Higurashi no Koro Ni – 9: Curse Killing 1

It's just an ordinary day in Hinamizawa. A landlord is poking at a trashbag that has been emitting a very bad smell as one of his tenants looks on from her balcony window. As the landlord pokes it, the bag ruptures and spews forth a disgusting smell and a legion of files. The tenant points to the contents in horror. It's a human corpse, its intestines spilling out, and nails in each finger joint. That, ladies and gentelmen, is how arc #3 of Higurashi begins.

What piques my interest here is that there are nails in the finger joints, which might make Mion a killer loli in this chapter, and that the body resembles a certain blond 12 year old killer loli. Poor poor Satoko-chan.

Well, maybe I should be saying poor Keiichi. His mom has to go to Tokyo to tend to his father's teacher…or something of the sort. Her leaving isn't the bad part though. It's that Keiichi has to fend for himself and somehow find food. He discusses the topic with the killer lolis at school, but the only advice he gets is out of an unusually nice Satoko, who says he should just cook for himself. Rena agrees, most likely because Keiichi will end up taking himself out so she wouldn't have to sharpen the machete, and Mion and Rika follow suit. Keiichi heads home and attempts to cook, but he ends up creating a gigantic fire that almost burns the house down. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Satoko and Rika barge in and stop the fire. Satoko scolds Keiichi, and Rika does those cute little sounds that she's prone to do ("The fire would be going 'bou bou' and the firetrucks would be going 'woo woo' right about now ~desu!"). After this disaster is averted, Satoko, still being nice (I'm scared), decides to cook Keiichi's dinner, and she invites herself and Rika too. As Keiichi and Rika set the table, Keiichi comments on Satoko's unusual niceness, and Rika says that it's because Keiichi reminds Satoko of her nii-nii. Keiichi asks what a nii-nii is, and Rika says that nii-nii obviously means onii-san. Ah, Rikaisms. Adorable. Rika also mentions who Satoko's nii-nii is…Satoshi. Oh teh noes. This is gonna get bad real quick. Rika says that Satoshi and Satoko are "separated" now, and that it was Satoko who wanted to go over to Keiichi's house. Aw.

Random Rika Cuteness Break ~desu!

Ahem. The conversation during dinner turns from how good the food is to Satoshi running away. I thought he was…"transferred" away…via Rena's machete. Hmm. The girls eventually head home, and Rika stays behind to tell Keiichi that he got a perfect score and to "Pachi pachi pachi nano ~desu!" for him. She says that it was just like if Satoshi had come back, and that it made Satoko happy. Then, after an "Ayasumi nassai nano ~desu!" she takes off to catch up to Satoko. The next morning, Keiichi gets a call from Satoko, who tells him there's a big fight at school. He grabs his golf club and gets there as fast as he can, only to find that the fight in question is between Hinamizawa's kids baseball team and their rivals. Oops. Keiichi participates in the game, and does terribly, but Satoko, in all her 12 year old glory, hits homer after homer. Keiichi sits down after the game and meets adult character that's probably going to die #4: Irie, who happens to be the doctor that runs the clinic that suicidal nurse lady hails from. Irie also has a nickname, 'The Manager', which also happens to be the same word (kantoku) that Rena and Mion used to describe their boss in the first arc. Uh oh. The manager jokes that he wants to marry Satoko, and mentions Satoshi and his "transfer". He also mentions Satoko's parents falling off of a cliff while they were on vacation. Irie says that he's thought about adopting Satoko, as she lives alone with Rika (whose parents are also dead, both due to the curse), but he's not married and he doesn't know how to raise a child. Keiichi asks what he would do after adopting Satoko, and a familiar voice interrupts him and says that he will make her his meido. The familiar voice belongs to everyone's favorite twin (and I still can't figure out why I like her more…) Shion, who happens to be the team manager, although she doesn't show up to any games anymore. There's a lot of vagueness here, as it's kinda implied that Shion might have had a thing for Satoshi. It was implied during the first arc that Mion might have too, which means the twins have fought over the same man before. Keiichi, you lucky poor bastard.

Keiichi runs off to clean off his plate, and Shion follows. Keiichi starts talking about how athletic Satoko is, and Shion says that she's the complete opposite of Satoshi. Shion expresses a bit of surprise at Keiichi's knowledge of Satoshi's existence, which leads me to believe that there is far more here than meets the eye. Keiichi tries to confirm that Satoshi was "transferred", which sends Shion into "Emo Killer Loli SEED Mode", and she beggs him to never say that Satoshi was simply "transferred" away. Keiichi later heads home with Mion and Rena, and the subject of Satoshi is raised once again, this time by Keiichi himself. I swear, mentioning this guy so much is gonna get Keiichi killed…again. The pair try to walk around the question by saying that Satoshi was "transferred", but Keiichi says that he heard that he ran away. Mion agrees with Keiichi's version of things, saying that Satoshi was saving up money and that his account was emptied before he disappeared. Rena, however, slips into "Emo Killer Loli SEED Mode" and begins her account. She and Satoshi had both done something to anger Oyashiro-sama, and Rena had apologized, but Satoshi didn't. That means that Satoshi was afflicted by Oyashiro-sama's curse. She begins to freak out during her little story, and as she's ranting on how she hates people that don't believe in the curse, Mion slaps her and she comes to her senses and runs on home. After she leaves, Mion says that Satoshi is a touchy subject for Rena, because she whole heartily believes in the curse. She reveals (again) that Satoko's family were supporters of the dam project that would flood the town, and that Rena says that she was afflicted by the curse once. Mion asks that Keiichi not bring up Satoshi again, and he agrees with her before heading home.

And so, the killer lolis return :p. What's interesting about this chapter is that it appears to take place after the first episode of both previous arcs (eps 1 and 5), because Keiichi knows about the dam and Shion. Rika was in rare form for this one as well, and I hope to all that I can hope to that she survives long enough to pump out a few more Rikaisms.

By the way, to the 1.2 of you that actually read my blog regularly, forgive me for not posting last week. I was traveling, then I forgot to…eh. This week was a little odd too, as I was busy literally all weekend. That's gonna get fixed though. Hopefully I can do a Fate/Stay Night entry for this week, but I will do it next week for the finale.