im fine with it all. feel free to weave a web with easter egg references to any other media you feel is right for the moment- utena is all about Genre and Stories!

shadow girls 

i love them i love their whole everything. i wanna see a play, i wanna see them interact with other characters! what if they do a play AS the other characters, ooooh.

anthy/utena 

THE GIRLS WHO INVENTED LOVE THEMSELVES. ive read a thousand stories of them finding each other and it never gets old. id love to read about their life post-ohtori, especially the not-so-happily-ever-after parts- the old wounds reopening, the fights, and how they work through it, wont lose each other ever again. 

saionji/touga

what’s spookier than toxic masculinity? both of them miserably stuck, saionji obsessed with touga, touga believing anyone who believes in friendship is a fool. bro we are taking shirtless pictures among 500 potted cacti....why does my heart hurt..... oh shit its the cactus i rolled onto it ow ow

nanami

nanami being nanami! she’s got no clue how to act ever, she’s desperate, she’s trying SO HARD. i’d love to see a nanami finally getting out of there, too. leaving home with nothing but the clothes on her back, diamonds in her necklace, and a wheeled suitcase of raw eggs.... (crunch crunch crunch)

🎲🗓

higurashi when they cry (trick or treat!)

i’m a gou/sotsu enjoyer and gonna prompt about that a lot but original flavor is, of course, great too. pls dont go too heavy on info outside the main 8+saikoroshi+gou/sotsu? i haven’t read those. ive read umineko+ciconia though so references there are fine :3

rena/mion/keiichi

college days! getting together, crushing on each other, poly relationship figuringouts? dates that are just club meetings with kissing and all the ridiculousness of that.

satoko/rika

gou/sotsu era TOXIC LESBIAN EPIC MOMENTS!!!!!! obsession and desperation and satoko putting all her emotional eggs in rika’s basket no matter how angry she is with her, rika’s love for satoko across 100 years and how that all crumbles (to satoko) in the face of rika’s Cool School. rika wanting satoko to go to school with her so so so bad. deep pain and misunderstandings and acting badly (like, murder badly), and then, we hope, atonement and something new beginning? i love character moments where someones so obsessively in love it feels like its eating them up inside.

rena & satoko

look, rena’s smart and really pays attention to how people feel and i think, before or after satoko becomes a looper but especially after, she would make an attempt to have a heart to heart with satoko. and satoko, as a looper, will politely brush her off, will go you dont know me you can’t affect me. youre just a chess piece. when i get to the miracle world where rika loves me, ill listen to you. this you is here to die, or to kill. 

eua

oh eua is just using satoko up like a bar of soap and it takes satoko way, way too long to realize. evil girltalk/crush advice from the witchmom perhaps?

shion

meakashi made me LOVE her. internal shion moments, perhaps? shion being an empath (decides what ppl are thinking and instantly believes it)? shion in gou-era wanting to talk to satoko about st. lucia’s, but she never shows up to dinner?

okay i think that’s all for now!!! thanks and i hope you have fun!!!

[pekorosu]

no.6 novels thinky thoughts

--------

so… i ended up finishing all 9 vols in about a week haha.

my overall impression? it was… alright, i guess.

not that i didn’t enjoy it, in fact, the first half was great! by the time i reached the end though, i had mixed feelings. sat on it for a week or so but a lot of it remains a vague hhhmmmmmblah blob that i’m not done figuring out. 

i still wanna make a post as a form of closure for myself though, so i’m just gonna dump whatever comes to mind here. don’t mind me.

so... the ending. i guess it was supposed to be open-ended in a hopeful way, but it just came across as unsettling to me. the ~chosen one~ thing rubbed me the wrong way, because shion was entrusted with an enormous responsibility that no 16 year old should even be shouldering in the first place. (i mean yea okay he did willingly accept it, but still. why only him? why aren’t they all collectively responsible?) 

meanwhile the actual perpetrators get to escape all the consequences by just… dying. just like that. and the rest of them, especially the adults… they’re pretty much useless? even the ones that wanted to do something by staging a revolt ended up being unreliable either bc 1. they were drunk on revenge or 2. all that power was getting to their head. ironically, rou was like “it’s all on us, the adults” but in the end even he decided to just spend the rest of his life chilling out underground -_-

on top of that, shion had to let go of nezumi. idk about y’all but that ending, that “promise to meet again” kiss was like… i couldn’t help but wonder if nezumi only did that because shion was all “a world without you is meaningless” and he had to give him something to cling onto. followed by shion’s devoted “i’ll keep waiting” which… idk, something about it felt utterly depressing. to be fair, nezumi always keeps his promises and the epilogue was vaguely hopeful i guess, but it still didn’t give me the sense of closure that i needed. 

to clarify, i’m not saying it’s a bad ending. it’s realistic and the implication that there’s still a lot of work to be done is very much in line with the story’s themes. just that something about it didn’t work for me personally, plus the lead up to it felt rushed, so it left me feeling :/ when i was done.

the plot… well, it started out exciting but turned out to be rather anticlimactic? the shift from science to supernatural had a proper build up, but still felt like a letdown for some reason… 

i think... maybe it’s bc dystopian stories tend to culminate in a huge battle and stuff like that, while this one just… didn’t. there was no final showdown with the Big Bad. there was chaos, but it hadn’t descended into total devastation yet, with the ultimate message that maintaining peace is always more preferable in order to prevent any more senseless deaths. and i guess that threw me off a little? not in a bad way, it was just unexpected bc i’m so used to the whole “final boss” format.

speaking of which, the antagonists were very one-dimensional, and for dictators they were surprisingly… weak. i mean, i get that hubris was precisely the reason for their carelessness and subsequent destruction, but it felt too convenient, too simple.

and i was sorta expecting something more gruesome when they got to the top floor of the correctional facility. idk, i guess brains floating in tubes just couldn’t compare with that scene of them climbing a mountain of corpses+half-alive people, which i had the misfortune of reading right before dinner. that was straight up horror.

and for all its depiction of the horrors of a police state, of poverty, famine, genocide… i felt like it stopped short of something. this isn’t meant to be a proper critique ofc, just that i remember feeling like the writing came across as wishy-washy or superficial at times, even though i knew the author’s intention wasn’t to hand out answers, but to get the readers to think. something about the way it was handled left me feeling unsatisfied i guess. 

that said, there were stuff that i did like! eg. i liked how the story dealt with the “we’re all human beings” statement from shion. it started out as a simple, idealistic “all lives matter” kind of thing, only to be turned on its head when he comes face-to-face with the kind of atrocities no.6 has committed. then it becomes less about that and more “our shared humanity means that we too have the capability to become cruel and apathetic.” or at least, that was my takeaway. 

hmm… in hindsight, i think it does what it set out to do well enough. that is, to convey a certain message to a certain group of people (teenagers i guess. this is YA after all). to inspire them to think for themselves, to realise that apathy is dangerous and to take responsibility for their own learning, but also to know that doing the “right” thing is not just about good intentions; it is constant hard work but still important work... among others. all of which are solid themes and messages. god knows when i was younger and learning about all this for the first time, even the simplest things would leave me mindblown for days. if i’d read this back then i imagine it would’ve left a bigger impression too.

the main highlight for me though, was probably the character scenes. i was surprised to find out how introspective the story was, with the majority of it dedicated to the characters’ internal thoughts and conflicts. 

sadly though, the side charas’ POVs (like inukashi’s and karan’s) ended up becoming tediously repetitive and draggy despite starting out strong. and safu… poor safu, she pretty much got the shortest end of the shit stick being the Plot Device Damsel In Distress Who Is Eventually Fridged. i had higher hopes for her ):

as for the rest… i don’t really care about rikiga… and who else… oh right! small nezumi team! hamlet, cravat and tsukiyo. 10/10 love them, would never get tired of their cute little squeaks.

and the protags… shion started out kinda bland but ended up being the easiest to relate to haha. eg. his constant struggle to reconcile his personal ideals with practical reality. and it was interesting to see how he confronted and came to terms with some harsh truths. he always tries so hard. sometimes it hurt to read, but it made me want to root for him and in a way, it gave me strength too. 

also his apparent “lack of interest” in sex/women/etc... i know it’s generally played for laughs or to highlight his ~naivete~ or ~immaturity~, but whatever lol it’s something i can relate to it v strongly.

nezumi took a while for me to warm up to even when i understood why he is the way he is. the callousness, hostility, volatility… they’re all defense mechanisms rooted in his trauma, but still, knowing that didn’t make him any less irritating lol. he could be deeply hypocritical at times and his tendency to randomly explode at shion was grating. on the plus side, it’s always very satisfying whenever we do get a glimpse of his more vulnerable side.

them as a pair though… i’m not a huge fan of the “fate brought us together” trope so i was skeptical at first. nezumi being so prickly and moody at first didn’t help either, but shion. oh shion, he tried so hard to worm himself into nezumi’s heart, to prove himself worthy, that i couldn’t help but be charmed. to me, they started out more like “snarky senpai and curious kouhai” as opposed to “friends” or even “potential enemies” as nezumi liked to insist they were, which made for an amusing dynamic. 

and while they did grow on me over time, they don’t make me feel that INTENSE CHEST STABBING feeling that i get with other ships. idk why, i mean, their sarcastic exchanges were amusing, their brutally honest arguments were compelling, and the pining (which is my #1 weakness) was through the fucking roof with shion. but still, something was missing.

sidenote on something the author mentioned in the guidebook interview (my own rough t/l):

I like writing about relationships between people of the same sex, not just boys. When it comes to the opposite sex, the end result of being attracted to each other is always romantic love, or getting married…… To a certain extent, the “template” for that is already fixed, isn’t it? But when it comes to the same sex, there can exist a connection that can’t be expressed in the usual cliched words like friendship, camaraderie, love, hatred… I think there’s meaning in writing about relationships that can’t be clearly defined. What’s between Shion and Nezumi is a “one-of-a-kind connection” that’s born out of a certain situation, out of certain experiences that only they have gone through. I wanted to find out what exactly that connection is, which was why I wanted to try writing it. Of course, that “one-of-a-kind connection” would probably exist between people of the opposite sex as well. After all, the feelings that emerge from a chance meeting of two human beings can never be something that’s mass-produced. But still, I think the one thing that I really enjoy writing about has got to be the unique emotions that develop between people of the same sex.

i know she doesn’t mean anything negative here, but idk… it kinda reminds me of the way yoshida akimi discussed ash and eiji’s relationship in banana fish, and the way she discussed what she found so special about same-sex relationships that is lacking in m/f relationships. and something about it bugs me so much. i don’t even know why or how to explain it… 

it sounds like to them, there’s something fundamentally “different” about same-sex relationships. "different” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad” and in fact, it even sounds positive in this context because the implication is that that “difference” allows for more freedom and variety in relationship dynamics. but i guess, the closest thing that i can come up with is that it sounds… othering? i don’t know….......

speaking of which, i suppose shion/safu is a subversion of that typical m/f relationship. shion can never love her the way she wants him to, which is heartbreaking, but also refreshing in a way.

and you know what… it just occurred to me that maybe, maybe… it’s the same with shion and nezumi. and maybe that’s why something about them feels off to me. i mean, obviously the strength of their feelings for each other is indisputable, but idk if the essence of it is the same. 

shrugs. anyway, yeah.

the honest truth is that, while i enjoyed their interactions immensely, they just don’t ignite the same fire in me as all my other otps. that said, i still do have a lot of thoughts on them! maybe that’s a post for another day.

some other stray thoughts:

- was it ever explained how nezumi built his robo rats? or where tf he managed to gather so many gold coins? was this something the story just handwaved or did i just forget?

- nezumi wanting to leave on a journey at the end baffled me. even though him eventually leaving was foreshadowed a couple times, he never really struck me as a wanderer to begin with. but now that i think about it… i wonder if he’s leaving bc he wants to, or rather, needs to look out for any other remaining forests and natural environments. that’s what his people did, didn’t they? protect the forests. i wonder if he’s going to go look for others like himself. after all, he’s the only surviving indigenous person left in the area surrounding no.6, isn’t he? hmmm.

language-wise... this is my first proper japanese (light) novel so i’m feeling kinda accomplished rn! lol. it was surprisingly not as tough as i had expected. i think the most difficult part was actually reading the quotes at the beginning of each chapter bc it’s in a font that’s so hard to make out.

oh, and again, some parts felt really redundant. i kept wondering if it was a language thing or an author thing. either way, i felt like there were quite a few unnecessary rehashes that could’ve been omitted to improve the pacing. 

sequels, other adaptations...

i’ve not read “beyond” yet, which apparently has sequel-ish bits? i’ve ordered it, it’s on its way, but i have a feeling my impression won’t change that much even after i’ve read it. heck, it might get worse judging by all these lukewarm reviews. i’m definitely gonna see this through to the end, but i’m feeling kinda scared now lol.

i might check out the anime? based on the summaries on wiki, it sounds like quite a lot has been altered, but i’m still curious about the visuals. dunno if i’d wanna check out the manga. if it’s exactly the same as the novels or the anime then maybe not…

oh yeah, their anime/manga versions look quite different to how i imagined them! mine’s closer to the novel covers i guess. especially nezumi. i imagined him with short hair. maybe not all super saiyan like the one below, but yea.

lastly, i just had a good look at all the vol covers and i actually think they look pretty cool! i’m really glad i chose to get this version instead of the bunkobon. i mean, i don’t know if i will ever reread this again, but at least the covers are nice to look at haha.

[buri-art]

we stan Please Save my Earth!! I always get so happy when i find a fan lol anyways did you read the sequel? i wanted to, like so so much because i've heard good thing about it but the change in the art turn me off, it is so bad?????

Yaaaaay, always good to find PSME fans! : D (This is primarily an Akatsuki no Yona blog, though.) I did read the sequel (Boku wo Tsutsumu Tsuki no Hikari, which takes place 15 years later) and although it has wonky art, I did enjoy it. I’m also four volumes into the sequel to the sequel, Boku wa Chikyuu to Utau, which takes place another 4 years later. My feelings toward both are a little complicated, so I’ll discuss Boku-Tsuki first (and I’ll also answer your other questions behind the cut, since this will get long!): 

I love PSME so much that OF COURSE I love having more of it and seeing what the characters are doing when they’re older (though I’m sad that characters like Rin’s mom and Boon never made appearances! Tamura himself only had one scene, haha). It’s a very different story at first, which a fun focus on the children of a few of the old characters (plus some other kids they meet). I liked the kids’ relationships and perspectives a lot, with the PSME lore as background. I was hit and miss with how the old cast wound up, and it inevitably has colored how I look back at them in the original. However, I found the last arc (which spanned a few volumes) pretty… I don’t know. The phrase that comes to mind is a Chinese idiom, “pulling up sprouts to make them grow faster”, which means “spoiling by excessive enthusiasm”. It started to feel like Rin, Alice, Mokuren, and Shion were getting strangled by excessive drama/development. It’s like their characters were no longer allowed room to breathe. And it was during this arc that Hiwatari noticed that it was started to become a different story, which was why she abruptly asked her editor if she could conclude the series and start a new one under a different title. That makes sense, because Boku-Uta takes those changes a lot further. With this one, I feel it’s really overindulging in extra background development, which takes away from the mystique of the original.It’s also…. just weird. Like, Hiwatari writes weird stuff,  that’s why she’s so beloved because her stories are so unique. ^_^ I’ve read a lot (but not all) of her other works, and I loooooved stuff like Global Garden because–although the art style was wonky–I’ve never read anything quite like it. Well, except for PSME–it’s funny how it uses so many similar themes but plays them in such a different way. 

But with Boku-Uta, it’s like her publishers just stepped out of her way and said “you know what, you have such a fanbase that people will buy it no matter what you write, so go ahead, add more magic cats.” 

So, like, I really want to like this one too, but I find it difficult to. I do really like the continued developments of the younger generation which Boku-Tsuki focused on, but other than that, I find it difficult to enjoy. I read Volume 4 around 2am in an airport and just felt angry by the time I finished because some of the new plot twists just felt so stupid. XDSo, in conclusion, yes, Boku-Tsuki has a lot of merits, but it’s going to change your experience of PSME, which is why I can understand why a lot of PSME fans didn’t like it or choose not to read it. Boku-Uta is a natural progression from the ending of that one, so if you choose to read Boku-Tsuki, keep that in mind. But hey, I AM such a big Hiwatari fan that I know I’m going to buy every volume of Boku-Uta anyway. Maybe it’ll redeem itself in my eyes, it still has some interesting elements keeping me going. Okay, on to your other PSME Ask: “sorry, i just found this tumblr so i’m going to ask a lot of PSME questions lol: favorite characters and why?“I love this question. : D Ironically I was just talking with a friend about this the other day since she’s borrowing the manga from me, and I didn’t really know how to answer it. As stated before, my perceptions of the characters has been affected by reading Boku-Tsuki.So like… just because they get the best development, how can I NOT love the Rin-Alice-Shion-Mokuren quatrad?? I keep going back and forth over the years between who of those four is my favorite. While reading the manga for the first time while I was a teen I think I usually leaned more toward Rin and Alice, but now maybe it’s Shion and Mokuren?? I don’t know XDDDAs for OTHER characters, though, part of what I love about it is that there are so many good supporting characters, especially beyond the basic seven kids and their past lives. So here are a few that come to mind to write some thoughts on: Haruhiko: I haaaaaaaated him with a passion as I was reading the manga because he was so whiny and helpless, UNTIL I got to the volume when he confessed everything to Alice, Jinpachi, and Issei, and it was like a switch was flipped and he became one of my favorites because of how much courage he had. You know how he really lightens up and gets comfortable talking with Alice later on? That’s the sort of person he remains in the sequel, which has made me like him even more. He’s mature and mostly at peace with his past, but not totally, and he can recognize that about himself without it taking over. But he’s not totally mature either—you know that scene when he fakes having heart trouble and then gets Alice to stop? And how he makes that “What did you think I was going to do? I’m not Shion!” joke right afterward? That’s the sort of nasty side of his personality that I love too. Looking back at the start of the series now, I see that he was courageous and understanding all along, he just had an extremely weighty situation to deal with. Mikuro: I can never see him the same way again after the sequel (in which he’s a major character). XDD It’s clear that he’s always been a pet OC of Hiwatari’s, but the cool, hard-boiled original character designs for him are nothing like the adult he’s become. He tries so hard to play it cool, but the guy’s a helpless dweeb sometimes. I always found it exciting to learn more about his EPIA life. An extra one-shot (Things Accidently Left Behind, I think it’s called?) gives a lot more backstory for him and introduces more of the EPIA characters, who I enjoy. (Fun fact: Remember his friend Tomoko who was briefly mentioned? She winds up marrying his brother Hokuto. XD Mikuro winds up in a complicated relationship with an American psychic named Pamela, whom I also really like, she’s a hoot.)Mode: I loved her as soon as I met her (and although I’m okay with how she was used in the final arc of the sequel, I sort of wish she could have been left as-is too). She was, through and through, such a good friend, but I like her sense of responsibility as a caretaker too. Lazlo: How can I not love Lazlo!!? The sob story gets played up a little TOO much and I think it was effective as-is in the original (like, we didn’t need to know that he and Kyaa got into the car accident while bringing home a toy for Shion to try to make him smile). In fact, it was Lazlo who made me realize that I have interest in being a foster mother someday. Rin’s Mom: She’s got such a rough job, seriously. She had a break-down, which I don’t blame her for, but I love the courage and understanding she shows after that. She’s the mom who Shion always deserved. Hajime: Always a favorite. XD But I also love that he’s not a huge influence on the story either, his mission has always been to support and take care of Alice, even if that means being critical of her decisions. There are a few extra chapters in Boku-Tsuki discussing Rin & Alice’s early parenting years, and they’re told from Hajime’s POV (he wasn’t exactly happy with the shocking situation), which I really enjoy. Daisuke/Hiiragi: He’s not as big a favorite now (because in some ways he and Jinpachi grew into lame adults XD), but I always liked him and found it funny how despite being the leader, he basically has no influence and is the least important of the seven. XDD It was liking him in a sort of feeling bad for him kind of way. The Lians: Part of what’s so cool about PSME is the development of the Homeworld, and I thought the role of the Lians fleshed out that world really well. Seeing Shion’s different relationships with them (they’re all doing their best, but the older one clearly has more of a way with him) was a nice touch. Plus, I just like and respect nuns in the first place, so that influences my view of them.

Tamura:  When I first read/watched it, I didn’t like him much because I thought he was too nosy and I just wanted to focus on the younger cast; the yakuza subplot was a turn-off at first. But looking back on it, Tamura is a such a great and unexpected driver of the plot for a shoujo manga. Nowadays if I rewatch or reread it, you’ll even hear me squeal about seeing Takeshi again. XDDIssei & Sakura: They are such a stinking cute, girly married couple in the sequel, and now it’s hard to ever see them the same way as in the original when I could just appreciate how their deep friendship took shape. If anything I didn’t want them to get married because that felt trite and like a Pair-the-Spares trope and it made it seem like that was the only possible result of a deep friendship between a girl and formal-girl-now-guy-on-purpose-due-to-failed-romance. BUT!! Boku-Uta does provide a nice insight on that, which I appreciate, and which explains why the other three are singletons (being from the Homeworld, they have a different wavelength from regular earthlings, which is why they harmonize well together (as do Rin and Alice), whereas Daisuke, Jinpachi, and Haruhiko can’t find partners to be in the same harmony with). But to back up a bit, Issei’s subplots was one of my favorites in the original. That scene when he “releases” Enju’s soul to go out and love deeply again was so sweet. : DSo like, I pretty much like EVERYONE due to deep attachment for the series, though my thoughts and feelings change over the years. These are just the thoughts coming to mind at the moment. XD

[connan-l]

Some scattered messy Saikoroshi thoughts upon rereading cause why not:

I actually... much more enjoyed Saikoroshi than in my first read? For some reason in my memories that chapter never really did anything for me before that, and I think it has quite to do with the fact I’ve always found “bonus arcs when the story’s already over and don’t need any more additions” kind of annoying. But, reading it now, it does have a lot of interesting elements and do a really good job about fleshing out some parts of Rika’s character and diving into her thought process and struggles. Honestly, I actually think it legit does a better job at this than Minagoroshi (probably partly because of the fact we get no weird and unnecessary Keiichi POV transition here), and I truly some bits of it had been imported in her dedicated main arc.

Rika sounds so incredibly hurt when Satoko acts codly towards her and treats her with indifference and it just breaks my heart... Especially that passage where she thinks ‘Oh maybe I was just a replacement for Satoshi after all’ really killed me, and made me think back about how in Tatari she’s the one who pushes Satoko and Keiichi to get closer, and tell him to act similarly to Satoshi because she can’t play her big brother’s role for Satoko and... in that sense, thinking that a part of Rika genuinely believe Satoko cares so much for her only because she acts like a replacement to her brother is so deeply sad.

The famous scene where Rika lashes out at Satoko and hit her with a chair is a very good, chilling scene, but it is pretty baffling when I rememer the reactions a lot of people had to this was "Wow Satoko totally had that coming! That’s what bullies deserve, go Rika!" because... Rika is definitely portrayed as the one being in the wrong here. Actively rooting for Rika in that moment is so weird, cause her behavior is extremely creepy and it's very much a manifestation of her more damaged personality and trauma that's acting up (aka, her Bernkastel side). Obviously what Satoko did to her wasn't good, but saying Rika's reaction to this was deserved is, like, completely missing the point of the scene to me, which is very much here to illustrate just how badly things can escalate when she lets her darker, negative feelings surfaces to the point where she has no hesitation to violently assault one of her loved ones -- specifically her best friend who is usually the person she wants to protect the most.

This has been said before, but there’s really something bittersweet abotu the fact the club wouldn’t exist and that these kids wouldn’t be as close if it weren’t for all the tragedies that brought them together, and that’s a part of the story that’s very meaningful to me.

I’m a very bitter we didn’t get to spend more time developping the whole thing about the twins having never switched places to start with. I mean, that’s such an interesting concept that would make SO much difference for Mion and Shion, but somehow it’s just mentioned once like an after-thought! I’m a bit perplexed about Shion as her original Mion self being so close to Normal Mion, I think she’d still be pretty different, and I don’t like the implication that if the twins had never switched then it’d miraculously solve all their problems (like, lol, no, the Sonozaki family would still be fucked up as hell), but god I wanted more of this. 

Hanyuu and her relationship with Rika in there is so... uncomfortable and unpleasant. Not sure I can explain it well, but it’s basically this pretty disturing and unhealthy dynamic of their original relationship that is never properly addressed in the main game, except that it is much more glaringly obvious and worse here. Also the whole backstory about Hanyuu’s daughter should’ve definitely been present in the main VN.

I kept thinking about Gou a lot while reading it for multiple reasons, but principally what got me the most is Rika’s psyche and mindset as a looper that is much more explored in it. Like, theses passages especially (translation’s not very good but it’s the only one we have for now):

This is 100% the exact same mindset Satoko gets in Gou. “All that happens in those worlds don’t matter cause they’re just like dreams, so I can do whatever I want with whoever until I get to my Ideal World, even kill and hurt others." This is honestly one of the aspects of Rika’s character that I find the most interesting (and unfortunately the most underexplored), how the loops consistently make her dehumanize everyone around her until to her those people become just ‘pieces’ in a game, how much it twisted her perception of reality and human relationships (and how, at its extreme, we end up with Bernkastel). It is amusing to me because I remember how many people got so offended about this peculiar cold part of Satoko’s in Gou, when Rika actually had the exact same approach to this, just in a more passive way. And Rika thought this way even while knowing the mecanism of the fragments and having Hanyuu guide her. Satoko doesn’t, and it’s pretty clear in Gou she thinks she’s only ‘repeating’ time.

Speaking of, did we ever get the confirmation that Gou takes place after Saikoroshi? Like, I guess it’s implied it does, but Saikoroshi is never referenced at no point by Rika so it’s a bit confusing. Then again the first part of Gou is a mess with it seemingly not being sure what it exactly wants to be, so that’s not all that surprising.

[livecharliereaction]

Im stopping now but really im clueless now who the hell is killing her. Can we juts go each character i remember thru rq ok lets go under keep reading

keiichi - Absolutely not. Too much pov to make any sense of that possibility

shion - same here too much pov it just doesnt fit in

mion - shes had so much screen time n stuff its clear to me that sonozakis arent behind it it was a red herring all along rly

satoko - No because...Well out of the main 6 she could be fun but absolutely not because like... Shes usually with us during the time rika dies i feel OR shes already dead... Plus so much screen time i cant imagine there wouldnt have been clues. However the concern is that idt we ever had ANY satoko pov but we had EVERYONE ELSES so not sure what to make of that. Its probably bcs of something else though

rena - We just went through her Whole LifeStory in last chapter p much i mean we dont know ALL about the shit she did at her old school so theres some gaps sure but rika murder does not fit in the schedule nuh uh!

irie - that seems a little too random but maybe if they wanted to make it about him wanting to adopt satoko then maybe and also rika has a dislike for him and also he knows a lot of stuff. But in MY opinion this would be super lame

takano - was my #1 suspect for a while esp for tomitake but really even if she does kill him n then suicide she always dies before rika. far fetched theory maybe shes some kinda witch thing too and shes managed to set it up so that she can already be dead by the time of rikas death. Cos i only super remember like one rika death that wasnt in directly in pov and that was the super random one where she kinda just Appeared naked and guts spilling out somewhere to keiichis proximity (i think it was tatarigoroshi chapter. satoko thought he killed her though that could also be the case that he was so distraught that he Did that. Idfk)

hanyuu - her wishes from her pov dont match up with rikas condition in a way that it would make sense to kill her n keep the timeloop going. Actually that would be a crazy thing to write too i cant recall seeing that. Just looping the time to kill somebody over n over lol But that could explain the random tatarigoroshi death (nobody can see her) (tbh i seriously need to find that scene cos what the fuck is that how it happened??? I didnt liveblog tatarigoroshi ugh...)

tomitake - No

ooishi - No + would be the lamest thing everrr

I forgot the rest of the characters hashtag oops. Cos its obviously not gonna be CHIE or like THE PRINCIPAL or TEPPEI HOUJOU or RINA so... Yeahhh

In conclusion? I dont even know. Now that i laid it out maybe it IS satoko????? But i highly doubt it n i think im influenced by the slight recall of there being a girl who looks like her in umineko (but probably not)... Or takano. But both seem a little unlikely. OK its 1 am goodnight

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep17

Haha yeah at this point I give up on thinking this is newcomer-friendly, lmao.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut [plus Umineko spoilers]

Well this sure was an episode, lol.

At this point I think that regardless of how the rest of the show goes, it kinda just definitively doesn’t work properly as something for new fans to enjoy. It’s not like it wouldn’t make any sense, but it’s just a straight up inferior experience to watching this as a sequel after the VN. Even with the fast-paced montage of Matsuribayashi plot points, new fans still don’t even know stuff like what Takano’s whole backstory is, what her motives where, and what her actual plan even WAS in the first place beyond just ‘she’s gonna kill everyone somehow for some reason’. And I doubt that we’re going to get much time spent at all on Rena and her backstory to explain what she was doing in Onidamashi.

I think Gou works fine as a sequel to the VN, but as a starting point for new fans it just throws enough spoilers at you to ruin the experience of reading the VN afterward, without enough time spent on those plot points and characters to make it worth it. Though I also have to wonder now if it was even worth spending 13 episodes going over mostly the same events as the original question arcs if immediately afterward they were going to drop all pretenses of this being a remake.

I’m pretty negative about this whole aspect of the show, but I still think that the sequel aspect of it is good and interesting. Even if a lot of that is just me being desperate for any amount of indirect Umineko content, lol.

This episode might have spelled out that Satoko is the second looper on the gameboard, but it seems pretty obvious that there’s a higher power influencing her and giving her the power to loop in the first place. I’m still suspicious of Hanyuu/Featherine, but this episode made me think it’s much more likely that it might actually be Lambda.

I wasn’t really sure about it earlier since it felt like wishful thinking, but the whole beginning scene where Takano apologizes to Rika and says that she wouldn’t believe her even if she explained why she suddenly changed her mind about her mission seems to indicate that Lambda has basically abandoned Takano and revoked her blessing of certainty, and she seems to remember the events of Matsuribayashi anyway, so she’s basically just accepted her defeat. I don’t think it’s as simple as that, though, because of what Takano said about Rika not believing why she changed her mind, so I think it also involves her connection to Lambda.

It might actually be a lot like how Lambda acted in Umineko, where she took over the game master position for a while after Beatrice abandoned the game. This might be Lambda taking over the Higurashi game board because Hanyuu abandoned it, and she’s decided to make Satoko her new piece.

We’ve already seen Satoko talk about how Oyashiro contacted her and made her into his new priestess because of Rika’s sins, so I think Lambda probably just posed as Oyashiro to convince Satoko to become her piece.

It’d also help explain how weird a lot of Gou’s game board feels, and how silly the whole concept of Satoko being a criminal mastermind is, if this is the Higurashi version of Umineko Ep5, where Lambda created a ‘game without love’ where she didn’t technically contradict anything about the story or the characters, but pushed the limits of how out of character she could make them act.

I’ve already felt for a while that Nekodamashi in particular feels more like a case of the culprit just trying to unfairly torture Rika instead of trying to present her with a fairy mystery to solve, and that’d definitely fit with the idea of Lambda just wanting to mess with Rika and manipulating the pieces and the game board to do so.

It kinda risks entering the catch-22 territory of something being ‘intentionally badly written’, in a sense, if the whole point is that the real mastermind is just being sadistic and not trying to establish a fair mystery, but it’s at least something that’s been established before in the overall franchise. I dunno how well it works to have that be the premise of an entire season, though, compared to how only one episode of Umineko worked this way, and it was already established there that Lambda was the new game master at the very start of the episode, so there weren’t any surprises or secrets there.

Either way this could basically just be the hand wave-y explanation for any questions of how Satoko apparently managed to obtain the syringe in each arc and inject all these random people successfully in each arc. And also why it doesn’t even seem to make sense from Satoko’s POV for her to act in such a roundabout and risky way.

Honestly, it kinda reminds me of the whole mentality some people have where they wonder why Rika doesn’t just use her supernatural knowledge of everything going on to perfectly game the system and manipulate everyone. The whole point there is that she’s just a little girl who’s only physically capable of doing so much without outside help, but Lambda might be straight up giving Satoko the unnatural ability to actually do all of this stuff even as a random little girl. Which, again, feels kinda iffy as a writing choice, but it’d also fit with a lot of the commentary Ryukishi likes to do about this type of stuff.

One thing I’m curious about is if the next arc will start off with a new loop, or if this one will keep going. Usually we don’t have loops carry over between arcs, and with how this episode ended we might just find out that Satoko immediately shot Rika, but considering how Rika obviously planned this whole scene to happen, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s able to stop Satoko from shooting her.

I didn’t think this up, but I’ve seen other people theorize that part of the ‘birthday party preparation’ involved Rika explaining everything to her friends off-screen and getting them to help her deal with the whole Satoko confrontation, which I think would make a lot of sense, and it’d make it a lot more likely that the next arc will start with Satoko getting stopped before she can kill Rika. Although if the next arc starts that way, and everyone’s already aware of what’s going on with Rika and Satoko, and we’ve already gone through all the stuff with Takano giving up her plans and leaving the village, I have to wonder what they’d even spend seven whole episodes doing, lol. All the stuff with Takano and the clinic in this episode also makes it feel like this will be the ‘final loop’, since it’d feel a bit weird to have to go over it all again later on, but we’ll see.

I’ve also seen people point out that Satoko’s gun at the end seems to be the same type as Mion’s toy gun, so instead of her getting physically overpowered, we might find out that Rika got Mion to swap her gun with Satoko’s. I dunno exactly how Rika would have known about Satoko having a gun, or how she’d be able to make the swap happen without Satoko realizing it, but I could see it playing out that way.

Anyway, this really feels like it’s shaping up to be a Bern vs Lambda game, where Lambda’s whole goal is just to keep Rika stuck in this loop as long as possible no matter what. And I still feel like if they’re gonna go this hard into the Umineko connections, they should really just go the whole nine yards and have this lead into a proper Umineko anime remake. Otherwise it’d feel like a wasted opportunity where Higurashi fans get disappointed that their series got ‘tainted’ by Umineko-related story baggage, while Umineko fans are disappointed because it’s not the sort of content we’ve been hoping for, and it’s not as substantial as a full remake would be.

It doesn’t help that Okonogi and Amakusa both show up in this episode, lol. I know they both show up in Higurashi, but still. At this point it’d just feel cruel if all this teasing doesn’t actually lead to anything noteworthy.

Also, even in spite of how much this episode explained about the whole mystery, I feel even more confused about what the whole final arc could possibly be about at this point, especially if I’m right about this loop continuing for maybe the entire rest of the next arc. It kinda feels like we’re already at the endgame where both sides have revealed their intentions to each other, and we more or less know exactly what the mechanics of everything going on behind the scenes are. It feels like there isn’t really any mystery left to unravel, aside from maybe the specifics of what happened to Satoko after Matsuribayashi that clearly lead to her getting influenced into doing all this. But we still have seven whole episodes left to go, so clearly there’s a lot left to happen.

Ideally they’re going to find time to actually go over stuff like Rena and Shion’s backstories, and the exact details of what happened in the previous years of the curse killings, and Takano’s whole backstory and what her big evil plan actually was in the first place, so those things don’t just end up left in the VN for new fans to not find out about, but I dunno. Ironically, I don’t think there’s *enough* episodes left to properly go into all that, unless it’s as fast-paced as how this episode went through a bullet point list of details from Matsuribayashi.

There’s still the question of if we might get a second season, but I doubt it. Maybe it could be a one-cour second season, but it already feels like we’re at the end of the story. We’re basically at the equivalent of the end of Minagoroshi, and there was only one more arc after that in the VN. But if we’re making comparisons to the VN, then we’ve still basically skipped over Tsumihoroboshi and Meakashi, lol.

Also, before I forget, it still genuinely bugs me that even though Rika apparently remembered Takano being evil this whole time, and clearly still thought she was evil this whole time, she’s apparently done absolutely nothing to try and investigate or stop her in any of these timelines, and she spent all of Nekodamashi being like ‘wow, I can’t believe people are going unnaturally L5 and killing me while taking about parasites . . . . who could possibly be behind this . . . . . .. .  oh well guess I’ll just die lol’. I don’t want to call it a plot hole, but it just feels like genuinely bad writing caused by the unnecessary conflict of Gou trying to appeal to new fans while also being a sequel. But in the end they ended up giving a sparknotes version of Matsuribayashi that spoils Takano being evil anyway, so it feels kinda pointless that they sidestepped the issue so hard up to this point, at the cost of having Rika basically act like an idiot who doesn’t bother acting upon any of the knowledge she has.

Anyway, if we don’t get a full Umineko remake out of this in the end, they should at least just have the next arc turn into full on Umineko shenanigans with logic battles and witches with laser swords and shit.

I might sound like I’m just really negative toward Higurashi in general compared to Umineko, but even though I prefer Umineko, I really like Higurashi, and that’s a big part of why it bugs me so much that they didn’t just commit to this being a proper remake. An actual remake of the VN that has more concise pacing and works better as an anime would be genuinely great in it’s own way, but that’s not what we’ve ended up getting, lol.