HERE are my cicada season (higurashi: when they cry) chapter summaries. these are quick and dirty typed up for myself immediately after i finish a chapter trying to be objective and to the point, rather than my thoughts/conclusions/impressions. the game takes place in "summer of 198X"

• General info (characters, locations)


• Arc 1 Onikakushi (demoning-away chapter)
• Arc 2 Watanagashi (cotton-drifting chapter)
• Arc 3 Tatarigoroshi (curse-killing chapter)
• Arc 4 Himatsubushi (time-wasting chapter)
• Arc 5 Meakashi (eye-opening chapter)
• Arc 6 Tsumihoroboshi (? chapter)
• Arc 7 Minagoroshi (massacre chapter)
• Arc 8 Matsuribayashi (festival-? chapter)

preface note these games SUCK in a very specific hard to stomach way. theres a lot of jokes where the kids will describe wearing revealing outfits or guys will fantasize abt the girls or such it is really gross. its bizarelly tonally inconsistent with the rest of the story like its... a game about abused kids surviving against all odds, yet treats sexual harrassment like a frivolous throwaway topic for unserious lighthearted slapstick with no effect on people ever. and you can kinda... see hints of it in how the girls are drawn its 😬😬 at least the jokes never amount to anything and the kids are unhurt in all situations but itssssss bad. thankfully this whole thing is dropped whenever the plot gets serious(? so far at least) and you can kinda tell when this is about to show up so its easy to skip without missing the plot

^ as such i dont recommend the games. i knew it was gonna have some layer of creepiness to it bc i had been warned by friends and colleagues but itssss worse than i thought. im braving a horrible frigid windstorm bc im told theres an actually really great and resonant story underneath the bullshit. id describe it as like... rather than a good story trapped in the format of a videogame/visualnovel, its a good story trapped with the cliches of creepy vns of its time. the author undoubtedly was within these circles, idk if hes a creep himself or was asked to include the bullshit by friends/colleagues/the publisher or what bc it really, really sticks out at all times... its a bit difficult to imagine him ideologically going against the grain at all if he included such in the first place thought, its really... maybe the adaptations (anime/manga/novels) are less bad and im getting the worst version by engaging with the original😭

i was sold on the series as a whole after watching a friend be entranced by the sequel series (which im told has No such creepiness).. she kept thinking the tone of it was absurd/needlessly complex and not that great then towards the end it all clicked and made for a very multilayered sad story so im like... hoping this game also amounts to that for me at the very least LOL im enjoying cicada very much but it is very much part of my journey towards seagull

direct quotes: "well. that was the ending. [5 hours later] am i being too harsh. the whole eight episodes together are by no means a bad story and yet i dont know if i'd like reccomend it to somebody for instance... [7 hours later] nvm remembered how ep 7 recontextualizes everything maybe this was a good story after all. sayooooooooooooooo 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭"