* AngstWhatAngst: At least in the end of the anime. According to Hiroshi, how do he and his friends move on from discovery of dark secrets regarding [[spoiler: Nemuru]], the New Town [[spoiler: nearly being destroyed]], battling someone trying to destroy the village, and [[spoiler: witnessing said destroyer falling into a lake]] at the end of the day? They simply act like it never happened and was just a dream.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The guy in the antarctic who gets eaten by his dogs.
* BizarroEpisode: Episode 12. Largely played for comedy, yet still [[NightmareFuel manages to be scarier than the entire rest of the show]].
* CryForTheDevil: [[spoiler: Sakaki's]] arc in the VN fills this role, and ''damn'' does it ever.
* HesJustHiding: More than one fan has theorized that [[spoiler: Sakaki somehow survived his fall with Kaori. Then again, his body was never actually ''shown'', so...]]
* HoYay: The way-too-creepy variant.
* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: A complaint leveled against the series due to superficial similarities to ''Higurashi'' (city kid moving into a TownWithADarkSecret and a unique festival, people [[DeadlyEuphemism "transferring"]] out).
* JerkassDissonance: [[spoiler: Sakaki,]] at least with those who only saw the anime, gained a larger fanbase than the protagonist despite his questionable actions...until episode eleven. He...[[VillainBall sort of lost a few fans after that]].
* JerkassWoobie: [[spoiler: Sakaki]] becomes this by the end of his arc in the Visual Novel. The case is struck up in the anime as well.
* MisBlamed: Ryukishi takes a lot of heat for over half of the less-than-beloved plot details in the anime, especially the ending, mostly from those who have seen [[VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry its more popular counterpart]] and claim he didn't even try...not realizing the ending is almost entirely different from the Visual Novel's, and that, unlike ''Higurashi'' and ''Umineko'', Ryukishi wasn't even ''consulted'' for over half of the changes in this adaptation.
* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler: Sakaki's attempt to open the dam and destroy the village at the end of the anime. ]]
** [[spoiler: Shooting Isuzu was likewise meant to be this just in case he still had any sympathy after the above-mentioned attempt at destroying the village, but it ended up coming across as a KickTheDog moment.]]
* {{Narm}}: [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Spider-Issei]], in episode 5.
** From the same episode, Issei's raep face.
** [[http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt288/francismeunier/number%20two/c85e5353.gif Issei likes to move it, move it.]] Link contains spoilers, just to warn you.
* NightmareFuel: After 11 relatively scare-free episodes, we get some in the mostly-comedic Bizarroepisode, of all places. Particularly bad is when Hiro opens the box meant for Mana-chan... and has a [[EldritchAbomination horrible vision]] immediately before the commercial break, which is never explained. A spell that Nemuru cast? Maybe. The thing that bites his neck just before the cut to commercial? ''Completely separate''.
* NoYay: Issei's actions towards Hiroshi are downright creepy in episode 3 - which is obviously the point.
* TheScrappy: Hiroshi. It doesn't help that in the anime, he does basically ''nothing'' for 12 episodes. To a lesser extent, Isuzu, though the hatred towards her [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap lightened up]] after she was temporarily PutOnABus. Depending on whether you thought Issei's scenes with Hiroshi were either [[HoYay the best scenes in the series,]] [[NoYay or the creepiest,]] he is either also this, or an EnsembleDarkhorse.
* SlowPacedBeginning: Both the anime and the VN start off painfully slow, but after three episodes and around five hours respectively of slice-of-life scenes with the occasional oddity here and there, the plot ''finally'' gets moving after Hiroshi witnesses someone being killed by [[spoiler: Nemuru Kushinada.]]
* TheUntwist: [[spoiler:Nemuru is the scythe-girl]].