YMMV / Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Satoko:
    • While she injected Mion in Wataakashi-hen with the H5 syringe just to see what she would do under the illness, she also egged Mion on about Shion being in love with Keiichi. Could Satoko also have wanted to get revenge against the woman who brutally beat her up in class and tortured her to death in Watanagashi-Hen and Meakashi-Hen?
    • When she saw how much her uncle was willing to go out of his way to ensure she was safe, Satoko has a moment of sadness on her face. Could it be that she felt remorse for her actions even for a moment? The reveal in episode 10 that Looper!Satoko has a split personality puts this into question even more.
• Angst Aversion: Many found episode 15 of Gou to be too brutal and depressing, even by the series' standards. As if it wasn't bad enough that Rika has to go through shit each arc, this episode took it up to eleven by having Rika die 4 times in a row, and in increasingly violent ways. This made many people deem it as straight up Torture Porn.
• Arc Fatigue: The first half of Gou and especially the first part of Sotsu has been criticized by fans for just largely rehashing the first original arcs before adding sudden twist endings. Sotsu in particular suffers from mostly recycling Gou's footage
• Ass Pull:
  • At the end of Wataakashi-hen, a crazed Mion has Satoko at gunpoint, just about to shoot her for not giving the answers she wants. How does Satoko get out of this situation? She somehow manages to drop the soy sauce bottle that she needed both arms to hold, pull out her own gun, and shoot Mion first despite Mion's gun already being pointed at her head the whole time.
  • Hanyuu suddenly giving Rika the ability to remember her deaths, despite being weaker than ever. The manga at least presents this as a trade-off to any further looping.
  • So how does it all end? Rika and Satoko talk it out. Fans feel that this happy ending is out of place and unearned, given that Rika was willing to make amends with Satoko after the latter had essentially tortured her and everyone they knew for multiple loops, and that the ending doesn't add much to Higurashi as a stand-alone beyond Rika and Satoko's relationship being tainted. Even the seeming build-up to Rika and Satoko becoming Bernkastel and Lambdadelta is still unclear, although may be addressed in the future.
• Awesome Art:
  • Rika's shrine dance in Gou is elegantly and fluidly animated. Made more awesome by the animators creating original choregraphy not found in the source materials.
  • There's also the Sea of Fragments. It perfectly presents the realm as almost a dream-like state with fragments drifting throughout.
  • The endings for "God's Syndrome" and "Irregular Entropy." The illustrations are done vividly akin to that of a water painting with the latter also brilliantly employing the chandelier from the end of episode 21.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • SATOKO. Fans will either find her to be an interesting villain with a good Freudian Excuse, or believe that she is a bland, one-dimensional villain that is an example of badly written character assassination, and that her motivations are extremley petty and flimsy. Sotsu did not help matters at all, especially towards the end where it basically summed up her Freudian Excuse as "I don't like studying." Then there's the debate of whether she deserves redemption. Her defenders will say that the point of Higurashi is that it's a world where all sins are forgiveable and that she was only acting that way because she was mentally broken. Detractors however believe that she is irredeemable. They feel like the show made go way too far in her atrocities and failed to humanize her in a way that would make the audience understand her, especially considering that she tortured Rika over a petty promise and dragged her friends and everyone else she knows along with this without a hint of remorse, and getting away with it in the end.
  • Teppei became this after undergoing an arc of self-rehabilitation and atonement for his sins. While some fans welcomed it for the Character Development, a good chunk of people raised a lot of issues with it due to it leading to abuse victims forgiving their abuser (especially since Teppei's abuse has negatively effected Satoko for years and it's implied that he groomed her in the original sound novels), and how it felt very forced and unnatural for his character to change his ways this drastically. On a lesser note, many people thought that his Character Development could've gone to someone else like Keiichi or Shion.
• Broken Aesop:
  • The original story taught that miracles arise from a group effort and don't simply fall into one's lap. The "miracle" that helps Rika figure out that Satoko is the culprit has nothing to do with group effort (as the other club members are Out of Focus in the main conflict) and barely even involves Rika's own efforts (as she had practically given up), instead simply resulting from Satoko's own carelessness giving herself away. Likewise, the "miracle" that allows Hanyuu to defeat Eua was the Onigari-no-Ryūō falling into her hand after Rika (who couldn't have known what situation Hanyuu was in) tossed it into the water.
  • Despite Keiichi Tsumihoroboshi-hen expressing extreme guilt and desire for atonement over his Onikakushi-hen murders, and Rika in Saikoroshi-hen realizing that looping had distorted her values on life, the show's ending and even Word of God seem to side with Eua that Satoko toying with lives in other worlds is ultimately insignificant.
• Broken Base: Big time, since this is easily the most divisive entry in the entire WTC series:
  • For starters, when it was revealed that it was a sequel instead of remake, this rubbed some fans the wrong way, especially since it undid the happy ending in the original,
  • While Sotsu was universally disliked, a lot of fans are split whether Gou/Sotsu was even good to begin with. On one hand, you have people who believe Gou had a good setup, only for it to have its potential wasted when Sotsu came around. The other half of the fanbase believe that the problems with the series started to crop up during the latter half of Gou, especially when it was revealed that Satoko was the looper. Aside from that, they felt that the show became too reliant on shock value and that it became a parody of itself.
  • Speaking of which the decision to make Satoko the antagonist was met with mixed reactions. There are fans that believe that thought it was an interesting direction, while others felt it went against her characterization.
  • The final showdown between Rika and Satoko in Sotsu. While no one will argue that it very out-of-place, some thought it was entertaining for what it was, while others believed it was the moment the show had officially jumped the shark.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The whodunnit for all of Sotsu's Answer Arcs was revealed before Sotsu even began, and the whydunnit and howdunnit are revealed as soon as the first Answer Arc: that Satoko is sticking Hinamizawa Syndrome into someone who didn't originally have it, then sitting back and watching as Rika loses her mind and life in the havoc that ensues. All that changes is who Satoko chooses to infect in the given Answer Arc, and said infectee was already shown in the corresponding Mystery Arc. This seems to be a deliberate choice as the focus of the Answer Arcs is less on the mystery and more on Satoko and Rika themselves, but it does make the arcs seem unnecessarily drawn out.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After spending nearly the entire show torturing Rika and killing everyone with no remorse, Satoko finally get what's coming to her when Rika manages fights back in an epic Dragon Ball Z-esque battle. And Rika even brings back "Chair-kun" from Saikoroshi-hen!
  • Miyo Takano’s Karma Houdini status in the original series gets completely averted by having her actually go through with her suicide and taking the blame for the whole operations, ending with her being completely forgotten about like her grandfather. Of course this only happens in a different version of events that comes to Takano as a nightmare that prompts an early Heel–Face Turn, but seeing her a suffer the fullest consequences of her crimes can be very satisfying for many who were upset over her being Easily Forgiven in the original series.
• Complete Monster: Eua is a mysterious godlike entity who was responsible for restarting the loops by taking advantage of a mentally unstable Satoko Hojo. Desiring to stave off her boredom, Eua grants Satoko the ability to loop and derives entertainment from watching Satoko commit mass murder throughout the loops and butcher her former friends. When Hanyū arrives to stop her, Eua traps her and forces her to watch Satoko disembowel Rika through the Watanagashi ritual. After the witch half of Satoko took over, Eua humors Hanyū's deal to leave if she demonstrated a miracle to her, but relishes how she would cease to exist if she failed. When Hanyū tries to intervene in the final battle between Rika and Satoko, Eua tries to crush her to death underneath a pile of furniture.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Being a Stealth Sequel instead of Continuity Reboot as initially believed resulted in the new viewers getting lost on what's going on, as Not His Sled twists require larger degree of familiarity with original arcs and overarching plot than this series has time to elaborate.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Keiichi killing Rika with a baseball bat? Horrifying; contemplating whether to eat her brains with a fork or spoon? Hilarious.
  • Sotsu Episode 14. Satoko killing Rika the first few times after she's outed as the second looper. Despicable; The methods of killing her starting with a frying pan to the face and sending her flying with a smack from a backpack like a Looney Tunes character? Cruel and funny. By the time of the Dragon Ball Z-style fight between the two girls, the entire thing is bordering on being a total farce.
• Designated Villain: The teacher at St. Lucia Academy; she does reasonably recommend to Satoko that she could always leave the academy if it was not to her liking, but Satoko refused this. Her sending Satoko to solitary confinement is harsh at first, but it's otherwise reasonable because Satoko did legitimately cross a line by injuring one of the students with her ill-planned pranks.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • For a while, most of the When They Cry fans were staunchly defending Satoko because of her harsh upbringing as well as for Rika's unintentional Innocently Insensitive attitude when passing her friend off as just having a rude streak. That was even when it was revealed that Satoko was the one who put Rika back into the loop; however, once it was made apparent that even when she did know of the different loops her friend was made to suffer in, Satoko nevertheless decides to make Rika suffer solely so she could break her into submission. It doesn't help matters that this version of Satoko has become starkly different from the original iteration.
  • After Episode 23 of Gou, there were a few fans who, even if semi-ironically, considered Teppei to be a good person and would defend him saying that Satoko ought to show him forgiveness since he's making an effort to change and she herself has now done things far worse than what he ever did to her. What this ignores is that in most of the loops prior to Satoko starting to actively change things around, Teppei was unrepentant and would meet a terrible fate due to the bad karma he brought on himself, and even in the loops where he is trying to do better it's specifically because that bad karma has plagued him in his nightmares and he is desperately wanting to avoid facing that sort of punishment for his poor choices and hurtful actions. At its heart, him being nicer to Satoko and not abusing her was less for her sake because he is sorry for hurting her, but for his own sake as a means of self preservation and dodging having to face up to the wreck he made of both his life and the lives of those closest to him. Even when he does continue to make progress in Sotsu and come around to sincerely wanting to atone for his past by doing right by Satoko, he routinely falls back into his old habits like gambling, drinking, flying off the handle at other people, and placing his own immediate wants ahead of Satoko's, and he seems to develop a protector complex for his niece to overcompensate for his prior treatment of her, making it easier for Satoko to make him into her Unwitting Pawn. It does not help that Teppei is shockingly A Lighter Shade of Black compared to Satoko, who is a murderer, an emotional and psychological abuser, and has many Kick the Dog actions for a very petty goal.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • After a few episodes of Gou, there's a number of theories revolving around Satoko, especially on 4chan. Fans have noticed that most of the changes to the original timeline in Onidamashi-Hen and Watadamashi-Hen here have been things revolving around her. Notably, her older brother Satoshi not being mentioned at all in the first arcs, no mention of the fact that the couple that fell to their deaths were her parents, and the statue not being broken by her and despite Satoko being rescued from Teppei, the latter returns out of nowhere with no explanation to bludgeon Keiichi. The most popular theory is that Satoko is Rika's game piece opponent on Gou's gameboard and therefore the culprit instead of Takano this time.
  • Ever since a shadowy figure resembling Featherine was seen in the opening sequence and Rika & Hanyuu revealing at the start of Episode 2 that this isn't quite the Higurashi we know, it was long suspected that Gou was a Stealth Sequel and would expand on Higurashi's connection to the greater When They Cry franchise, specifically Umineko.
    • Satoko's connection to Lambdadelta. Prior to Gou, it seemed their only connection was their similar relationships to Rika and Bernkastel respectively, and it appeared Lambdadelta had a stronger connection to Takano instead (both their names mean 34 through Goroawase). Now, Eua says she knows Satoko by other names — Mitsuyo, Vier, and Anomalous Spinal Cord Specimen LD 3105. All are references to 34, Vier is known to be a Takano expy in Ciconia, and LD are the initials for Lambdadelta. What does this mean? Sotsu episode 10 adds even more to this with Satoko's witch side, who's heavily implied to be Lambdadelta herself.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The end of Sotsu has Rika and Satoko end their duel in a truce and go on their separate ways for a while with Satoko's witch side splitting off from her human side to chase after Rika and Eua defeated. While this may seem like a happy ending at first, those who read Umineko: When They Cry have theorized either what would happen next or what might have already happened prior to the Time Skip epilogue. That because of Eua (who's heavily implied to be Featherine) leaving the gameboard, Rika/Bernkastel got trapped in a logic error that takes a 1000 years for her to get out of, while also being chased by Witch Satoko/Lambdadelta, with the entirety of Rika and Satoko's feud up to the end being most likely the "Endurance Contest" that Bern mentioned she had with Lambda. Bern does end up winning this game but at the cost of being mentally broken, which ended up turning her into the cruel Witch of Miracles. Furthermore, Witch Satoko only becomes Lambdadelta after getting out of a logic error of her own, one that leaves her mental state just as broken as Bern's.
  • Even within the world of Higurashi, the ending is still more complicated than it first appears. Satoshi is awake again, but Satoko is now living with the uncle who, to Satoshi's last recollection, was abusing her? Psychologically, that is likely to be very hard to adjust to. Since he's been in a coma for five or six years, it's unlikely that he can just go to college with everyone else, so figuring out his place in society outside of that is likely to be extremely difficult too. And while it at least looked like he can walk, it's difficult to sustain six years in a coma without any permanent physical or cognitive disability, so it's still an open question whether he'll be able to eventually be able to find a job or live independently.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Satoko has been dubbed "Sustoko" for her perplexing behaviour in early Gou arcs (especially Tataridamashi-hen), inspired by Among Us. And "Guntoko", named for the scene in Episode 17 where she pulls a gun on Rika after being outed as the second looper.
  • Satoko's as-of-yet unnamed benefactor (nicknamed "Eua") has alternately been referred to as Hanyu 2, Hantwo, Hannew, Hanyuurine and Feathertwo to highlight her visual similarities to both Hanyuu and Featherine Augustus Aurora.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans disregard this series for not only undoing the happy ending from the original series, but detracting too much from established characterization and tone.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Rika and Satoko non-stop; for starters, their falling apart resembles the signs of a bitter breakup with Satoko becoming a fullblown Yandere hellbent on breaking Rika out of a fear that she would abandon her. That is not even getting into the series heavily implying that Satoko is either a fragment of Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty, or possibly, she is becoming Lambdadelta herself.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The Answer arcs of the original story would generally help explain what happened in the Question arcs (such as Keiichi's remembering his Onikakushi paranoia under a clearer mind in Tsumihoroboshi, or Satoko's Freak Out in Minagoroshi showing why she believed Teppei was still abusing her after Keiichi killed him in Tatarigoroshi) while still having their own narrative. The exception to this was Meakashi, which was largely a retelling of Watanagashi from Shion's POV instead of Keiichi's, but it still served its purpose in answering some questions while raising some more. Sotsu arcs follow a similar structure by largely retelling Gou arcs, but the latter had already established the culprit's identity, method and motives by its finale, so there's not much to gain from watching most of Sotsu aside from when exactly Satoko injects H173.
  • A lot of fans were displeased with the Umineko references not going anywhere. However, this is not the first time Higurashi has made references to its sister series Umineko: When They Cry (especially with the "witch" Frederica Bernkastel and Rika calling herself that in one arc) since all works in the WTC franchise make constant references to each other. The difference being is that those references were never meant to link the series to each other, and they were insignificant to the grander plot at hand. Gou and Sotsu made it look the references were building up to something while not actually committing to anything at all, and came off as pure fan service.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Satoko once "cried wolf" to Child Services out of spite for one of her stepfathers, making it difficult to get their help when she's genuinely suffering abuse from Teppei later... and then Tatariakashi has Satoko feign abuse from a reforming Teppei to manipulate the entire village.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Within the first five episodes, an incredibly well done edit of Satoko changed to depict Lamdadelta made the rounds in reddit and twitter. Cue the Satokowashi-hen arc and all the implications it has for the connection between Satoko and Lambdadelta.
• I Knew It!:
  • For Gou, after Hanyuu reveals that there's a sword that kills time-loopers. Many fans correctly guessed that she wasn't referring Rika, but about the fact that there is a second looper, and that the said looper was Satoko.
  • Fans also correctly guessed that the silhouetted horned individual in the opening was indeed Featherine Augustus Aurora.
• Informed Wrongness: Sotsu tries to paint Rika as being equally at fault for forcing Satoko to go to a school that she didn't like, which what many feel is a case of false-equivalency. For starters, while Rika didn't properly acknowledge how Satoko might have felt, Satoko was the one who actively started the conflict. She decided to act very passive-aggressive about her problems instead of telling Rika straight-up, and resorted to violence and murder against everyone she knows, all over such a petty ordeal. And Rika never truly forced Satoko to do her bidding, it was Satoko who went along with it, and she never thought to say no.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • The Gou anime is meant to put a new, surprising spin on the old arcs. However, some fans feel that the arcs in Gou are too similar to the old ones, being mostly scene-by-scene repeats of the original arcs with any major divergences only appearing at the end. This ensures that viewers new to Higurashi can keep up with the story, but disappoints older fans who don't feel like sitting through familiar scenes just to get to the interesting stuff. It's not until the second season once the viewpoint is back to Rika does the story starts to tread on new grounds.
  • Sotsu has gained a few critics for the similar reason, being a P.O.V. Sequel to Gou. Unlike the original's Answer Arcs, the Big Bad's idendity, motives and methods are known from the start, meaning viewers have to go through, even if recontextualized, yet another retelling of the same arcs before getting new information.
  • Watadamashi-Hen and Wataakashi-Hen are criticized for basically being the same as Watanagashi-Hen and Meakashi-Hen, only with Shion replaced with Mion and Satoshi with Keiichi, but without the emotional level the former arcs had and contradicting with Mion's character.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Tank Keiichi^explanationA reference to Keiichi not dying in any of the question arcs in of the Gou anime.
  • "Green/orange/Satoko sus"^explanationA phrase commonly used in Among Us, a game that was popular at the time of Gou's release. Initially used to refer to the colorful hair of the cast, now mostly used as "Satoko sus" with the growing suspicion over Satoko's behavior.
  • "Super sludge dodgeball"^explanationSatoko's game of dodgeball in Episode 6 has a silly name.
  • "She wants revenge for the chair."/"They should sic the chairs on her." and "Maybe Teppei had a point this time."^explanationJokes about Satoko's increasingly suspicious behavior throughout Gou. It is joked that her motive is to get revenge on Rika for beating her with a chair in Saikorohoshi-hen or that everyone should just use the chairs to fight her if she turns out to be the culprit. There's also Black Comedy jokes that Teppei's abuse was to keep her in check or that Satoko was the one abusing Teppei, which gains more credence in Sotsu when Satoko is clearly in charge of situations and makes Teppei her dupe via outright lies and emotional manipulation. And then in Sotsu Episode 14, Rika brings back the return of the chair, much to the fandom's delight
  • Higurashi Thursday ^explanationEpisodes of Gou and Sotsu air on Thursdays, leading to fans nicknaming them as Higurashi Thursdays.
  • Satoko of the Opera ^explanationJokes about Satoko's Yandere actions in episode 20 and 21 of Gou culminating in her committing murder/suicide with Rika by dropping the St. Lucia chandelier on top of them in order to start the loop over have compared her to the The Phantom of the Opera.
  • Lambdatoko. ^explanationAs the series progresses, Satoko's behavior and her ability to also loop have put into overdrive all the theories about Satoko being either a piece of Lambdadelta or even her origin as Lambdadelta, hence the portmanteau.
  • Who's Shion? ^explanationShion is almost completely absent from Gou, with her appearances restricted to just a few episodes, most of which are in the first half of the season. This has led to fans reacting to art of Shion with comments like, "Why is Mion wearing a skirt?" or "Hey, Mion looks good with her hair down!". It's also led to "explanations" for Shion's absence like, "Maybe Shion was actually the friends we made along the way."
  • Rollin Satoko! ^explanationThe scene in episode 8 of Sotsu where Satoko is rolling in the dirt to make herself look like she'd been bullied by the villagers to Teppei has become infamously hilarious for how bizarre and goofy it is. Edits and fanart of the scene have been made, like editing Satoko rolling into the water for example.
  • Higurashi Sotsu is a Shounen Anime! ^explanationFans made shounen anime references during Satoko and Rika's transformation, power up, and sword fight scene in Sotsu episode 14 and refers that scene similar to Dragon Ball Z, Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, etc. Likewise they nickname the series as Higurashi Z, Higurashi Shippuden, etc.
  • SSR Teppei ^explanationSSR is a gacha term meaning "Super Special Rare". This phrase trended on Japanese Twitter after Teppei underwent a Heel–Face Turn in Gou, thus making him an SSR..
  • Not My Satoko ^explanationA statement that was quite popular in social media during 2020 and 2021 that tells how the big part of the fandom disliking Gou and Sotsu because they thought both series were derailing Satoko, therefore treating it as if both ''Gou'' and ''Sotsu'' had never existed in the first place.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The second looper, Satoko has different candidates:
    • In Gou, Satoko, after being granted her looping abilities, arranges for a chandelier to fall on Rika and herself, thus ensuring that Rika would not only be in the loop again, but it would be even worse. Satoko hopes to break her own best friend mentally, physically, and emotionally until she conformed and would never wish to leave Hinamizawa again. All this because she would not admit that her stubbornness caused her falling out with her friend.
    • In episode 1 of Sotsu, she injects Rena with the sample of L5 of the Hinamizawa Syndrome indirectly causing her to kill Rina before trying to do the same to Keiichi.
    • She injects Mion next mostly out of curiosity at seeing what she would do since she was one of the few characters who did not go insane in the original.
    • She manipulates the very rare instance of Teppei taking some major level in kindness to fool Rika and the town that she is being abused by her normally horribly awful uncle, effectively using her abuse to gaslight and abuse her friends emotionally into thinking she's trapped in a situation they cannot stop despite it happening right in front of her.
  • Up until episode 13 of Sotsu, the worst thing Eua has done was being a serial enabler because she found Satoko "entertaining", but then she shows how much of a sadistic demon she can be by capturing Hanyuu and forcing her to watch Satoko disembowel Rika cruelly laughing at the other being's anguish. All the while threatening to erase Hanyuu from existence if she tries to interfere and brutalizing her when she does. Episode 15 takes it further by having Eua crush Hanyuu with tons of furniture in an attempt to kill her.
• Narm:
  • In general, this series has everyone bleeding unrealistic amounts of blood, as if someone was splashing a bucket of paint everywhere. And it can get very distracting during scenes that are supposed to be tragic.
    • In episode 4 of Gou, Rena repeatedly stabbing Keiichi would've been more horrifying if it wasn't for the fact that he was bleeding cartoonish amounts of blood that shouldn't even be possible in real life. It's even somewhat lampshaded that his recovery was a miracle, since a normal person would die from that much blood loss.
    • In episode 22, Satoko throws herself in front of a truck to loop. The collision results in blood splashing over Rika like a puddle.
  • Episode 15 sees Akasaka killing Rika, which would be a lot more shocking if it wasn't for the very stark jumpcut from Rika being happy that things will go right this time, to her smiling again with her bloodied body on the floor when things are going the exact opposite of what she expected, which came of as pure black comedy for many. Akasaka's crazed facial expressions and voice acting also took away from the moment as they're rather exaggerated. This can also goes for the other Nightmare Faces in Gou.
  • During the otherwise emotionally harrowing narrative of Satakowashi-hen, many fans were left baffled and in fits of laughter at the scene where Satoko is punished for getting one of classmates injured in a prank, which ends up being getting locked in a solitary confinement cell underneath St Lucia, complete with a prison uniform. While the school had always been portrayed as exceptionally harsh in previous When they Cry media, this went too far for many people.
  • Episode 8 of Sotsu had Satoko rolling around in dirt, which came off as very cartoony, even though this was supposed to be a chilling moment of her emotional manipulation tactics in action.
  • Much like in Gou, episode 14 of Sotsu has Rika dying in increasingly ridiculous ways up to and including: being struck in the face by a frying pan; stabbed in the neck with a fork; getting smacked by a book; and getting punched bloodily while she was trying to sleep.
• Narm Charm: The final showdown between Rika and Satoko in episode 14 of Sotsu was very out of left field for the series, turning what was a relatively grounded horror mystery into something straight out of an episode Dragon Ball Z. But the over-the-top ridiculousness combined the climactic carthasis of the whole situation makes it very entertaining.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Gou makes the characters scratching their necks worse by adding a wet, squishing sound every time they claw into their necks.
  • Then there's the part where Satoko actually throws up. The sound was very convincing.
  • Episode 16 of Gou really takes the cake, where not only do we get to see Rika exposed intestines, but Satoko actively disemboweling her, and with the iconic Watanagashi rake. And not only is very explicit, but it is not a brief scene whatsoever, lasting for half the episode. Needless to say, don't watch that episode if you plan on eating.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • For a while, Rika was disliked because of her appearing to be a disingenuous girl who chose the girls at St. Lucia Academy over Satoko, and some can say that she was being blissfully ignorant of her friend's plight especially when it is taken into account that she suffered for centuries. The feeling lessened, however, when in the second loop, she made it clear that she never intended to break her promise and that she felt Satoko was the one who drifted away from her.
  • On the other hand, Satoko's motivations are often boiled down to simply being "lazy" and trying to avoid studying. This ignores that originally, she did attend the grueling study halls and was shown working long into the night on her own, and she still wasn't able to keep up with the work. Similarly, her unwillingness to fit in with Rika's new friends is often chalked up to her just being stubborn, which doesn't take into consideration that she grew up the town outcast and is naturally cautious around new people and sensitive to feeling out of place. Obviously nothing justifies her going full Yandere in later loops, but her problems with St. Lucia itself are more complicated than her just having a bad attitude.
• Salvaged Story: While Meguri has plenty of its own flaws, the manga addresses many of the fans' complaints from the Gou/Sotsu anime, including:
  • Shion, despite having subplots that would fit well into Satoko and Rika's journeys, was Demoted to Extra. Meguri addresses this by having her not only appearing in the time-skip, but also having her openly state her objections about Rika going to St. Lucia with Satoko, since Shion being student at said academy is a rather important plot point in the series.
  • Also in the same series, for fans who thought that Rika was being rather oblivious to Satoko's wellbeing, this was also fixed by showing her actively try to reach out to Satoko, with Rika's friends at St. Lucia's being more responsible for the growing rift between them.
  • Wataakashi-hen in the anime kicks off with a wide-awake Mion not noticing an injection simply because she's using a soda dispenser for a few seconds. The manga version rectifies this by having Satoko drug her and Shion to sleep.
  • Satoko's descent into villainy is generally regarded as one of the best aspects of the manga.
    • The ending of Sotsu was decried for the ultimate solution seemingly being Satoko simply not going to Saint Lucia with Rika. In Meguri, this isn't treated as a solution, and it's the first thing Satoko tries after she starts looping.
    • In the anime, Satoko appears to be almost unfazed from experiencing Rika's century of loops, coming off as apathetic to all the suffering that motivated Rika's desire to leave Hinamizawa, and simply decides to throw her back into the cycle of agony. In the manga, Satoko has a much more visceral reaction to Rika's loops, and doesn't try to stop her from attending St. Lucia's.
    • Those who felt that Satoko broke too easily after looping and gave up on Satoshi appreciated that her Meguri counterpart spent hundreds of loops trying out different solutions and a huge part of why she finally snaps is because she realizes that she, Rika, and Satoshi will never survive all the events the way she wants them to, while also putting plenty of emphasis on how all of Satoko's loved ones occupy her mind when she wants to stay in Hinamizawa forever, Rika of course taking a huge amount of space in her heart. The manga also takes some blame from Satoko by making it clear that Eua is definitely behind the worst parts of Satoko's experience.
  • For those upset that Rika was a Pinball Protagonist despite her Character Development back in Matsuribayashi and her declaration about fighting fate, Meguri shows her taking more direct action to reclaim her future. Oniakashi-hen reveals that not only did she try to quell Keiichi's paranoia, but that she told Tomitake about Takano plans to kill him, Rika, and cause the Great Himanizawa Diaster and to not only stop her, but to call the Bloodhounds unit for protection and to support the broken Takano afterwards.
  • Overall, Satoko is portrayed much more sympathetically. Rather than being motivated by a desire to punish Rika for "betraying" her and mentally breaking her so she'll conform to her wants and desires, she's instead driven by nostalgia and desperation to be happy. She takes no joy in all the death and madness but sees it as the only way for her to be happy with all of her loved ones, as in order for the Summer of June '83 to continue to loop, there has to be a "tragedy."
  • Fans weren't happy that by the end of Sotsu the Internal Reveal is done by Big Bad slipping up and deciding to end all pretenses right there, with the club members still being kept Locked Out of the Loop and Out of Focus despite their new Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. Meguri rewrites "Kagurashi-hen" into "Akarigurashi-hen" where Rika deliberately sets up the trap to expose the mastermind and explains to club members the entire situation beforehand, followed by the Climax Boss of everyone trying to capture the armed villain.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Out of everything that has happened in the entire series, the biggest one was in Gou when Detective Ooishi of all people came down with the Hinamizawa Syndrome, and he actually kills people, especially Rika. Keep in mind that the series has been very consistent on who gets infected, and to see Ooishi go insane is very unexpected.
    • Episode 15 continues this trend by having Akasaka be the one to kill Rika.
  • When Rika is about to give Satoko her birthday present, she recoils from seeing the box thus remembering that loop, making her the second looper, and then, to top it all off, she has red eyes and somehow pulls out a gun.
    • Episode 20 which introduces Eua, a character bearing a striking resemblence to Featherine Augustus Aurora, the Witch of Theatergoing.
• Signature Scene:
  • Rika's shrine dance in Gou. It is elegant animation.
  • In Gou episode 4, there is Rena stabbing Keiichi repeatedly. After being convinced by Rika that he was likely wrong to be suspicious of Rena, we are met with a grisly bloodbath between the two friends.
  • Eua's sudden appearance when Satoko meets her in the Sea Of Fragments at the end of episode 20.
  • Satoko embracing Rika as she drops the chandelier down upon them, dragging both of them into the loop together.
  • The final showdown between Rika and Satoko in Sotsu, for being very over-the-top and looking like it came from a battle shonen anime.
    • Not to mention the nods to the previous Higurashi entries such as the rooftop fight and Rika blugeoning Satoko with a chair.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: It was immediately noticed by fans that the opening to Sotsu sounds very similar to Umineko Saku's PS4/Nintendo Switch opening as noted in this video. This of course drove more fuel for the theories of Umineko's connection to Gou & Sotsu.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: With the revelation that Gou/Sotsu is a Stealth Sequel rather than just a retelling/reimagining to bring the series to a more recent audience, there has been much ado among the fanbase of if Higurashi actually needed a direct sequel after the original ending was already satisfying. The Satokowashi-hen arc, which underscored the Happy Ending Override in full along with revealing the culprit as Satoko aided by (a figure heavily resembling) Featherine, got the fanbase asking questions much more loudly.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Almost none of the main cast are developed or get anything to do outside of Rika and Satoko, and instead largely serve as pawns being used by Eua or Satoko. When Sotsu finally caught up to the "present", many viewers were hoping that the "miracle" Hanyuu spoke of would be the club members or possibly even Takano remembering the previous loops and helping Rika against Satoko, but they end up being irrelevant until the duo exit the loop and return to the real present at the end.
  • Given Shion wanted to be Satoko's big sister figure, it'd make sense if she'd play a major role in Satoko's teenage crisis, right? After all, Shion had similar problems to Satoko, being an outcast, having temper issues, having to attend St. Lucia and hating it, and so on… except Shion doesn't appear at all until everything's already said and done. Even jarring when Keiichi, Rena, and Mion bring up the twins as an example of relationships drifting apart but still being valued, something that would've been more powerful if they were words coming from Shion.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The concept of an L5 Mion would have been interesting since Mion is the only one who never succumbed to Hinamizawa Syndrome naturally as she trusts her friends and knows the Three Great Families aren't behind the murders & Satoshi's disappearance. Unfortunately, the novelty is soon erased when she simply has L5 Shion's traits grafted on her, which is not only uncreative, but disregards all the power and behind-the-scenes information that Mion should have as the next head of the Sonozakis.
  • Other characters such as Akasaka, Akane, Kimiyoshi and Keiichi were shown to have their activated L5 very briefly instead of showing the viewer how they got triggered in the first place.
  • The concept of other characters remembering previous timelines gets very little mileage outside of Teppei's Heel–Face Turn. Despite Keiichi seemingly having some flashbacks, neither he nor the other non-looping main characters have any new and interesting growth from it.
  • Eua being a Reused Character Design of Featherine Augustus Aurora and Satoko becoming increasinly similar to her counterpart Lambdadelta made fans expect a tie-in to Umineko: When They Cry. An interview revelaed that Eua is not Featherine, and the series ended with no connection to Umineko, making fans question why these resemblences were added in the first place.
• Uncertain Audience: Gou was marketed for newcomers and old fans alike, giving new twists to the original mysteries. By the middle of Gou it became apparent that neither side is going to be satisfied. Old viewers were paying close attention for clues, only to find that arcs are mostly the same except the endings, while the new story became quite controversial for several reasons. New viewers were left very confused, as the main premise of Gou turned out to be fixing the Happy Ending Override, which expects good understanding of the original story.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Going into the final arc of Gou, opinions were sharply divided between fans having sympathies for Rika or Satoko; both are even listed under Ron the Death Eater. However, Satoko's popularity took a sharp nosedive after the arc revealed she saw firsthand all the tragedy that Rika had gone through in the original loops, and rather than realize why her friend was so keen on leaving the village, she instead went full yandere and used her knowledge of the original loops to inflict further pain on Rika until she eventually breaks her. Not only that, but she also cruelly wastes the miraculous changes in the new loops, such as manipulating and murdering an atoning Teppei or causing Rena to kill a repentant Rina. A large chunk of fanbase even hoped that Rika would finish Satoko off, with many believing Satoko is Beyond Redemption and that Rika deserves the happy ending she's always yearned for, even if that means her best friend can't be in the picture (though this ironically goes against Ryukishi07's theme of "an outcome that does not need a loser", which he still keeps to even in this series.)

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