My articles on the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira series so far have been met with a mixed reception, so I have decided to do another quick writeup for the second episode, recently released in Japan on DVD/Blu-ray. I shall be honest, in comparison to the first one, it has a 1/10th of the fanservice which made it more tolerable and in the task of bringing every character from the series into a magical girl show… they did a fairly good job.
The storyline generally focuses on Rika and Satoko, who wake up one night (After sharing a nightmare about how Rika (supposedly as Bernkastel) becomes a magical girl to fight against Takano, Okonogi, Teppei and Nomura) to find a mysterious staff and the town covered in fog. Most of the episode is dedicated to continuously changing allegiances as the characters turn “evil” due to the fog and both the young girls escaping their persuers and the Tokyo Magica. There are many references to magical girl anime such as the cliche transformation sequences, cliche “magical pet” (Hanyuu), everyone suddenly appearing in fancy school uniforms and several references to the series such as the killer ohagi.
I am not fully satisfied with this episode as I am still awaiting the one element that actually makes this series what it is… the whole murder mystery element, but as a parody of a genre and the series, it isn’t half bad.
I found it hard to complement much in the previous episode as an excessive amount of fanservice can ruin even the best designed anime series, but the design quality is actually fairly good and one I would consider worthy of been released in blu-ray. The one issue with the original Higurashi and Higurashi Kira series were that the design was rather dated by the time the series ended, however at least for this series 10th anniversary, they have gone all out and really made an improvement in every department… except for some of the awkward facial expressions.
Now, you may be wondering what the next episode will be on right? Well… there is no murder mystery and no magical girls or anything along those lines yet… but it will focus on the relationship between Keiichi and the Sonozaki twins…. which has been done before in two rather brutal arcs already, but always open to a non-murderous episode around the three of them.
So… anyone have any thoughts on this episode?
