I read this one a little over a week ago now, but just now have the time to do a post for it.
The first thing I wanted to talk about was the bullying. There was a lot of talk early on about how excessive the bullying feels, but while there is no denying that it is terrible bullying the problem of bullying and these kinds of methods are documented and have been a problem in Japan for years now. Bullying in school is a known social problem in Japan that they have been trying to address, but there are aspects of the culture that are entrenched and continue to encourage it. I think this is actually why Higanbana (the story) works, and is why Ryuukishi was relentless at getting Higanbana out and out correctly. This is probably a deeply personal issue for Ryuukishi, and I would not be surprised if he has been effected by it first hand, even he himself was not bullied, the story of Higanbana shows he has spent a lot of time reflecting on the roles of the bullies, the bullied, and those too passive to do anything that it basically just is a social commentary on bullying wrapped in the package of good series of ghost stories.
I liked this chapter, though not the pacing of it. It felt muddled to me, and as others have mentioned it had kind of a non ending. It gave the whole story the feeling of an interlude rather than a proper chapter.
I think Midori is a good character. I think she represents the ease of turning to delusions. At the end, even though there is no way to feel right about Midori returning to the delusion, I think it is significant that no one really has a better answer for her. If Midori herself will not face reality and the bullies no one can do it for her, and Midori is not strong enough for that. We are not supposed to idolize her turning to a world of dreams, but it is hard to really criticize someone directly for it like this. Delusions do not help, but weak people find releif in them and taking that away from them is also not going to help.
And in that something is becoming very apparent about tonal differences between Higanbana and Umineko/Higurashi . Umineko/Higurashi are fundamentally optimistic - even as certain characters fall further into despair or face death and torture in every fragment there is the feeling of reading towards the answer. The power of love! of friendship! can guide you. But Higanbana is in many ways (so far!) fundamentally pessimistic. The world is against these characters, and they mostly have to face it alone. Each character has had very different strength of personality and that so far has had a tonally different ending each time- one girl dies and finds some form of peace in that, one boy forgives and lives on, and another girl is unable to even face the hell that is her life and has removed her spirit from reality. And it was the strength of personality in the first place that determined the uneven endings. One of the realest and most cruel truths of Higanbana is that strength is not doled out evenly, and the weak will often not be able to escape the torment of the strong.
As for if the Black Tea Gentleman represents a known yokai…I am honestly not sure if he ties directly back to specific legend. The idea that a demon can offer you a dream - a dream of happiness - one that you use to escape the real world has been done though. Rather than tying back to a specific legend I think these kinds of characters are there to challenge our concepts of happiness, duty, and perception/realtiy. How many times does something have an arc where the character must face a perfect world - one where they get everything they have wanted and denied to them by the story so far? In these the character normally eventually realizes that it is all fake and that they must leave this dream where they are happy because they must go fight in the real world. Because maybe everything sucks for them there, but it is the real world and it is important to not run from it. Then their willpower is shown to be so strong that they shatter the illusion and go get a much more satisfying ending for the audience. Gurren Laggan and Sailor Moon both have sections like this for starters, but it is a trope at this point.
One other thing I’ve found noteworthy while reading is that I find it really interesting that the demons are all very western so far. Besides Marie they, all have western appearance - especially our title character of Higanbana who is supposed to be a fine European doll. I wonder if this was just done due to Ryuukishi’s preferences, to create a stronger feeling foreign-ness for the youkai, or if it will serve the story as a whole more down the line. I imagine it is some combination and I look forward to reading on.