The Beatdown Goes On, When They Cry v4

It’s good to see those Geneon titles in limbo start to come out again, When They Cry – Higurashi, in particular. Order in the world feels restored now that the murderous kids in Hinamizawa are back in the swing of things, going nuts, and killing each other.

The first time I encountered When They Cry (Higurashi), I wrote it off as a form of loli pandering with some of the characters — Satoko, Rika, and to some extent Rena. But, what interested me was the puzzle aspect, where the viewer watches several short arcs that replay the same set of days and with the same characters (for the most part), but from different perspectives and a seemingly different chain of events that leads to one or more of the group of friends brutally murdered.

The villain and victim change up with each arc, which leads to questions of what is and isn’t truth, and why do the stories describe different events rather than the same set of events from a different perspective. The arcs within themselves are fairly straightforward, so the multiple versions aren’t that confusing as the viewer isn’t really taxed with keeping the facts straight and making connections during the show like they would in other sort out the pieces shows like Boogiepop Phantom. In a way, the different arcs of Higurashi is something like playing several games of Clue. At some point, hopefully, we’ll get enough to find the real story.

In any case, each arc can be pretty disturbing considering the flavor of violence in the show. Doubly impressive considering anime and Japanese based video games way over use the creepy, demonic, killer child type characters. These creepy children characters usually inspire a “roll-eyes” from me these days, usually boring me instead of creeping me out like they’re supposed to. However, Higurashi remembers the vulnerability of the kids in the story and uses their status as children effectively as a way to unsettle. The brutality in some of the scenes emphasize powerlessness very well in both the victim and in a way sometimes the kid that becomes psychotic, which might redeem Higurashi beyond the gimmick of killer lolis or not, depending on how one sees things. It is difficult to watch someone unable to fight back get beaten.

As far as the release itself, the episode distribution on the discs is frustrating. It has a habit of orphaning either the first or last episode of an arc on a different disc. This is fine if you’ve got all the discs and can put them in as you like, but going on the singles installment plan, some of the violent impact, the build up of the psychosis gets a pressure release from having to wait two months, or in this particular case, a year to see the conclusion of an arc started on volume 3, so restarting the series cold felt a bit weak. Still, I’m just glad I’m getting to see more of When They Cry at all.

Bang Zoom!’s dub for Higurashi does the job and the voices in English match the characters. The standout voice work throughout the series is Mela Lee as Rena. While she doesn’t have all that much to say in volume 4, when Rena goes into possessed mode, it creeps me out consistently and is really the only character, who on voice alone, in the English version that does that to me. What makes it creepy is how it also retains a sense of normal Rena in evil Rena mode.

Thank goodness When They Cry continues on dvd with this installment, volume 4. The tension, mystery, violence that contrasts with the moe elements, is a fascinating package.