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anon-chan · 2mo
I wonder if people would see George with more love if Ryukishi didn't make the age gap that big.
It's a weird case because no matter what people says, it's pretty obvious that he wanted people to support George and Shannon and their relationship. EP8 condemns their haters pretty strongly
Hm. I think the age gap is a big part of it, at least in a lot of discussion of GeorgeShannon? But there's definitely also the power imbalance between them and how George can come off as patronizing/patriarchal at various points. I think those elements of their relationship are amped up by the big age gap to a point where a lot of people don't like them - and I also don't see anyone who enjoys GeorgeShannon being someone who subscribes to that incredibly large age gap.
So I think there would definitely be more people who tolerated or liked the pairing/George if the age gap was smaller, but it's also not the only factor, just a rather large one.
anon-chan · 3mo
It's funny how lots of people agreed that Battler being weird and wanting to grop his family in the first 2 episodes but abandoning that behavior post episode 2 can be explained by those episodes being written by Sayo who just wrote Battler like they remembered him when he was like 11. Maybe also related to some kind of coping mechanism as Sayo and Battler's romantic relationship would also be incestuous.
But then Ryukishi went and said he regretted the way he wrote Battler in the first episodes of Umineko and that he wished he could rewrite that
he didn't do it on purpose he really just wrote him like that 😭 the fandom saved that man
I feel like Ryukishi is the kind of writer where his highs are so great that when he slips up, his devoted fans interpret things in the best faith possible and practically fix up his mistakes for him... The true magic of the relationship between author and reader, haha.
I feel like you can see this in how people have this charitable reading of EP1/EP2 Battler, but when it comes to the mistakes Ryukishi made while writing less popular characters like George, people read it much less charitably
anon-chan · 3mo
I always hate when people excuse Sayo of everything related to the murders by using what happened in Prime to say that she wouldn't have murdered, that she was full innocent and unable to do such a thing.
Although EP7 explains very well and explicitly that the only reason she didn't do it was because the adults solved the epitaph, and for Sayo that meant losing, Beatrice's death. She gave up all possibilities and left her future to fate. She was definitely going to start the murders had the adults not beat her first.
And I mean, you have so many Fragments where Sayo did kill everyone. But well most people who really think she was unable to kill don't believe in the meta and fragments at all either so
I think what's more important than whether Sayo would or wouldn't have 'really done it' (though, if all pieces must act 'in character' on the board, then Sayo must have been capable of it due to that rule), is the fact that she set up the perfect environment for a murder, and she intended to commit murder.
Ryukishi talks a lot about considering the environment that leads people to commit crimes, such as murder, or to commit suicide. Following that, the people who create such environments must also bear some sort of blame, right? It's true that Sayo themself grew up in an abusive situation that led to their actions and intent to commit murder, but Sayo also created the perfect situation for murder to occur, whether by their hand or by others', through the gold, the cards, the guns, and the bomb. It's directly due to that room and Sayo's actions / setup that Kyrie and Rudolf realized that they could commit murder, get away with it, and make bank.
With regards to guns, I've always been told that you should only aim it at a human being if you're willing to / intend to shoot. If it's a fake gun to scare people away, that's something different - but in this metaphor, Sayo was holding a live gun with the safety off.
anon-chan · 4mo
Hi! Higurashi anon here! It has been a while but here I am with my theories for the Question Arcs!
For Onikakushi, I really think Keiichi went... a bit... paranoid (well, very paranoid) and that things weren't really as much as he saw. By the end of the Episode we even see hints of him questioning whether some things happened or not. This doesn't mean everything was just his imagination. I definitely think something was happening, but he wasn't very objective. The syringe was definitely real, as it's even mentioned in Watanagashi too. It definitely had some kind of drug... and the fact Keiichi repeats what Tomitake did to kill himself at the end definitely prompts me to think he was somehow drugged with the same drug. But I do wonder what's the thing with the syringe... and the fact that of everything Keiichi wrote in his letter, only his theory of the first victim actually living was taken along the syringe. Onikakushi is really mysterious in the terms of the Whydunnit, but I do think everything can be explained in human ways. Keiichi wasn't on his right senses, he kinda hallucinated many things, and Ooishi wasn't helping either... And if he was drugged then as well...
Watanagashi is pretty direct, and only introduces its big mysteries at the very end in my opinion. The last scene in the hospital... Ooishi asks Keiichi if he really was stabbed by Mion, revealing that it couldn't be because Mion was actually dead by much earlier.
Of course, and this is when my big theorizing starts, if you want to explain this in a human way, there's only one possible option. It was Shion. Shion disguised herself as Mion, acted as her and stabbed Keiichi.
Now, the interesting part for me was the Whydunnit. Because this Shion states something very interesting after stabbing Keiichi. That she has finally killed everyone she wanted to kill.
Of course, there's the option of Shion having suffered such a big trauma that she, being Mion's twin, tried to finish what she started as her... but I don't really think so. And it was from that statement that I went to another theory with a single question: "At what moment had Shion suplanted Mion's identity?"
Was it really only at the end? Or it was... much earlier?
There's a lot of focus on twins in this episode after all, and how hard could it be do distinguish them... close to the end there's also some Hints about Mion and Shion's relationship, how weird was that the Sonozaki allowed twins instead of getting rid of one, etc.
So my theory is ultimately that Shion kidnapped Mion and then supplanted her, probably after the Watanagashi. Aaaaaand here comes another big hint for this! "Mion"'s reaction about Satoko and Satoshi when they went to look for Satoko and Rika. The way she answered, triggered, blaming Satoko for Satoshi's disappearance, saying she's cursed... especially after Tatarigoroshi, it becomes super obvious in my opinion. That was Shion dropping the act for a moment.
I think Shion could have been in love with Satoshi, and his disappearance was a big trauma for her. Considering how she talked in Tatarigoroshi and the especific deaths in Watanagashi, I think Shion could have thought the Three Families killed Satoshi? And designed a plan of revenge to kill their leaders, leaving Mion alive till the end so she could make her suffer the most. So she killed Oryu for the Sonozakis, Hinamizawa' mayor (leader of another family, I don't remember the name) and Rika for the Furude. She also tortured and killed Satoko for the same...
Idk why would she mindtorture and try to kill Keiichi though. Maybe just because he's Mion's friend? Because Mion seems to like him? Because he reminds her about Satoshi (as Higurashi really likes to mention how similar they are) and she can't take it? Mmm
Ultimately, in the torture underground, Shion would force the real Mion to act like she was Shion in front of Keiichi, then she would kill her and escape quickly afterwards, changing to Shion again.
But maybe because of guilt or lack of hope or something, at the end she commited suicide after stabbing Keiichi... if i remember well someone witnessed having heard her like talking with herself or something? So she maybe wasn't in her right mind after all of that...
Okay! Watanagashi's second great mystery! TAKANO. At the end Keiichi receives the big reveal that they couldn't have been with Takano during the Watanagashi because surprise, Takano had been dead for one or two days before that. BUT both Keiichi and Shion saw her. They were definitely with her.
So, who was that Takano? Once again, if we go with human theories... the answer is that they definitely were with her. So the corpse found had her details faked and wasn't actually Takano, or the Takano they met there, and during all the game, was a different person using that name.
But I'm going to leave that for later.
Tatarigoroshi! What happened here? I think I can explain it more or less. The one thing I can't really explain would be Keiichi somehow managing to survive the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, as the last scene reveals that he couldn't have survived if he really had been there the whole time. Unless... well, he was lying for some reason, but idk.
Okay, so... Keiichi really murdered Satoko's uncle. I don't have any doubt about that. In the hints, it's revealed Ooishi and the police were thinking he could be the victim for this year, so they observed his movements. They confirm Satoko's uncle left the house and never got back. The bat is gone as well, and so is his bike.
So... what happened? Why would Satoko say that he never left and was there all along?
In any case, Satoko couldn't have been telling the truth....
But I really don't want to think like that Hint where it's said you shouldn't believe her just because of what happened with her stepfather. I think Satoko's trauma was so big that even after her uncle left... for her, he was still there...
What happened with the corpse? Someone had to have moved it. I thought about Takano who definitely seemeed to know what Keiichi had done. I also thought about... well, Satoko. It's interesting to know that Satoko was going back home during the same time Keiichi was killing her uncle. So the possibility of her witnessing it and trying to help Keiichi (as we know Satoko always helped Satoshi) could be a chance, and we know she can move perfectly in the forest, but mmm... she moving a corpse, dead weight... without help... idk. Even then, this would contradict the end of the episode with Satoko trying to kill what she think was Keiichi possessed by something because of her. (though maybe she could be triggered because of Rika's death, but I don't know)
Takano moving the corpse to help Keiichi could just be a way to protect herself as... well, I'll talk later about that.
Who was the other Keiichi? I thought about it when it happened, because of something similar happening in Watanagashi, and Himatsubushi basically confirmed it for me. ...I think.
Everyone was covering for Keiichi, they were lying. Himatsubushi puts so much empashis in this. That in Hinamizawa everyone could organize so there were no culprits, especially under orders of the Sonozaki (with Mion... or Shion supplanting her too? because of the phone talk where she says Keiichi is acting like Satoshi). So I think it's that since Mion basically knew what Keiichi was going to do.
Ooishi's disappearance just after asking to identify a car... I think there's only one car important in this episode. So the owner appearing after finding the car could be related to this...
Irie's death... Idk why would he do that, or if he was forced. (Maybe?) Takano's death can be explained the same way as in Watanagashi. I definitely think she's actually alive.
I really can't explain the Great Hinamizawa Disaster in a human way apart from coincidence... unless somehow Keiichi sinking the bike in the swamp could have caused it lol
I do wonder if the disaster also happens in Onikakushi and Watanagashi... An interesting detail about the Disaster is that in the list of victims, Satoko appears as missing. She wasn't found, just like her uncle. What happened to Satoko...? This is just a theory, but along Keiichi's mysterious survival, I wonder if I'm supposed to believe him. What if Keiichi's POV in this episode wasn't really objective because he's trying to cover for Satoko to protect her? What if something different happened during the climax, and somehow Keiichi managed to save Satoko from the disaster? Idk.
By the way I find interesting the parallel with Umineko. The Great Hinamizawa Disaster, the Rokkenjima Incident with the explosion... things that are introduced close to the end of the Question Arcs, at the end of the third episode (though in Umineko the explosion isn't really mentioned until Erika's dead profile at the end of EP6, but you could kinda guess something happened from Rokkenjima's description when Ange visited it in EP4)... the possibility of the Disaster being something caused by humans and not just a coincidence is also discussed in Himatsubushi. If it was like Umineko, maybe there's some kind of device able to pull it up too - though it seems far fetched.
Hahaha. Maybe the person Lambda turned into a "god" was Satoko, by giving her the certainty of the "disaster device" if something like that existed, just like Lambda gave Sayo the certainty needed to create the catbox with the bomb. Ok now I'm just rambling nonsense, sorry. Please don't take anything of this seriously.
And finally we reach Rika's death in Tatarigoroshi, and with it, the Final Mystery of Himatsubushi.
Who kills Rika? How and why? Who is the Big Culprit?
My answer, although a bit obvious after Tatarigoroshi: it's Takano. Or whoever this person is if they're just using that name without being her.
Like, really, once you try to justify her being alive in Watanagashi at a time she should have been dead and the circumstances of said death... it's pretty obvious she's involved in something big. She's too suspicious. She also expressed interest for Hinamizawa, its people, culture and legends, and there's a Hint just before Keiichi and Satoko finding Rika's corpse about what would happen if Rika, the incarnation of Oyashiro-sama, were to die, with Takano (I think it's her at least) finding the scenario very interesting.
And I mean. Tatarigoroshi all but explicitly say Takano murdered Tomitake. And since he always die in the same way in every episode... that would mean Takano is the one murdering him in Onikakushi and Watanagashi as well. Though I wonder why she disappears only in Onikakushi, faking her death in the rest of episodes. In any case, had Takano survived in Tatarigoroshi, she could have killed Rika. There's also the fact Takano's car is the only important one that appears in this Episode, and Ooishi and his partner disappear just after asking HQ to tell them about a car they had found. (Though in Himatsubushi, Ooishi is alive and apparently only his partner disappeared). To me it felt like a hint of Takano being involved with their disappearance as well.
Since we're on the topic, Takano was said to work for Irie, I think? At least in the same clinic he has. I wonder if she was also involved with his death.
Irie and Takano... the clinic... I don't think Irie is the culprit, though maybe he could be an accomplice...? mmm.... idk
In relation to Onikakushi, I do wonder if Irie was the "director" Rena and Mion called to "help" Keiichi.
Well. Right now I think that would be everything. I'm sorry since I talked a lot! There's a lot of things and possibilities... I really think Takano is the big culprit killing Rika for some reason. Thinking about it, considering she made Keiichi think the Sonozakis were behind the previous murders, I do wonder if she could have also made Shion think like that in EP2, making her act so she would kill Rika at the end as well without Takano needing to do anything. Buuuuut Rika did survive in Onikakushi, right?
Why is "Takano" murdering Tomitake? Why is she so creepy and faking her death? Why would she want to kill Rika apart from mere curiosity based on Hinamizawa's legends? What's the whole thing with the Disaster...? Mmmm....
Well, next episode is Meakashi! First Answer Arc, and I know Shion will be the protagonist. So at the very least maybe I'll find whether my theory about her is correct.
Thank you for reading this! 😭
I'm so sorry I never replied to this the world is. So busy. For me recently.
Anyway this was SO interesting to read, the theorizing was really fun for me to read since I didn't theorize very well when I first read Higurashi... didn't have the power of Umineko backing me then. Thank you so so much for sharing <3
anon-chan · 4mo
Oh the intense meta grief of being a gay character in love with the protagonist in a mainstream MxF story and knowing you won't have happiness because from the very beginning it was decided you can't win and asking yourself why you have to be the one to suffer and to move on instead of the other but it's pointless because you didn't stand a chance, you were never meant to be or to have a role or to say anything in all of this.
You have to watch it unfold while your heart breaks because stories for you aren't written or accepted...
Just the grief of knowing your love can't be requited and you never belonged to this story...
Yes. yes. Absolutely. You understand. This is the appeal of Virgilius and Battler to me but also it's generally a ship dynamic that I love. The idea of not being part of someone's story, doomed to never be the one chosen, the one loved. And having that be tied into their queerness as the protagonist is meant to be cishet and sanitized.
(I feel like this is also sliiightly Kim Dokja from ORV.)
anon-chan · 4mo
Now I wonder what would beabato think about Higurashi, with their... intense history with Lambdabern mmm
anon-chan · 4mo
To be honest, my biggest problem with my whodunnit theory in Higurashi (at least, for the "Final Mystery" proposed in Himatsubushi) is that it seems pretty obvious, especially after Tatarigoroshi -- that's why I'm not certaintly sure. But that person is definitely too sus, and trying to explain in a human way how some stuff could happen with her only makes them even more suspicious in the great scheme of things. Even if I don't know WHY would they make that.
It seems like Ooishi and Akasaka believe there was one single person behind everything that had been happening in Hinamizawa during the last years, but Rika seemed to think the Watanagashi murders and her own murder in the last year were two different crimes, with the latter being even against the wishes of the first perpetrator(s). Mmm...
Would you like to read my theories? 👉👈 You don't have to say anything... I don't have anyone else to talk about them!
anon-chan · 4mo
Hiiii! I finished Himatsubushi! So I finished the Question Arcs!!! It was a long road...
I'm happy nothing felt as scary as Onikakushi. Though... Tatarigoroshi was very triggering...
Himatsubushi probably didn't feel as mysterious for me because of Umineko
Since I knew from what Lambda said in EP6 that Bern was originally a piece in a gameboard made by Featherine, and that she committed a logic error and left Bern alone to solve it. Rika definitely behaved very close to Bern when she "changed"! I think that the explanation for she knowing everything is that her meta self has gone through uncountable games by now, trying to solve the logic error... though I wonder what's exactly the logic error in Higurashi. (Does this mean I can't solve it?)
As for the mystery, I think I have a human explanation for mostly everything! And I think the Final Mystery, the Big Culprit who kills Rika although she shouldn't die (though idk if she died in EP1) and that could be responsible of the Great Hinamizawa Disaster as well (does it happen as well in EP1 and 2?)... I think I know the whodunnit! But i really don't know what could be the Whydunnit...
You made it through...! Congratulations!
As for Rika and a 'logic error', well... :3
You'll see how your explanation turns out... Higurashi is less of a 'proper' mystery but I think some people did guess correctly? I think the whodunnit is much easier than some aspects of it like how/why.
anon-chan · 4mo
I think it's a fairly accurate assessment, but for me I think Beatrice has both that soft, vulnerable side as well as that more dominant side. I think they're both aspects of her character and her relationship with Battler. Though the extent to which she goes in EP2 is in part a front, there's also truth to it.
anon-chan · 5mo
Hi! I'm the anon reading Higurashi! I know it has been a time, but I wanted to tell you I finished Tatarigoroshi!
This chapter didn't scare me as much as Onikakushi, or Watanagashi's last scene... but hahaha...
What happened with Satoko...
It was very difficult to read. And triggering.
I have many theories and possible answers for the mysteries! Though there's still many things I don't know
There's just one question arc left!
anon-chan · 6mo
A thing I don't understand is how Sayo and Beato knew about the baby swapping with Battler. Like, why did they investigated it to begin with?
There's a couple options, since I don't believe this is covered in the story itself.
Option 1, which is the simplest, is that Sayo didn't know in Prime, but Beatrice knows. There are two sub-options for this: one is that she knows because she is a witch (less likely, as she doesn't know that Sakutarou isn't handmade) and the other is that she knows because she is written by someone who does know - Tohya.
The idea that Beatrice knows because she was written by Tohya in 4 is one I prefer, primarily because it also ties into how I view the scene as Tohya grappling with his identity (Battler or Tohya) as well as his past, and how finding out that his mother was Kyrie affected his identity.
Option 2 is that Sayo had Genji investigate the Ushiromiya family for scandals/secrets, and he found out for them.
Option 3 is that Kinzo was somehow aware of the swap, and because of this, Sayo became aware of it (maybe he shared this info with Genji and he told Sayo).
anon-chan · 6mo
I've always thought that Bernkastel was lying when she stated that Lion only existed in one fragment and their death by Kyrie was unavoidable. Neither Bern nor Lambda said it with the red truth, so I think there could be many other fragments with Lion where they lived and Bern just chose one where Kyrie killed them to mindtorture Clair and Lion.
For me I generally take those words to be true, but since she didn't use red truth, it is possible. I do think that regardless, fragments with Lion are probably relatively (miraculously) rare, especially one where they survived.
Then again, I'm a sucker for impossible and inescapable fates, and like the symbolism of the whole thing with regards to how escaping from the cycle of abuse is impossible unless it's directly confronted (Lion is kept in ignorance, and thus cannot escape even by being accepted into the family).
anon-chan · 6mo
How is your experience with Persona 3 Reload???
Mixed, I feel like. On the one hand I do enjoy a lot of the new stuff they added, but some of the additional new content feels... meh? Like they felt like they needed to add in these character realizations that just don't 100% mesh with the already-established stuff sometimes. But the gameplay is really smooth, the music is great, the game is absolutely beautiful...
Then there's some really abysmal writing (in social links) that's leftover from the original game that I didn't experience before, since I played with FeMC. Also the general misogyny/male gaze of certain scenes. They removed the one NPC being a transmisogynistic caricature, so you'd think they could rewrite more things, but oh well. My original experience with male MC is with the manga/movies, which feels a lot less male gaze/pandering.
anon-chan · 6mo
I'm curious. Do we have confirmation that Kinzo really betrayed and killed the italians to take Beatrice? Or was it just what Sayo thought? Some stuff said by Kinzo in EP4 apparently support that idea, but then again, EP4 was written by Tohya in reality and by Beato in the meta world. Neither should know the real truth and could have been biased by their feelings of hate and disgust to Kinzo. Although he was undoubtedly terrible as a father, the Question Arcs paint Kinzo as a very cruel person that doesn't care about and even loathes his grandchildren, but Ryukishi confirmed that in fact Kinzo truly loved his grandchildren and acted around them like he was in EP8. So that was likely something Sayo wrote wrong because of their conflicted feelings??? there's also that part of Confession where they ask Genji about the corpses of the soldiers and if it was Kinzo who killed them all, but Genji is unable to answer (he wasn't there after all) and Sayo just assumes he did, hating themselves even more for having his blood.
All of this leads me to the famous red screen scene in tea party of Ep7. When Bern cuts Clair and her blood covers the screen, we see 3 scenes that were mostly seen as "red truths", but since it comes from Clair (Sayo), it's her blood, what she hide, maybe the weren't really red truths but what Sayo thought happened. After all, she wasn't there to know what Kinzo did, she only made a supposition.
This isn't about defending Kinzo. He's the character I hate the most and nothing excuses what he did to his children. But I was wondering if his relationship with Bice was truly like he told Will, who shouldn't have been able to see nothing but the truth with what Bern gave him, and the other version was actually what Sayo thought had happened.
We don't have 100% proof, no. In the end it's never stated with the red truth, so while we have hints that Kinzo did it (EP4 Kinzo, the EP7 Clair blood scene, the EP8 manga) we can't take them to be 100% truth. As you mentioned, everyone who writes about or brings up this possibility is someone who has reason to be biased against Kinzo, and no one was actually there at the time.
While it's a strong possibility that he did kill the soldiers/incite fighting, it's not confirmed. Though I do think that what Will sees can be tampered with: he does see Maria with Beatrice in her segment, which we know is Maria's perception of events rather than 1:1 with 'reality'. So it seems that if it matches how someone perceives an event, he might see that instead of the 100% unvarnished, objective version of events. Witnesses are allowed to be subjective and biased, after all.
In the end it ties into what a lot of Umineko is about: the subjectivity of it, of speaking about the dead from one's own limited memories or knowledge of them, the difficulty of knowing everything about someone, especially someone who has passed. And that applies to Kinzo especially. He was an abusive and terrible figure, but he also liked playing pranks, sometimes was kind to Shannon/Kanon, and, if we believe Episode 8, he may have even doted on his grandchildren at times, which can coexist along with EP1's Jessica's testimony about him spanking her.
anon-chan · 6mo
Hi! I'm the Higurashi anon! Do you think Beato and Battler would enjoy Higurashi? I think early Umineko actually mentioned the VN at some moment, which was likely funny, though I'm glad it didn't really spoiled me anything... though I have remembered an extra story of Umineko Saku where Lambda remembered how she fulfilled someone's wish of "becoming a god" with Hinamizawa in the background! I guess it was some kind of metaphor related to someone having that Certainty. I wonder if that person became "Oyashiro"......
But anyway! Do you think they would enjoy the VN???
I feel like they would! Battler has canonically read Higurashi and iirc he loved it (to be fair it's not clear whether he read the VN as we read it, or some other form of Higurashi). So I feel like they'd enjoy it a lot. I feel like Beato would especially enjoy the mysteries and also Oyashiro-sama's haunting presence over the story.
Also yeah, you're correct in the other ask you sent, it's a story from Tsubasa. It might be spoilers to speak more on it, but it does connect to Higurashi's story <3 Lambdadelta makes Higurashi references in Umineko proper as well.