Watanuki’s face when he found out that Yuuko was planning to do something to make him and Himawari get closer together was just priceless. The episode itself also was just great. Ghost stories, who doesn’t love them? Basically, Yuuko had a 100 Tales of Horror in mind. Or at least a shortened version. It’s basically a ritual, which the japanese used in order to tell ghost stories.

To Watanuki’s displeasure, Domeki’s invited as well. The four of them prepare a bit, and then each of them tells a story. Himawari begins, and her story is the best in my opinion. Domeki makes use of a standard story with a fast climax. Watanuki tells about something that actually happened to him, while Yuuko invites some actual spirits to tell their own story.

Himawari’s may have been the best, Watanuki’s strory was also pretty interesting. As it was something that really happened to him, there is no climax. As a kid, he walked to some place, and at a crossing, he saw a very weird guy cross the streets, wearing an expensive suit, a top hat and an umbrella. At the next crossing, the guy appeared again, and once more at the third crossing. Yuuko then mentions the fact that if Watanuki continued one more time, things would’ve become nasty, as the number four equals the number six or thirteen in western culture. This is of course, logical as four is spoken as Shi, which means the same thing as death. This does make you wonder, however. What were the guys who invented the japanese thinking when they gave these the same meaning?

Interesting note: Mokona eating a watermelon was just too cute. Another interesting note: same with its suction power. Yet another interesting note: Himawari and Domeki were able to see the spirits this time. One more interesting side-note: Himawari does get worried about Watanuki at one point (*wink, wink*). One final interesting note: remember the movie? That also happened during the summer holidays, so at one point, somewhere before this episode, the movie took place.

It’s also typical that Watanuki really does not have the guts to be with Himawari alone, and that he always ends up being together with Domeki for some reason. I like this about him: his dependance on others. Yuuko’s evil personality also is just wonderful. You really know that she’ll show up with plans that Watanuki absolutely does not look forward to. Overall, I really liked this episode. But then again, how can someone who’s a big fan of stories like that not like it? ^^

Okay, I could almost scream at the end of this episode. That was such an incredible cliffhanger. In fact, the entire episode was incredible. Noein finally shows his real body, and that was just absolutely freaky. It’s the same Karasu, but incredibly pale and skinny. His acting turned this into something totally magnificent.

He also reveals what turned him into Noein. Apparently, his old teacher, Haruka, Isami, Ai and himself got in a car crash, and he was the only one to survive, and see his friends dying in front of his eyes. They were seventeen at that point, which means that it was a very fragile age for Yuu. He couldn’t bear the fact that he’s lost his friends, so he started travelling through dimensions. The only things that he noticed just consisted of sorrow and pain. He was just oblivious for the peace and happiness that went on. That made him decide to turn all of the timespaces into one Shangri’La. He gathered some power, and started preparing his plans. (interesting note: Miho was not inside the car. Did she have any influence on what happened afterwards?)

I remember that a while ago, I stated that the creators probably wouldn’t focus around Atori’s past. Boy, was I wrong. At the beginning of the episode, the creators just found enough time to show a bit of it, and it’s incredible. In a certain way, Atori is just like Noein. He saw his sister dying, right in front of his eyes. The fact that he ends up with only one arm of her left only makes this better and better. A thing like that really breaks you, and that was indeed the thing that turned Atori in his evil self from the first couple of episodes. However, after he met up with Miho, he began to change again. He just needed somebody who cared for him, which is the same thing with Noein. I’m wondering how it’ll end up. Will Noein be destroyed in the end, or will he cease his attempts to create Shangri’La? Or both?

In any case, Atori is just an amazing character. Miho really made him to stop care about himself, but yet, he didn’t lose his entire personality. He’s still gloomy and cold, but when he sees Miho, he really wants to change himself. So awesome. In any case, he hasn’t shown up at the latter half of the episode, so he’ll probably come with a big finish in the end. Isami, Ai and Miho are meanwhile sent back to their own dimension. And I loved Haruka’s mother at that point. It’s, of course, incredibly hard to predict how someone will react when their entire house has disappeared, along with your daughter, though the creators managed to execute this perfectly.

Karasu had a bit of an expected part. Yuu gets to be the one who’ll save Haruka, of course, so they need something to distract him in order to give Yuu the opportunity to go to Haruka alone. So, the creators send a couple of monsters in order to kill them. Still, the fight that Karasu had afterwards was totally awesome. If not for the extremely messy animation.

Back in the normal world, meanwhile, the great big jerk carries out his plans, and we get to see the results in the next episode. What happened before was Haruka’s father opening up a few security holes for Kosagi, Uchida, Kooriyama and Tobi in order for them to be able to infiltrate the great big jerk’s ship. Kosagi and Tobi, meanwhile, begin to lose their existance, and so, they’re being left behind. When they arrive at the main control room, the great big jerk only gets worse, when he actually shoots Kooriyama, and threatens all of the other crew on board. Even Haruka’s father can’t do anything against it. Still, I absolutely love the fact that the children are fighting their fight, while the grown-ups are also fighting their on fight. You can notice so many subtle differences. (Interesting note: what happened to Tobi and Kosagi? You surely can not tell me that they’ve finished playing their parts in this anime).

Haruka and Yuu were totally adorable. They make such a good couple. Noein also gets scarier and scarier by the minute. Though what really got to me is the fact that Haruka actually showed sympathy for Noein. Not only in the awesome cliffhanger, but Noein also holds some kind of monologue about how he was abandoned. I could be wrong, but when he told about his history and his suffering, I think he was looking for attention. And indeed, Noein is a lonely being. An extremely lonely being. He really longs to be able to socialize a bit. Though this longing really did something with his mind, and instead, he’s not planning to create a humanless society, making himself only lonelier than he already is. If that was even possible.

Still, we’re at the last episode, and as far as I know, there are two questions remaining: who the heck is the old guy who seems to be in every single dimension that Haruka visits. And what was the meaning of the phone? La’Cryma seems to be destroyed now, as we see the council collapse during this episodes. This makes you wonder what happened to Amamuki and Kosagi’s daughter. Overall, this has been an amazing episode. It wasn’t as great as episode 22, but it sure does come close!

This episode looked more like the first episode than the fifth episode. This is very good, as I really loved the first one. Rena’s paranoid actions really were just restrained enough to not be over the top, and Shion was magnificent. It looks like Keiichi will get some help from other main characters, which will be more in the direction of the second arc, though, in contradiction to the first arc, in which he stood alone.

In any case, we don’t get to see people beating each other, or themselves to death this time. No. This time, we get to see Rena’s dismantled corpse, including her guts torn out and her fingers enduring the stings of fifteen nails, and not to mention the fact that her body was put into a large plastic bag, and thrown into a river. So, what did you eat today?

After the OP, who still sounds amazing, by the way, we see that Keiichi’s mother’s about to leave. This happens earlier than every other arc we’ve seen. I also might be wrong, but this is the first time that we actually see our main character’s mother. The reason she gives is an interesting one: his teacher collapesed, which gave him a real couple of extra troubles. His mother then goes to help him, which means that she’ll be gone for a couple of days. Keiichi mentions this during their next day’s club meeting, and really wonders how he’ll be able to get some food (Keiichi was half asleep at the time his mother asked him if he needed any help on the cooking, so he wasn’t able to answer properly, leaving him without any hope for dinner).

Anyway, the club just met, an this time, no foul play at all, and they also don’t go to the toy store at all. I wonder what the reason for that might have been. Satoko suggests that he’d try and cook for his own. Well, let’s just say that the result burned a bit. Luckily, at Satoko and Rika were in the neighbourhood at the time, so they managed to prevent the disaster of Keiichi burning his own house down. Keiichi questions how the two of them managed to end up in his house, though they quickly change the subject. Still, the issue remains: what were the two of them doing at Keiichi’s house at that point? It’s a good thing that they were, but it isn’t such a thing you’d normally do.

Anyway, while the first arc focused on Rena, the second arc focused on Mion (or Shion, your choice), the third arc will probably be focused on Satoko. This means that Satoshi’ll be important again, just like in the first arc, and unlike the second arc. And indeed, Satoko offers to cook for him. It really seems that both Rika as Satoko are excellent cooks. Anyway, Rika mentions Satoko. (On a side-note: during this dinner, the two of them were just SO incredibly cute). In any case, Satoko begins to get embarrased at Keiichi’s compliments on the food, and the death of Satoko’s parents comes to the table. And then we get to hear something interesting. Both of Satoko’s parents died at the day of Watanagashi, instead of the usual one dies-one goes missing. Still, this happened in the past. Does this mean that the past of each arc can be different as well? Or was one of the parties lying when they told the tale about Satoko’s parents? And was Rika lying when she told it duringt the third arc, or were Oishi and Shion lying when they told about it in the first and second arc?

I find it typical. Truly typical. Technically, this is a harem series (probably the best harem-series ever, if you don’t include harems full of bishies), and it seems that every important female seems to fall in love with Keiichi, except for Rena, the main female cast. Anyway, after the dinner, the two parties say goodbye. The two of them can get home without any trouble, as they’ve got each other. Rika stays behind for a bit, in order to tell Keiichi to take good care of Satoko.

It seems that the problem with Keiichi’s father wasn’t that big at all, as the Keiichi’s mother arrives back at the next morning. This also has been the shortest time that Keiichi’s parents were both away. Then the telephone goes, and it’s for Keiichi. Keiichi, still half-asleep yet again, answers the phone and hears about some kind of battle at the school playgrounds. He gets to embarras himself when he comes rushing in with a golf club, while there’s actually a baseball-game going on. ^^;

It’s very typical to see that Keiichi’s horrible at baseball, while Satoko’s amazing. I’m really feeling pity for Keiichi. He’s being surrounded by a girl who’s not afraid to weild an axe, and actually use it, a girl who’s extremely strong, a girl who likes to perform Watanagashi on other people, and a great athlete around him. You do NOT want to end up at their bad side. Anyway, there’s a barbecue at the end of the game, and Keiichi then manages to meet “The Director”, although he doesn’t know it. The guy pretends to be the manager of the friendly baseball team, and he’s a weird guy. For one, he’s a paedophile. He openly expresses his love for Satoko. He also really wants to be called “The Director”, for some reason. We’ve still got no idea who he is, though I think he’ll play a large role in this episode. He also mentions Satoshi for a minute. He believes that the guy transferred to another school.

Then Shion shows up. It appears to be that she is the manager of the enemy baseball team. She didn’t show up during the game for some reason. I have no idea whether this’ll be important for the rest of the anime, though let’s keep it in mind, shall we? In any case, that evening, Keiichi is cleaning some of the barbecue equipment, while Shion decides to talk to him for a bit. This time, she’s not in love with him at all. This means, of course, that we’re dealing with the real Shion here. After all, Shion’s never fallen in love with Keiichi. The two only became good friends in the previous episode. Anyway, she mentions Satoshi yet again. This time, however, she gets near-paranoid when Keiichi mentions the fact that he transferred away. Though she barely manages to control her demon or disease. She then begs him that if he doesn’t know what happened, he shouldn’t assume that he transferred.

Later that evening, Keiichi brings the issue of Satoshi up to Mion and Rena as they walk home. They first claim that he transferred, though Keiichi keeps asking, claiming that he knows that that Satoshi didn’t transfer away. Mion then explains that Satoshi just one day disappeared. Not only that, but he’s also been saving up money. At the day he disappeared, the money vanished. This brings up a totally different perspective on the victims of Oyashiro-Sama. What we previously thought of just a simple case of people getting missing, just turned into something much more. After all, if this was Oyashiro-Sama’s doing, then what the heck would Oyashiro be doing with those kinds of money? This really suggests that some kind of organization is behind this. Probably the director-guy has some large influence.

In any case, Rena gets into demon/disease-mode again. She then tells the same thing she told Keiichi in the first arc: Satoshi told her he was being watched. As she tells this, she begins to get more paranoid by the second. A very interesting scene was when she was really talking like crazy, with the small irises and furiously moving head, though the music, the background sounds and the voice did not give any clue to this. We just saw a very scary scenery, along with some lines who’s content also begain to get scarier by the minute. I loved this part. Mion then gets angry (note: she hasn’t been affected by the demon/disease AT ALL) and slaps Rena. Rena leaves, still gloomy. And then Mion explains a couple of things. It seems that Satoshi and Satoko’s parents were the ones who invited the constructors to go and build the dam. As they died, the paperwork probably got into trouble, and the plans were probably cancelled.

Then, Mion reveals that they made it some kind of unwritten rule to not talk about Satoshi and his disappearance. When they get asked about it, they lie and tell that he transferred. (Apparently, Shion has different views on this). She also asks Keiichi not to talk to Satoko AND Rena about this. She also reveals that Rena’s once been struck by Oyashiro’s curse, and we end with the first cliffhanger of Higurashi in which there was no scariness at all.

I don’t think I have Rena’s history all clear. If I remember it correctly, she first lived at Hinamizawa-village, at which she met the others, and saw Satoshi disappear. Then she moved away, and smashed all of the windows down at her new school, and doing other horrible things. I think that Mion referred to this when she claimed that Rena’s been struck with Oyashiro’s curse. Then, she moved back to Hinamizawa again, about a year before Higurashi takes place.

And Mion and Shion. The second arc featured Mion getting paranoid, though I think that she’ll be the one to support Keiichi this time. Still, why did she get paranoid last time, while she managed to stop Rena from getting paranoid at this episode? Though what about the fact that the two of them have changed places during this episode? That means that the one who yelled at Keiichi just after the barbecue was actually Mion, dressed up as Shion, while Shion, dressed up as Mion managed to stop Rena, and explain things to Keiichi. After all, Shion only showed signs of the disease/curse after being tortured by Mion.

Let’s view this issue under both theories, now, shall we? The demon-theory tells that each person or some persons have demons in them, though these demons have to be awakened somehow. The only thing that Keiichi has done to hurt both Shion and Rena was telling them that Satoshi transferred away. Apparently, they both react sensitive to the subject, and indeed. during the second arc, Satoshi was never mentioned, so Keiichi couldn’t have upset Rena and Shion with this, and during the first Arc, Rena really became too sad when she was trying to defend Satoshi. Still, there are a lot of things which are still to happen, as Rena will be ending up with the Watanagashi performed on her. I wonder if Mion was the only one who could perform it, or are there other people who are able to do it? The disease-theory tells of a disease which happens to go around. The disease must have some kind of source, and it has been going around for long, otherwise Rena couldn’t have gone berserk in her old school, or Mion couldn’t have killed those people. Keiichi has yet to be affected by the disease, as Rena’s ramblings really happened. Mion, after all, sees this and reacts to this.

Differences with previous arcs:
- Keiichi’s mother is at home, instead of his father. She also leaves much earlier than the father did in the previous two arcs. (Wild theory: the availability of Keiichi’s parents actually decides what is going to happen, and who’ll end up killing who. It does make sense, though. They affect what Keiichi’ll be doing, in a certain degree).
- The first arc focused around Rena and Mion. The second arc focused around Mion and Shion. The third arc will probably focus around Rena and Satoko.
- Satoko is much more caring than she was in the first episode.
- In fact, Keiichi and the others really were mean, in a friendly way, to each other during the club-meetings. This time, Keiichi’s just nice.
- Rika gets even cuter.
- Mion is NOT affected by the demon/disease. Something that she was at the previous two arcs.
- Rena gets affected by the demon/disease again, in contrast to the second arc.
- When Keiichi spends the night alone in the previous two arcs, there lies no focus at the cooking. The third arc does put focus at the cooking.
- The first arc put large emphasis on Satoshi, the second arc only named him once, but the third arc turned him into a central character.
- Mion treats Keiichi as a very good friend. Not somebody she loves.
- Rena’s much more distanced to Keiichi, but then again, the second episode had this as well. Still, when you compare their interaction with the first arc, you do see the difference.
- Keiichi’s mother only stays away for one day.
- There’s a baseball game, and the club has been invited to fill in for some missing players. This didn’t happen at the first two arcs.
- In the first arc, the director only gets mentioned for one second. In the second arc, he remains oblivious. In the third arc, he actually introduces himself, and he’ll probably play a huge role. (Interesting note: he’s also head of the local hospital. The same place Takano works at. Would the two have something in common?)
- No Tomitake, Takano or Oishi at all.
- In the second arc, Shion tells all about what happened during the Watanagashi-murders, though this time, she remains quiet.
- In fact, we’ve yet to see the link between all the Watanagashi-murders.
- Mion actually did something to stop Rena, instead of the two working together in the first arc.
- Rena turns paranoid way earlier than any previous arc.
- Mion actually tells about Rena being posessed.