# Higurashi: When They Cry (2006)

> A transferred student in a quiet village uncovers a murder and slowly realizes his closest friends may be hiding something terrible.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/23732

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 50
- Episode runtime: 24 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, horror, mystery
- Network: Kansai TV, Tokai Television Broadcasting, AT-X, BS11
- Cast: Soichiro Hoshi, Mai Nakahara, Satsuki Yukino, Mika Kanai, Yukari Tamura, Chafurin, Toru Okawa, Miki Ito
- TMDB rating: 7.8/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845738/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: extreme
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: eerie, unsettling, nostalgic, paranoid, dread-filled, melancholic

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively, with the second season's reveals and payoff regarded as far stronger than the first.

## Synopsis

Higurashi: When They Cry (2006-2007) is a Japanese animated psychological horror mystery series produced by Studio Deen and aired on Kansai TV and its affiliated networks. The story follows Maebara Keiichi, a newcomer to the isolated village of Hinamizawa, whose cheerful school days with his friends Rena Ryuuguu, Mion Sonozaki and Satoko Houjou, voiced by Soichiro Hoshi, Mai Nakahara, Satsuki Yukino and Mika Kanai, are shadowed by a murder he stumbles upon. Rika Furude, voiced by Yukari Tamura, anchors the village's odd rituals and festivals. The engine of the show is a sustained question of who can be trusted, as each arc revisits the same days with different causes and reveals new layers of suspicion and violence. Across fifty episodes in two seasons, the series builds a dense, serialized mystery in which every episode raises the stakes. The atmosphere is unsettling and eerie, moving from sunlit summer nostalgia into paranoia and dread. Fans of Another, Corpse Party and Twin Peaks will find resonance in its rural setting, its psychological unease and its patient, escalating mystery.

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