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Higurashi When They Cry

First appearance: 
August 2008
Last appearance: 
January 2009
Status: 
Retired & one-shot

In the lazy days of 1983, Keiichi Maebara moves away from the big city to small-town Hinamizawa. But he doesn’t mind so much; he joins a club at his new school and quickly makes friends with the other members (who just happen to all be female). He’s enjoying his new friends and small-town life - but are things as they seem? Keiichi soon learns about a series of gristly murders and mysterious disappearances which have taken place in the town coinciding with the annual Cotton Drifting Festival. Why are his new friends reluctant to talk about these events? What do they have to do with Hinamizawa’s ancient past - are the legends of the fearsome demon Oyashiro-sama true? Keiichi wants to find out the truth, even if the price is his own sanity - or his life…

Higurashi When They Cry started life as a visual novel game (imagine a sort of playable picture-book) in Japan by an amateur game creator using the pseudonym Ryukishi07. After it became unexpectedly successful beyond anyone’s expectations, it spawned seven sequel games, audio drama CDs, novels (of the non-graphic variety), an animated series (which is being released in North America by Funimation under the name “When They Cry”), a live-action movie, and, yes, several comic series.

Unfortunately, Yen Plus ceased printing Higurashi with the January 2009 issue, apparently due to timing issues; they can print the Higurashi volumes faster than they can print it serialized in Yen Plus, and they didn’t want the volumes getting ahead of the serialization in terms of plot. Hero Tales took its place on the right-to-left side of the book in the February 2009 issue.

The comic series consists of several two-volume “arcs,” of which the first two, the Abducted by Demons arc and the Cotton Drifting arc, have been published by Yen Press as of this writing; the first volume of the third arc, the Curse Killing arc, is due out in November 2009. The portion printed by Yen Plus comprises the entire first volume and about the first two-thirds of the second volume of the Abducted by Demons arc, and also features color and bonus pages not present in the Yen Plus serialization. The artists vary from arc to arc.

Rather than being a sequel of the events that came before it, each arc (at least thus far) is a self-contained retelling of the same basic events and characters, but with a different focus and outcome. (This is perhaps due to Higurashi’s visual novel roots; in such games, the choices the player makes can lead to varying storylines and outcomes as the game progresses, and some players enjoy attempting to uncover all possible story branches and endings.) Each arc focuses on one of Keiichi’s friends, her relationship with Keiichi, and how she may be involved with Hinamizawa’s secrets. In the Abducted by Demons arc, Keiichi learns that the girly, cutesy Rena may in fact be a psychotic demon-child (literally!) only able to face society under the dulling effects of medication and therapy - could she be a cold-blooded killer? In the Cotton Drifting arc, Keiichi learns that the tall, tomboy-ish Mion has a cute twin sister living in the next town - or does she? Keiichi thinks it’s just Mion playing a mean trick on him. But even more disturbing than that is Mion’s family’s shady yakuza background - what role do they play in the town’s crimes?

Each arc starts out innocently enough, playing to the harem archetype common in Japanese comics and cartoons - an aloof young man suddenly finds himself surrounded by attractive young women of varying personalities, each vying for his attention. However, it gradually takes an X-Files-ish turn towards the twisted, as Keiichi gradually uncovers Hinamizawa’s secrets, and by the end you’re reading a very different type of comic than you started with. If you’re a fan of stories with a mind-twisting psychological element, you’ll enjoy the Higurashi When they Cry series, as I have.

Ryukishi07 (a pseudonym) was a civil servant in Japan before hitting it big with Higurashi. After coming home at work, he’d often try his hand at various creative works, including computer games, and releasing them with a doujin (amateur creative works producing group) brand 07th Expansion. When his brother suggested he try creating a visual novel game, Ryukishi07 turned to a theater script he had written a few years before for inspiration, and the first Higurashi game was born - and became a runaway hit. Now at the helm of one of Japan’s newest and rapidly expanding media franchises, Ryukishi07 isn’t missing his civil servant days too terribly much.

Ryukishi07 did the artwork for the original Higurashi When They Cry light novels, but drawing all of the comic titles that would come later would have simply been too much work for one man. When it came to the Abducted by Demons storyline (the opening parts of which were serialized by Yen Plus), Karin Suzuragi was selected for the job. She has lent her pen to two other Higurashi storylines. She works with several uncredited assistants.

Check out the December 2008 issue for interviews with Suzuragi and Ryukishi07.