Higurashi

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From what I hear, episode 3 is actually decent. Not especially good, but at least at the level of Rei. I suppose I will find out soon...

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The 3rd episode was pretty good, actually. The first half of it was actually what you'd expect from a light bonus episode involving the Higurashi characters, and I enjoyed it enough as a guilty pleasure. The second part was a bit too silly, but overall, this episode was surprisingly not painful to watch and treated the source material with far more dignity than the first two episodes of Kira or the comedy episodes of Rei.

There was no next episode preview at the end, so I'm hoping that this entire OVA has merely been an elaborate setup to troll audiences with some really fucked up shit in its conclusion. I doubt it, but that'd be super awesome.

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So I'm reading through the visual novel again. I never really got too far with it the first time, so this'll be a fun experience, I guess. I'll post up my thoughts and some content comparisons for you guys later.

But good god, I had forgotten how terrible MangaGamer's translation is. It's like they forgot to show it to an editor before release! I don't know if this shit gets better later on, but Onikakushi seriously reads like a first draft, with every fifth sentence (sometimes every third) containing at least one glaring spelling/grammar/punctuation/construction error. Here's a particularly wretched example: "I was wondering why there weren't so many words to describe the good taste in Japanese language."

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Fourth post in a row! I'll stop after this one if nobody cares.

Maybe it's the lack of voice acting and CGs, but so far it definitely seems like Deen drastically upped the ante as far the series' horror elements go. Instead of being outright scary/weird like the anime, the VN is a more subdued kind of creepy and very atmospheric. I like it.

It also contains a lot of shit that was poorly explained, never touched upon, or retconned for no reason in the anime version. The story not only makes more sense, but the character development is quite a bit better, too. Keiichi has real depth and Tomitake's death actually kind of stings. Good stuff.

The quality of the translation fluctuates a lot. Some parts flow perfectly, but most of it is complete garbage. As a writer myself, I'm pretty appalled by the lack of competence on display here. MangaGamer truly has balls to charge money for this release.

Btw,

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So yeah, the manga gets really weird.

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Also, after (almost) finishing the visual novel, I've discovered that I actually like the adaptations more. Which is probably blasphemy, but if MangaGamer's translation is a good indicator (which it might not be, honestly), the original work is overloaded with exposition and has almost no likable characters. The new plot details are cool to discover, but it's a lot weaker as a whole IMO.

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Sentai's having a pretty big sale, and they have the entire series set for only $16. As in both the original series, Kai, and Rei.

I don't tend to buy anime all that much anymore aside from mega favorites (only just recently picked up Bebop and FMP), but wow. I'm considering buying the Big O and Made in Abyss sets to round up to $50, but I don't really need those, while I've had Higurashi on my mind for a little while.