Heh, I loved this episode. Even though it’s just the introduction of the next arc, The Third somehow makes these kinds of episodes always very interesting to watch, and this one’s no difference. I like how each arc selects a different number of main characters to focus on. The Gravestone arc featured Honoka, Paife and Ikus, the Desert Fairy Arc featured Honoka, Millie and Ikus, while the current arc will feature Honoka, Paife and Joganki. It’s very interesting, though I think that with this, I found a slight disadvantage of The Third. I’d just love to see some of the minor characters in more detail. For some reason, every single character in The Third is awesome, but some of them nearly don’t get the airtime they deserve. ^^;

Anyway, the case this time focuses at a crisis in The Third. Some thing took over Wormhole Driver, fired it at the surface, took over lots of other weaponry of The Third managed to kidnap Joganki when he came to investigate. The woman, who apparently is named Filla Marique, then chooses to resort to desperate measures: ask help from Honoka. It’s interesting. When the series started, I really saw her as a bad guy, but this show that she’s also just trying to keep the world going. Sometimes, it works in favour of Honoka, other times, it works against her.

In any case, it seems that we have two bad girls this time. Both are kept rather mysterious, so I haven’t been able to determine whether one of them is the woman on the ED. Based on the few flashes we saw of them, I think they’re other people, and if I had to take a guess, then I’d say that the creators are reserving that woman for the final arc. In any case, one of these women (Rona Fauna) keeps Joganki company and hacked into Wormhole Drive, while the other tried to kill Honoka with the automatic soldiers. The strange thing is, though, that Joganki seems to be on their side. Of course, he disagrees with some of the extreme measures Rona took, but judging by most of his reactions, it seems that he actually talked to them as if he had the same goals they have. Still, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been tied up.

In any case, the different characters and their interactions this episode were awesome. Especially Honoka, Paife and Kevin worked perfectly with each other. Especially the scene in which Honoka mistakes Filla Marique for Joganki (Joganki + drag = ouch!) was very funny. But then again, The Third has always excelled in its rich and versatile characters.

After two episodes in which the main storyline was rather ignored, Higurashi suddenly returns with an episode full of revelations and explanations. Rina’s now out of the picture, so that Rena can concentrate on other things, and she once again proves her detective skills.

The Watanagashi is over, and Tomitake killed himself again, while Takano’s fate hasn’t been much better. For some reason, Oishi just wants to question Rena about this. Later, Rena takes out some of Takano’s scrapbooks, and reflects back to the time when she acquired them, which really gave another twist to this story. They both were in the library, one of Takano’s favourite places. Takano tells Rena that she’s been investigating the chain of bizarre deaths. She actually predicts that it’ll happen again for the current year. Heh, the irony.

Rena then tells Takano about her own experiences with Oyashiro-sama. Surprisingly, she actually encountered him, when she moved away from the village. It’s supposedly a taboo of Oyashiro-sama, and some bizarre events happened afterwards. This included the conversation between Rena and her mother, we saw in the previous two episodes, and her infamous rampage at school, in which she smashed down all of the windows. Rena claims that a lof of bad things happened, and she did a lot of bad things herself out of desperation. I’d love to get more information about this. In any case, when she started cutting her own wrists with razorblades, Oyashiro appeared in front of her, and told her that the only way for her to survive is to return to Hinamizawa.

In any case, Rena finally looks at the scrapbooks, and they reveal quite an amount of interesting things. Afterwards, she informs Keiichi about this. A quick rundown:
- The legend of Oyashiro-sama is the following: The demons would emerge from the Onigafuchi Marsh and attack the village. But Oyashiro-sama intervened, calmed the demons and gave them human-form, to allow their co-existence within the village.
- This actually is a cover-up story. Onigafuchi-marsh actually is the home of a couple of disease-harbouring parasites. Whenever you get infected by a parasite, you go berserk. There indeed was some kind of disease going on.
- The taboo of Hinamizawa was to never leave the village or let any outsiders in. This is in order to stop the disease from spreading to other areas.
- Oyashiro-sama is some kind of doctor. It somehow attempted to “cure this contagious disease”. Note the “contagious” part of this sentence, and the fact that there’s a certain member among the cast of Higurashi who coincidentally happens to be a doctor.

- In the end, all he could do is make the rules to never let anyone out or into the village.
- A strange one: it seems that the parasites can only survive in Hinamizawa because of the temperature and climate. Why try so hard to prevent it from spreading when it won’t happen anyway?
- In any case, when an infected host tries to leave the area, the parasite produces strong symptoms in order to prevent this.
- Right now, it’s common for people to walk in and out of the area. That’s because Oyashiro-sama’s plan worked. Also, back in those days, whenever a person would go berserk because of a parasite, that person was caught and killed along with the parasite (*coughWatanagashicough*).
- The result was that only the people who could live with each other without any problems would live on.
- The Watanagashi seems to have had the purpose of eating the intestines of the berserked individuals. This creates a vaccine, to increase the resistance of the villagers.
- Currently, there are some fanatical worshippers of Oyashiro-sama who are trying to bring his belief back. Of course, when the fact that a bunch of parasites were behind his creation, it wouldn’t do them too good. That’s why they erase everyone who comes close to knowing the truth.
- An interesting one: the ultimate goal of the worshippers is to release the parasite all over Hinamizawa.
- Remember the guys in the van from episode 1? They now seem to be following Rena.

These answer so many questions. But unfortunately, for every question they answer, they bring up ten new, almost impossible to solve, questions. First, the things that we do know.
- The culprit seems to be one of those fanatical Oyashiro-sama worshippers. He or she is the one to succeed Obaba, and probably is the true leader of Hinamizawa. Because of this, he’s been able to use the same guys we saw in the Fourth arc, when they kidnapped the little boy.
- While a lot of people may have been infected by the parasites, not a lot of people actually went berserk. The most cases we saw involved the disease who was partially awake, as in a lesser state. Think of Keiichi in the third arc and Rena in the third and fifth arc. Only three people actually went berserk and started attacking people. Rena, after she left Hinamizawa. Shion, probably because she lived in a place other than Hinamizawa. And Keiichi, in the first arc. I’m still trying to figure out what caused him to believe that he had to leave the village. If I had to take a guess, it’s when he read about the string of bizarre deaths. Somehow, he unconsciously told himself that it would be better to leave the village, in order to be safe.
- Remember the end of the second arc, in which Keiichi sees Mion, giving him the nail-treatment? That happened after he heard that he was going to move. (*wink wink*)
- The end of the third and fourth arc also are explained. The fact that a bit of volcanic gas was just a cover-up story. In those cases, the plan of the bad guy actually worked, and the entire village went berserk because of the parasite. Keiichi was the only survivor because he was unconscious in a rather isolated place in which the disease nor the berserked villagers didn’t reach him. There has to be a reason why this didn’t happen in the first, second and fifth arc. It might be because both Keiichi and Shion murdered someone important. (Mion?)
- Irie and Takano never were culprits at all. They actually tried to stop the bad guy’s plans. Irie did this by developing a cure for the disease, while Takano tried to find out his identity and the background behind Hinamizawa.
- Tomitake’s death also is explained. He tried to leave the village, was infected by a parasite, the parasite didn’t like this and the disease activated, making him strangle himself.
- Takano probably was killed because she knew too much. Keiichi was being followed by the men in the van because they spotted him while in disease-mode.
- Remember Oishi and Irie disappearing in the third arc? Could that be because they knew too much and had to be annihilated?
- Remember in the third arc and the fifth arc, when Keiichi and Shion had the feeling they’re being watched? *points at guys in van*

Now, the questions,
- What’s up with Takano? Why did she act so suspicious in the Third arc. How come she was alive after her dead body had been found in the second arc?
- Who could the culprit possibly be? It can’t be Takano, as she tried to uncover the plot. It wasn’t anyone from the Sonozaki-family, otherwise it wouldn’t match with the fifth arc. It has to have some connection with Rika, in order to explain the fourth arc, and it must have some sort of connection with the three main houses.
- How did Keiichi catch the disease in the first place? Did he catch it from Rena?
- How come Irie was working together with the bad guy’s henchmen?
- Why did Rena contact Irie in the first arc, while she didn’t do this in any other arcs?
- Something I just realized: since when did Rena know how to perform the Watanagashi? How come Rina’s body has had to endure the Watanagashi? Could it be that she needed some vaccine herself, and decided to use Rina’s body for this?
- In what way did Oyashiro appear in front of Rena?
- Why did Takano have to enter the shrine?
- What’s Rika’s connection in all this?

Oh, and on a side-note, this probably is the third time I’ve seen people cutting their wrists in anime in a short time. The others being Night Head Genesis and Narutaru. Overall, Higurashi tried too hard, without delivering any substance. I think it was too keen on delivering some gore that it ignored other things, so once again, that scene looked a bit fake. Night Head Genesis gave a good attempt, but it was a bit laughable. Narutaru did it in a good way, though. It didn’t really have to show any gore in order to make any impact. The heavy breathing was enough for this.

I’m so glad that Shadow managed to finish her translation of episode eighteen. For some reason, I felt that it wouldn’t be a good idea to let my sub-par Japanese loose on Saiunkoku Monogatari 18, and after seeing the episode, it seems I was right. There’s so much going on, not to mention that entire speeches are given, at which you do need to know what they mean.

Anyway, about the episode. It was awesome. I had such a great time watching this. Not only because of the very interesting political affairs which went on, but also because the creators threw in some very nice jokes. I especially loved all the fuzz around Kijin’s mask. XD

Basically, the episode consists out of a debate between the government officials and Ryuuki and Shuurei, trying to get to the court in time and in one piece. We start with the commotion about Reishin. Ryuuki reveals to the officials that he’s the head of the Kou-clan. Sai gets a bit uncomfortable because of this. We then turn to Shuurei, who’s ready to leave for the palace. Seiran then brings Shuurei the make-up kit she got from Kochou.

Back to Ryuuki, he starts accusing Sai of a number of things, including that he was one of the people who was completely against women being permitted to take the national exam. Sai then tries to blame this on Ro, though that backfires when it seems that Ro had no problems with women being permitted, and was rather on friendly terms with Reishin.

We then switch to a rather interesting conversation between Reishin and Ro. It seems that Ro has assigned Eigetsu and Shuurei to tasks such as cleaning the lavatories and polishing shoes in order to build their own confidence, and the confidence of the other officials in the two of them. Most people in the royal court have heard about the tasks they were ordered to do, and they’ve seen them work hard. This shows them that they’re capable of doing much greater things, which will be extremely beneficial in the future. It also seems that Reishin got the same treatment. His murderous look towards Ro at that time was hilarious. ^^

In the end, Reishin manages to “blackmail” Ro into accompanying him to the court. For some reason, he wanted the two of them to go together. Shuurei and Seiran, meanwhile, get hunted by some of Sai’s henchmen, trying to prevent them from attending the inquiry. Though they should know better than to think that this would be able to stop her. ^^

Meanwhile, in the palace, Kijin holds a little speech about the financial businesses regarding Sai. A lot of money went into useless causes. It also seems that Eigetsu’s money, which he sent to his home village and somehow disappeared seems to have turned up in Sai’s pocket. It seems that there were similar cases like this in the past, so Kijin had the carriers being observed in secret. Sai then starts coming up with some desperate attempts in order to defend himself, and he then claims that Kijin might be an impostor, wearing Kijin’s mask in order to not be discovered.

The situation takes a very strange turn when Kijin suggests to take it off and suddenly some officials start begging him not to, with fear of their lives. It seems that Reishin has spread some rumours that his face would cause flying ravens to fall down unconscious. Things get even weirder when Shou Taishi suggests Kijin to take off his mask, while everyone else is looking in another direction. Ryuuki wants to see too, though suddenly he’s forced away by some desperate officials.

Say, is this how all government officials spend their time? ^^;

Back to Shuurei, the number of thugs keeps increasing until she and Seiran eventually get cornered. They get rescued by Ryuushin and the other citizens. They also reveal their reason for ignoring her. Government officials are important people. Whenever they’re seen, talking to ordinary peasants, their reputation drops. And Ryuushin is an exceptionally good fighter for his age. That, or the thugs are just a bunch of whim’s. ^^

They then arrive at the palace, and get a bit of help from Hakumei and Ensei in order to move past the pesky, ignorant guards.

Back to Kijin, the reason he always wears a mask suddenly becomes clear. It’s indeed able to make ravens drop from the sky. Not because it’s so horribly ugly, but because it’s so horribly beautiful. It’s also clear why everyone had to turn away, as Sai immediately gets hypnotized by this, allowing Kijin to get a confession out of him.

At that time, Reishin arrives. He rather abuses his powers in order to finish Sai. It seems that Kouyuu was rather insulted at one time by him, and Reishin hasn’t quite forgiven him for it. To top things, he reveals that the long lost ring of the Sa-clan was hidden under Sai’s wig, of all places. You’d wonder how he found out in the first place. Still, Sai then starts talking about Shuurei, and starts accusing her of all kinds of things. But then, Shuurei arrives, the inquiry begins and Sai can probably kiss his status goodbye. The bastard. ^^;

In any case, I love how Saiunkoku Monogatari manages to effectively blend comedy with such a strong story. The combination of these two elements really works great.

Just one thing. What happened to Kourin?