gogmagog | If wishes were horses, I'd ride a fast one (Reply)

Okay, I'm watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and it is by far the MOST FUCKED-UP ANIME I HAVE EVER SEEN. (And I should note that I've seen some fucked-up anime in my day!) Seriously, it's half love comedy with super-cutesy moe-moe girls, and half guro supernatural murder mystery. In addition, it's told in a kind of time loop/alternate story kind of way, so each several episode arc retelling the incident of the Cotton Drifting Festival and the subsequent events begins with "awww, they're on a picnic/at a toy store/playing club games, they're so cute" and ends with "OH GOD STOP BEATING THEM TO DEATH WITH THE BASEBALL BAT/HACKING HIM UP WITH A CLEAVER/STABBING YOURSELF IN THE HEAD REPEATEDLY, THE SQUELCHING SOUNDS ARE KILLING ME."

...Nevertheless, I can't stop watching it; it's really compelling! The mystery is quite intriguing, and I do like the characters in their cute phases (and I even like the characters when they get psycho and/or paranoid so far, in less of an "awww, I like you" way and more in a "OH GOD YOU'RE SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME" way). The only thing that truly disturbs me is the graphic violence that ends every arc, just because honestly, watching the end of the first arc, with one character beating two others to death with a baseball bat (heavily shadowed), disturbed me. I can't imagine what my reaction will be to the one later that I hear involves fingernail torture and dismemberment-while-alive. D:

And you know the graphic violence has to be pretty bad to disturb me, given that I've read Harry Potter incestuous skullfucking and/or necrophilia fics and seen cannibalistic guro fanart (especially of the lovable cannibals of Digital Devil Saga) and just laughed 'em all off.

If anyone else is interested in checking it out, I'd say watch at least to the end of episode 4; that brings you to the end of the first arc, and gives you an idea of what exactly the show is capable of. Don't just watch the first episode and think "aww, this is some cutesy crap, Yosi led me astray!" Because each arc may start out that way, but I can guarantee you none of them end that way; and really, the cutesiness just makes the disturbingness that follows THAT MUCH MORE DISTURBING. So, uh, if you're not fazed by graphic violence, and like a good supernatural murder mystery, check it out! All the episodes are up on YouTube: here's the first part of the first episode, and the rest is posted the same way (each episode divided up into three parts).

In non-guro news, I have decided that that last carload-and-a-half of boxes I brought from home at the beginning of the semester have finally defeated my apartment's storage capacity, so it's time for me to sell some shit. I'm still getting stuff together, but when I've got a nice sale-load of stuff, I'll put it up here (since some of y'all might be interested, especially in the fannish stuff). Some of it will be free as long as you pay postage, so keep an eye out for those too!

Let's Positive Linking!
- I Can't Defeat Air Man. A kind of awesome music video that I guess was semi-popular this past summer in Japan? (At least it was used in that NicoNico medley I posted a link to in my last entry; if you're interested in learning more about it or distinguishing which songs were used in it, check this out, or look up the original karaoke version on YouTube.)
- LOLSecretz (from ~~shinkun~~

tastystirfry). It's like PostSecret or