# Higurashi: When They Cry - NEW (2020)

> A new transfer student settles into a peaceful rural village whose festival-season warmth slowly gives way to a growing sense that its community is hiding something dark.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/84779

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 39
- Episode runtime: 24 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, mystery, horror, drama
- Network: TOKYO MX, BS11
- Cast: Soichiro Hoshi, Mai Nakahara, Satsuki Yukino, Mika Kanai, Yukari Tamura, Chafurin, Toru Okawa, Miki Ito
- TMDB rating: 6.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12367868/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: brutal
- Tone: eerie, foreboding, cozy, unsettling, melancholic

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series mixed, with its slow-burn village mystery and grim, gory escalation drawing strong reactions in both directions.

## Synopsis

Higurashi: When They Cry - NEW (2020-2021) is a Japanese animated supernatural mystery horror series broadcast on TOKYO MX and BS11, a two-season anime adapted from a visual novel. New kid Keiichi Maebara (voiced by Soichiro Hoshi) arrives in the isolated village of Hinamizawa just in time for its big yearly festival and quickly befriends a circle of schoolgirls, including Rena Ryuuguu (voiced by Mai Nakahara) and Rika Furude (voiced by Yukari Tamura). Each arc is built around a sharp, sudden break in the village's cheerful routines, and the engine of the story is Keiichi's gnawing suspicion that the community is concealing something, a fear that deepens with every festival-season gathering. The series unfolds across two seasons of mostly self-contained arcs that share one underlying mystery, so viewers piece together the village's secrets over time. Its mood alternates between warm, cozy friendship and creeping, unsettling dread, with gory moments landing hard. Fans of Twin Peaks, Another and Stranger Things will find resonance in its small town unease, uncanny rituals and eerie, slow-burning mystery.

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