Since its broadcast in October 2020, “Higurashi no Nakukoroni Kyo” has created a sensation among fans of the series with its many shocking developments, and on July 1, “Higurashi no Nakukoroni Sotsugyo,” a sequel to the first episode, began airing.
Since “Kyo” and “Sotsubasa” are sequels to the previous “Onikakushihen” and “Matsuri Hayashihen” series, they are structured in such a way that the viewer can enjoy the story more if he or she is familiar with the storyline of the previous episodes. The structure of “Higurashi” is such that it is more enjoyable if you know the storyline of the previous stories.
This time, we will summarize the synopsis of the main episodes of “Higurashi” from “Onikakushihen” to “Matsuri-bayashihen. It would be a good idea to look back on the story before the broadcast of “Graduation”.
Since this synopsis is based on the TV anime series, the original anime episode “Yakuwakashihen” is also included. Please also note that there are differences from the original work and other media mix works.
Also, due to the longevity of the series, this is a very long article. Please understand.
Ogakakushi version (of the Kitakami period)
The year is 1983. Keiichi Maehara has just moved to Hinamizawa, a depopulated rural village surrounded by nature. Keiichi attends the only school in the village, the Hinamizawa Branch School, where he spends his noisy but happy days as a member of a club with Rena Ryumiya, who lives next door, and fellow branch school student, Enone Sonozaki.
Keiichi, accompanying Rena on her treasure hunt, visits a garbage dump where he meets Jiro Tomitake, a man who claims to be a freelance photographer, and learns from his casual conversation that an incident had occurred in Hinamizawa Village that he did not know about. Keiichi tries to question Rena and Charmaine about the incident, but their attitude suddenly changes the moment he mentions the incident. Keiichi gradually begins to feel uncomfortable with the two who stubbornly refuse to tell him what happened.
Keiichi, despite the uneasy atmosphere, was leading a peaceful life as a member of the club, but on the day of the “Cotton Float Festival,” a traditional festival held in Hinamizawa, he runs into Tomitake and Takano Sanshi, a nurse who works at the clinic. He learns that for the past several years there has been a rule that someone always dies on the day of the Cotton Float Festival, and that this rule has spread through the village as “Oyashiro-sama’s haunting”.
The next day, Oishi Kurando, a detective from the Okumiya police station, comes to visit Keiichi. Oishi suspects that a series of mysterious deaths that have been occurring in Hinamizawa every year for the past several years are the work of the entire village, and he has his eye on Keiichi, who has just moved to the area. When Oishi asks Keiichi to cooperate, Keiichi feels guilty about suspecting his friends, but finally agrees to do so.
Keiichi feels that Rena and Chikune are hiding something from him, and he tries to question Rena. However, Rena knows that Keiichi has been hiding the secret meeting with Oishi from the club members, and she brushes it off by pointing out that he is lying to the contrary. Because of her swordsmanship, Keiichi begins to feel fear toward Rena.
After that, Keiichi keeps in touch with Oishi and learns that Satoko and Rika were related to the victims of the serial mysterious deaths, and that Rena used to live in Hinamizawa, caused an assault at school, and came back to Hinamizawa again. He is also warned that the next target may be Keiichi, who is related to a member of the club.
Keiichi still wants to believe in Charmine and Rena, but when he takes a bite of the o-hagi that Charmine and her friends brought to treat his cold, he throws it up in his mouth. The o-hagi contains a needle, and Keiichi is convinced that his life is in danger.
The next morning, Keiichi goes to school alone to avoid Rena and her friends, but he is almost run over by a white van. Feeling the need to protect his own life, Keiichi begins to avoid the club members, always carrying the bat that Satoko’s now missing brother Satoshi used to use, which was left in his locker.
Keiichi calls Oishi to tell him that he is being targeted, but in the middle of this, Rena arrives at his house with his lunch box. Keiichi tries to turn her away by falsely claiming that his meal is ready, but Rena sees through him to the fact that Keiichi’s parents have opened the house. Keiichi is terrified when Rena tries to open the door by grabbing the chain, and he pulls the door and locks it, without caring about Rena’s fingers, forcing her to go away.
Keiichi becomes increasingly suspicious of his surroundings, but one day on his way home from school, Rena appears with a machete in her hand. The atmosphere was so strange that Keiichi was about to shove Rena out of his way and run away, but he was attacked by men in distrustful work uniforms and fainted.
When Keiichi wakes up, he sees the familiar sight of his room and Rena and Charmaine. Rena and Chikune are trying to call in the “director” and, as a “punishment game,” they try to block Keiichi’s movements and inject him with an injection before they do so. Keiichi, feeling his life was in danger, beat Rena and Charmaine to death with a baseball bat. With regrets as to how he had gotten into this mess, he attempts to escape under the watchful eyes of the men in work clothes who are guarding his house.
At the same time, Oishi receives a phone call from Keiichi at the police station. Oishi senses something is wrong and tries to get some clues from Keiichi, but Keiichi claws his own throat and loses consciousness, and the call goes dead.
Later, a police officer arrives at the scene and identifies Keiichi’s body. Later, the bodies of Fascination and Rena were found in Keiichi’s room, as well as a part of a note that Keiichi had left as his last will and testament, hoping that the truth of the case would be revealed.
cotton ginning
Keiichi, along with club members, participates in a karuta tournament at a toy store owned by Chikane’s uncle. Encouraged by Fascination, Keiichi makes a secret pact with his juniors Tomita and Okamura and achieves overwhelming results in the tournament, and is given a French doll as a prize. Keiichi, who had no interest in dolls at all, gave it to Rena, who loves cute things, without noticing the way Enchaine looked at him.
When Keiichi goes to eat at Angel Mote, a family restaurant located in Kougū, he discovers a waitress who looks exactly like Charmaine. The waitress identifies herself as Shion, Fascination’s twin sister, but Keiichi decides that Fascination is lying out of embarrassment and goes along with the lie. Later, on a day when Keiichi’s parents are not around, Shine, who claims to have been contacted by Fascination, comes to deliver a lunch box to Keiichi, and Keiichi gradually becomes convinced that Fascination and Shine are the same person.
The next day, Keiichi visited Angelmote again to return the lunch box to Shion, but he knocked over a parked motorcycle and got tangled up with the owner’s delinquents. However, he is saved from trouble by Shion who appears on the spot and the residents of Hinamizawa who have gathered there.
On the way home, while thanking Shion for her help, Keiichi points out that Shion and Charming are the same person, but at the same time he discovers Charming, who was working part-time at a toy store. It turns out that Shion is real and that they were two separate entities.
Thereafter, Shion begins to appear frequently in front of Keiichi. On the day of the Cotton Float Festival, when he sees Shion trying to take Keiichi out somewhere, Keiichi follows her, thinking that she will lead him to a place where he can easily watch Rika’s performance.
However, the place where he arrived, guided by Shine, was an unopened ritual hall at the Furute Shrine. Tomitake and Takano were also there and were trying to break into the ritual hall. Keiichi, who was not keen on the idea, tried to refuse, but Shion pushed him away and he and Takano stepped into the ritual hall. Takano, who has been studying the customs of Hinamizawa, reveals that he suspects that dangerous customs from that time may still exist today, and that if they come to light, he may be killed by the radical villagers.
Keiichi and his friends try to hide the fact that they snuck into the ritual hall, but they are informed that Tomitake and Takano were both found dead the day after the cotton-bleeding ceremony. Also, if we apply the law of incidents that have occurred at the “cotton floating” so far, where one person dies and one person goes missing, there still needed to be two more missing persons. When Keiichi learns that there is a high possibility that he and his friends will be the victims, he is filled with intense anxiety and confides everything to Rika. Rika accepts his confession and reassures Keiichi, but even Koyu, the village chief of Hinamizawa, has gone missing. Shion tells Kouyu that she had consulted him about the break-in at the Ritual Hall.
Keiichi, concerned for Rika’s safety, immediately tries to contact her, but the phone is disconnected and he heads for Rika and Satoko’s house with Rena and Charmaine. The villagers, hearing the commotion, rush to the house and search for them, but the two are never found.
The next day, Keiichi encounters Oishi, who confirms the progress of the investigation into the series of incidents. At that time, the history of Kimiyoshi’s activities revealed in the investigation reveals that there was no timing for Shion to ask for advice, and that Shion herself had disappeared the day after the cotton flushing.
That evening, Keiichi receives a phone call from Shion, who is supposed to have disappeared. When the inconsistency in her testimony and the fact that Shine had already disappeared were pointed out, the person claiming to be Shine hung up the phone with an eerie smile on his face.
Keiichi begins to think that the charmed sound and the Sonozaki family might be the culprits, taking his cue from Rena’s theory when he notices that the soy sauce bottle at Rika’s house has been emptied. The police had already identified the Sonozaki family as the culprits, and Oishi’s contact with Keiichi was intended to incite him to go to the Sonozaki family and catch the culprits red-handed. Rena is furious at Oishi’s plan to put Keiichi in danger, but Keiichi, who has already decided to talk to Fascination, goes with Rena to the Sonozaki house.
Keiichi apologizes to Fascination for sneaking into the ritual hall, but Fascination blows him off and does not seem to take him seriously. However, when Rena confronts Keiichi with her theory that Fascination is the murderer of Rika and Satoko, Fascination’s attitude changes drastically. As the head of the Sonozaki family, she confesses the history of Hinamizawa when it was called Onigafuchi Village, the fate of the Sonozaki family, which is descended from demons, and her own involvement in a series of mysterious deaths that have occurred on the day of the cotton-picking ceremony.
After being advised by Rena to turn herself in, Fascination takes Keiichi out to the Sonozaki family’s underground ritual hall to talk with him alone for the last time, and to tell him that Shion is still alive and that she wants Keiichi to see all of her sins.
Keiichi finds Shion in the Sonozaki family’s basement, held captive in a prison cell, but Shion is violently distraught when she sees Keiichi’s charmed figure behind her. Keiichi tries to calm her down, but Fascination, whose attitude has suddenly changed again, attacks him from behind and restrains him.
Fascination tries to show Shion how Keiichi is tortured to death, but he does not beg for his life and only stuns him with a stun gun when he sees Keiichi’s concern for Shion and Fascination. The police rush in and rescue Keiichi and Shion, but the culprit, Charmaine, is nowhere to be found.
Keiichi and his family move out of Hinamizawa. One evening, while preparing for the move, Keiichi hears a noise at the window and sees Fascination, who is supposed to be gone. Keiichi tries to talk to Fascination for the last time, but Fascination is completely out of her mind. She stabs Keiichi with a kitchen knife and keeps laughing like a mad person.
Keiichi managed to survive and woke up in the hospital. Oishi comes to visit him and tells him that Shion jumped to her death by suicide, and that Fascination’s body was found at the bottom of the well in the Sonozaki family’s basement, days before Keiichi was stabbed, and that Takano was also dead at the time he broke into the ritual equipment hall, according to the autopsy records. The shocking fact that people who are supposed to be dead are moving around is revealed. While Keiichi is horrified, a bloodied Enka suddenly appears from behind the bed.
The Possessed and Killed Edition
Keiichi’s parents will be away for work for a few days, so he tries his hand at cooking for himself. However, he almost sets the house on fire due to his inexperience, and is saved by Satoko Hojo and Rika Furute, who had come to check on him. While eating a meal that Satoko made for him, Keiichi realizes that Satoko is a much stronger person than he had expected and learns that he has an older brother named Satoshi.
Keiichi, who has come to care about Satoko, attends a game of the Hinamizawa Fighters, a grass baseball team in which club members participate as helpers. Keiichi meets the team’s coach, Irie Kyosuke, who is also the director of the Irie Clinic, and learns that Satoshi used to be a member of the team.
Keiichi is curious as to why Goshi left Satoko and disappeared, and tries to get to the bottom of it with Rena and Charmaine, but as soon as Goshi is mentioned, Rena’s behavior suddenly changes. Rena’s behavior suddenly changes as soon as Satoshi is mentioned. She strongly insists that Oyashiro-sama is involved in Satoshi’s disappearance, and Charmaine sends Rena home for a time. Keiichi learns from Fascination that Goshi, Satoko, and the rest of the Hojo family were in favor of the dam construction and had been at odds with the mainstream of the village, which was against the dam.
One day, Satoko suddenly starts missing a lot of school. While Keiichi and his friends are worried, Oishi comes to the school to visit Satoko. Keiichi is suspicious and is threatened by Oishi, but he escapes when Irie, who is passing by, subdues Oishi. Keiichi learns from Irie that Satoko’s uncle and his wife mistreated her after her parents died in an accident, and that her aunt was murdered and her uncle had to leave the village for fear of being possessed.
Keiichi also hears a rumor that Satoko’s uncle, Teppei Hojo, has returned to Hinamizawa. When Keiichi went to check on Satoko, he saw that she had been ordered to buy more groceries than she could carry home by herself, and that she had multiple brand-new bruises on her body. Keiichi soon realizes that Satoko has been abused again by her uncle.
Keiichi wants to rescue Satoko, but Satoko stubbornly refuses to admit the fact that she has been abused, believing that if she endures her uncle’s abuse, Satoshi will come back to her. In addition, Satoko had once falsely reported her father-in-law, with whom she had a disagreement, to the child guidance center in order to trick him, so she was in a hopeless situation where she could not expect protection from the center.
In the midst of all this, Satoko arrives at school for a rare visit. The club members were relieved to see Satoko’s unchanged appearance, but when Keiichi tried to pat her on the head, Satoko pushed him away strongly. When Keiichi tries to calm her down, Satoko shows a severe fright and vomits up all of her lunch. Keiichi and the others could only watch in horror.
Keiichi, thinking that Satoko could not be saved if left to the adults at this point, decides to kill Teppei at the sight of Oyashiro-sama’s haunting. When he asks Enchaine for Satoko, he learns that Satoshi had also asked Enchaine to do the exact same thing as Keiichi just before Satoko’s disappearance, and he is convinced that Satoshi is the one who killed Satoko’s aunt by making it look like Oyashiro-sama’s haunting.
On the day of the cotton floating ceremony, Keiichi summons Teppei, posing as a police officer, and uses Goshi’s bat to beat him to death. As Teppei runs away, he loses track of the location of the hole he had dug beforehand to bury the corpse, so he is forced to dig a hole in the ground nearby to hide Teppei’s body. However, on his way back home, he unfortunately encounters Takano. Takano seems to notice Keiichi’s suspicious behavior, but Keiichi also notices the inexplicable presence of Tomitake’s bicycle in Takano’s car, and they exchange a verbal agreement that they did not encounter each other today. Keiichi regretted that he should have killed Takano and wished that Takano would be killed by Oyashiro-sama’s haunting.
The next day, Keiichi was told that he and his club members had participated in the cotton floating festival that was being held at the same time as Teppei’s murder. Furthermore, Satoko testified that Teppei, whom she had supposedly killed, had come home yesterday as well, and she began to suspect that she had lost her mind.
Keiichi turns down Rena’s invitation to go to the clinic on a temporary illness and confides everything to Irie. Irie listens intently to Keiichi’s story and thanks him for saving Satoko’s life, but inwardly she judges that Keiichi is delirious and not in a normal state of mind.
After eavesdropping on his conversation with the nurse, Keiichi decides that Irie is also untrustworthy and escapes from the clinic. He attempts to dig up Teppei’s body to confirm that he killed him, but Keiichi is already on the radar of the police, and he is forced to dig up the body under the watchful eye of Oishi and others. However, nothing is found in the hole that Keiichi dug up, and Teppei’s body is never discovered.
Keiichi decides that Teppei is still alive and goes to Satoko’s house to kill him again. Keiichi rescues Satoko, who is weakened in the bathroom, and destroys the entire house in a frenzy, but finds no sign of Teppei.
Keiichi escapes from the house with Satoko, but soon he hears that Irie has committed suicide and that Oishi is rumored to be missing. Takano has already been found dead, and Keiichi is horrified by the fact that the people he wished to die are dying one after another. Seeing Keiichi in such a state, Satoko thinks he is delirious, so she leaves him and returns home alone.
Once alone, Keiichi discovers Rika’s body, pecked by crows and disfigured beyond recognition, in the precincts of the Furute Shrine. Keiichi is shocked and desperately tries to scare the crows away with an axe to protect Rika’s body, but Satoko returns at an inopportune moment. Satoko mistakenly believes that Keiichi, holding the bloody axe, is the murderer of Rika, and rejects Keiichi and runs away.
Keiichi tries to clear Satoko’s misunderstanding, but no words can reach Satoko, who is in a state of shock. Satoko believes that Keiichi has been taken over by someone and pushes him off a bridge. As Keiichi falls, he sees a desperate scene in which Satoko, who gave up everything to save him, keeps hurling curses at him.
Later, news reports indicate that a highly poisonous volcanic gas has hit Hinamizawa, killing most of the residents. Except for Keiichi Maehara, the only survivor found in Hinamizawa.
Leisure Time Edition
1978. Mamoru Akasaka, a new detective in the Public Safety Department of the Metropolitan Police Department, visits Hinamizawa to investigate a group opposed to the construction of a dam, following the kidnapping of Hisaki Inukai, the grandson of the Minister of Construction. At the Kogu Police Station, he is introduced to Oishi, who is familiar with the circumstances of the Onigafuchi Alliance, and the two promise to cooperate with each other in the investigation.
Akasaka steps into Hinamizawa Village dressed as a tourist and meets a mysterious girl, Rika Furute, who has fallen asleep at the bus stop. Rika immediately takes to Akasaka, an unusual guest from Tokyo, and they decide to tour Hinamizawa Village together.
From Furute Shrine, which is also Rika’s home, Akasaka is impressed by the panoramic view of Hinamizawa surrounded by magnificent nature. At the same time, she was disappointed that Hinamizawa might sink to the bottom of the dam, but Rika seemed convinced that the dam construction project would surely be cancelled. Rika’s mood changes drastically, and she advises Akasaka to go back to Tokyo.
Akasaka was concerned about what Rika had said, but that evening he obtained information from an informant introduced to him by Oishi that the Sonozaki family was already aware of the kidnapping case, which was supposed to be an important secret, and that the head of the family, the Môryô, had mentioned Juki’s treatment. Furthermore, the Sonozaki family also seems to have information that public security agents have been dispatched to Hinamizawa, causing Akasaka to change his perception of the Sonozaki family.
The next day, a wallet and a hospital ticket, believed to belong to Juki, are found in Takatsudo, which is supposed to be an abandoned village. Akasaka heads to the scene with Oishi, but encounters Irie on the way. Irie was on his way back from examining Juki, who had been sick at the request of the criminal group just prior to the incident, and was distrustful of the men.
With the information from Irie, Akasaka and his team were convinced that Juki was there, and together with Oishi, they raided the hideout of the criminals and succeeded in protecting Juki. Akasaka, however, was shot in the shoulder, wounding him and putting him in a desperate situation, but he was saved by Oishi, who rushed in just in time to save him.
Akasaka faints with relief, but wakes up after receiving treatment at a clinic in Hinamizawa. Akasaka has left his wife in Tokyo, who is in the hospital for childbirth, and he looks for a pay phone to contact her, but all the phones are disconnected and cannot be used.
While walking around Hinamizawa looking for a phone, Akasaka finds Rika. When Rika tells Akasaka that she will only make Akasaka sad if she calls him, Akasaka guesses that Rika is the one who cut the phone line. Rika also tells Akasaka of an eerie prophecy that a murder will occur in Hinamizawa next year and that she will be killed as well.
Akasaka returns to Tokyo after the Hinamizawa incident, but his wife has died in an accident, and he learns the true reason for Rika’s inexplicable behavior that night.
Several years later, Akasaka visits Oishi, who had retired from the police force and moved to Sapporo. Hinamizawa was now sealed off due to the Hinamizawa disaster, in which most of the residents were killed by a highly poisonous volcanic gas. Akasaka, who was concerned about Rika’s prediction of her own death, learns that Rika was found dead before the gas disaster occurred, and that she was most likely killed not by the gas but by someone else.
Akasaka believes that Rika may have had the ability to predict the future, while Oishi wonders why Rika did not try to escape her death or ask for help. Akasaka finally realizes that Rika’s words “I don’t want to die” were an SOS to him.
