I finished the manga version of the Abducted By Demons arc of Higurashi.
..............
It was chilling.
I don't normally like horror stories. It's not that I have a bias against them. Rather, it's because they are often poorly executed. (Say it with Mathew Buck now, "Jump scare!") Not When the Cicadas Cry, though. This is truly horrifying, in the literal meaning of the word.
I ordered the next arc on Amazon earlier today.
I'm beginning to understand the hype, now. What I'm still curious is how come I've never heard of 07's works until about a year or so ago? And why did I have such a hard time finding information on them until just recently? Did you want to spare me from the anime versions of Cicadas and Seagulls that badly, Internet?
Oh, speaking of When the Seagulls Cry, there is a scene in the first arc . . . that disturbed me so much, I had to stop for an hour or so before I could continue. I can't remember the last time a story shook me up like this. I know this, though; if I could be a literature teacher, and I could teach my students whatever I wanted, I would include Seagulls somewhere in the course.
"For this month, we will read the first arc of Umineko! Fear not, there is an English translation!"
(Three weeks later)
"Professor xm, that was one of the saddest things I ever read! I couldn't stop crying for hours!"
But that's strong literature for you; able to move you in ways you didn't think possible.
Dude, at this rate, Seagulls may become my favorite visual novel of all time.
Will Umineko dethrone Tsukihime? Only time will tell.
(Repeating narration, but now sounding like Funimation's first attempt at dubbing Dragonball Z, just for lulz)
WILL!? UMINEKO!? (pronounced "uh-mih-neck-oh") DE!? THRONE!? TSUKI!? HIME!? Only time . . . . . . will tell.
(If there is one thing to be gained from the dubs I blame for making so many anime fans into dub haters, it's that they're ridiculously easy to make fun of.)
