DVD Review - Twin sister goes on a killing spree

Mion adds spectacular excitement to the anime "When They Cry" with her maniacal killing spree in the second volume.

As we recall from previous episodes, "When They Cry" focuses on Keiichi, a new transfer student in Hinamizawa who likes to hang out with four girls, Rena, Satoko, Rika and Shion. Shion was the tall girl with the green hair.

But who is Mion? Well, Mion is actually Shion's twin sister. And to add confusion in the second story arc, she looks almost exactly like Shion.

Without giving too much away, Mion takes the male lead character, Keiichi, to an ancient shrine during the Watanagashi (Cotton-drifting) festival. They meet up with a photographer named Jiro Tomitake and a nurse named Miyo Takano, who break into the shrine to see the statue of Oyashiro. Oyashiro is the ogre god who could be spiritually killing off people each year after the Watanagashi festival.

In the second story arc, we are introduced to the photographer Tomitake, who also appeared int the previous story arc, before he stabbed his throat with his fingernails. In this story arc, Tomitake once again dies after the festival, and Miyo is missing. Soon Keiichi's elementary school friends wind up missing. After investigating the scene, Keiichi and his friend, Rena, suspect that Shion murdered them all.

Keiichi also discovers that Shion imprisoned her sister, Mion, in a dungeon and was ready to kill her with state-of-the-art torture tools. Shion almost kills Keiichi through a nasty execution procedure, but after some negotiation, Shion turns herself over to the police and Mion is saved. All is well, until the police officer says that Mion is the real killer.

This is a brilliant chapter with some of the most perplexing character twists. Now we know that Shion has an identical twin sister, and we may never know whether Shion is actually Mion, or Mion is actually Shion! This is one of the most shocking plot twists in the series.

And just when things couldn't get worse in Hinamizawa, the third story arc of "When They Cry" features child abuse. Satoko, the elementary school girl, comes with her friend, Rika, to cook for Keiichi. We learn that Satoko used to cook for her brother, Satoshi, who mysteriously disappeared.

But we also learn that Satoko suffers from child abuse. After her parents died, she and her brother lived with her evil uncle, Teppei Hojo. Teppei bosses Satoko around and beats her all the time. Keiichi hears from her doctor, Irie, that Satoko believes that her brother will come back if she goes through this suffering.

Poor Satoko. I wouldn't have even thought that she was as messed up in the head as Rena or Mion. At this point of the series, the blue-haired elementary school girl, Rika, might actually be the only sane character in this series.

Admittedly, this is a brutal anime to watch. However, it plays out like a strange soap opera. In every scenario, lots of people die. However, each story arc is even more fascinating, revealing the tortured past of the girls of Hinamizawa. And I never thought I would say this, but it's entertaining to see how insane all of the children get. This anime features the most unforgettable characters in anime history. Hopefully these kids get a hug after they're finished with this, because they could use some emotional relief.

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DVD Review: Great horror anime, horrible dub

"When They Cry" (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni) is probably the best horror anime I've ever seen, with a complex plot in so many levels.

Just keep in mind that while the Japanese voices in "When They Cry" is great, this has one of the worst English dubs I've ever heard.

For the uninitiated, "When They Cry" is based on an older interactive novel game, also named "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni." The plot is simple. Keiichi and his friends live in a rural town named Hinamizawa. Every year, the village has a festival known as the Watanagashi (Cotton drifting) festival. In the festival, villagers float cotton on a river to release the evil from their bodies.

However, this village has a dirty secret: for the last five years, someone has died after every Watanagashi festival. And this particular year is special, because in every short four- or five-episode part of the anime, the village has a string of genocidal murders.

In the beginning of the series, Keiichi kills Rena and Mion, and then kills himself by stabbing his throat with his fingernails. Don't worry--we don't actually get to see him kill himself. However, after each string of murders, the scenario replays again with the same characters, but a completely different plot.

This makes for some extremely brilliant twists in every rendition of the "When They Cry" story. For example, I didn't even expect that Mion actually had a twin sister named Shion. All the main characters also have a dark personal past as well. For example, Rena went berzerk after she left Hinamizawa, and broke the windows of her school with a baseball bat. She transferred back to Hinamizawa, hoping that she would leave these accidents behind.

While volume one has the most depressing storyline of the series, the Onikakushi-hen chapter, it also starts anew with the Watanagushi chapter. We also get introduced to Shion, Mion's twin sister. And ironically enough, she has a crush on Keiichi for all the wrong reasons, which have yet to be explained in later chapters.

I was afraid that this series would never see the light of day again, after Geneon shut down its American publishing branch. However, now that Funimation has picked up where the series left off at volume four, we can definitely look forward to seeing more chapters to the series. After all, there is nothing more fun than watching these characters die horrible, miserable deaths, only to live to die another day.

Oh don't worry, there is a happy ending. But happiness is pretty far away in Hinamizawa, at least for now...

By the way, do not watch this series with the English dub. The voices are so horribly generic. And they also replaced the cool Japanese ending song with a god-awful American pop song. Blech.

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DVD Review - When they cry (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni)

Higurashi is a sadistic horror anime with plenty of killing. Yet, the sadistic (but cute) characters really make this anime hilarious. Yes, there is plenty of killing, but I really enjoyed watching the out-of-place cute youngsters turn into cold-blooded murderers for the most insanely unbelievable reasons.

Keiichi Maebara, a teenage boy, lives in Hinamizawa, a peaceful rural village. He plays and has fun with his friends, all girls. However, he learns from a photographer and a former nurse that Hinamizawa is a cursed town, in which every year at the Watanagashi Festival at least one person dies.

To make matters worse, his friends keep concealing the truth from him--that they killed those people. Each day, Rena keeps creeping up to Maebara with a huge knife. When Maebara sprains his ankle, the doctors injected him with needles. Eventually, Rena and Mion knock him out and try to inject him with more drugs. In self-defense, Maebara grabs the giant knife that Rena was holding and kills the two. Maebara, in a fit of insanity, eventually commits suicide by stabbing his throat with his fingernails.

And yet, after this fatal storyline, the characters seem to come back to life. Well, not really. I'll just say that there are multiple scenarios in the series, and the whole story line is similar to the movie "Groundhog Day," where the story repeats again and again.

However, this is a surprisingly complex soap opera, involving children who are abused by their aunts and uncles. The kids kill others for the most ridiculous reasons. Shion kills her friends in frustration, over the loss of her murdered love interest. Kana kills her uncle's fiancee for setting him up for a big financial divorce settlement. Okay, so maybe these story is a little too unbelievable, but the murderers' motives are so bizarre and strange that the series actually turns into a dark comedy. The alternate plots are very intriguing, each one revealing another piece to the fascinating plot which involves drugs, UFO crashes and, yes, bioterrorism (don't ask).

This series is crazy, bloody and definitely not for kids. However, the story line is very original, and the characters are hilarious. There's nothing better than watching little kids kill each other for the stupidest reasons in a crazy town filled with conspiracies. I highly recommend this.

The first three DVDs covered the first four storylines, "Spirited Away by the Demon," "Cotton Drifting," "Curse Killing," and "Time Wasting." Unfortunately, only three DVDs have been released because the publishing company, Geneon, was sold to ADV films. The parent company of Geneon, Dentsu, released a statement which said that they would stop releasing all of the company's DVDs after November.

It's such a shame that these DVDs have been left without a publisher. This is one of the best and smartest anime series of 2007. Yet, the storyline is so good that someone is bound to pick it up for publication.