I love your reply!
That’s true - I think to me in that sense she was the most impactful from Ooishi or Dr. Irie - after all she was manipulating them both in a sense. In other words Ooishi couldn’t solve who was behind the murders (Takano) and she had Dr. Irie under her finger. Though both of their characters were much more noble and reasonable than Takano, that is true.
I think I was also biased in thinking about it, since I was viewing from the perspective as Higurashi being a “game” between Lambdadelta, Featherine, and then as a few timelines went on, Bernkastel (her creation from Rika’s trauma/repeating timelines). In that sense I was figuring if Bernkastel and Featherine (Rika and Hanyuu) were anti-mystery, then that could make Lambdadelta (Takano) on the opposing end as anti-fantasy. But I think thanks to your reply, I can see that viewpoint is limiting on the Higurashi world and there are more characters and hints to consider beyond Takano.
I agree on that sense too, especially because we see that Satoko tended to show “Symptoms” of the Hinamizawa Syndrome the worst too, but she also had the most stress, pressure, and outright abuse (and to an extent, Satoshi too). Then we also see Shion show severe “symptoms” but she also suffered a lot of trauma from the incident with Satoshi and Satoko. We can actually see Keiichi and Rena’s progressions from their stress as well. Only Rika and Mion seemed to not fall victim to the syndrome - Mion being a key here since while Rika has the “Queen Carrier” (which was disproven) theory behind her, Mion has no such special attribute that would make her immune to the syndrome. To be fair though,it was mentioned the Hinamizawa Syndrome symptoms heighten or activate with stress - so this could be a factor entangling the solution as well.
I don’t think Hinamizawa Syndrome as Takano imagined it exactly existed though, thinking about it. Since there were a lot of things disproven (Queen Carrier, no existence of the parasite itself found despite research). But then bloodwork and the medication from Rika’s blood was shown to somehow help Satoko. It’s interesting.
And that’s true about Takano too. But I can kind of see it as like she was just a very kind of lost and confused person clinging onto the only thing she knew or wanted to fight for that brought her light in her life - her Grandfather and his research. In that sense I guess it was like less of a ruthless anti-fantasy but more of a cold “I have to do this for Grandfather” approach and she was going to take any route to get it. We can’t really compare Erika to Takano though as Erika was made precisely as a piece to tear apart Beato’s mystery, but Takano herself was simply more fulfilling and going along with her Grandfather’s theories and her strong will to achieve it - which was more anti-fantasy in nature (not strictly in the sense of something logical, but in the sense that it denied spiritual/magical things, is what I meant to say ! ;; )
Yes, I agree with you there. Higurashi is more difficult in that sense because while Umineko was able to string the various worlds or games together, Higurashi didn’t exactly have any proper strings or connections tying them together between the other worlds or games (which makes a strict anti-fantasy solution difficult in comparison to Umineko, where one is possible to create that solution). To me for Matsuribayashi hen being the “solution” or “ending” is one that doesn’t satisfy the anti-fantasy - but does satisy an anti-mystery. As you said it wrapped up in a kind of satisfying way emotionally wise. I interpreted it later with the introduction of Umineko, that I saw that as a kind of way to say Bernkastel and Featherine “won” as anti-mystery, but Lambdadelta “lost” on the side of anti-fantasy. However, later on we can see for example in Saikoroshi hen there were some things to be wrapped up between Featherine and Bernkastel, or Hanyuu and Rika as well. (Which I believe there led to the end of “Frederica Bernkastel” and to just the birth of “Bernkastel” whom we all know in Umineko as being more cruel and less connection to Rika, hence the omission of the “Frederica”)
Yes, I also want to find a true answer, a satisfying anti-fantasy answer to Higurashi, and especially to Matsuribayashi hen - the final ending of the main arcs of Higurashi. The things that need to be solved are, what exactly is the illness (does it exist)? Where does Hanyuu come from? Did Takano inject parasitical drugs or was it a type of drug that made the lymph nodes itch and other symptoms to play along into her creation of the Hinamizawa Syndrome to make it “Real” despite it not existing? There’s a lot to consider here and I want to discuss more to find out. Personally I accepted the ending as anti-mystery as Bernkastel / Rika and Featherine / Hanyuu’s “win”. But now this discussion has me interested to open the story of Hinamizawa once more and find a different interpretation.