Higurashi: When They Cry – GOU

Episode 17

Alright, alright, first thing to get out of the way is that the readers were definitely right about me approaching the last episode from the wrong angle. I made the mistake of taking an episode of Higurashi at face value and assumed its thematic moralizing about "appreciating what you have" was genuine. Given that the little idiom centered on keeping Rika captive in a secluded town after a previous episode where she's killed by anyone she's ever trusted, you can understand the bitter taste it left in my mouth. Another part of the mistake was I trusted the wrong person despite the gruesome acts on display; Satoko has at worst been the continual victim of abuse by the adults around her. I didn't exactly expect the arc immediately following "save her from her dead-beat, abusive uncle" to be "she's orchestrating bad ends to traumatize her best friend so she never leaves her." But that's what appears to be happening.

The episode opens with a flashback to what I assume is a failed ending from Higurashi proper where the machinations are the result of Miyo Takano, the Irie Clinic, and a military-style tactical unit known as the Bloodhounds. While I've been avoiding outright retelling the ending of Higurashi for weeks now, in small part because I didn't want to spoil it for series newbies who jumped in with Gou, it's also in large part because it's extremely friggin' complicated. It involves military operations centered around Hinamizawa Syndrome, a unique virus that causes the paranoia seen in earlier episodes. Miyo is motivated for selfish and psychotic reasons but she's backed up by a government-level conspiracy. Also the fact that there's both a group called the "Bloodhounds" and "Mountain Dogs" always gets me confused because both are allies to Tokyo, but not always Takano. Basically there's infighting within the operation itself (surprise).

However, in the new "best" timeline, everything starts unraveling in the easiest way possible. Takano has a change of heart about her operation that would have annihilated Hinamizawa. The original operation is referenced briefly as "Emergency Manual #34," and was essentially a stamp of approval to wipe out the village in the event that Hinamizawa Syndrome went out of control. Dr. Irie was actively researching the parasite-induced disease in the underground part of the clinic where he's shown to be housing Satoshi. The disease itself has multiple "tiers" of affliction with L5 being the known highest that causes the hallucinations, neck scratching, paranoia, and erratic and violent behavior. Residents of Hinamizawa are parasite carriers and susceptible to "going berserk" under stress and other conditions. Emergency Manual 34 allows Takano, Irie, and the Mountain Dogs to wipe out all residents that test above L2.

Satoko, like Satoshi, has been a test subject for a cure to Hinamizawa Syndrome. The cure itself is derived from Rika's own blood. The other side of the coin is H173, shown in the briefcase in this episode. H173 was developed to induce L5 symptoms of Hinamizawa Syndrome for use by the Japanese military. Also, apologies if this glosses over some of the finer details but I'm trying my best to not write a Wikia entry. It just seemed like this episode wanted to dump all these references to Higurashi with minimal context, so here's hoping this helped.

So none of the elaborate conspiracy comes to pass because Takano has decided to turn herself in with help from Jiro. She says something cryptic to Rika when she asks her why she's abandoning her plans. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Takano has always been a plotter and planner to a fault, but she was also human and didn't have back-up plans for supernatural things like Hanyu or an elementary school girl who is actually a century old. I can't help but suspect her change of heart is closely tied to Satoko and whatever circumstances have caused her to become a looper.

Which brings in the potential for the Umineko connection. Given the giant infodump I just had to do, I'm not sure if I'm prepared to add to this wordcount with an explanation about Bernkastel; and honestly, my grasp of Umineko is extremely limited. There could be witches involved, there could be an anime-original supernatural entity, everything is new at this point and the options are endless. I'll try to jump to conclusions as quickly this time but the one thing that does give me pause about this twist is if it justifies Gou's existence in the first place. It feels a little fanfiction-y to have Rika pulled into the world she escaped because her best friend got resentful. So I'm hoping for something a little more substantial than that.

How Satoko orchestrated the previous arcs is also fascinating to consider. I'm curious if she managed to obtain H173 and if it's what led to people like Ooishi going berserk when they hadn't before. Viewers also pointed out how suspicious it was when she previously lured Keiichi into her house. I'm curious to know what she was doing when her Uncle returned and everyone was out trying to get CPS involved. Then there's the Mion arc where she was found dead in the hallway, presumably having shot Mion and then herself? I think in the Rena arc she was found dead in the house with Rika...was that also due to gunshot wounds?

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Higurashi: When They Cry – GOU is currently streaming on Funimation and Hulu.