Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-06-18 11:24 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-06-18 11:24 pm
Entry tags:
What's Worth Fighting For.
I was going, 'Wow, so much happened in the first half of Tsumihoroboshi that I'm not sure if I'll have anything to talk about in the second half.'
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I am getting extremely emotional about this weird series.
My entries on previous instalments were all written in one go, looking back over everything I'd played through, but for Tsumihoroboshi I've been making notes as I go along, so this is essentially a liveblog.
I'm still not over that weirdly beautiful scene in... I think it was chapter five. 'How dare you suggest that I wouldn't murder someone for you? Come on, we're all going to have a big speech about the power of friendship and then help you bury the bodies.'
I think the 'Rena is convinced her veins are full of maggots and tries to get them out' scene has set a new record for how much uncomfortable squirming I've done during an instalment of Higurashi.
This is interesting. Rena is definitely delusional, but Keiichi was also haunted by men in a white van in Onikakushi. So is 'men in white vans are dangerous' a shared delusion, like the maggots?
But the men in the white van asked after Rena. That was from Keiichi's perspective; we can be pretty sure that that happened.
It's possible that the men in the white van actually are dangerous, and they infected Rena with the parasite, and now, making connections with Chie-sensei and the rest of the school, is the point where she's going from 'reasonable fears' to 'unreasonable fears'.
Is it possible that Takano put the parasite on her scrapbooks? She's interested in studying it; maybe she wants to infect someone with it and study them? She tells Rena not to tell anyone about the scrapbooks. And I think she gave her scrapbooks to Keiichi in a previous instalment, although I can't remember which one, so I can't remember whether he subsequently broke down. (Or maybe she gave them to Shion? I don't remember! Someone!)
I really don't know what to make of the fact that Takano's autopsy suggests she died before the festival. They can't be doing identical twins again.
NO, RENA, DON'T SUSPECT KEIICHI
HE LITERALLY HELPED YOU BURY TWO BODIES; I'M PRETTY SURE YOU CAN TRUST HIM TO BE ON YOUR SIDE
Ah, she's decided she can trust Keiichi. That's something, at least. (But she doesn't trust any of her other friends, even if they also helped her to bury the bodies.)
It's really weird to read the scenes from Rena's perspective because I was such a paranoid teenager, so I definitely recognise the 'is it possible that X?' to 'X IS DEFINITELY THE CASE' thought progression with no evidence. Although I never actually thought people were out to kill me, thank goodness.
I just checked by reloading an earlier save, and I'm not imagining things; Rena's text now is a much darker shade of pink than it was to start with. When did the colour shift? Did that mark her infection with the parasite, if the parasite exists?
Rena's thinking 'it was easy when I just had two enemies and I had to kill both of them, but now anyone in the village might be my enemy,' and I'm starting to have a very bad feeling about the disaster that wiped out the entire town in Tatarigoroshi. Keiichi was the only survivor; Keiichi is the only person Rena thinks she can trust. But there's no way this is the same timeline as Tatarigoroshi, because Teppei Hongou can't have been murdered twice.
Don't steal from your father, Rena!
Rena's text is still getting darker. It's probably going to end up red.
...Ooishi says he has information that the Sonozakis actually are after Rena, and I have no idea what's going on. Is he lying? Why would he?
Does he suspect her of killing Rina and Teppei? Is he trying to entrap her into confessing?
Kasai gave the order to find Rena! This is the other possibility I was considering, if Ooishi was telling the truth: Mion passed on Rena's message that she had something Kasai left at the coffee shop, so now Kasai's trying to track Rena down, and Rena's completely forgotten that she was the one trying to get in touch with him in the first place.
Is that the reason the white van men were asking after Rena? Is this just a terrible misunderstanding?
OOISHI, I KNOW YOUR INTENTIONS ARE GOOD, BUT ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ARRANGE A CAR TO KEEP WATCH ON RENA'S HOUSE.
...wait, Kasai's trying to find her and also the main Sonozaki household wants her for some reason? I suppose Rena isn't as delusional as I thought.
Oh! Mion got her family to move the corpses to protect Rena. In Tatarigoroshi, did she also arrange for the corpse to be moved to protect Keiichi? Is that why it apparently disappeared?
Okay. Kasai wants to find Rena because she said she wanted to see him; the police want to find Rena to protect her from the Sonozakis; the Sonozakis want to find Rena to protect her from the police. And Rena's terrified, knowing she's being pursued but not knowing why. This is all a bit of a farce. I feel it's going to end extremely badly.
The scrapbooks can make people go mad, Keiichi thinks. You might be more right than you know.
Rika says Rena's penetrated her disguise when Rena says 'you're not Rika'. So presumably there's still a 'real' Rika. Does this century-old entity share a body with the true Rika Furude? (Is it Oyashiro-sama? It wouldn't make sense for it to be only a hundred years old, though, in that case.)
'Do whatever you want. I'm not interested in this Rena any more. I'm going to try to get along with the next Rena.' The use of 'next' (and 'this world will end soon') makes it seem likely that we're dealing with time loops, rather than parallel timelines!
Rika ('Rika'?) used to try to fix problems, and it seems like she's been looping enough to become jaded. When something goes wrong in a loop, she goes 'well, this universe is broken, write it off and wait for the next one'. Her intentions don't seem to be evil. She's not behind the tragedies; she's trying to prevent them. But she's angry.
I'm starting to think I might need to replay Onikakushi.
KEIICHI, GET OUT OF THERE, RENA'S IN A BAD WAY AND SHE'S GOT A HATCHET
'OH NO, HOW WOULD KEIICHI REACT IF HE KNEW ABOUT THE TERRIBLE THINGS I DID IN MY PAST,' Rena thinks. Rena, he literally helped you bury two people you'd murdered a few days ago.
I'm curious about this suggestion that Keiichi has a dark past. My first thought was 'does Ooishi just make up "your friends have dark pasts" stories to isolate people?', but apparently the story about Rena attacking classmates and breaking all the windows in her school is true.
Keiichi is horrified to realise she knows about his past? When he helped her bury those bodies? What did you do, Keiichi?
I went cold with horror when she said he targeted little girls. Thank fuck he was only shooting them with a BB gun. I mean, it's not good, but it could be worse.
I've had the impression that the people Hinamizawa destroys tend to be people with a guilty conscience, but I wasn't sure whether Keiichi was carrying any guilt in Onikakushi. I suppose he was, after all.
Rena picked up the hatchet she dropped earlier. ...I wanted her to hit my head with it. My reaction to this is 'noooooo' on multiple levels.
More remembering previous loops: Keiichi, trying to think of examples of things Rena might have done that he wouldn't think less of her for (a long list, given that you accepted her LITERAL MURDERS), pulls 'even if she beat some of her friends, or broke all the windows of her school' out of thin air.
And then he thinks 'no, I'm lying to myself, I'd be scared if I found out she did something like that.'
YOU
HELPED
HER
BURY
THE
BODIES.
I was going 'oh no, please don't tell me Keiichi's past is something that means I won't be able to love him any more' and Higurashi went 'okay, he didn't do what you're afraid of, but he did do a very bad and stupid thing and now he's overcome by self-loathing and haunted by the fact that there's no way to erase it' and I went 'oh, okay, turns out you actually wanted me to love Keiichi more.' Stop hitting all my storytelling and character weaknesses, Higurashi!
He can't sleep over it that night, bless him. (I'm going to coo over this boy who caused children minor injuries for no good reason and nobody in the world can stop me.)
It sounds like he didn't target girls in particular; it was just whoever happened to be walking alone. Thanks for saying 'you only targeted little girls' just to SEND ME INTO A PANIC, Rena.
I'm studying a lot. I'm doing something good. So I deserve to do something bad to balance out the good thing I'm doing. That was the unbelievably selfish excuse I made. Videogame morality systems!
I thought I had a right to do that, because I was suffering myself. I thought people who weren't suffering like I was deserved to be shot at and to get hurt a little bit. This series is so good at having people make horrible, horrible decisions while making the path they followed to get to those decisions very clear.
I'm glad he turned himself in to the police straight after hitting someone in the eye. It wasn't clear, when Rena was telling the story, whether he carried on after that. (Inevitably, I love him freaking out and trying to read up on the structure of the human eye and making himself physically ill with guilt.)
I'm also glad Keiichi's other friends don't reject him after he confesses, both because I'm invested in their friendship and because they literally helped Rena bury two bodies, why is everyone so bad at remembering that.
Keiichi was thinking that there's no such thing as redemption, that you're cursed forever if you do something like that, that the rule is 'don't be a sinner' and if you break that rule your life is tainted forever, and I'm glad he has his friends to tell him they believe in redemption. ♥
!!!!! HE'S REMEMBERING ONIKAKUSHI
HE'S REMEMBERING HIMSELF FLIPPING OUT AND DISTRUSTING HIS FRIENDS AND HE'S GOING 'OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS I THINKING'
I WAS RIGHT, MION WAS APPROACHING HIM WITH A FELT PEN RATHER THAN A SYRINGE
I liked her so much. She was my best friend! She was older than me, but she hung out with me like we were the same age. ...She was the first one who came to talk to me in class. She was so nice to me... but I... I...!!! Keiichi's feelings about Mion are so sweet and sincere, even if they're in the context of 'SHIT, I'VE JUST REMEMBERED I BEAT HER TO DEATH IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.'
'Kei-chan, please calm down... I'm not dead. You didn't beat me to death.' Oh, my God, he told her.
'You remember... don't you, Keiichi?' Rika asks, and I am flipping out.
Awww, he inspired Rika to keep fighting for this world! I'm starting to think Rika's not actually possessed; there's only one Rika, who just happens to be weird because she's experiencing a time loop.
I walked towards her. Mion stepped back, not knowing what was going on. please hug Mion, please hug Mion
I held Mion tightly. YESSSSSSSSSSSS
FRIENDSHIP ♥
I'm torn between 'this is amazing, I need to write fanfiction' and 'why would I need to write fanfiction when canon is already giving me time loops, memories of alternate timelines, intense friendships and horrible regrets?'
'We can start our lives over as many times as we want!' Thanks for being inspirational, Keiichi. I'm concerned that you might be freaking Rena out with your inexplicable knowledge of her past, though, and freaking Rena out doesn't seem like a good idea right now.
...Keiichi, you definitely, definitely need to establish what plan Rena is hoping to carry out tomorrow.
Hmm. Maybe Rika is possessed. Who is she speaking to in the TIPs? Maybe 'Rika' is living through the time loops and telling Actual Rika what to expect.
Keiichi and Mion wrestling playfully! This is adorable! Please don't be about to die horribly.
It's interesting to see characters actually anticipating disaster and mobilising in an effort to prevent it this time.
Oh, hey, we're in Mion's perspective! That's new.
Awww, Chie-sensei feels responsible for Rena's disappearance.
oh FUCK she was getting the teacher out of there
STOP GETTING DISTRACTED BY TELLING ME ABOUT HOW THIS SCHOOL IS A BRANCH OFFICE OF THE FORESTRY SERVICE, I NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS HOSTAGE SITUATION PANS OUT
Rena's situation in this timeline is a lot like Keiichi's in Onikakushi, but Rena is smarter than Keiichi, she's better at planning, and that makes her much, much scarier. Keiichi killed two people, spontaneously, lashing out in (he thought) self-defence. Rena's thought about this, and she's prepared to sacrifice an entire classroom of people if necessary. It's an unsettling moment when everyone's been going 'there's no way she'd have filled the room with petrol if she knew how dangerous the fumes are' and it suddenly becomes clear that, yes, she absolutely knows.
God, this is rough for Keiichi. Even more rough than the average getting caught up in a hostage situation, because he knows and cares about the hostage taker.
Er, Keiichi, is the bug still on when you're talking about the bodies?
OH MY GOD, THIS ENTIRE SCENE IS COOL AS HELL.
That whole hostage-escape sequence was incredible from the moment Rika jumped on Rena and the music kicked in. I love how Satoko, Rika and Keiichi all played a part. And Ooishi! I wasn't sure whether I could trust Ooishi, but I'm definitely feeling warmer towards him now.
And now Keiichi and Rena are fighting on the school roof, and it's also cool as hell. Even if I'm slightly concerned that they're fighting with metal weapons near a gutter filled with petrol.
Rena and I were trying to kill each other... and yet, it was a blast!
Sparks were flying. We could get seriously injured!! If we fell off the rooftop, we'd break our bones, yet this was so much fun!!
This is the best game ever made. I can't believe how it just keeps getting more and more designed specifically for me.
I'm weirdly delighted that Ooishi is captivated by the fight.
THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF HOW HAPPY DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP WERE RETRIEVED THROUGH ATTEMPTED MURDER
Everyone was thinking the same thing, but nobody said anything.
...Why does it look like they're having fun?
This is so good. I'm so happy.
Keiichi finally thinks 'wait, we're striking sparks, isn't the gutter full of gasoline?' and then 'OH, WHO CARES, IF AN EXPLOSION HAPPENS IT HAPPENS.'
That was an entirely unexpected joy! A Higurashi instalment with a happy ending! Who could have imagined this?
(I haven't read the last TIP, because it's late, so I hope it doesn't ruin everything somehow. But if it does I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist. If you're not in the main body of the game, I can ignore you!)
(EDIT: Okay, I've now read the final TIP ('The Demon's Script') and, yes, it's absolutely not allowed to be canon. Particularly as it contradicts the end of the game! There's no way Rena's trial started if the entire village was wiped out the day after the hostage situation! You're too late, Great Hinamizawa Disaster; you have to happen in the story itself if you want me to acknowledge you.
Interesting that Irie still died and the village was still wiped out in this timeline. Keiichi thought he'd caused it in Tatarigoroshi, but I suppose it was just a case of extremely bad timing.
I've also now read the 'Staff Room' note from the game's writer, and I like that it's essentially 'hey, kids, don't do a murder.' 'People who think it's useless to talk to others usually haven't really talked to anyone' is pretty solid advice, though. As is 'don't do a murder', come to think of it.)
This is my favourite Higurashi instalment so far, by a long way. While playing this, I was thinking 'I'm going to be so impatient in the wait for the next one,' but this was so satisfying that I'm honestly happy to wait. For the moment, this is enough for me.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I am getting extremely emotional about this weird series.
My entries on previous instalments were all written in one go, looking back over everything I'd played through, but for Tsumihoroboshi I've been making notes as I go along, so this is essentially a liveblog.
I'm still not over that weirdly beautiful scene in... I think it was chapter five. 'How dare you suggest that I wouldn't murder someone for you? Come on, we're all going to have a big speech about the power of friendship and then help you bury the bodies.'
I think the 'Rena is convinced her veins are full of maggots and tries to get them out' scene has set a new record for how much uncomfortable squirming I've done during an instalment of Higurashi.
This is interesting. Rena is definitely delusional, but Keiichi was also haunted by men in a white van in Onikakushi. So is 'men in white vans are dangerous' a shared delusion, like the maggots?
But the men in the white van asked after Rena. That was from Keiichi's perspective; we can be pretty sure that that happened.
It's possible that the men in the white van actually are dangerous, and they infected Rena with the parasite, and now, making connections with Chie-sensei and the rest of the school, is the point where she's going from 'reasonable fears' to 'unreasonable fears'.
Is it possible that Takano put the parasite on her scrapbooks? She's interested in studying it; maybe she wants to infect someone with it and study them? She tells Rena not to tell anyone about the scrapbooks. And I think she gave her scrapbooks to Keiichi in a previous instalment, although I can't remember which one, so I can't remember whether he subsequently broke down. (Or maybe she gave them to Shion? I don't remember! Someone!)
I really don't know what to make of the fact that Takano's autopsy suggests she died before the festival. They can't be doing identical twins again.
NO, RENA, DON'T SUSPECT KEIICHI
HE LITERALLY HELPED YOU BURY TWO BODIES; I'M PRETTY SURE YOU CAN TRUST HIM TO BE ON YOUR SIDE
Ah, she's decided she can trust Keiichi. That's something, at least. (But she doesn't trust any of her other friends, even if they also helped her to bury the bodies.)
It's really weird to read the scenes from Rena's perspective because I was such a paranoid teenager, so I definitely recognise the 'is it possible that X?' to 'X IS DEFINITELY THE CASE' thought progression with no evidence. Although I never actually thought people were out to kill me, thank goodness.
I just checked by reloading an earlier save, and I'm not imagining things; Rena's text now is a much darker shade of pink than it was to start with. When did the colour shift? Did that mark her infection with the parasite, if the parasite exists?
Rena's thinking 'it was easy when I just had two enemies and I had to kill both of them, but now anyone in the village might be my enemy,' and I'm starting to have a very bad feeling about the disaster that wiped out the entire town in Tatarigoroshi. Keiichi was the only survivor; Keiichi is the only person Rena thinks she can trust. But there's no way this is the same timeline as Tatarigoroshi, because Teppei Hongou can't have been murdered twice.
Don't steal from your father, Rena!
Rena's text is still getting darker. It's probably going to end up red.
...Ooishi says he has information that the Sonozakis actually are after Rena, and I have no idea what's going on. Is he lying? Why would he?
Does he suspect her of killing Rina and Teppei? Is he trying to entrap her into confessing?
Kasai gave the order to find Rena! This is the other possibility I was considering, if Ooishi was telling the truth: Mion passed on Rena's message that she had something Kasai left at the coffee shop, so now Kasai's trying to track Rena down, and Rena's completely forgotten that she was the one trying to get in touch with him in the first place.
Is that the reason the white van men were asking after Rena? Is this just a terrible misunderstanding?
OOISHI, I KNOW YOUR INTENTIONS ARE GOOD, BUT ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ARRANGE A CAR TO KEEP WATCH ON RENA'S HOUSE.
...wait, Kasai's trying to find her and also the main Sonozaki household wants her for some reason? I suppose Rena isn't as delusional as I thought.
Oh! Mion got her family to move the corpses to protect Rena. In Tatarigoroshi, did she also arrange for the corpse to be moved to protect Keiichi? Is that why it apparently disappeared?
Okay. Kasai wants to find Rena because she said she wanted to see him; the police want to find Rena to protect her from the Sonozakis; the Sonozakis want to find Rena to protect her from the police. And Rena's terrified, knowing she's being pursued but not knowing why. This is all a bit of a farce. I feel it's going to end extremely badly.
The scrapbooks can make people go mad, Keiichi thinks. You might be more right than you know.
Rika says Rena's penetrated her disguise when Rena says 'you're not Rika'. So presumably there's still a 'real' Rika. Does this century-old entity share a body with the true Rika Furude? (Is it Oyashiro-sama? It wouldn't make sense for it to be only a hundred years old, though, in that case.)
'Do whatever you want. I'm not interested in this Rena any more. I'm going to try to get along with the next Rena.' The use of 'next' (and 'this world will end soon') makes it seem likely that we're dealing with time loops, rather than parallel timelines!
Rika ('Rika'?) used to try to fix problems, and it seems like she's been looping enough to become jaded. When something goes wrong in a loop, she goes 'well, this universe is broken, write it off and wait for the next one'. Her intentions don't seem to be evil. She's not behind the tragedies; she's trying to prevent them. But she's angry.
I'm starting to think I might need to replay Onikakushi.
KEIICHI, GET OUT OF THERE, RENA'S IN A BAD WAY AND SHE'S GOT A HATCHET
'OH NO, HOW WOULD KEIICHI REACT IF HE KNEW ABOUT THE TERRIBLE THINGS I DID IN MY PAST,' Rena thinks. Rena, he literally helped you bury two people you'd murdered a few days ago.
I'm curious about this suggestion that Keiichi has a dark past. My first thought was 'does Ooishi just make up "your friends have dark pasts" stories to isolate people?', but apparently the story about Rena attacking classmates and breaking all the windows in her school is true.
Keiichi is horrified to realise she knows about his past? When he helped her bury those bodies? What did you do, Keiichi?
I went cold with horror when she said he targeted little girls. Thank fuck he was only shooting them with a BB gun. I mean, it's not good, but it could be worse.
I've had the impression that the people Hinamizawa destroys tend to be people with a guilty conscience, but I wasn't sure whether Keiichi was carrying any guilt in Onikakushi. I suppose he was, after all.
Rena picked up the hatchet she dropped earlier. ...I wanted her to hit my head with it. My reaction to this is 'noooooo' on multiple levels.
More remembering previous loops: Keiichi, trying to think of examples of things Rena might have done that he wouldn't think less of her for (a long list, given that you accepted her LITERAL MURDERS), pulls 'even if she beat some of her friends, or broke all the windows of her school' out of thin air.
And then he thinks 'no, I'm lying to myself, I'd be scared if I found out she did something like that.'
YOU
HELPED
HER
BURY
THE
BODIES.
I was going 'oh no, please don't tell me Keiichi's past is something that means I won't be able to love him any more' and Higurashi went 'okay, he didn't do what you're afraid of, but he did do a very bad and stupid thing and now he's overcome by self-loathing and haunted by the fact that there's no way to erase it' and I went 'oh, okay, turns out you actually wanted me to love Keiichi more.' Stop hitting all my storytelling and character weaknesses, Higurashi!
He can't sleep over it that night, bless him. (I'm going to coo over this boy who caused children minor injuries for no good reason and nobody in the world can stop me.)
It sounds like he didn't target girls in particular; it was just whoever happened to be walking alone. Thanks for saying 'you only targeted little girls' just to SEND ME INTO A PANIC, Rena.
I'm studying a lot. I'm doing something good. So I deserve to do something bad to balance out the good thing I'm doing. That was the unbelievably selfish excuse I made. Videogame morality systems!
I thought I had a right to do that, because I was suffering myself. I thought people who weren't suffering like I was deserved to be shot at and to get hurt a little bit. This series is so good at having people make horrible, horrible decisions while making the path they followed to get to those decisions very clear.
I'm glad he turned himself in to the police straight after hitting someone in the eye. It wasn't clear, when Rena was telling the story, whether he carried on after that. (Inevitably, I love him freaking out and trying to read up on the structure of the human eye and making himself physically ill with guilt.)
I'm also glad Keiichi's other friends don't reject him after he confesses, both because I'm invested in their friendship and because they literally helped Rena bury two bodies, why is everyone so bad at remembering that.
Keiichi was thinking that there's no such thing as redemption, that you're cursed forever if you do something like that, that the rule is 'don't be a sinner' and if you break that rule your life is tainted forever, and I'm glad he has his friends to tell him they believe in redemption. ♥
!!!!! HE'S REMEMBERING ONIKAKUSHI
HE'S REMEMBERING HIMSELF FLIPPING OUT AND DISTRUSTING HIS FRIENDS AND HE'S GOING 'OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS I THINKING'
I WAS RIGHT, MION WAS APPROACHING HIM WITH A FELT PEN RATHER THAN A SYRINGE
I liked her so much. She was my best friend! She was older than me, but she hung out with me like we were the same age. ...She was the first one who came to talk to me in class. She was so nice to me... but I... I...!!! Keiichi's feelings about Mion are so sweet and sincere, even if they're in the context of 'SHIT, I'VE JUST REMEMBERED I BEAT HER TO DEATH IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.'
'Kei-chan, please calm down... I'm not dead. You didn't beat me to death.' Oh, my God, he told her.
'You remember... don't you, Keiichi?' Rika asks, and I am flipping out.
Awww, he inspired Rika to keep fighting for this world! I'm starting to think Rika's not actually possessed; there's only one Rika, who just happens to be weird because she's experiencing a time loop.
I walked towards her. Mion stepped back, not knowing what was going on. please hug Mion, please hug Mion
I held Mion tightly. YESSSSSSSSSSSS
FRIENDSHIP ♥
I'm torn between 'this is amazing, I need to write fanfiction' and 'why would I need to write fanfiction when canon is already giving me time loops, memories of alternate timelines, intense friendships and horrible regrets?'
'We can start our lives over as many times as we want!' Thanks for being inspirational, Keiichi. I'm concerned that you might be freaking Rena out with your inexplicable knowledge of her past, though, and freaking Rena out doesn't seem like a good idea right now.
...Keiichi, you definitely, definitely need to establish what plan Rena is hoping to carry out tomorrow.
Hmm. Maybe Rika is possessed. Who is she speaking to in the TIPs? Maybe 'Rika' is living through the time loops and telling Actual Rika what to expect.
Keiichi and Mion wrestling playfully! This is adorable! Please don't be about to die horribly.
It's interesting to see characters actually anticipating disaster and mobilising in an effort to prevent it this time.
Oh, hey, we're in Mion's perspective! That's new.
Awww, Chie-sensei feels responsible for Rena's disappearance.
oh FUCK she was getting the teacher out of there
STOP GETTING DISTRACTED BY TELLING ME ABOUT HOW THIS SCHOOL IS A BRANCH OFFICE OF THE FORESTRY SERVICE, I NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS HOSTAGE SITUATION PANS OUT
Rena's situation in this timeline is a lot like Keiichi's in Onikakushi, but Rena is smarter than Keiichi, she's better at planning, and that makes her much, much scarier. Keiichi killed two people, spontaneously, lashing out in (he thought) self-defence. Rena's thought about this, and she's prepared to sacrifice an entire classroom of people if necessary. It's an unsettling moment when everyone's been going 'there's no way she'd have filled the room with petrol if she knew how dangerous the fumes are' and it suddenly becomes clear that, yes, she absolutely knows.
God, this is rough for Keiichi. Even more rough than the average getting caught up in a hostage situation, because he knows and cares about the hostage taker.
Er, Keiichi, is the bug still on when you're talking about the bodies?
OH MY GOD, THIS ENTIRE SCENE IS COOL AS HELL.
That whole hostage-escape sequence was incredible from the moment Rika jumped on Rena and the music kicked in. I love how Satoko, Rika and Keiichi all played a part. And Ooishi! I wasn't sure whether I could trust Ooishi, but I'm definitely feeling warmer towards him now.
And now Keiichi and Rena are fighting on the school roof, and it's also cool as hell. Even if I'm slightly concerned that they're fighting with metal weapons near a gutter filled with petrol.
Rena and I were trying to kill each other... and yet, it was a blast!
Sparks were flying. We could get seriously injured!! If we fell off the rooftop, we'd break our bones, yet this was so much fun!!
This is the best game ever made. I can't believe how it just keeps getting more and more designed specifically for me.
I'm weirdly delighted that Ooishi is captivated by the fight.
THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF HOW HAPPY DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP WERE RETRIEVED THROUGH ATTEMPTED MURDER
Everyone was thinking the same thing, but nobody said anything.
...Why does it look like they're having fun?
This is so good. I'm so happy.
Keiichi finally thinks 'wait, we're striking sparks, isn't the gutter full of gasoline?' and then 'OH, WHO CARES, IF AN EXPLOSION HAPPENS IT HAPPENS.'
That was an entirely unexpected joy! A Higurashi instalment with a happy ending! Who could have imagined this?
(I haven't read the last TIP, because it's late, so I hope it doesn't ruin everything somehow. But if it does I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist. If you're not in the main body of the game, I can ignore you!)
(EDIT: Okay, I've now read the final TIP ('The Demon's Script') and, yes, it's absolutely not allowed to be canon. Particularly as it contradicts the end of the game! There's no way Rena's trial started if the entire village was wiped out the day after the hostage situation! You're too late, Great Hinamizawa Disaster; you have to happen in the story itself if you want me to acknowledge you.
Interesting that Irie still died and the village was still wiped out in this timeline. Keiichi thought he'd caused it in Tatarigoroshi, but I suppose it was just a case of extremely bad timing.
I've also now read the 'Staff Room' note from the game's writer, and I like that it's essentially 'hey, kids, don't do a murder.' 'People who think it's useless to talk to others usually haven't really talked to anyone' is pretty solid advice, though. As is 'don't do a murder', come to think of it.)
This is my favourite Higurashi instalment so far, by a long way. While playing this, I was thinking 'I'm going to be so impatient in the wait for the next one,' but this was so satisfying that I'm honestly happy to wait. For the moment, this is enough for me.