Higurashi When They Cry

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Higurashi When They Cry is a Japanese murder mystery, released as a dōjin soft visual novel by the circle 07th Expansion. It opens in June 1983, when a boy named Keiichi Maebara moves to the village of Hinamizawa and befriends five girls. The word higurashi is the name of a kind of cicada. At first Hinamizawa seems calm and peaceful. Then Keiichi starts hearing about the village's festival, and the calm begins to look like a performance. What is the village hiding? Why does the same circle of friends keep facing new horrors? And how did a game from a small independent circle grow into manga, anime, films and a stage play? The answers begin with how the game itself asks to be read.

  83123

• 2. The Sound Novel Format

  ›

  Higurashi When They Cry is described as a "sound novel", a variation of the visual novel that puts sound and atmosphere first. The story arrives as narration and dialogue in on-screen text. Characters appear as static two-dimensional sprite images. The narration passes from one character to another rather than staying with a single voice. The home console ports add voice acting by professional Japanese voice actors.

  The word "tips" marks one of the game's quirks. Each chapter covers a separate story arc, and the developers fixed the order in which the chapters open. After the player reads a certain amount of text, playback simply ends. The game then invites the player to save and to read the tips. These reveal details of the setting that the main narrative never mentions. Some tips also nudge the audience to work out the reasoning behind the mysterious events.

  Two labels sort the chapters: "question arcs" and "answer arcs". A question arc is a self-contained story that takes place in an alternate reality. An answer arc is built on the same scenario as one particular question arc. Its job is to help the audience form a more accurate picture of what happened there. Every chapter also carries a "difficulty rating" that signals how complex its mystery is.

  A "Staff Room" waits in the main menu once a chapter is finished. There, the writer Ryukishi07 discusses and examines the chapter he just delivered. The same menu opens the gallery of scene images and every tip the player has unlocked. A second feature, the "All-Cast Review Session", lets the characters break the fourth wall and debate the chapter's events. That review format returned decades of story time later, when a 2022 edition added a new All-Cast review chapter as a retrospective on the whole franchise.

  8951023

• 3. Repeating Summers

  ›

  Every year on the day of the Watanagashi Festival, something terrible happens in Hinamizawa. The festival honors the local deity Oyashiro. Shortly before it begins, Keiichi learns that for four years in a row, murders and disappearances have taken place on that very day.

  The answer arcs overturn what the question arcs seemed to show. Each earlier arc turns out to be an alternate reality in which Rika Furude tries and fails to save herself and her friends. Rika is a priestess of the Furude Shrine, and she can communicate with a spirit named Hanyū. Hanyū is the ancestress of the Furude clan and the basis for Oyashiro. Whenever Rika died, Hanyū moved her to another reality. Rika carried no memory of how her life had ended.

  Behind the horror stands Miyo Takano, a nurse at the village clinic who records her speculation about Hinamizawa's past in notebooks. Her adoptive grandfather, Hifumi Takano, had a theory about a syndrome. If there were no Infection Queen, he argued, all the villagers would succumb to it, and a mass outbreak of violence would follow. Life in Hinamizawa goes on regardless, which shows his theory was exaggerated. Miyo still wants to vindicate Hifumi, who was shamed by the government and the scientific community over his thesis.

  After several hundred loops, Keiichi becomes aware of the previous realities. That awareness lets him steer around several critical points where characters would have been murdered or driven insane. In the end Rika travels back to the past with a different aim. She sets out to prevent the suffering of Miyo's traumatic childhood, the experience that made Miyo who she became. A poem hints at each arc's secrets, and it comes from Federica, an omni-present being who appears in the universe and writes about Rika's struggle to escape her fate.

  1011233

• 4. Faces of Hinamizawa

  ›

  Rena Ryūgū is kind and looks after her friends, but she is also naïve and usually the target of light teasing. Mion is the identical twin sister of Shion and leads the after school club. Shion lives in Okinomiya. Satoko Hōjō is one of Keiichi's best friends and the younger sister of Satoshi. She has a distinctive way of speaking, ending every sentence with the particle ~wa.

  Satoshi, the missing brother, shapes the darkest threads of the story. He disappeared a year before Keiichi arrives. The question arcs introduce him as a student who had "transferred", and the other club members refuse to say more until later arcs. He and Satoko are both colorblind and cannot tell cauliflower from broccoli. Satoko calls him nii-nii, a childish form of the Japanese word for older brother. The later arcs reveal that he took the brunt of physical and emotional abuse from his aunt and uncle, Tamae and Teppei, to protect Satoko. The strain overwhelmed him, and he killed his aunt with a metal baseball bat. Irie and the Mountain Dogs then abducted him and kept him sedated in the secret basement of the Irie Clinic. They also framed a drug addict for the murder.

  The adults are a gallery of their own. Kyōsuke, the cheerful head doctor of the clinic, has a severe maid fetish, yet he is highly respected despite his young age. Oryō, the grandmother of the Sonozaki twins and head of their household, seems harsh and is considered the most powerful person in Hinamizawa. Masaaki, the official village chief, seems a kindly old man but is vehement in his hatred of anyone who opposes the villagers. Two outsiders investigate the murders: Kuraudo, a veteran police investigator who wants to avenge the first victim, a friend, and Mamoru, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department investigator.

  Later spin-offs kept adding newcomers. The mobile game Higurashi Mei brought in Kazuho, granddaughter of Kiichiro Kimiyoshi. It also brought in Nao, a Tokyo native who visits Hinamizawa for undisclosed reasons. Her secret turns out to be that she is Rena Ryugu's half-sister.

  1910113623

• 5. Making the Games

  ›

  Ryukishi07 held several jobs at once on this project. He was the game director and scenario writer, and he drew all of the character illustrations. The backgrounds came from photographs taken by Ryukishi07, his younger brother Yatazakura, and Kameya Mannendō.

  In 2004 Ryukishi07 wrote about the influence of Key's works on his planning. He borrowed a similar model for the basis of Higurashi. The difference was the target emotion. Where Key's stories lead the player to cry, he wanted to scare the player, so he added horror elements. He described Key as a "masterpiece maker" and hoped to be associated with that company in some way.

  An interview in the December 2008 issue of Yen Press's Yen Plus anthology traced the series to an earlier source. Ryukishi07 had written an unpublished theater script a few years before the first Higurashi game appeared. When he decided to rewrite it for release, he wanted to build on "the contrast between a fun, ordinary life, and something terrifying and out of the ordinary". The mystery writer Seishi Yokomizo greatly influenced the world he created. He also decided early on that the truth would come to light by looking at several overlapping stories.

  He did not expect the project to grow. Ryukishi07 first planned a single game, because he believed he could finish the story within a year. A small design detail followed the project from the start: the red Na in the logo is an official part of the title.

  2322208

• 6. Releases and Ports

  ›

  The first game, Onikakushi-hen, was released on the 10th of August 2002. Watanagashi-hen followed on the 29th of December 2002, and Tatarigoroshi-hen on the 15th of August 2003. Himatsubushi-hen, released on the 13th of August 2004, completed the four question arcs. The answer arcs came under the collective title Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai. Meakashi-hen appeared on the 30th of December 2004, and Tsumihoroboshi-hen on the 14th of August 2005. Minagoroshi-hen followed on the 30th of December 2005, and Matsuribayashi-hen on the 13th of August 2006. A fan disc, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei, arrived on the 31st of December 2006.

  The PlayStation 2 brought the series to a console on the 22nd of February 2007. Higurashi was only the third dōjin game ported to a console, after Hanakisō by HaccaWorks and Melty Blood by French-Bread and Ecole. Because of the popularity of that port, a second enhanced edition called Matsuri arrived on the 20th of December 2007. It carried everything except Matsuribayashi-hen from the original games, plus bonus material. Alchemist then developed four Nintendo DS games with new story arcs. The first, on the 26th of June 2008, held the first three question arcs and a new chapter, Someutsushi-hen. That chapter's story is based on the Onisarashi-hen manga. The last DS game came out in February 2010.

  The English release came from MangaGamer. The first four games appeared in December 2009, and the last four followed monthly starting in February 2010. That version lacks several background music tracks and two bonus features from the Japanese original, a music room and a minigame. The Japanese company Seams made iOS releases, and by May 2012 its English version included the first five games. On the 15th of May 2015, MangaGamer put a remastered Onikakushi-hen on Steam for Windows, OS X and Linux. The updates included a re-translation, previously cut music, the original Japanese text and alternative character art by the illustrator Kurosaki. The final part of that edition was released on the 10th of November 2023.

  Kaga Create published a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita port in Japan on the 12th of March 2015, with full voice acting, new songs and minigames. Entergram published a Nintendo Switch port on the 26th of July 2018. A mobile phone RPG written by Kiichi Kanō and developed by Smile Axe launched on the 3rd of September 2020. In January 2021, 07th Expansion announced a remaster with new music and upscaled graphics, and it released on the 28th of January 2022. It added a short scenario, Mehagashi-hen, which first appeared as a mini-light novel chapter packaged with the Higurashi Gou Blu-ray release.

  1333313227

• 7. Manga, Novels and Discs

  ›

  The manga adaptation started with eight different artists, each working separately on one to three of the story arcs. Square Enix and Kadokawa Shoten published them. Karin Suzuragi drew Onikakushi-hen, Tsumihoroboshi-hen and Matsuribayashi-hen. Yutori Hōjō drew Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen. Jirō Suzuki drew Tatarigoroshi-hen, Yoshiki Tonogai drew Himatsubushi-hen, and Hinase Momoyama drew Minagoroshi-hen. Each question arc fills two volumes. The first two answer arcs run to four volumes, Minagoroshi-hen to six, and Matsuribayashi-hen to eight.

  Yen Press licensed the manga for North America as Higurashi: When They Cry. The first issue of its Yen Plus anthology went on sale on the 29th of July 2008. The first English volume had been planned for early 2009, but it was released in November 2008. Three side stories with new characters followed, including works drawn by En Kitō and Mimori. On the 25th of October 2011, the debut issue of Square Enix's Big Gangan magazine began a manga adaptation of Higurashi's precursor, Hinamizawa Teiryūjo.

  Seventeen novelizations of the separate visual novel arcs exist, alongside four light novels with extra illustrations by five artists. Kodansha released the novelizations between August 2007 and March 2009. In September 2010 the editor Katsushi Ōta confirmed on Twitter that they would return in bunkobon editions. Seikaisha published those with new cover art by Tomohi from the 12th of January 2011 to the 8th of June 2012. Futabasha began a further set in 2020 with art by Sato Yoshimi, starting with Onikakushi-hen on the 23rd of October.

  The drama CDs run from the 27th of May 2005 to the 9th of March 2012. The eight sound novel arcs became eleven CD releases, because Minagoroshi-hen and Matsuribayashi-hen were split into two and three. Each chapter lasts 200-300 minutes across 3-6 discs, and Ryukishi07 chose the voice cast himself. CD booklets carried passwords that unlocked downloadable audio versions of the tips. Fans asked for more, and Append Disc 01 appeared on the 29th of December 2005 at Comiket 69.

  Kenji Kawai composed the soundtrack, and Frontier Works produced the albums. Volume 1 came out on the 21st of July 2006, and volume 2 on the 6th of October 2006. The first anime opening hides a message in its unintelligible opening lyrics, "hange hara harei", which come from reversing a phrase. The second opening ends with a reversed fragment, "Ie hanan", made by playing the first fragment backwards.

  5354555660

• 8. Screens and Reception

  ›

  Studio Deen animated the first television series, with Chiaki Kon as director. It aired in Japan from the 4th of April to the 26th of September 2006 and ran for 26 episodes. A continuation by the same core staff aired from the 6th of July to the 17th of December 2007 across 24 episodes. That autumn, in September 2007, a murder case in Japan drew media comparisons to anime such as Higurashi. A sixteen-year-old had killed her police officer father with an axe. A number of stations then canceled the latest episodes of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai and of School Days, citing excessive violence.

  On the 25th of February 2009, an original video animation series arrived. In English-speaking markets, Funimation released a complete box set of the first series in August 2009, but its rights expired in August 2011 due to low sales. A new project by Passione, announced on the 6th of January 2020, aired from the 1st of October 2020 to the 19th of March 2021 across 24 episodes, with Kenji Kawai returning as composer. Before episode 2, it was marketed as a remake with the subtitle New. Episode 2 changed the subtitle and revealed it was not a direct remake. A sequel aired from the 1st of July to the 30th of September 2021.

  The live-action film Onikakushi-hen, known as Shrill Cries of Summer worldwide, premiered in Japanese theaters on the 10th of May 2008. Ataru Oikawa directed and wrote it, with Gōki Maeda as Keiichi. It opened in 60 theaters. A sequel followed on the 18th of April 2009. A television series with Yu Inaba as Keiichi premiered on the 20th of May 2016 with a cast that included members of NGT48. A stage play ran from the 24th of July to the 28th of July 2019.

  Over 100,000 copies of the original games were sold in Japan by 2006, a mark no dōjin game had reached since Type-Moon's Tsukihime. By the 13th of August 2007, total sales passed 500,000. The PlayStation 2 port Matsuri had sold 140,397 copies by the 11th of October 2007. The Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave that port a total of 31/40. Hardcore Gamer called the "writing is incredibly eerie, and amazingly effective". The manga reached over 8 million copies in circulation by 2009, and over 10 million by 2020.

  Critics of the anime were warm but divided. Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network gave it an "A-" and wrote that "When They Cry holds up really well as a horror title." James Henley of The Escapist praised the story but said watching Kai was necessary to fully understand it. THEM Anime Reviews gave it 3 out of 5 stars and called each chapter "progressively soul-sucking and depressing".

  The series has traveled well beyond Japan. The 2010 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated episode "When the Cicada Calls" references it. In 2025 Konami enlisted Ryukishi07 for Silent Hill f, because the company believed it needed someone who could "really understand the essence of Japanese horror".

  16962592