Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Yutori Houjyou. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Meakashi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Gangan Wing. Released in North America by Yen Press.

So at last we come to what are known as the “Answer Arcs”. Each of the first 4 main arcs of Higurashi (Vols. 9 and 10 were a manga-only side story) set up the basic situation, watched it descend into paranoia and death, and had us confused and trying desperately to figure out what the heck was going on. By the end of the “Time Killing” arc, we sensed we were getting closer to solving things. And now we get this, the “Eye-Opening” arc, which (like all the answer arcs) is much longer than its predecessors, and hopes to let those who have not played the games figure out what’s behind this.

Despite the manga beginning with the Rena-focused arc, this set actually is the “answer” arc for the Mion set of books, the “Cotton Driftijng” chapter. It’s drawn by the same artist, so manages to give even more of a sense of deja vu than anticipated. It stars Mion’s twin sister Shion, and purports to tell the events of “Cotton Drifting” from her own perspective. Purports being the right word, as we quickly come to realize that Shion, like Keiichi before her, is descending rapidly into paranoia and madness.

The plot actually begins a year before the main events of the other arcs, as we see Shion escaping from the private Academy she’s been exiled to and returning to a town near Hinamizawa. Shion has issues from the start, being the younger twin of a family that is essentially the Yakuza. As a result, Mion is being groomed to be the next head of the family, and Shion gets the short end of the stick, as the family has sent her off to school hoping she4’ll quietly disappear. No such luck, as not only does Shion start “twin switching” with her sister, but she also runs into a young boy named Satoshi, who we’ve only ever met before in flashbacks or backstory told to Keiichi.

Satoshi’s similarities to and differences from Keiichi are both deliberately played up, and unfortunately we get another heaping helping of the child abuse that plagued the earlier volumes of the series, as Satoshi and Satoko’s aunt and uncle as as horrible as ever. Shion is trying to cheer him up, but in the end, it doesn’t seem to be enough. And then comes the night of the cotton drifting…

I’d spent the past few reviews laying into Keiichi as a horrible hero, so I feel I should say that the series is keeping up that tradition, as our sympathies with Shion slowly vanish as the series goes on. Clearly whatever happened to Keiichi and Mion in the earlier arcs, be it “Hinamizawa Syndrome” or what have you, is happening to her here, and Satoshi’s disappearance only helps to send her further into the spiral. Interestingly, we also get a more in-depth portrayal of Mion – while her crush on Keiichi has been heavily implied in previous volumes, here when she can open up to her sister without anyone else around it’s outright stated – as is her jealousy of Rena, who is more feminine and so gets the doll that Keiichi has.

We also see the side of Mion that we’re more familiar with from “Cotton Drifting”, which is to say the inheritor of power. The scene in which Shion is ordered to tear off three of her own fingernails by her grandmother is horrifying, and easily the most disturbing in these first two volumes. (On the other hand, seeing later on that Mion has done the same thing is also possibly the most heartwarming moment.) Mion has always been my favorite character, so I was very pleased to see all of this. Shion, on the other hand…

Shion has to date been played as a bit of a tease who was in love with Satoshi. Here we manage to see the depth of that love goes well into obsession territory, and also that she would seem to be the main ANtagonist so far, as well as the PROtagonist. And, as these volumes end with their grandmother dead by Shion’s hand, Mion locked up in the Sonozaki Family torture chamber (what, doesn’t every family have one?) and Shion giving the famous bug-eyed hysterical Higurashi laugh, we’re starting to realize that all the twin switching and “which one is really Mion” of the previous 10 volumes (especially after the last manga-only arc, where Mion literally possessed Shion’s body), we’re now left with a big question: Was that really Mion we saw at the end of “Cotton Drifting”?

By the end of the second volume, we’re exhausted and Shion is insane. It’s a bit difficult to see how much further down she can go, given we have two more full volumes to go. But, having said that, I feel that the author will show us how much worse things can get. After all, Keiichi and company are all still alive. In the meantime, we get a month’s breather from all this start horror with another one-off manga-only arc, this one complete in one large volume. Good thing, too, I need a break from Shion as protagonist.

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Mimori. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Yoigoshi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Before I get started with the review of this, the ‘Beyond Midnight’ arc, a quick word on how these books come out in Japan. First of all, as I’ve noted, the manga is written mostly for fans, which is to say those who have played the games and know what will happen. Yes, each arc may have new readers, as a GFantasy or Shonen Gangan reader who did not otherwise care about Higurashi might get into the title, but it’s still geared towards the fan. As a result, the first three arcs all ran simultaneously in three different Japanese magazines, and were released on the same day in tankobon form. The future arcs are similarly released: Eye-Opening and Atonement came out simultaneously in Japan. I think Yen was originally going to alternate, but decided (probably wisely) simply to do each arc as it comes. Which has worked out well, but does help to explain why this manga-only arc is a retelling of a future based off the ‘Atonement’ arc, which we won’t see till the fall.

The Time Killing arc gave us a Higurashi story that focused elsewhere, but it was still part of the basic cycle. This manga-only arc actually does very well in focusing on the village of Hinamizawa as an urban legend, a place where death and the supernatural are inevitable. It also takes place in the ‘present-day’, rather than 1983, something that truly hits us once we see the star of these volumes: Mion, now a grown woman, struggling to deal with her yakuza succession. We also get our nebbish reader-identification hero, a young blond who it’s noted resembles Satoshi; a young couple who seem to be on the verge of a breakup; and an incredibly annoying reporter here for his next big scoop.

It has to be said, if you like Mion, you’ll get a kick out of this book. Even given the twist at the end, this is clearly her book all the way, and she gets to not only kick ass with a katana, but also be the smartest one in the bunch, rehabilitate the others through the power of snark, and even have a touching memory or two – her pause in the ruins of Keiichi’s mansion to remember the past is quite affecting. The others don’t fare as well, with Arakawa in particular coming off as shallow and irritating. He ends up being the only cast member who didn’t need to be there, and his ‘redemption’ at the end rings rather false, as we didn’t get enough of a chance to see him not be annoying for it to be carried off.

The books read fast. Possibly too fast – while I felt Time Killing was just the right length, this one seems almost rushed, as if it’s trying too hard to fit within its framework of taking place during one evening. That said, it also has something that even Time Killing couldn’t quite arrange – a vaguely happy, hopeful ending. Obviously, the village is still all dead, given what happened 20 years ago, but the moral here is to get people to take charge of their own lives and go forward, rather than simply giving up or trying to take the easy way out. Mion, of course, being the walking example of the former. The last scene was (trying not to give anything away) incredibly touching.

So, in the end, this does not add much to the Higurashi universe (except perhaps noting once again that you can never be too sure about twins, something we’ll get into even further in the next arc), but on its own is pleasant enough, with some good action and set pieces. Pick it up if you like the idea of a hot adult Mion with a katana kicking ass. As for me, this 2-volumes-a-time thing is working well, so I’ll wait till April and then review the first half of the Eye-Opening arc, with Mion’s sister Shion as the focus.

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Yoshiki Tonogai. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Himatsubushi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

So clearly once I was past the evil scary abuse story, it was clear sailing, as I read these volumes incredibly quickly. This is not to say that they’re filled with happy sunshine by any means, but the “Time Killing” arc, for many reasons, was probably the best I’ve seen to date.

For a start, we don’t have Keiichi and his paranoia as the protagonist, focusing instead on a young detective from Tokyo, Akasaka, and his visit to Hinamizawa in 1978, when the Dam Project protests are still in full swing, to investigate a kidnapping. While there, he ends up going around the town with a 5-year-old shrine maiden, Rika Furude, and learns that many things here are not what they seem… least of all Rika. Akasaka makes an excellent hero for this arc, being young and naive to the ways of Hinamizawa, but not naive or foolish himself. He does many badass things here, showing off that he’s a great cop and saving the day. Sadly, this is Higurashi, which means he also suffers great personal tragedy and is unable to prevent the events of 5 years later that slaughter the town.

As for Rika, she’s the real surprise here. As I noted, it can be hard reading this series when you know about the plot in advance (even though that’s how 90% of Japanese readers, who had already played the games, would be reading it). So it wasn’t until I saw these two volumes, which are filled with Rika, that I realized how little she’d appeared until now. The first three arcs focus on Keiichi and his relationship with 3 of the 4 girls in his vaguely datesim life – Rena, Mion, and Satoko. We’re led to expect we’ll get another arc with Rika as the focus, which we do, but it doesn’t involve going over the same events.

(Oh yes, did anyone else notice the Mion/Shion twin switch AGAIN in Chapter 4 of this story? Even when they’re very minor characters? It’s almost like the author is trying to tell us something…)

What’s more, Rika is quite ambiguous here, even for a five-year-old. This is the last of the so-called ‘Question Arcs’, designed to lay out the mysteries of Hinamizawa for the reader/player before the longer ‘Answer arcs’ show us what’s actually going on. That said, this arc in particular gives us much food for thought. Rika’s prophetic capabilities are quite sinister, complete with a different, far more adult voice, and it’s initially implied that, like many soothsayers, she’s working to make sure that her prophecy comes true. Of course, in the best twist in the book, that is not the case. The penultimate chapter features Rika telling Akasaka of her own death, five years from their present. She is the one who knows what’s going on, who knows that they’re redoing things over and over. And what’s more, here she pretty much says straight out that she doesn’t want to keep dying. It’s powerful stuff.

But she dies anyway. We’re nowhere near the end of Higurashi, and unfortunately this is an Akasaka who did not heed her warning to return to Tokyo. Assuming the warning meant he’d be killed by the village (a good assumption considering that the village then tries to kill him), we think that he’s managed to beat it once he’s saved the day and found the missing child. His own personal tragedy that follows is a nasty gutpunch. However, despite all this, this is probably the first arc of Higurashi that doesn’t end in total bleak despair. Yes, Rika and all her friends and fellow townspeople are horribly murdered, but Akasaka lives on, along with his daughter and detective Ooishi. And his stubborn determination to never forget that girl and what she told him won’t mean much here, but would be really relevant if, say, reality kept resetting itself every few years. Which, hey, it is!

This arc was helped immensely by being much shorter in the original games, meaning that it doesn’t suffer from as much compression as the three before it. It feels just about right for two volumes long. And the story it tells, as the author notes, was originally just “a way to kill time” but ended up giving the reader some incredibly useful information to try to figure out what’s going on here. Great stuff, very much recommended. Next up we get to the first ‘manga-only’ arc of the series, which takes place not in 1983, or 1978, but in 2006…