As the name implies I might come back and rank this higher as the story goes on. The issue is that it's 10-15 hours of setup, misleading prose and foreshadowing. If the story it sets up ends up being satisfying I can and will raise the ranking. Right now I a few of the implications lead me to rank it a 3 for the moment. One it took a DAMN long time to finally get to the point. Seriously, for someone who was aware of the basic premise going in this whole first episode felt like such a long slog to finally get the pieces in place.

Secondly, while conceptually I enjoy the meta-battle idea in concept, tying it so closely to higurashi and re-framing that story through this lense threatens to undermine a lot of the themes that made that story so special. No longer would it be how through sacrifice and determination and love a group of cursed individuals overcame fate but instead how a cynical culmination of death and rebirth won through supernatural attrition regardless of what the pieces did.

Finally on a similar note there were just far fewer initially likable characters in this story than in Higurashi. I can root for battler but everyone else just seems pretty self serving and even he is more of an instinctual contrarian than someone fighting for a meaningful reason. This could all turn around into something great but so far I'm more motivated at annoyance of the condescension of the author insert than I am because I am hoping for a happy ending. We shall see...