Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU

Episodes 1-4

Funimation slid in two episodes for Higurashi's premiere, so it looks like my daunting task is to discuss the first "Answer" arc. Like I mentioned in the Preview Guide entry, this arc hones in on Rena, her home life, and how Satoko's injection spurs her to act to "protect" her father from an exploitative relationship. It also adds some pathos as we learn about the circumstances leading up to her parents' divorce.

As for actual answers, this three-episode arc doesn't provide much other than Rena's tragic backstory. Her descent into paranoia serves little purpose outside of Satoko wanting to torture Rika for "abandoning" her. In fact, the third episode feels mostly like sporadic clips pulled from GOU seen from new angles to highlight where Rena was at the time. The most compelling portion is showing Rena continually digging up Rina's body and moving it every time she thinks it may be unearthed or its location compromised. We finish with Rena and Keiichi's face off in his house followed by Rika killing herself to escape the timeline (with a comical amount of blood).

Episode four starts the "Answer" portion for the Mion/Shion arc, which I admittedly have a soft spot for. It was also the most "mysterious" part in GOU as it heavily changed up the events. So color me disappointed when most of this episode was exposition between Satoko and Eua followed by table-setting to explain both how Satoko ends up with a gun and why she's adept at shooting it. The entire plot thread felt extremely flimsy, most of which I contribute to Satoko's interactions with her uncle. I honestly feel like I missed something here and am having some legitimate concerns about how the writing in SOTSU plans to handle Teppei now that we know that Satoko is time-looping to get revenge on Rika.

GOU was primarily told from Rika's perspective and the arc focused on getting Child Welfare Services to remove Satoko from Teppei's care. The entire story was played straight. We now have to reconcile that everything that happened in that arc could be, in some part, purposefully manipulated by a vengeful Satoko. Which is perhaps the biggest can of worms Higurashi has presented. It was always accepted that Teppei was legitimately abusive; Satoko had a full-scale panic attack in front of her class, and a previous false report submitted by Satoko against her former step-father hindered CWS from acting on concerns about Teppei.

But now we have Satoko showing up at Teppei's house, a man she obviously loathes, and manipulating him into betting on the horse races so she can get him drunk and use his shady contacts to buy a gun. This doesn't immediately negate how he was characterized in previous incarnations of the story, but at least in this timeline he is bending over backwards in order to appease Satoko and it isn't clear why. Has she already been removed from his care in this timeline and he wants to keep her happy in order to keep the authorities out of his business? Or is he just...not a bad person? Does his abusive behavior hinge on alcohol and stress and he's otherwise not awful?

I'm not outright opposed to giving abusers nuance but I get itchy when it turns into "they were lying about abuse." I feel like Satoko's reprehension of Teppei isn't just limited to keeping a dirty house, but I can't figure out his behavior in this episode and how it fits into his previous characterization.

We also see that Mion (unless it's Shion!) is injected by Satoko this go around but we don't get know how, at least not how Satoko did it without Mion noticing. A whole side narrative about Back to the Future horse gambling, but nothing about how Mion was jabbed unaware.

SOTSU hasn't done anything particularly unexpected yet in its first four episodes except raise a few red flags. I'm cautiously awaiting episode five.

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Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU is currently streaming on Funimation.