Back in late September of last year, I thought that Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was all wrapped up. The main characters had all died. Some repeatedly and graphically. Some repeatedly by inference. Imagine my joy when I found out a second season was coming in July! Well, actually I waited until this week to actually pick it up, my interest having waned in the intervening months.

I shouldn’t have strayed, Oyashiro-sama! Please forgive me! “Reunion” is a single-episode segue between the two seasons rather than a new plot arc, and features our buddy Ooishi meeting up with Akasaka and a third man in 2005, twenty-three years after the Great Hinamizawa Disaster. They discuss the popular theories of the day regarding the nature of the incident, including some of the ramblings of Takano Miyo, the nurse that keeps disappearing on the night of the festival. From the TIPS, it’s fairly clear that Miyo has a variety of nutty theories about the Curse of Oyashiro-sama, so seeing these men fixated on an alien-landing-strip theory was quite amusing for me. Best twist for this episode: they put Rena as the sole survivor of the disaster. Previously that role, when mentioned at all, was exclusively the domain of Keiichi. She reports that Rika had tried to inject her with something. Very interesting, in light of how Mion and Rena tried to take a syringe to Keiichi in the “Demoned Away” chapter (the very first plot arc). Were they really trying to help him after all?

The “Disaster-awakening” chapter expands upon some of the information we saw in the “Atonement” chapter, the climax of season one, in which Rika expressed surprise at Keiichi remembering other plot-arcs. This had strongly implied that Rika was the one truly stuck in a time-loop, doomed to repeat the same grisly tragedy time after time, unable to escape her fate or truly protect her friends. We’re given yet another look at the events around the Watanagashi festival on 1983, this time with the focus largely on the only character that is aware of the repetitive nature of the story.

This time, a major difference in the situation of the main characters is that both Shion and Mion are attending class in Hinamizawa, and there is no significant strife amongst the children shown. Keiichi is the continuous victim of the girls’ school activities, Rena is still a little scary, Shion and Mion are presented as being savvy in a way that suits their Sonozaki family background, Satoko is still anchored to memories of her big brother, and so forth, so all the principle characters are the same. Satoko is shown administering injections to herself, and ends up the sole survivor of the Hinamizawa disaster. Interesting.

The syringes weren’t something I paid a heck of a lot of attention to while watching the first season, presuming them to simply contain poison of one sort or another. The past five episodes certainly have me looking in other directions now. I’m looking forward to the “Massacre” chapter, which starts with episode 6.

On a side-note, zombie tag looks like a great variant on an old classic, one I may end up teaching my kid when he’s old enough.

Other side-note: What the hell were all the kids doing in the classroom with the teacher when the disaster struck in the middle of the night? Why were Keiichi, Shion, and Mion in the hallway? If they ever actually wrap up what’s going on here, I somehow doubt these loose ends will be neatly tied-off.