By your post i'm unsure if you already know everything that you need to know about Higurashi or you only depended on the anime. Obviously i don't feel like explaining everything to someone who already knew it.

Assuming you're the anime-only person, i can simply said the supernatural aspect of Higurashi is NOT the main point for the incidents that happened in Hinamizawa. The supernatural aspect only there to justify why they're 6 resets in the anime (and 8 in the game). That's all. And maybe a little bit of here and there which might change a bit of the story but still DO NOT affect the final outcome of any particular arc.

The MAIN POINT for Hinamizawa tragedies always lies on logical aspect. The different of behaviours, decisions, events which determined the ending for poor old Hinamizawa town. But, what the gamers/anime viewers saw are not always the truth. For example Arc 1. We totally follow the stories behind the eyes of Maebara Keiichi. By simple observation we all knew how unstable Keiichi minds in that arc. So it's hard to determine which are the truth and which are delusions.

BTW, to make things easier for me & the would-be-questioner, i prefer if direct questions are asked to me specifically of you want spoilers. Any other type of ambiguous posts will be treated as merely discussions.

NVM, i can understand your sentiments as an anime-watcher only. No need to feel sorry for it. The anime is an inferior and a flawed product as compared to the Sound Novel. That's why i'm glad to help ppl to understand more about Higurashi in this forum.

Although i'm even happier if one's willing to help themselves into animesuki forum. The mysteries of Hinamizawa are really well thought out and entertaining in brain teasing way yet too many details, depth, and especially EMOTIONS had been left out in the anime. Yes, if the anime follows the Sound Novel truthfully, it will be mysterious, horror AND ALSO emotions roller-coster rides type of anime.

As a bonus for higurashi fans:

http://hinamizawa.e-n-m.net/releases
As for comparative ranking:

Sound Novel>Drama CD>>Manga>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Anime.

Enuff said. The manga do captures the essence of Higurashi way better than the anime counterpart.
Kei was supposed to be a really cool character, except in arc. 1 where he was doomed to f*ck'd everything up. He's really an interesting, cool & "magician-of-words" character in the rest of the arcs. But what happened in the anime? They give Kira's seiyuu to voice Keiichi (yes, Kira from anime that starts with "Gun" and end with "SEED") and our kewl main male character turned this anime into "EMO-KIRAshi No Naku Koro Ni" which really screwed up his character potrayal for anime viewers.

Ask anime viewers which character they like the least. Majority will vote Kei"EMO-KIRA"chi for what he was potrayed in the anime. Ask gamers & others who knows Higurashi past what the anime had to offer them, who is their favourite No.1 character and majority will answer.......................Keiichi. What a total difference of results.

Yes, this is one of the big flaws in the anime which i didn't expect to rant about it in this post.
BTW, to understand what's behind the "Magician-Of-Words", feel free to download Tatarigoroshi manga and read it. Better yet, compared the the Tatarigoroshi of the anime. Sigh.

i like kei's seiyuu more than any other seiyuus ever since i heard him in goku's time. and his voice i will remember... and i don't find wrong with kei being emo... if you were him, you'd go more crazy~

i thought keichi is quite calm in most of the arc? O_o

he suppose be nuts in arc1 (and also the satoko arc)

but i think he is better than rena o_o

at least no alien and parasite in k1's arc o_o

of is it becoz of the curse? since the event is keep repeating itself (with different ppl becoming the victim each time)

Short spoilers for the Curse Of Oyashiro-sama, gas leak incident AKA Great Hinamizawa Disaster, and whatever relevant based on the posts after my previous post.



BTW, i have a request for anyone that had download the manga from the link above. Can you share the 4th chapter of Watanagashi-hen to me? I can't download using rapidshare provided there. Thx in advance.