Higurashi When They Cry Hou: Ch.7 Minagoroshi (2019)

While a lot of themes regarding trauma and psychosis that run through Higurashi really resonate with me, there is a part in this chapter involving dealing with a child welfare centre that will not escalate a clear case of abuse that is so intentionally frustrating and personally relatable to my own past experiences that it's making me want to uppercut my laptop's screen off and send it to the sky. It turns out bureaucracy was the true monster all along!

I think a lot of media tend to grossly misrepresent psychological themes; around the time this series came out (mid-2000s), the glorified representation for psychological disorders ranged from being percieved as a societal threat to a fetishistic object of romanticisation. It feels very important to me that Higurashi was made in this landscape, as I feel like it holds up a mirror to these delusions of disorder and promptly shatters it with a cold, hard dose of the reality that is so much harder to stomach than any misreprentative flight of fancy... because that's the way it really is.

I don't think it's handled perfectly—it's still mid-2000s, after all—but I think that's okay. As someone with first-hand experience with this type of stuff, I prefer if a work goes as far as they can take it, even if its messy, rather than pull its punches and play it safe as can be. I think the latter is an issue I have with more recent media that attempt to reckon with these themes. It feels pointless to me unless you're going to put your whole ass into it...but these are just my personal thoughts, after all!

I have arrived at the penultimate chapter! Though I still have the bonus chapters like Rei and Hou+ to read as well... and also maybe check out some of the recent anime spinoffs like Gou and Sotsu... and then eventually read Umineko... actually, I'm not going to think about all this right now. I'm almost at the finish line and I'm loving every moment! While each chapter has gotten better and better, drawing the curtain ever further back, each new entry also retroactively enhances my appreciation for each previous chapter.

I had finished playing for the night, and though it's all starting to make sense, there was one little detail I've held onto since it occurred all the way back in Watanagashi (Chapter 2) that I was still puzzled by what it could mean, but I was sure it was something significant. I was in the kitchen just now, putting dishes away and thinking it over again with all the new information I've learnt since... and it finally clicked. I figured it out: at least, I'm 95% sure, unless I get thrown yet another curveball. After roughly ~60 hours in my journey through Higurashi, I cracked this mystery I initially came across at the ~10 hour mark. I was not actively engaging with the game when I realized it—I was in the damn kitchen tidying up after a tasty sandwich!—and it was such a satisfyingly revalatory moment that hit me so hard that it could well be my #1 favorite experience with a video game this year.

That's a fifty hour long puzzle, and it wasn't even presented directly as a challenge in the game; it was a challenge of MY MIND. Mind Puzzle. It all just hit me at the right place at the right time, and now it's all beginning to fall into place. This series rules, having a blast. I hope I can complete it before the spooky season is through!