Higurashi Eye Opening Arc 3

Story by Ryukishio7

Art by Yutori Houjyou

Reviewed by JMD Reid

Shion has gone insane. After learning of Tomitake and Takano’s murders the night of the Cotton Drifting Festival, Shion realizes the shadowy forces in Hinamizawa that have been enacting the curse the last five years have struck again, punishing the two for trespassing in the temple’s sacred storeroom, Shion realizes she’s in danger, too.

With Keiichi, Tomitake, and Takano, she also broke in. Her paranoia sending her into action, she uses her stun gun to disable her twin sister Mion and her grandmother, the head of the Sonozaki family. Believing all these murders and disappearances happened on the orders of her grandmother, including the disappearance of the boy she loved a year before, Shion is set to get answers.

But her elderly grandmother’s heart didn’t survive being stunned. Left with only her sister for answers, Shion will do anything to find out what happened to Satoshi and protect herself. But her actions have consequences. How many more people will die?

We are seeing just what happened in The Cotton Drifting Arc. All the weirdness, the manic behavior from Mion, the inconsistencies in Shion’s story, now make sense. Shion was behind it all, swapping roles, manipulating Keiichi and the village to provoke the true killers. Only it leaves so much tragedy behind and draws out a surprising confrontation.

This volume is delivering on what the Answer Arcs promise. We’re peeling back the mystery and learning that those we thought knew what was going on may be as baffled as we are. That there is something else lurking in the heart of Hinamizawa that needs confronting.

Another bloody scenario is playing out. Will Keiichi, Mion, Rena, Rika, and Satako survive this time, or will we see the same results as last time?

The art is gorgeous. It captures Shion’s madness. The story flows as we see her scrambling to react, trying to control the craziness bubbling out of her. All her years of resentment at her family for being shunned, for being put aside for Mion, are exploding out of her.

It makes for great reading!

Higurashi continues to excel as a horror/mystery graphic novel series! You have to check out this unique story!

You can buy Higurashi Eye Opening Arc 3 from Amazon.

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If you love the works of Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, R. Scott Bakker, and Steven Erikson, then check out first ever Fantasy novel is out!

You do not want to miss out on this awesome adventure!

You can buy or burrow Above the Storm today!

Higurashi Eye Opening Arc 1

Story by Ryukishio7

Art by Yutori Houjyou

Reviewed by JMD Reid

“I dropped my beads in the desert,” the girl wept.
The girl searched the desert for a hundred years.
“Maybe I didn’t dropped them in the desert, but in the ocean,” the girl wept.
The girl searched the seafloor for a hundred years.
“Maybe I didn’t drop them in the ocean, but in the mountains,” the girl wept.
How many years will it be before she questions whether she dropped them at all?
—Frederica Bernkastel

We are launching off the second half of Higurashi. It’s time for the Answers. We pick up in 1982, a year before the main events, with Shion Sonozaki, the twin sister of Mion, escaping from the Catholic girl’s school she’s been exiled to. She’s tired of being away from Hinamizawa. She resents the family tradition of dealing with twins. Her sister is the family heir and to keep her from interfering, the teenager has to stay away.

With the help of same allies in her family and the yakuza syndicate they run, she’s heading back home. Conspiring with Mion to hide out in the nearby town, she is dreading when her grandmother, the current family head, finds out. However, bored, she finds herself sneaking out dressed as her twin sister. When she runs into one of Mion’s classmates, Satoshi, love sparks in her heart.

Soon she realizes the suffering Satoshi experiences at the hand of his abusive aunt. Knowing her family is behind village shunning Satoshi’s family, she wants to help. But how can she stand up to the head of her family?

This arc plays out just like Cotton Drifting Arc save that Shion is the POV instead of Keiichi. The events of that arc hinted that the Sonozaki family is behind the suspicious murders. Shion was captured early on by Mion, held prisoner while she dispensed the family’s justice. With the twins able to pose as each other, the liens of what did or did not happen in that arc were blurred.

Now we’ll find out what’s going on.

Even more interesting, we get to meet the illusive Satoshi, a youth implied to have beaten his aunt to death for the fourth year curse only to vanish mysteriously a few days later. Did he really kill her? What happened to Satoshi?

We’re starting to get answers to these questions as well as see how well one of the three main theories put forward about what is going on is true.

You can buy Higurashi Eye Opening Arc 1 from Amazon.

To save the skies, Ary must die!

If you love the works of Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, R. Scott Bakker, and Steven Erikson, then check out first ever Fantasy novel is out!

You do not want to miss out on this awesome adventure!

You can buy or burrow Above the Storm today!

Higurashi Time Killing Arc 2

Story by Ryukishio7

Art by Yoshiki Tonogai

Reviewed by JMD Reid

Akasaka, a detective investigating the kidnapping of Japan’s defense minister’s grandson, has come to Hinamizawa. The village, protesting the government’s plan to build a dam that will flood their valley, have grown violent. The long shot that they might have kidnapped the kid has paid off.

Akasaka has a lead.

With Oishi, a local cop, Akasaka heads out. He’s about to find that the men who have the minister’s son are not your average citizens. They are armed and dangerous. Will he be able to survive. Rika has already promised that he’ll regret not going home. Is he going to die to save the kid.

Well, no, we know he lives. This is him talking to Oishi seven years in the future. So what does Rika mean? What will Akasaka regret?

This chapter is intriguing. We have Rika with knowledge of the future. She knows events that always happens, including her own murder. Something is definitely wrong in Hinamizawa. We have plenty of suspects, but the clues are not lining up. This is the perfect ending to the Questions Arcs. We’ll transition to the Answer Arcs and see if our theories match up.

The story is poignant. Especially the parts in the present as Akasaka realizes that Rika’s predictions of the future all came true. That this poor girl was crying out for help and he was too wrapped up in his own grief and life to come to her aid.

Whatever is going on, Rika is at the center of it.

The art is beautiful. The story is poignant. It goes from the action pack fight to the surrealness of Rika. The story is great. It leaves you wanting more. Higurashi continue excelling as an intriguing and engaging mystery series!

You can buy Higurashi Time Killing Arc 2 from Amazon.

Higurashi Time Killing Arc 1

Story by Ryukishio7

Art by Yoshiki Tonogai

Reviewed by JMD Reid

In 1985, two years after the Hinamizawa Disaster, a detective named Akasaka learns that the young child he met seven years ago on a case was murdered in the shrine the night before the volcanic eruption released the toxic gas that wiped out the village.

The story flashes back to 1978, when the village of Hinamizawa is in the middle of protesting the dam project that would see their village flooded beneath an artificial lake. A high profile politician’s son was kidnapped and the village’s protest group, known to be violent, is suspected. Akasaka is sent to investiage. There he meets Rika Furude, a little girl respected by the village. Akasaka isn’t happy to be on this assignment since his wife is in the hospital with complications from her pregnancy.

He gets to know Rika as he’s given a tour and learns about the village. They seem friendly and he has a hard time believing they could be behind the kidnapping. That is until Rika suddenly begins talking like an adult and warning him that he should leave before he regrets it. She predicts that the dam project will fail within the year and he’ll only find grief if he stays.

Undaunted, Akasaka soon learns that his cover is blown and he maybe in danger from the Sonozaki family. Will he stay, or will he leave?

This short arc provides a lot of the back story. It shows us there is something up with Rika. She’s shown herself to have a surprising maturity at times in the story, dropping her girlish act. Now we see her giving threats to Akasaka that have the young detective unnerved.

This arc has mystery and gives us clues, providing a great transition from the question section of the series and the answer part. We see that the Hinimizawa disaster and Rika’s murder happen in multiple timelines since the Oishi of this timeline doesn’t go missing in the woods while investigating Teppei Hojo’s murder like in the last arc. It’s a hint towards what is going on, though we are still struggling to understand it.

There is something evil in Hinamizawa. The question is this: is it Oyashiro’s curse or is there a human culprit working in the background. We’ve had both the Sonozaki family put forth as the human cause, and the curse punishing the wicked on the other end. But the story is murky, and like all good mysteries, nothing is what it seems.

The art is great. Young Rika is adorable and the artist captures her childish glee and enthusiasm. It has a mellow story, but the tension slowly builds as new information is revealed, leading us towards the ending driving us towards the ending.

What will Akasaka find with Oishi?

Higuarshi is an intriguing and engaging series. The characters are likable, making you feel for them when things go wrong over and over again. You are rooting for these characters to survive one of these summers. Will they?

You’ll just have to read this series to find out.

You can buy Higurashi Time Killing Arc 1 from Amazon.