History Characters / HigurashiWhenTheyCryProtagonists

* AxCrazy: Shion is one of the most dangerously psychotic and violently unstable characters in the whole series. She viciously tortures and murders several innocent people in the course of just a few days in her character-focused arc.

* WalkingSpoiler: It's difficult to talk about Shion without spoilers for Watanagashi and Meakashi-hen.

* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: Fitting with his status as a DecoyProtagonist, he finds himself ending up in this role, where often times he first learns about important events well after they have happened, as the characters who where involved with the action fills him in via exposition. It is perhaps most pronounced in ''Wataganashi-hen'', he ends up being [[spoiler:an UnwittingPawn in Shion's scheme]], while Rena is ultimately turns out to be one amongst the kids who is actually the most on the ball about what is really going on.

* BookSmart: {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. Back when he lived at the city, Keiichi spent all of his free time studying at CramSchool. As a result, he got the highest test scores at his school and for a while, he liked being praised for it. However, that didn't last long as his parents and teachers kept placing even bigger expectations on him and other students bullied him because he had better grades than them. Keiichi couldn't handle all that academic pressure [[spoiler:and started shooting at children with a BB gun to relieve stress. He regretted it when he hit a little girl in the eye]]. Now at Hinamizawa, Keiichi doesn't put much focus on his studies because he wants to have fun with his new friends. He's still of great help at helping other kids study. It also reflects in the fact that he is somewhat socially awkward and InnocentlyInsensitive at times, due to have not socialized that much with any peers his own age before he came to Hinamizawa. Most crucially, this traits result in having his moments of being a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter [[spoiler:and even manipulated into acting as an UnwittingPawn]].

* BookSmart: {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. Back when he lived at the city, Keiichi spent all of his free time studying at CramSchool. As a result, he got the highest test scores at his school and for a while, he liked being praised for it. However, that didn't last long as his parents and teachers kept placing even bigger expectations on him and other students bullied him because he had better grades than them. Keiichi couldn't handle all that academic pressure [[spoiler:and started shooting at children with a BB gun to relieve stress. He regretted it when he hit a little girl in the eye.]] Now at Hinamizawa, Keiichi doesn't put much focus on his studies because he wants to have fun with his new friends. He's still of great help at helping other kids study.

* ItsAllMyFault: His internal monologue show him having a troubling tendency to constantly blame himself for everything bad that happens over the course of the stories, even stuff that is quite obviously out of his control. The most prominent example of this is perhaps ''Watanagashi-hen'', where [[spoiler:Keiichi is quite convinced that the murders and disappearences are connected to the break-in at the shrine's storehouse he had a part in, and that some of disappearances are connected to him, as the culprit wants to torment him before killing him]]. As a result, he spends a lot of time agonizing himself over it and being afraid to talk about it because he fears he will condemn someone else to the same fate. [[spoiler:In reality, however, this is a major case of MotiveMisidentification on his behalf. For the longest time, he fails to consider the fact that the people disappearing are all members of the Three Families, as well as the crimes might be related to some kind of internal feud between them. Of course, Shion, who is the actual culprit, actively feeds his wrong conclusion, as she finds it a quite useful way to manipulate him for her own ends.]]

* PsychologicalHorror: The horror from his arc ''Onikakushi-hen'' comes more from paranoia and fear rather than blood and gore. [[spoiler:Especially the fact that turns out that most of the things he was so paranoid about was really all in his own head and that to anyone observing him from the outside he very much appeared like a high-strung maniac constantly jumping at shadows.]]

* SmarterThanYouLook: He's actually among the most intelligent people in the main cast. Shion in particular doesn't think much of his brains.

* ItsAllMyFault: In ''Watanagashi-hen'', [[spoiler:Keiichi is quite convinced that the murders and disappearences are connected to the break-in at the shrine's storehouse he had a part in, and that some of disappearances are connected to him, as the culprit wants to torment him before killing him]]. As a result, he spends a lot of time agonizing himself over it and being afraid to talk about it because he fears he will condemn someone else to the same fate. [[spoiler:In reality, however, this is a major case of MotiveMisidentification on his behalf. For the longest time, he fails to consider the fact that the people disappearing are all members of the Three Families, as well as the crimes might be related to some kind of internal feud between them. Of course, Shion, who is the actual culprit, actively feeds his wrong conclusion, as she finds it a quite useful way to manipulate him for her own ends.]]

* MaskOfSanity: Shion can act outwardly calm and composed for prolonged periods of time when the situation calls for it, but she is a big mess of years of surpressed rage and mental instablity under the surface. Whenever she allows the mask to slip just a little bit, she quickly turns into a maniac, and when it entirely falls off she becomes LaughingMad.

* TheCharmer: When Shion wants to be, she is very charismatic. This is especially clear in the Watanagashi chapter, where newcomer Keiichi has none of the locals' fear of her family, and she basically waltzes in and [[{{TheGadFly}} starts fucking with him.]]

** In Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen, [[spoiler:what starts her fall into madness is hearing about her twin sister's romantic woes as she's madly jealous that her sister's crush is around while her Satoshi is missing. At the end of both arcs, she stabs Keiichi because she couldn't stand leaving Mion's crush alive.]]

* BreakTheCutie: ''Meakashi-hen'' has her go through a hellish nightmare. [[spoiler:She's locked in a dungeon and her sister emotionally tortures her by [[ForcedToWatch forcing her to listen]] as she slowly and painfully kills their grandmother, the town's mayor, and Satoko while Mion can only scream and futilely beg Shion to stop. And just to top it off, Shion plans to subject Keiichi as a finisher.]] She's a sobbing wreck by the time [[spoiler:Shion finally kills her too]].

* BreakTheCutie: ''Meakashi-hen'' has her go through a hellish nightmare. [[spoiler:She's locked in a dungeon and her sister emotionally tortures her by [[ForcedToWatch forcing her to listen]] as she slowly and painfully kills their grandmother, the town's mayor, and Satoko while Mion can only scream and futilely beg Shion to stop.]] She's a sobbing wreck by the time [[spoiler:Shion finally kills her too.]]

* BreakTheCutie: Tatarigoroshi-hen is about the bubbly little prankster Satoko turning into a extremely depressed shell of herself because of her uncle returning to abuse her.

* BreakTheCutie: ''Meakashi-hen'' has her go through a hellish nightmare. [[spoiler:She's locked in a dungeon and her sister emotionally tortures her by killing their grandmother, the town's mayor, and Satoko while Mion can only scream and futilely beg Shion to stop.]] She's a sobbing wreck by the time [[spoiler:Shion finally kills her too.]]

* TooCleverByHalf: Keiichi is a swift thinker, is unquestionably BookSmart, and proves several times that he has a way with words few can match, but in several chapters he manages to either accidentally to play a big part in the inital push that causes the DisasterDominos of the plot to start falling or otherwise act as an UnwittingPawn to the ArcVillain, simply by overestimating his own skills and underestimating the complexity of the situtation, and insiting on handling his problems alone, even though it gets increasingly clearly that he is in over his head.

* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:In ''Watanagashi-hen'' and ''Meakashi-hen'', Shion plays him like a fiddle. He manages to fall completely for Shion's scheme to frame Mion as the perperator of her crimes, and, most crucially, she manipulates him into feeding her quite a bit of crucial information that allows her to remain one step in front up of everyone else, including giving up the fact that Rika is the biggest treat against her.]]

* TooDumbToLive: So your friend has just admitted to committing multiple murders, then suddenly decides she wants to go on a walk with you alone? Sure. Then said friend asks you if you want to see her sister, whom she has kidnapped? No problem. She leads you into a TortureCellar, admits to killing two of your closest friends, torturing her own sister, and said sister screams bloody murder at the sight of her? Everything's absolutely fine. Somehow he still manages to act surprised when he gets knocked out and wakes up strapped to one of the torture devices. Through dumb luck, he survives, and even though this friend ''explicitly warns him'' to stay away if he ever sees her again, he still trusts this friend enough to step out of his house and speak with her when she drops by in the middle of the night.

* JackOfAllStats: In ''Higurashi Daybreak'', he's this along with Nata Rena. He has decent running speed, plausible defence, great melee range and powerful range attacks that cover quite a distance. However, all three of his weapons lean slightly towards being a ranged moevest of varying styles, with the Baseball Bat being more BoringButPractical , the golf clubs going for more damage at expense of less control and the shovel has an emphasis on wide-spread keep-away tactics.

* DrowningMySorrows: [[spoiler:She drinks wine when she's depressed, despite being underage. She notes that it's quite easy to get drunk with her small frame. She knows she's fated to die anyway, so what harm could it do?]]

* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: [[spoiler:Due to still being physically a preteen, she cannot achieve complete mental maturity despite being mentally over a hundred years old, simply because certain changes in the brain that occur during puberty haven't occured for her yet. A line in the visual novel suggests she hasn't even gotten her first period yet.]]

* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:''Watanagashi-hen'', he manages to fall competely for Shion's scheme as she manipulates him into be paranoid towards Mion and she makes him give up the fact that Rika is the one working against her.]]

* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:''Watanagashi-hen'', he falls competely for Shion's scheme to turn him against Mion.]]

* MaskOfSanity: Shion can act outwardly calm and composed for prolonged periods of time when the situation calls for it, but she is ''really'' messed up under the surface. Whenever she allows the mask to slip just a little bit, she quickly turns into a maniac, and when it entirely falls off she becomes LaughingMad.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:She spends most of ''Meakashi-hen'' (and by extension, ''[[PerspectiveFlip Watanagashi-hen]]'') seeking revenge on the Three Families for murdering Satoshi. It would be bad enough if they were merely innocent of his death, but it's worse than that- ''[[ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated he's not even dead!]]'']]