Quando as Cigarras Choram

This a series of many different arcs all taking place in Hinamizawa of 1983. With the first episode it kinda make you think this is gonna be your typical cute funny anime. But it's not. It is truly a horror and a thriller anime. Even if you don't like violence I believe most people would still appreciate this anime. In a way it could also fit into the mystery genre.

Surprisingly, the arcs do not get old nor repetitive. Which before watching this anime I was afraid of. After each episode you want to watch more. Overall this is an amazing anime and I would recommend it to anyone. (not children though of course since it is quite violent}.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni starts off in a quiet, peaceful little village that looks quite ordinary and amiable to anyone.

But, of course, there's always something horribly wrong.

Higurashi was first brought into the world in the form several PC games, with the covers designed to look quite disarming so any person would think that this series was harmless. But once you get into the meat of it, things aren't looking so rosy. You'll be pulled, dragged, and unwillingly shoved into a head-spinning mystery that you wished never surfaced in the first place, fighting for your life against people you trusted, and digging through graves and lies in order to survive.

There are four "question" arcs, consisting of four different viewpoints of the fateful Hinamizawa festival and two "answer" arcs (in the anime), which will reveal what went wrong in two of the question arcs.

What's best of all is the horror, both physical and psychological. If the blood won't get to you, the emotional tension will. With a cast of memorable and lively characters, you won't be able to watch this anime only once.

There are FOUR of them now. Yes, you'll have to deal with four creepy girls instead of one like a normal horror film would. They'll be cute and bouncy for one moment, then murderous and psychotic the next. Full of twists, turns, and unpleasant surprises, after watching this, you won't be able to close an eyelid for some time.

Welcome to Hinamizawa. Enjoy your stay.

For those who doesn't know about Higurashi. Three points:

(1) Higurashi has 50 episodes in total. Second half (24 episodes) are called "Higurashi no nakukoroni Kai". "Kai" means "Answer to mystery". You won't get answer and you won't understand the whole story until you watch "Kai" part.

(2) Style is somewhat similar to US drama "Lost". You will keep wondering if bizarre phenomenon will be explained by science and logic, or by pure fantasy.

(3) If you don't know about Anime, you may think some part are very childish, silly or weird. There are many "Moe" elements in this anime, which are prevalent in current anime. Maid dress, multiple very young female characters with one central male character, are typical "Moe" elements, and you should just ignore them and they shouldn't distract you from concentrating on the main story. What's new about Higurashi is the combination of "Moe" and horror, not unlike "Elfen Lied" which combined "Moe" and Science fiction. But "Moe" part may be just annoying for those who like serious drama.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni was such an amazing and uniquely mysterious anime that really does put you into question of what to believe in. Can certain incidents really only be explained with supernatural factors, or is there really just a logical explanation to everything that's happening? Questions like this are definitely what drive the viewer to wanting to figure what the real truth is behind all the mystery at the end of the day.

For the first half of this series, we're introduced to Maebara Keiichi, a young teenage boy who moves to the small village of Hinamizawa. From there he meets many new friends, particularly when joining an afterschool club to get along better with a handful of his new classmates. But even though his first impressions are positive, he soon begins to learn of the dark secrets the village has within the shadows. As he chooses to dig in deeper to these secrets, his sense of paranoia begins to rise further as the days go by, while also realizing his newly made friends may also have secrets of their own.

I love how an anime like this can make you be on your feet with suspense at times when it feels like you're not even meant to. I also love how this anime is very careful with the mysteries surrounding it, as well as when it's a proper time for each of them to come into play. You may not understand everything right away or even halfway, but the greatest thing about this anime is they leave no stone unturned.

The characters are also a very big highlight in this series, as each of them present themselves as a very unique element for when the time comes. A great way they do this is splitting the focus of all these characters into separate arcs, that way you can learn more about the characters and why they are the way they are now. Something I like about these characters to is, as violent as some of them may be, the choices they make throughout the story are pretty realistic and/or understandable depending on the situation. You may even think that the most violent options are sometimes the right options in the end.

I really like how they set up the animation at certain times in the story as well. When necessary, the goofy and fun moments can have the most bizarre styles of animation for some great humor. When necessary, the violent animations can make it seem like they're the creepiest things you've ever seen. At the end of the day, the anime is very good with introducing the proper atmospheres when needed to.

Overall an amazing first season to a show that will definitely leave you wanting more on the search for finding out the truth. I would without a doubt recommend this anime to anyone interested in looking for another mystery anime to follow along with, while also encountering some amazing, caring, but also horrific events to be shown in the summer of 1983.

For those who have not watched this show yet, this anime is based on popular digital novel created by and amateur (refered as 'Doujin' in Japan)writer.

Unlike other anime series, this one splits itself into several stories(arcs). Each arc consists of about 2-5 episodes. All episodes tells the story of main characters(some side characters) encountering different/same/similar events in small countryside village called 'Hinamizawa' (This feels like parallel universe setting, after each story ends, good or bad they go back in time and start again but this time something else happens with new characters, and more mysteries are created or answered).

First few episode of each arc are done average to near horrible (Personal Experience: I almost decided to stop watching the series after half way through the first episode,,,thank god I didn't!). It's probably due to the way they made it very 'comedial' and some of the ways characters talk, and also how they look.

However, real excitement usually starts from around mid-second episode. Everything will change dramatically! There are plenty of mystery you can try solve in each story (Later episodes reveals the answers to the mystery, so I recommend watching them in order, it is also hard to solve the mystery with anime version due to lack of details in the story compared to the original novel).

Voice acting is very well done, Mion/Shion Sonozaki are personal favorite characters, but everyone else does good job of making the overall warm/dark feel of the atmosphere!

I highly recommend this animation for people who likes mystery, suspense, violence with interesting plots and twists.

*Added - The same author of this series has released new digital novel called 'Umineko no naku koroni (Umineko - Japanese Gull/Black tailed gull)'. 'Umineko' is not a direct sequel to 'higurashi', but has similarity to higurashi. It has better character settings in term of 'realism' (People are a lot more believable), more serious (less jokes that was less appearing to 'serious story' seekers, and still contains a lot of gore. If you understand Japanese, I highly recommend all mystery loving people to read the novel!