himatsubushi-hen (time killing/wasting arc)

pov character: mamoru

• intro: summer 1985, our pov character is mamoru akasaka, a cop from tokyo. hes on his way to meet his old work buddy ooishi, who successfully retired and moved out of okinomiya (mentioned in arc2)
• swap to midsummer 1978: the year of the dam protests. the grandson of the minister of construction is kidnapped, apparently held for ransom; hinamizawas dam project protestors called the "onigafuchi guardians" are suspected
• mamoru's wife is close to giving birth, but he is called to investigate the hinamizawa situation. he makes a stop at the prefecture police department, where hes informed of the hinamizawa unity phenomenon, the extent of their protests and the likelihood of yakuza group involvement; theres a mention of one of the yakuza lieutenants (male) having been adopted into hinamizawa, unclear if this is the sonozakis
• mamoru must keep the kidnapping situation under wraps; the police chief there confirms a kidnapping is totally within the bounds of what the villagers would do
• mamoru meets up with the okinomiya police department's head of public safety hondaya. while conversing, he's introduced to ooishi (snuck up on them), whom he understands to be very experienced and sneaky. ooishi is mentioned as very experienced with the sonozaki yakuza case. mamoru doesnt seem to trust him
• they discuss that the leaders of the protest are members of the three ruling families (most notably kiichirou kimiyoshi, priest furude and oryou sonozaki)
• ooishi takes mamoru for a ride into hinamizawa to show him what the region is like. ooishi has him wear a mask etc. to hide his face. close to the entry, protestors are blocking the way; obstruction of traffic is a crime. one of the protestors says that if ooishi had taken his usual car they would've hidden the barricade away sooner
• ooishi claims that the protestors are working off the excuse that since the police won't do anything about illegal dumping around the dam site, they're claiming to be taking matters into their own hands by blocking traffic and logging what vehicles enter the town and when etc. there's no evidence of outside illegal dumping taking place; ooishi theorizes the hunamizawans are doing so themselves, both for this excuse and to pollute the dam
• the himanizawa unity aspect and how close tabs they keep on outsiders especially now in a time of unrest is strongly emphacized. mamoru comes to see that as an outsider here to help progress the dam project he could be killed here without a trace. the onigafuchi guardians converge within the furude shrine's meeting hall, which is off limits to cops
• ooishi tries to intimidate mamoru into explaining exactly why he's on this case. mamoru refuses but doesn't do well under this kind of pressure. ooishi then switches tactic, saying he'll get him an informant mole if paid. ooishi himself offers to give information as well. mamoru complies; mamoru winds up giving him way too much info, explaining the kidnapping situation despite it being highly confidential. oiishi mentions paying off his mahjong debts with "his cut" of the cash
• theres a dichotomy drawn between federal vs prefectural police by-the-bookedness. rather than weigh in on the kidnapping situation much, ooishi explains "demoning away" mythology with related cannibalism and how hinamizawa is feared by everyone not apart of it its close to. mamoru recalls confirmation of such in his briefings, but is otherwise disturbed. they discuss that rather than a typical hostage ransom situation, it's most likely the kidnappers want to force a regime change towards a left-leaning government party that would not be doing these construction projects (news of a cabinet members relative being taken hostage would likely make him step down and restructure the diet w revote)
• the chapter closes with mamoru claiming (in reminiscence) he had been seized by the village's curse by then, but had not yet realized it

• Phone Call with Yukie:
• Mamoru on the phone with his wife Yukie while she's at the hospital. She teases him, he's lonely away from her. He isn't happy about how little he can discuss about his work
• A Record of Opening Remarks:
• opening remarks of a government party's 25th anniversary celebration forum; presumably spoken by the minister whose grandson was kidnapped
• the speech is flowery and bland praising the party's achievements and commitment to their redevelopment projects across the country, but all of a sudden inserts "off-script" that the hinamizawa dam project for its related power plant ought to end per the residents' demands; implied this is the party member whose grandson is held hostage, succumbing to the related demands via this speech
• Gears and Fire and the Taste of Honey:
• unclear pov. describing seemingly from the perspective of a child concepts of human connection through metaphors of gears and fire
• its bottom line is that the pov character is connected to "person a" in a friendly way, vs they're unconnected to "person b" and wouldn't react in ways to save them from harm even if its not the right thing to do. doesnt address if persons a and b could be connected. gets into analogies of interconnected gears, that within such a system not all gears are directly interconnected its more like they're part of a much larger whole, and that there isn't one sole mechanism they're connected to there's multiple they're interconnected with. or of a house across the river burning not stirring you to action as much as if your neighbors house was burning. a bit incomprehensible
• The Chick in the Trunk:
• kidnapped grandson pov. stuffed into the trunk of a car, he's being delivered from a sonozaki grunt to someone else. grunt claims "the main family" has instructed the kid not be harmed

• mamoru has time to kill before meeting up with the informant so he signs up for a hinamizawa nature tour. he notes the dam protests are being fought on two fronts: one side highlighting the riot police's brutality, the other highlighting the village's natural beauty
• he manages to get into a local tour claiming to be a tourist. he's instructed to take an okinomiya bus into town and be met up with. its noted that specific bus route is being shut down soon by the government seemingly to push people out of hinamizawa, in line with the dam project flooding the village. he takes the bus; when he steps out, all the other passengers turn to stare at him intently
• at the bus stop he meets rika (even younger). she makes noises at him and he notes there's an an angelic, divine nature to her that compels him to forget about how stressful his undercover situation is
• the part-time tour guide farmer makino (mentioned as being a sonozaki and auditor for the guardians) appears in a car. the three converse; rika is properly introduced and wants to tag along for the tour. mamoru takes a bunch of photos, becoming genuinely enthralled with the village's beauty. rika calls him "tomitake 2" without explaining. makino reveres rika; treats her like the rambunctious kid she is but uses the suffix -chama and prays around her, seemingly *to* her.
• mamoru mentions how he'd like for his kid to turn out like rika, especially hoping its a girl like her; makino inquires why he isn't presently with his pregnant wife. he weasels out of it. the tour concludes at the furude shrine; mamoru is introduced to mayor kiichirou kimiyoshi. rika interrupts them (addressing the mayor on first name basis?!) to bring mamoru to a point in the shrine with a beautiful view of the whole village. there, she tells him it's her favorite spot, that she doesnt want the village to be submerged; mamoru strongly emphathizes and suddenly is swayed to the side of being against the dam. rika keeps repeating that shes not worried because "the dam project will soon go away". when asked to elaborate, all she says "its already been decided"; mamoru suddenly (with scary cicada sfx) realizes the hostage situation may have been successful, that the mayor is aware the dam was unsuccessful and was simply playing dumb towards him.
• rika suddenly as if possessed interrupts his musings, telling him to go back to tokyo immediately; she has a completely different demeanor that's completely unlike rika, freaking mamoru out. after threatening him and discussing that she holds no malice towards him, its more like a taking pity on a doomed bug situation (using the phrase "didnt your parents explain [this] to you as a kid?"), then she stumbles and reverts to normal rika. mamoru is perturbed but doesnt know what to make of the situation
• they return into the shrine where the vendors(/elders?) put on a "propaganda film" about the protestors' exploits, but mamoru is distracted wondering whats up with rika, and if those threats were substantial. mamoru leaves before dinner, but is asked to come back tomorrow around the time rika gets out of school; he muses on how having the daughter of a ruling family's favor like this is a huge boon for his investigation, but he cant shake the feeling that he really ought to return to tokyo

• Going Smoothly:
• sonozaki grunt room pov as groceries are brought to him in a hideout by another grunt while the tied up kidnapped grandson sleeps. one grunt remarks the "main family" has declared the kid be left completely unharmed when typically they torture their victims. the other grunt proclaims the dam project has successfully been indefinitely postponed by the minister, so the boy will be let free soon. the grunts are out of portable stovetop gas so they cant have their cup ramen
• Why I Like Rainy Days:
• unclear pov; expressing a frustration with endless repeating sunny days, the narrator wishes for some rain as a break from a monotonous "pre-established" routine, comparing it to hoping to be called down to dinner and be served something wildly different from what they were told to expect. they set up reverse anti-rain charms at night. closes on "rather than a tv drama where the plot id decided, i look up towards the sky waiting for a raincloud"
• Barley Tea and Black Tea and a Millstone:
• irie performing a checkup for oryou in her home. shes in good health but frail. her servants(?) names are shimiko and taeko; she calls them to bring tea, but instead (younger) mion arrives. oryou scolds mion on how to bring the tea properly, which he's nonchalant about. oryou comments mion is the same as his mother in this regard, and laughs with irie. basking in the evening cicadas songs together, oryou suddenly proclaims she'll push it and make it to 100 in order to ensure the dam business is fully complete. she compares the dam project to a millstone that required difficult coordination to start and stop moving, but this particular millstone, once its stopped will never move again. irie muses that it would be nice for the dam project to be cancelled; oryou and mion suddenly get sneaky, and giggle. irie is perturbed, thinking he misspoke; eventually joins them in laughing. noteworthy is irie and mion both know better than to interrupt oryou during her storytelling

• at 9pm in his hotel room, mamoru slept through his daily report time with his senior kanou and is instead called. its been 3 going on 4 days since the kidnapping so the tokyo department is getting antsy, but hasnt had any leads. mamoru hesitates to mention anything is amiss, and instead just mentions that hes established contact with key figures and hasnt found any evidence of the onigafushi guardians being involved.
• ooishi calls, instructing to meet at the shishibone market district far from okinomiya. they meet alongside a suspicious bookie seeming informant "Sato". mamoru realizes ooishi is a bit drunk. they head into a mahjong parlor, where they meet up with an older man; mamoru is too straight laced for these old men that all want to gamble/drink/oggle women. the bet is that whoever loses at this mahjong table must pay for their night out elsewhere.
• pov swaps to ooishi mid mahjong match; mamoru proves to be immensely perceptive and strategic, catching on to the old mens' schemes (especially ooishi's). soon after he suddenly gets darkly serious, almost mirroring how not-rika got very serious...? the 3 old men try to coordinate cheating, but mamoru intercepts; mamoru is revealed to be basically a pro level mahjong player and is crowned the winner. he would have had a gambling career if not for his wife. the group gets along heartily, then ooishi reveals the unknown old man is the foreman of the dam project (the first victim of the curse's 1979 re-emergence) (the music cuts out to emphasize that this guy is getting killed TONIGHT)
• foreman declares his hatred for shion's protest meddling. foreman and ooishi leave separately, mamoru goes with sato the informant. they enter sato's car; sato tries to ask if hes a cop, which he declines to answer. mamoru probes, trying to determine if the "onigafuchi guardians" are real and indeed involved with the hostage situation. sato explains there was a major sonozaki head family meeting (implying sato is part of the group, but not the "main house"); meetings with "empress sonozaki" oryou are a serious matter, and she is often too frail to get out of bed. present at this meeting were oryou, baby mion, a lot of sonozaki relatives, the mayor, misc other kimiyoshis, and the entire furude family (3 people).
• a play by play of the meeting plays out, explained by sato. a year ago, oryou ordered a hefty bribe to the mass media to oppose the dam project, but the guardians' budget (fundraised by civilians via a local paper published by the guardians, with implication of protection money) is running out. as the money is running out, she plans to increase the price of the next round of the local paper. kiichirou is the only person with high enough authority to doubt oryous orders, so he does; mrs furude concurs; it's revealed shes part of the furude bloodline rather than her husband. oryou through mion stands her ground; the local paper's price will be increased to fund further bribery. mion rings a bell to signal his decree
• shortly after, a grunt of mion's father approached and privately asked him some questions; mion's father's gang controls shishibone city and subsequently has a lot of power in sonozaki meetings. the dad is in the audience (/may have been posing as the grunt?) and mion signals to ask him permission to inform oryou of what he just heard; the info causes oryou to suddenly, uncharacteristically, chilling laugh quietly to herself. she announces that his grandson being held hostage appears to have succesfully made the minister of construction's resolve falter.
• mamoru is shocked by the reveal of sonozaki involvement with the kidnapping. oryous non-sonozaki audience is similarly shocked as the kidnapping hasnt broken the news; she declares the grandkid must not be hurt. theres ambiguity if any of the kidnappers / kidnappers' higher-ups were present, just that things that are declared by oryou are followed by the sonozakis, which has spread to other mafia groups in the region (but since the news came from mion's dad's side, it's likely his group)
• its left unclear if sato was directly present for the meeting or is recounting based on other grunts' accounts. at the end of recounting he tells mamoru how dangerous it is to go against the sonozakis, then corners him and asks if hes with the tokyo police metropolitcan public safety division; he tries to play it off. sato decides to throw in one last freebie of info: also discussed at the meeting was that they were expecting a tokyo public safety cop will be dispatched to investigate the kidnapping situation. rika who had been doodling the whole meeting was suddenly very interested in this and asked who came to visit, but declined explaining if she knew about the visitor. oryou orders the visitor be left untouched unless he probes too much. mamoru begins to internally panic

• The Investigation Runs Aground:
• conversation among cops at the public safety division. one thinks the onigafuchi guardians are very suspicious, while the other claims theres a lot of such groups and this one doesnt stand out; at this point, mamoru hasnt told them yet. similar to conversation with mamoru before he went out with ooishi, these cops insist they'll always be able to send mamoru reinforcements should he need them. the conversation is cut short by a call from the chief
• What's in the Box?:
• another unclear pov ambiguous music box tip; the narrator laments that life isnt so easy as a set of linear decisions from which you could re-do everything and pick the "correct" path, complaining about people that hold this worldview. with bell sound effects, plays out as a choice between hypothetical red and blue boxes; the player gets to actually choose. i picked red, and got a little caramel. the point is emphasizing the choice may be disappointing, and that i dont get to know the other outcome after deciding, and that there's no do-over. theres repeat use of the phrase "didnt your parents teach you [this]?"
• i replayed the tip and chose blue; instead i got gum; it seems like the fact i replayed it twice without reloading was acknowledged?! ends on "instead of pondering this box game, you could instead be wishing for rain on a clear sunny day". the use of phrase "didnt your parents teach you?" really suggests the narrator is whoever posessed rika earlier
• The Glint in the Demon's Eye:
• conversation between oryou and two unclear guests. one explains the schedule of a wake and funeral procession in okinomiya; its the deputy mayor ikezawa's grandson's funeral. she orders mion go in her stead. oryou discusses offering a huge sum as tribute; deputy mayor ikezawa is the reason she doesnt have problems with the local or greater government. the grandson died at 11. oryou empathizes incredibly; she muses that the minister's grandson has been kidnapped for 4 days and she wants him freed asap. oryou and mion exchange a sharp, supernatural glance regarding oryou's will. oryou then asks for tea and snacks, which mion asks a servant to deal with; he then calls his father

• after barely sleeping, mamoru is awoken by a call from ooishi to come down to the okinomiya precinct. the grandson, toshiki inukai's, wallet was found in takatsudo (even more remote than hinamizawa) then dropped in a police lost and found box in hinamizawa, from which its typically sent to the okinomiya department. ooishi notes it rained seven days ago; this wallet could not have been dropped more than six days ago. ooishi recognizes this is probably related to a classified case, and promises to not discuss it
• mamoru receives confirmation it's indeed the grandson's wallet via investigating the cards and receipts inside; he immediately calls his superiors, who are baffled but understand the gravity of the situation. the chief says he will dispatch reinforcements immediately, including mamoru's superior kanou. ooishi and mamoru prepare to head out to takatsudo
• pov swap to the grandson; he wasnt very close with his grandfather but the few times they were able to meet, the minister doted on him a lot. he had been taught by his parents the family will likely collaterally make enemies because of the minister's work. hes very frustrated that he's being used as a pawn to make his grandfather's will falter, because he wants his grandfather to follow his ideology unfaltered (okay...)
• toshiki is trying to escape; the grunts failed to properly stuff his ear so he has been eavesdropping on everything (which is being discussed carelessly). he decides to feign severe abdominal pain as he has a scary looking scar from a previous surgery there; it works and the grunts panic, sending one guy to go fetch dr irie. upon arrival irie immediately clocks something is odd about this situation and wants to take the kid to the hospital with how much pain he seems to be in
• pov swap to mamoru, entering hinamizawa w ooishi. mamoru is very nervous but they discuss that they're both armed. they pass by the dam construction site, where a small size protest demonstration is formed right in front of the construction office. riot cops are present but barely containing the crowd; the protestors are blaring extremely loud readings of sutras from trucks, seemingly as ploy to make the cops unable to do anything about the protest (no noise ordinances in this prefecture, no ability to regulate religious activity).
• ooishi mentions the foreman has to deal with this outside his office all day every day. suddenly a group of protestors inadvertedly block the car, unresponsive to honks; ooishi steps out to talk with them. alone in the car, mamoru suddenly sees rika coldly towering over him outside his window, not responding to his gestures. ooishi returns, and rika is scooped up to safety by a protestor; she whispers something mamoru cannot hear
• ooishi floors it, and mamoru tries to play the moment back and decipher what rika has said. he imagines it was rika in the possessed voice mocking him for not having left the village immediately after her warning
• takatsudo is abandoned, but some villagers own fields on its side around the mountain so occasionally pass through it. ooishi recounts that a cop friend of his mentioned directly hearing oryou wish that the grandson be freed (earlier tip scene). he theorizes that oryou had thus ordered the boy be actually freed, and their envoy into the area was planned via the wallet discovery
• mamoru inquires about rika, then oyashirosama; he muses the grandsons kidnapping could be considered a demoning away incident. they encounter irie's car on his way out of takatsudo, and stop to converse: irie says it was a house call without many details that didnt need reexamination, and that he must get back to the hospital quickly. after departing, ooishi notes the clinic shouldnt be taking house calls today, and tries to figure out where irie just left from. a storm breaks out
• ooishi and mamoru exit into the rain, where they spot a suspicious shed and car nearby the place where the wallet was supposedly found. ooishi messages the okinomiya cop radio station informing of his location before heading in.
• pov swap to toshiki; his captors threaten him to stay quiet over the cop approaching. he seems sure irie would've reported the situation to the police, which he evidently didnt do at all (or maybe not yet?) one of the grunts takes toshiki out with him from the back while ooishi is dealt with
• pov swap to ooishi: he sent mamoru to watch the back of the shed while he entered from the front. he hears a fight breaking out; the grunt punches ooishi and the two get into fighting outside in the rain. ooishi is skilled in judo but his opponent chokes him into losing consciousness.
• pov swap to mamoru: the grunt carying toshiki flees into the forest; mamoru chases after him. the captor trips but refuses to let the kid go. they fight; mamorus head is bashed against a rock. hes overpowered but then is able to hit the captor with the same rock due to toshiki refusing to move: the captor shows a gun but is hesitant to shoot; another grunt appears. mamoru is shot in the shoulder
• mamoru internally completely panics; the grunts were ordered to avoid killing him, but in his frenzied state he doesnt believe that he wont be killed. he manages to stall for time and ooishi arrives; mamoru had known ooishi was there for some time. ooishi takes the shooting grunt's gun and pulls out his own; the other guy still cant shoot, so the two grunts run away. ooishi explains to mamoru he cant shoot someone whos fleeing without risking hefty fines, so he doesnt. as the conflict had ended, a severely wounded mamoru passes out.

• A Very Kind Person:
• yukie's pov: set the night before present day, at the hospital she expects mamoru's call (that he forgot to make) to arrive late. she muses that she misses the sound of higurashi evening cicadas, which cannot be found in tokyo

• mamoru awakes in the hospital alongside dr irie. ooishi is called over, and they converse alone: the grunts got away but the kid is safe in the okinomiya precinct. reinforcements from mamoru's division are still on their way, with the whole case being kept extremely under wraps. mamoru is being recalled to tokyo after being so seriously wounded, but has to stay another 24 hours to be monitered. getting along well, ooishi returns some of the money mamoru gave him; he wants to go out as a group again if mamoru is able to, but mamoru wants to return to yukie and see his baby born
• mamoru rushes out to call yukie to tell her hes coming home soon, but the visitors' phone in the hospital lobby has had its cord cut. he seeks out two more cut payphones in town despite still being in hospital gown; he grows frantic and almost paranoid. at the third phone he finds rika who says she "knows akasaka finds me creepy", warns him in half scary voice half normal voice it is too late, nothing can be done and that hes a coward (repeat from earlier). weirdly calmed by her despite the strangeness, he decides to give up and return to the hospital. rika tags along
• rika mentions her parents would be too busy to even notice shes out alone at this hour. she guides him towards the hospital. mamoru scolds her for cutting the payphones, but she feigns innocence. she suddenly proclaims its great the grandson was found unscathed; thw two play dumb with eachother. she proceeds explaining it was very unlikely for mamoru to survive his trip to hinamizawa, and shes happy he seems to have survived against the odds. she calls herself his savior for having warned him several times.
• reaching the shrine, rika declares today is watanagashi. she invites him to check it out, and he agrees to tag along with odd confidence despite knowing he is definitely a target of the villagers. it looks nothing like watanagashi as described in other chapters; its just the old council members hanging out drinking. complaining about its lack of luster, she suddenly declares the festival will return to its glory with proper rituals.
• they go over to the cliffside plateau again; mamoru asks if the fact the project had been halted was known to her when they last spoke, to which she doesnt reply. mamoru thinks the whole struggle with the captors was a planned farce for the kid to be released without implicating the sonozakis directly nor showing that the minister had given in to the demands, as the wallet had been planted to lead the cops there. it would likely take 2 years before the dam project was fully cancelled publicly. mamoru says peace shall return to the village, whereas rika scarymode says "something bloody" shall start taking place yearly
• she declares she shall be killed in a few years. she says the murders will begin with the foreman next year tomorrow, in june 1979, then satokos parents will be pushed to death in 1980, then her parents in 1981, then satokos aunt in 1982, then in 1983 rika herself will be killed, likely with a few days' delay. she's completely coldly smilingly certain, but wonders who has planned all this. mamoru is stunned, but listens with reverence. rika's upcoming murder is noted as being possibly unrelated to the rest; rika is scared. theyre dragged back to the tiny festival and mamoru merrily drinks, thinking of his and the villagers' adverserial relationship as over
• the villagers refuse his help with cleanup on the grounds hes a guest, and send him in a car back to the hospital. realizing he made ooishi wait for hours, he falls asleep

• A Mother's Diary:
• a mother complaining of her childs odd, incongruous random swapping between expressionlessness/inappropriate reactions and regular reactions that started at kindergarten age. the mother would hit the kid on the head each time they failed to react "properly"
• dialogue plays out, its rika and her mother; rika is making reverse anti rain charms as described in an earlier tip. her mother is completely confused by this and distraught by how little she understands her daugher. rika claims shes tired of sunny days

• A Mother's Diary II:
• rika's mother's account of the rika's behavior during the meeting at empress oryou's. she believes all the village elders spoil rika far too much, treating her like a kitten. one day her mom spotted rika at a random shop taking candy like it was already hers, not in the way a shoplifter would; she tried to admonish her but the shopkeep said it was fine, and the more the mom tried to deal with the situation more and more elders surrounded the shop
• the elders openly began worshipping rika, which the mom understood as a furude the logic behind as rika would be traditionally considered the living incarnation of oyashirosama. she believes the village has instilled a god complex in her; telling rika to stop believing all the folk tales the villagers explain to her seems to have created the rift between mother and daugher; she's adamant rika would be "normal" if not for the villages superstitions

• A Mother's Diary III:
• rika's mother's account of a parent-teacher day; rika cooks extremely skillfully during a related class, which the mom had no part in and is very perturbed by. the mom thinks its the elders having taught her a lot of housework; she wants to hide her daughter from the elders but her shrine would see less attendance if that were the case
• the mom is adamant rika is not actually supernaturally gifted in any way, trying to explain away some of her accurate predictions; she adamantly sees the elders as indoctrinating rika and rika being abnormally sharp as a listener, rather than divinely gifted

• opens with poem narration. setting swaps to midsummer 1985: mamoru's 7 yo daughter miyuki awakes him from a nightmare on a plane. landing in hokkaido, they meet up with ooishi who is now retired, living in sapporo and really into ballroom dancing
• at night after miyuki heads off to sleep, they discuss the case. they werent able to put together another mahjong group. the sonozaki grunts were never caught in the 7 years after. a flashback to mamoru's day after in the hospital plays out; in trying to contact ooishi hes ushered to get back to the precinct, where a tokyo division colleague announces yukie died in an accident: she slipped on the stairs going up to the hospital roof. whenever mamoru couldnt visit her, she would sit on the roof for a bit; my reaction was that if mamoru had made the call the night before, she would not have died... but instead hes describing it like the call wouldve alerted him to the death immediately, that this was merciful on rikas part
• mamoru thus somewhat believes in rika's, or her other self's divinity, previously having thought of the situation as yukie having been killed in a way that looked like an accident due to him not heeding her warning and going back to tokyo, but now sees it as yukies death was prophecized and rika was offering a path to save her
• ooishi then seriously asks if rika was psychic, how did she not predict the june 1983 gas eruption disaster that struck hinamizawa? the curse played out as rika predicted, and she was killed in the final year before the gas indicent. hinamizawa has since been kept blocked off
• the last years victims were jirou, miyo, kumachan, irie and rika; rika was drugged, disemboweled alive then killed and dumped on the shrine where the villagers found her. ooishi explains that per local tradition, disemboweling had specific religious connotations, and disemboweling then killing the supposed incarnation of oyashirosama was of course the ultimate sacrilege. suvivor's accounts dictate that the disaster that follows was oyashirosamas wrath for killing rika
• discussing the case from all angles, mamoru requests to be put on the case should it ever reopen for investigation. he then somberly realizes that rika's sole cry for help had happened the night she told mamoru she was afraid of dying. he reasons the real reason she cut the phone cords was to get the chance to ask mamoru for help, and that he couldve saved her in june 1983. hes distraught and breaks down
• suddenly, ooishi resolves that the two of them need to solve the case together to honor rika and all the other victims' memory. they shout a lot. miyuki awakes and comes to check up on mamoru, trying to console him; mamoru thinks he seeks rika through her in this moment. he mentions rika to her, and miyuki wishes she could be friends with her
• mamoru re-vows to solve the case, thinking of hinamizawa staying quarantined with residual gases until hes able to reveal the truth and properly apologize to rika, whos remains will be buried there once the quarantine is lifted. the following year, ooishi and mamory co-authored a book about the great hinamizawa disaster called "higurashi when they cry", urging the truth be discovered

• the kids lament not having much screentime this episode, chastizing ooishi. mion emphacizes this was a side story that got out of hand. they exchange theories, debating the human vs divine perpetrator aspect. satoko emphatically introduces miyo and jirou with threats of guns and missiles; rena is shot
• shion performs a hostile takeover promising all the minor characters will have more screentime next chapter. keiichi still doesnt have any artwork, so scenes with him are pitch black rather than over the phone; the joke is hes trading roles with shion, who's only just now realizing she has an insane amount of lines to record in the new chapter. with his "darkness powers" he descibes all the girls wearing skimpy outfits :I mamoru does not appear as hes on vacation. the teacher suddenly uses swords to restore justice (melty blood references)
• offhandedly, theres a couple voicelines of miyo screaming commands wo composure...?