Higurashi no Naku Koro ni/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: The anime is far more popular than the sound novels or even manga, as expected.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Everyone, since each arc shows a different character through a different lens and allows the reader to see through their thoughts.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Higurashi Kira? Just another fanservice OVA, yawn. They're milking the franchise.. Oh wait.. Satoshi's awake?!
  • Anvilicious: Above all else, the anime series' main theme and moral seems to be about the importance of having a good child protection program. The recurring theme of child abuse and the slogging bureaucratic "attempts" to fight (and in one memorable case, actively ignoring it) are the genesis of several slaughters and the main tragedy itself.
  • Broken Base: Somewhere, a community is divided whether to use the PlayStation 2 or original graphics.
    • A bigger broken base is Higurashi Kira. Most of the fans are enraged that it is only pointless Fan Service lacking any plot, not any of the horror they wanted. Many others still love Kira because it's Higurashi
      • Since each episode focused on very different elements, it is very difficult to have one definite opinion about the whole OVA. Especially the at last episode is rather different from the first three, being more serious and closer to the feeling of the original. Cue discussions which of the episodes are good and which aren't.
    • The OVA's in total are this. A lot of fans hate the lack of horror in most of them, despite the fact that the Endless June is finished and thus there's no Hate Plague or drama.
  • Cargo Ship: Chie x Curry, Rena x Kenta-kun.
  • Complete Monster: Teppei Houjo for his abuse of Satako and Satoshi, the main man of the Orphanage of Fear for what he and his staff did to Takano and her friends, and Nomura for having tricked Takano into helping her and also helping to indirectly cause the GHD, all to close up a company.
    • Miyo Takano herself ends up bordering on this trope's territory since she murders about 2,000 of her own villagers with the Hinamwizawa Syndrome and kills Rika and her friends in The Massacre Chapter. It's also shown that she inserted her own boyfriend with the Syndrome, killed him, and faked her own death in the other worlds, not to mention that she murdered Rika's parents because they would intervene in her plans. She also has a weird obsession with torture weapons and almost attempted to perform a live vivisection on Satako. Of course, this was all just mostly as a result of what Tokyo, Nomura, and the orphanage leader did to her - see above. But given the nature of the series, she's actually not firmly in the trope since she suffers from mental illness as well, and a last minute Heel Face Turn and recovery isn't beyond her.
  • Crack Pairing: In Hirukowashi-hen Rena/Tomitake, Takano/Rena, Ooishi/Rena (OVA Only), Irie/Rena (Game Only).
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome - Many times, especially during the answer arcs.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny - At the first episode of the Tatarigoroshi-hen, Keiichi gets a phone call from Satoko about some kind of trouble. Thinking there's a big fight fight, he then speeds to school on his bike, brandishing a golf club, and gets ready to lay the smackdown... Only to find himself in the middle of a baseball match. All that she wanted was Keiichi to replace a player...
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming - The fact that those moments seldomly happen and are a very big contrast in comparison to the very dark atmosphere usually takes them to Tear Jerker levels.
    • A particularly notable CMOH comes towards the end of the first season, where Keiichi and the rest of the club members give Rena a tender, heartfelt speech in the junk yard about how they are friends and will always be there for each other.. The notable part? The speech takes place after they enter the junk yard and find Rena dismembering two (admittedly awful) people she killed. To top it off, this is followed by all of them disposing of the body parts together.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome This is part of the reason why the show is so terrifying at points. The soundtrack is particularly epic in Kai. See its own page.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse - Rena may be the most iconic character, the most commonly related to the show, and her popularity may dwarf the true protagonists', but she's truly relevant in only two chapters. Still, the creator seems to have taken this in stride; see Wolverine Publicity.
    • To be honest, she's a pretty crucial role in almost all the arcs/chapters. She's also the mascot of the series.
    • Not to mention that the arc where she is the central character is the turning point of the series.
    • Shion is quite iconic in this series as a well-known Yandere, and the second most iconic character next to Rena for her similarly scary bouts of psychotic laughter.
    • If you're talking about Rika as the main character than Rika is pretty damn popular too. If you're talking about Keiichi then its to be expected, he's not a female character after all.
    • Tomitake is one as well.
  • Epileptic Trees - If we go by Saikoroshi-hen's continuity (in Rei), Rika mutters to Hanyuu at one point that she should return to being Rika Furude and stop being the witch Bernkastel.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Miyo Takano. All the girls who go crazy might also count if one wants to see them as "evil."
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop - "Stick by your friends, even if they've brutally murdered some adults and are now attempting to blow up the school."
    • A more positive example that you don't see stated outright is that while you should certainly stick with your friends, it's okay to keep things from them that they don't need to know. Otherwise no one would be friends because they couldn't bear to tell others about the mistakes they've made.
  • First Installment Wins: The anime's first season is more well known than the second one or any of the spinoffs, likely because it contains more mystery, horror moments, and gory murder scenes that became iconic for the series. It was also the only one that got an English dub.
    • Higurashi could be seen as this for the When They Cry franchise as a whole. It got two anime series' dedicated to it's main plot, two light-hearted fanservice OVAs, a special episode, a 1 hour special film, and even a live action film adaptation. Umineko... got one anime series dedicated to it's question arcs and then nothing more.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Has its own page.
  • Fridge Logic: The secret ending for Matsuribayashi where Takano never loses her parents would logically turn the story into a downer ending, though granted one with few to no deaths. It goes like this: She never meets her grandfather and thus never tries to research Hinamizawa syndrome, thus she never sets up the clinic. The anti dam project group does not have the clinic's backing anymore and thus the village is submerged before Keiichi or Rena ever move in. Hinamizawa residents tend to get deranged outside of the village, though granted this would only happen to some individuals. Even if the dam project is halted, the disease is still there and people like Satoshi would get arrested. One of the group of friends would also probably go crazy since apart from the last two arcs one of them usually snaps.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment/Foreshadowing: In Watanagashi-hen (episode 5 of the anime), Mion explains that she's the nice, pleasant twin, whilst Shion is mean and nasty. Then in episode 8, we find out that it's the other way around (Mion is evil, Shion's the victim) and THEN in Meakashi-hen, we find out that Mion was right all along.
  • Ho Yay - Notable in Keiichi's "K" persona in Kai. On the other side of the fence, the official artwork and such often exploits the fact that, out of the core seven characters, only one of them is a guy for all it's worth.
    • There's also a bunch of Les Yay between the female cast members. The animators take advantage of this in their anime-only scenes, and official arts.
  • Incest Subtext: Shion and Mion, no thanks to the artists.
  • It Was His Sled: Rika's stuck in a Groundhog Day Loop, people die in this series and they come back to life, Rika has Not-So-Imaginary Friend who is a God, the Hate Plague, Mion has an identical twin sister, Satoshi is alive.. Pretty much everything about this series is well-known.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Shion in both Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen. She gets better in other arcs.
  • Les Yay: Several pieces of official art. Usually revolving around Mion & Shion (first season) or Satoko & Rika (sometimes with Hanyuu; second season). Also behaviors throughout the series.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Miyo Takano. Though she's ultimately a pawn of the series' Bigger Bad, Nomura.
    • Shion tries her hand at being this in the first half Musubienishi-hen, disguising herself as her sister to manipulate Keiichi into pretending to be her boyfriend and hero. At least until she resigns from her mischief after Keiichi blows her cover and realizes who she really is, after which she really opens up to him in tears after hearing him say "That's why... this one's on me..." before his loss of consciousness. She displayed further shades of this trope in Meakashi-hen where her premeditated torture and killing spree in the name of getting answers and taking revenge on those who'd wronged her and her beloved Satoshi ends up a complete success, leaving the entire main cast sans Rena dead.
  • Memetic Mutation: Their laughs.
  • Memetic Molester: Rena's going to take you home!
  • Moe: Rena, Rika and Satoko. Rika is well aware of that and uses her cuteness for her advantage numerous times. Hell, Rika even won the 2007 Saimoe Tournament for crying out loud.
  • Moral Event Horizon - The Shion arc is a veritable Lensman Arms Race of inexcusable acts starting with Onryu ordering the Cold-Blooded Torture of Shion in the "distinguishment scene" and culminating with the brutal murder of Satoko. Even more so, Miyo in Minagoroshi-hen after she caps an 11 year old girl in the head after playing mind games with her (and after promising to spare her life before she executed another member of the protagonist clique in front of the poor little girl's face).
  • Motive Decay: The Big Bad, Miyo. She's trying to prove her foster grandfather's work is right, but she also wants to become/destroy/ snub her nose at God, and she wants to a world where she'll be loved and she wants to know how Hinamizawa syndrome works and....( See WMG for "In Tsumihoroboshi, why did Takano give Rena those documents")
  • Narm - Sakoto's Freak-Out in Tatarigoroshi-hen is difficult to take seriously when she somehow manages to knock the much-larger-than-her Keichii across the entire room with one shove.
  • Nausea Fuel - often accompanies the Nightmare Fuel.
    • Then there's the part where Satoko actually throws up. The sound was very convincing.
  • Never Live It Down: Rena. The only arc in which she was truly crazy was Tsumihoroboshi-hen, what with the stalking and poisoning in Onikakushi-hen being hallucinated by Keiichi. In the other arcs, she's only mildy bipolar and not really all that psycho.
  • Nightmare Fuel - A whole fucking lot. (Enough to have its own page)
  • Tastes Like Diabetes - The beginning of each arc. After that...
    • A more straight, and even more sugary, example is Kokoroiyashi-hen. It has a Tear Jerker in it but then it goes straight back to the diabetes.
  • Tear Jerker - And HOW.
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Bipolar murder mystery anime on PCP.
  • The Untwist - The manga arc Yoigoshi-hen, which is in a Great Hinamizawa Disaster timeline, features a woman claiming to be Mion, but characters point out that Mion died 20 years ago, and "Mion" is shaken when she meets another major character who bears an uncanny resemblance to Satoshi. She even delivers a monologue that resembles Shion's speech in Watanagashi ("I'm the demon inside Mion!" etc. etc.). Yes, she's actually Shion. It's a bit different from Watanagashi though; Mion's ghost actually possesses Shion for most of the story.
    • More generally, the fact that Miyo Takano is the Big Bad. She was so suspicious from the start that various fans were sure there'd be some other explanation for it. Nope, as it turns out.
  • What an Idiot! - In the anime, after Keiichi is almost killed by Shion posing as Mion, he narrowly gets away after being warned by her that if he sees her again, he shouldn't come near her. The next night, she comes and throws pebbles at his window. Being the kind of character he is, Keiichi goes down and talks to her. Naturally, she promptly stabs him. In the game and manga, this scene is played out in a somewhat more believable way.
    • Also, in both that and Watanagashi-hen. "YES! You've caught me, I'm the psychopathic murderer! Now, before I surrender to the cops outside, will one of you please follow me alone into this underground soundproof torture chamber?"
    • Rika, after finally escaping an everlasting cycle of paranoia, murder, torture and death, abandons all caution and and gets hit by a truck. Starting the entire goddamn thing all over again.
    • Irie-sensei not realising that Takano was just a bit amoral and for that matter the Big Bad of the series, given some of her less... subtle statements showing a certain lack of regard for ethics, as revealed by the flashbacks in Matsuribayashi-hen (Though granted, she had a lot over his head and he might not have thought he could have done anything useful and gotten away with it).
  • What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: It isn't despite the cheery beginning atmosphere of every episode, the cute faces and the flowers... It's more like Nightmare Fuel - or a Black Comedy.
  • The Woobie: Everyone. Especially Satoko.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Miyo Takano, as well as every main character who suffers from Hinamizawa syndrome.
  • World of Woobie: You will have a hard time not sympathizing with at least once character here.
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