02.06
Did you like the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and its follow-up, Kai? Did you grow to love the main characters and get sucked in by the constantly evolving but always mysterious storyline? Were you looking forward to seeing some light and fun everyday adventures involving the relatively large cast post-srs bsns time loop drama? Well then,
Mion tells it like it is.
Death Note fans will no doubt be surprised to learn that the word “kira” actually means something akin to “glitter.” And like glitter, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira, Studio Deen’s latest attempt to milk this cash cow for all it’s worth, is tacky, aggravating, and cheapens the value of the original product it’s applied to.
First of all, look at Mion in the above picture. Just look at her. She looks like a fucking K-On! character. Studio Deen apparently decided that it’d be a good idea to change Higurashi‘s art from the cutesy yet creepily deformable style of past seasons to a low-rent KyoAni riff. Brilliant. Does that make it easier to masturbate to? You’re about to be the judge!
Episode 1 is probably the most insipid thing to ever come out of the When They Cry franchise. It’s also the only part of this new OVA series that’s taken directly from the visual novel, which actually makes it worse because it adds more fuel to the fire of my Ryukishi07 hatred established by Umineko and Ookami Kakushi. Fanservice, an aspect of anime that the first two seasons tactfully avoided, is the name of the game here. This episode is filled with tasteless shots of underage girls doing things that men far older than them seemingly find arousing.
Ooishi is apparently a pro at fantasizing about little girls.
I could deal with this if it was just Keiichi and Irie. But no, according to Kira, Tomitake and Ooishi are pedophiles and have been all along. I know this is supposed to be a comedy episode, but the whole situation just doesn’t sit right with me. Of course, it would probably help if even one of the jokes didn’t fall flat. To put it bluntly, this episode’s humor is about as funny as forcibly receiving an enema of your own diarrhea. Anyway, roughly 2/3 of the episode is spent watching Keiichi, Tomitake, Irie, and Ooishi jerk it to the thought of the major female characters in compromising situations, with a little surprise at the end for KeiichiXSatoshi shippers (these people actually exist, apparently).
MY DICK IS SO HARD RIGHT NOW
The fanservice shots are gratuitous and more than a little creepy. Really, did anyone ask for this? There are already at least 10 different doujins in which Hanyuu gets a train run on her by an entire football team and a dozen or so where a giant squid thoroughly explores all of Satoko’s orifices. I’m sure someone out there can hook you up with a 50-page comic where Shion grows a penis, kills Keiichi, and skull-fucks his corpse while Mion watches and masturbates. And there’s gotta’ be at least one using Rena’s maggot-infested wounds as a basis.
Ahem. My point is, people who would want to fap to Higurashi in the first place are probably incapable of getting turned on by the (comparatively tame) stuff in this episode, and the rest of us just have no desire to see that shit at all. It’s out of character, morally reprehensible, and worst of all… boring. I got absolutely no joy out of watching this episode, and that includes the fanservice-less third act.
Yes, this is something that actually happens in this episode.
The last bit of this episode moves out of the “underage kids in erotic situations” camp and firmly into one of self-parody. Unfortunately, Higurashi has proved itself to be absolutely terrible at parody in the past, and it fares even worse when it’s trying to make fun of itself. Basically, it ends up being Scary Movie 4 when it could have easily pulled off Shaun Of The Dead had it been penned by a writer who had even the slightest idea of what constitutes a good comedy. There is no wit, just “wacky” and poorly executed slapstick antics; the kind that plague every single goddamn modern anime that tries to be funny. The worst part is that there’s actually quite a bit of potential for excellent satire here, it was just squandered by a clearly incompetent writing staff and awful direction.
There are no words to properly express my sorrow.
Episode 2 is equally terrible, but also thankfully less offensive. In it, Rika and Satoko wake up in a parallel universe where they are magical girls. Needless to say, it’s pretty fucking stupid, but I will say that as a whole it feels a lot more sincere than the first installment. While the voice actors and animators were clearly just going through the motions and trying to make a quick buck with the previous episode, you can tell that they’re actually having fun this time around. Of course, professional critics have informed me that my ability to have fun while playing Duke Nukem Forever is a bad thing, so I’m going to echo that sentiment here and say that the staff having fun working on an anime episode is not necessarily a good thing. Make no mistake, part 2 of Kira is still an abomination, even if it wasn’t obviously phoned in like the first one.
Episode 2 opens with some intelligent philosophical discussion.
According to a description posted online before the OVA’s release, this episode is a parody of that new Madoka Magica show. Now, I haven’t properly watched Madoka, but I’d honestly be surprised if that were in any way true judging from what I’ve seen of it. This seems to be no more than just your standard magical girl anime parody episode; the kind that gets made about as often as “MARIO FARTS LOL XD” flashes are submitted to Newgrounds. The jokes are fairly standard to the genre — everyone inexplicably thinks one of the magical girls is super cute, the transformation sequences are purposefully lame and over-the-top, the villains’ costumes are ridiculous in a bad way — and, unsurprisingly, the plot doesn’t really go anywhere. In fact, it ends on a cliffhanger… thank God there will never be a continuation.
The whole thing is just weird for the sake of being weird and never really attempts much in the way of comedy. In fact, aside from a few brief scenes, it actually seems to play the whole magical girl concept fairly straight. It’s not particularly entertaining to watch and is pretty generic, all things considered. While I did not want to kill myself as often during this episode as I did during the first one, that alone does not make it worth a watch. To simplify things, they’re both total dog shit, but this particular lump of feces doesn’t have as much of an odor.
A question you will likely ask yourself multiple times should you choose to watch the second episode.
Before I continue, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out how much I hate the new OP. I know, I know, music is the most subjective thing ever (except for Nickelback; they’re undeniably shit), but I find it to be obnoxious and more than a little grating. I do not feel happy, lucky, or whatever the fuck “dochy” means while watching/listening to it… in fact, it causes me physical pain. Rei‘s opening was pretty lame, too, but at least that one didn’t make it seem like Studio Deen was trying to turn Higurashi into the next “cute girls doing cute things” phenomenon. It’s just another aspect of Kira which proves that Deen doesn’t give a shit about the series’ 10th anniversary, they just want to make as much money as possible off of it by appealing to a completely different fanbase from the currently existing one.
You should be.
With that out of the way, we can now move onto the final and most shocking part of this review. Originally, I was going to wait until the fourth episode came out and then write a humongous diatribe detailing the ways in which I wanted to see every person working at Studio Deen die. But after watching the third OVA of Kira, I decided it would be worthwhile to write and post the review ASAP [part 2 detailing my thoughts on episode 4 will never be released due to personal rage and incompetence]. What is the reasoning behind this decision? Was it so terrible that I needed to bash its brains out immediately? Did it give me irreparable brain damage? Or maybe… maybe it was…
Good. Episode 3 is good. Surprisingly good. The story was interesting enough to fill 30 minutes. Some of the jokes were actually funny. Most importantly, there were no stupid gimmicks and the characters acted like themselves. The truth is, despite the second act being overly silly, this is the first episode to treat the source material with any sort of dignity since Kai. I have no idea why it took Deen so long to produce an episode in which the kids and high-schoolers do nothing more than simply act like kids and high-schoolers, but it finally happened. It’s not exactly glorious, but it’s legitimately watchable and kind of fun. Finally.
the pimp said angrily.
The basic plot here is that the three main girls who have actually hit puberty make known (in their various different ways) that they have feelings for Keiichi, but he’s too much of a bro to ruin their friendship by going through with dating one of them. Or maybe he’s just gay for Satoshi. That’d make all the female Higurashi fans happy, I’m sure. Yeah, it does sound like some lowest common denominator harem bullshit, but it’s a legitimate unresolved plot thread that’s been there since day 1, and it’s actually handled in the tasteful fashion you’d expect from the lighter episodes of the first two seasons.
It’s not the best storyline Higurashi‘s ever had, but it ditches the fanservice of the past two episodes, and as long as Tomitake isn’t getting hard over Rika rubbing her ass on a window, I’m happy. There isn’t much of a resolution present in this episode, but it’s pretty obvious who our good buddy Keiichi will probably end up going for if you pay attention.
TIP: It’s one of these three.
The humor is pretty hit or miss, particularly in the second half. It’s almost certainly the funniest episode of Higurashi that’s ever been released, though… which isn’t really much of an accomplishment, but I digress. You’ll probably like it if you’re a fan, and that’s what’s important. Things get pretty silly, but it’s still more grounded in-universe than any of the other OVAs (Nekogoroshi-hen aside). If the rest of Kira had been like this, it would have easily surpassed Rei. Unfortunately, it won’t even come close to that series’ mediocrity unless episode 4 can perform just as well as or better than this one. My hopes are not high, but at least Higurashi fans can rest easy knowing that the fourth series won’t end up being a complete waste.
TL;DR
Episodes 1-3
Art/Animation: 7/10 – It’s like a low-rent KyoAni production, but it isn’t bad at all. I can’t decide if it deserves to have a point deducted or added for the hilarious scene in episode 3 where Shion’s boobs start freaking out as if they have a mind of their own.
Voice Acting: 8/10 – The performances are less enjoyable and effective when the series doesn’t attempt drama, but they’re still damn good.
Episode 1
Story: 0/10 – There are definitely pornographic Higurashi doujins with better plots.
Characters: 1/10 – Out of all the male characters, only Irie acts like himself. None of the female characters do anything of note aside from degrade themselves.
Overall: -1/10 – I wish to forget I ever witnessed even a single frame of this aberration.
Episode 2
Story: 3.5/10 – It’s a generic magical girl anime plot.
Characters: 3/10 – The characters are now generic magical girl anime characters.
Overall: 3/10 – It’s pretty painful to watch, but it’s still far better than episode 1.
Episode 3
Story: 6/10- Unresolved plot thread that sadly doesn’t really go anywhere.
Characters: 9/10 – I love the main cast, and they more or less act like you’d expect them to. It was great seeing Kasai and Grandma Sonozaki again.
Overall: 7.5/10 – It’s not the best Higurashi episode ever, but it is the best Higurashi OVA ever.
–Foggle
Originally posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2011.