so you're saying all these arcs are totally independent? well kinda make sense because in episode 2 keichii is inside the group watching rika furude peforming at Watanagashi Festival but in episode 6 keichii did not stick with the group and pulled out by shion.

so the question is does the arcs completes as a whole story or more like short stories? in my opinion the arc is still completes each other towards the whole story. it just being played from a different character 's point of view.

i would like to read some of your understanding. i know its easy to wiki almost everything but wheres the fun watching anime like that?

Well, a few things get answered actually, it's just that people won't notice them immediately or atleast they won't until they'll see the other chapters.

But anyway, as Omnidevil has mentioned, this anime is going to follow the game it derives from, which is divided in 8 chapters (7 chapters released and the 8th last chapter that has to be released this july), each of them 'restarting' from a certain point of the story/plot and showing a different ending. The first chapter, Onikakushi-hen, finished with episode 4. In episode 5 the second chapter, named Watanagashi-hen, will start again from a point of the story we've seen, showing a different ending, and will most likely cover 3-4 episodes as well, and so on. The producers have said that this anime will only cover 6 chapters, leaving out the 7th and the 8th (this last one that as I said still has to be released for the game anyway), but which should provide enough informations to the viewers to uncover the various misteries. A curious fact that I read among this sea of informations (trying not to get spoiled about the plot ; ) is that despite the fact that each chapter ends differently, it has been stated by the producers that each character remains the same in terms of overall personality, meaning that what happens in each chapter is due to something external. That's a pretty interesting thing as it makes you speculate of why and what things went that way.

I gotta say that I got literally intrigued by this anime and the whole misteries that it covers, and it's probably the best anime of this season (yes, I'm putting it ahead of Haruhi *_*). Oh, in case anyone is interested in joining me in the speculation and analysis of each episode (there are lot of details that I've found out re-watcing the first four episodes), me and a couple of friends created the channel #HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi @ Rizon, on IRC.