. ... no naku koro ni.

An analysis of a series you need not read.

Before I start this conversation you need to be warned, I am writing about the mechanizations behind writing horror, so if that bothers you, stop now.

Higurashi no naku koro ni
when the red cicada cries.
Higurashi is a type of Japanese cicada typified by its rusty red coloring. Also, naku is actually closer to the meaning of “cries,” but in English we don't usually say “the cry of the cicada.” However, the translation loses its coolness when translated as buzzes. Don't you agree?

There is a methodology to the horror like madness of this series that I see as a good step in the right direction for writing a despair novel. This series does seem to leave a little bit of hope for the readers in the end, but I think that is the failing point. Actually, I shouldn't complain, if things like the ring and the grudge bothered you, the ending will bother you a lot. It just was too subtle for me.

First, I must explain a bit about the story. There are always two volumes to each section in the story. The first is, I think, the most important, but the second is where all the action and gut-wrenching imagery is. Third and most importantly, high schoolers in Japan seem to be reading this series because I've noticed in my schools libraries.

In the first volume, you are introduced to a character and to a town with a generally peaceful type feeling. Always, I would assume that this will involve an transfer student because otherwise the character would have to be aware of the history around the place. In most cases, that history is only given in broken pieces in the first volume. At first, you only might learn that there is a temple nearby with a certain kami enshrined there. There isn't any mention of the curse... just yet.

The main purpose of that first volume is to show you the main character getting along, to display him having tension with other opposite gender classmates, and to make you endeared to the characters in general. They'll have their cute interactions, their cute reactions, and furthermore cutesy love tension that isn't too likely to go anywhere anyway. They make you feel that this is story is going to consist of normal day in and day out life.

After you've become accustomed to reading about the peaceful and entertaining life of these students, you enter into the sphere of the second volume with a slight odd twinge. The last part, possibly in all the first volume books, jars you just enough to get your attention. A character simply does something that is odd, and then passes it off with some sort of excuse later. In the case of the one that I read, a certain very sweet character's eyes glowed and she spoke in a unearthly tone. The advice given in that tone was vague enough as to possibly only pertain to some sort of near-love squabble so that you, the reader, will be jarred but be able to dismiss it.

Then volume 2 starts. Everything goes to heck. The strange occurance in volume was just the beginning, and your character enjoys one jarring experience to the next. A masturi and a appeasing of the local kami occurs and because of the proximity to that place your character gets hints about an odd history. Finally, just when it is too late, an explanation of the curse is explained with perhaps a minor detail left out.. You are sure you have been given every detail and that the main character might be able to do something. Then people start dying. Gruesome horribly twisted deaths occur right before your main characters eyes. A character claws his own throat out, another character lights herself on fire in a barrel, and some character gets pounded to death. More importantly, somebody just vanishes.

However, the thing that makes them so twisted is that these deaths involve mostly the very characters you have come to think of as normal and sweet. Instead of being sweet now, they are terrified, being attacked, vanishing, going nuts, killing eachother, trying to kill the main character, or being possessed by an oni. Finally, in the end, just when you think the main character is also actually going to die, he somehow remains alive. An explanation, half-baked at best, is given and the story seems to be wrapping up.

In the case of the one I read, the main character is alive recovering in a hospital, but after everyone leaves the room and the detective is done making his point, he sits silently on his hospital bed. The next page has the same picture, but there is a shadowey hand on the corner of the bedspread. The page after that, shows more of a figure with the neck twisted sideways, rotting-like face wrinkles, gangly hair, and hollow eyes like a skull. The final page shows a full view of the things face, and now it looks somewhat like a familiar character and the words that are written there are very broken, scratchy and creepy looking. They say “I've come for you....”

My thought is that a lot of these elements are quite useful in composing a fictitious horror story, and I will possibly weave some of them into a legend that I started some time ago which I call “Skelchin.” That's all.