Fans of the Higurashi franchise are well aware of its original visual novel roots. Released originally in 2002, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Onikakushi-hen acted as an introduction arc for visual novel players by introducing the world of Higurashi such as the main setting—Hinamizawa which is based on the real world village in Japan called Shirakawa—and several of the main characters.

In the original 2006 anime adaptation, Studio Deen did their best to recreate the horrors of the VN but now in 2020 anime has made tremendous leaps in quality and with Studio Passione—creators of Rokka no Yuusha and High School DxD Hero—now helming the series, we are quite excited to see how visually terrifying this new Higurashi can be! We highly recommend checking out the YouTube trailer as we are noticing already some really upgraded visuals!

While we here at Honey’s Anime love the master horror creator Junji Ito, we have to admit his creation didn’t translate well from manga to anime. Higurashi seems to have actually improved from its roots and now we get to experience true fears in a more modern setting. We have already noticed that this newest adaptation isn’t afraid to get violent with a brutal scene returning from the original series—a certain baseball bat-wielding Keiichi is back at it again—and that has us smiling…but also wondering how far this series will go from its predecessor.

Quicker but More to the Point
A famous line we hard once long ago is that writing a shorter story is harder to do well than a longer story. Many might have noticed that it seems like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 2020 is going to be split into two 13-episode cours but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The original 2006 version was 26 episodes that often felt repetitive due to the theme of resetting the story/world with each mini-arc. Maybe with half of the episode count, we will have a greater focus on the dark elements of Higurashi and worry less about seeing the gang play card games or hide and seek for the tenth time.

Horror is usually a very open-ended theme since it can come in numerous flavors. You have horror that focuses on attacking reality—better known as psychological horror—or more violent horror that is filled with blood/carnage. Higurashi has always been one of the few horror anime series that does it all. It has psychological themes, supernatural elements, gore-filled moments, and unnerving real-world concepts/fears. Higurashi to us is the king of anime horror franchises and we can’t wait for those unaware of its existence to see it release in October 2020.