4/5. (Well, 3.5/5, but that wasnāt really a rating option.) With the introduction of Shion I started to think āOh, could that explain Mionās behavior in the last chapter?ā But the more the story went on, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how ridiculous that seemed to be. (Especially by the end of this chapter!) Keiichi viewing Mion and Shion to be just Mion wasā¦ understandable? I guess? (Renaās reaction in particular didnāt help the whole thing.) Anywayā¦ This chapter seemed much darker than the previous chapter to me once it got going.
Might want to grab some tea or coffee before attempting to climb this text wall.
Opening
Everybody goes to play games, yay! Oh, weāve finished at a tie. Well then, manager gives us a dollā¦ cool? Oh, he also gave everybody else dolls, except Mion? Uhā¦ Okay, letās just give it to-, what Rena? ā¦ Why!? (I was extremely frustrated with Protag-kun at this point in the story, and it was just the first partā¦) I felt like this would probably come back to bite us, but after a while it didnāt seem like that big of a deal. (Except for all the hinting.)
Speaking of hinting:
Later, Keiichiās dad takes him to Angel Mort, where Keiichi meets Shion. At first I was thinking āNah, thatās not the same place he and Ooishi went to, right?ā (I later thought the same thing again after I learned (in ch.3? that Angel Mort is owned by the Sonozakis). His dadās pretty awesome, just saying. (Especially the way he waited for his sonās conversation with Shion to finish instead of just interruptingā¦)
Later on, āShionā shows up with lunch because we skipped. (rip) We get great references like āIf it were Mionā¦ I could see hot sauce, mustard, maybe even a needle being mixed inside. (But really, I donāt think she would go so far as putting a needle in thereā¦)ā
(I donāt really remember much between the above and the followingā¦)
Eventually, Keiichi makes plans to see Shion at Angel Mortā¦ and he kicks a motorcycle? Why!? (The anime portrays this scene differently than how it read to me, so maybe Iām just misinterpreting it?) He gets into an issue, then we see the power of being a resident of Hinamizawa! Much coolness, townspeople! Even though Keiichi is creeped out by that, I still find it pretty damn awesome of them. (Shion explains this to him later as just being a sense of unity among the townsfolk, iirc.) Seriously though, that was a really cool scene. Ooishi showed up then hauled 'em away, so cool. (Looks no actual lynching was needed today!)
Then there was the part where we got a free all-you-can-eat dessert ticket and went to Angel Mort later. (Jeez, thatād be awesome just in general.) Some stuff happens and we get everybody except Mion to help out with the perverted otaku. Which we resolve byā¦ putting a line of them in front of a small girl whoās all alone in a bathroom that they expect nobody else to go to? (My own phrasing aside, that was also a really good scene! Thoroughly enjoyable IMO.)
This part made me suspicious though:
Though a later TIP cleared it upā¦ My initial thought was that she had actually psychotically got rid of them in some way but uhā¦ I guess not! (I was just feeling on-edge from the last chapter, probably. Thatās a pretty extreme suspicion after all.)
And then later (that night? I thinkā¦) we learnā¦ and Protag-kun shouldāve really realized this soonerā¦ that Shion and Mion are not the same person! Gasp!
Also, Keiichi seemed to realize that he needed to apologize, but after his mind was shattered by such an amazing revelation, never actually apologized to the right personā¦ In fact, he bought a doll for the wrong person. (I think Rena was telling him something along those lines earlier in the story.)
Middlegame
Hey! Jirou showed up again. Coolest guy in the game.
Then we go to the Watanagashi. At first I thought āHuh, I wonder if this chapter is going to end at Watanagashi, considering its nameā¦ā But then I realized that the chapter would be way too early for that, so I started wondering about how it would advance from there.
So, we have fun at Watanagashi, and a very awesome sounding idea comes upā¦
Imgur Gallery
Later on we ditch the lolis to check out a shrine with Shion, Takano (err, I think her name was Takano anyway), and Jirou. ('course, Jirou doesnāt actually care to look inside. Sounds good to me.)
Shion later complains about hearing a āthumping soundā after everybody leaves the shrineā¦ This part made me wonder about whether sheās telling the truth or not. Jirou said he also heard something weird. Both of those testimonies can be dismissed butā¦ I donāt think itās wise to do so yetā¦ so Iām keeping them in mind still.
Jirou dies and, unlike the last story, Takano burns up in a barrel. Why did she burn up instead of just disappear? Did she burn up last time too but simply wasnāt found due to some other reason? Maybe she was found but Ooishi didnāt tell Keiichi last time because he thought it might affect Keiichiās thoughtsā¦ Whatās the significance of this? Did she not visit the shrine last chapter too? Whatās different here? Iām not sure yetā¦ The only thing that comes to mind is that Keiichi interrupted Takano and Jirou last chapter. If he interrupted them to the point where they no longer had time to go look inside the shrine, then was she burned as a warning to those who entered the shrine with her, this chapter?
Also, scariest question:
I donāt really remember much else of what happened around this time outside of the phone calls between Shion and Keiichi. (Keiichi is too trusting, btw. At this point in the story I was thinking to myself "Okayā¦ What have you done to determine the identity of who youāre speaking with? Is there something that only she would know? And now youāre just confirming everything without really knowing the identity of who youāre confessing everything toā¦ Youād definitely be the type of person a prosecuting attorney would like to deal with. Not a defense attorney though, 'cause heād have to record āSTFUā on a voice recorder and have it play on loop just to get a reduced sentence on a crime you probably wouldnāt have even committed in the first place."
He loses his cool and rants out a confession of everything that happened, taking out his anger on her. She hangs up after that.
Endgame
Rika and Satoko go missing? WTF!? Also, Rena saves the day!? (Yo, she totally tried to kill us last chapter. Her not going psycho weirded me out. A lot.) Mion claims to be a demon now. Shion warns Keiichi, but Keiichi isā¦ stupid. He really is, at least in this moment. I mean, she fookinā killed Rika and Satoko, or at least admitted to it. Cāmon son. Anyway, heās about to get tortured, but Mion decides against it as the police break in. (After she talks about how Rika and Satoko were tortured. Tch.) Mion runs, but supposedly dies in her escape. Despite that, she shows up at Keiichiās house. He runs out, tries giving her a doll (waaaaayyyyy too late), gets stabbed, goes to the hospital. Incidentally, Ooishi is a pretty cool guy at the hospitalā¦ xD He then explains how Shion fell from her apartment in some other city in the same night that Keiichi was stabbed by Mion. You could possibly reason that Shion snuck out, stabbed Keiichi, then went back to her apartment, had a(nother) psychotic episode, and jumpedā¦ But the timing for this seems strange. Iāll consider it plausible though, but am still trying to find other ways to reconcile the whole āwas dead this whole timeā bit.
Speculation and Miscellaneous
Demons or People?
People still. Even if the story makes it seem like ādemonsā are definitely the cause, thatās basically just an excuse to stop thinking IMO. Maybe thereās something āmagicalā mixed in, but Iām going to try to go for the most plausible explanation in my own theories at least. (I mean, if we say itās ādemonsā then whatās the point? We basically admit that anything goes and can then stop thinking about it. So, why bother then? Ah, but thatās just my opinion.)
I donāt know how to reconcile the āthumpingā sound from the shrine, and how it was really loud for two of the people, but not the other two. (Just because I donāt know how doesnāt mean that itās not necessarily the case. For example, I could say that 2 + 2 equals 4, but be unable to explain why. That doesnāt mean that the idea should be ignored entirely, but rather that I should figure out what explanations do work, and which donāt. Again, just my opinion though.)
What might happen next?
I already read ch.3 prior to posting this, but for the most part I ignored the things Iāve learned there. As such, Iāll say that my prior prediction for ch.3 wasā¦ off a bitā¦ IIRC, this is basically what I thought ch.3 would be prior to reading it:
āSatoko chapter, since they mention that possibility in the āall-cast reviewā. Had they not mentioned it, I figured itād be a Rika chapter.ā
āWell, Satoko lives with Rika, so weāll probably get to see both of them. Thus, thereās probably not much of a need for a Rika chapter then.ā
(So basically, it seems like each chapter will be a route for a specific girlā¦ Heh.)
Random Thoughts
We found the syringe with Rika, supposedly. So, her likeliness for being directly involved in some things probably went up considerably. Not that I really doubted that before. The theme of āapologizingā was also really strong in this chapter. I donāt think I noticed that as a particular theme in the last chapter.
I could probably talk for quite a while on various individual parts of this chapter. e.g., the opening game scene. (Which the anime ruined assuming the official translation was accurate, IMO.) There were a lot of interesting things going on there, such as the members being split up and taking on their own games. The types of games that were selected seemed pretty appropriate. (I wonder which game Mion ended up with?) The lack of a conclusion there was unfortunate, but also tied into the club activities in ch.1 not having a conclusion either. I wonder if the parallel there was intentional or not. (ch.3: Partially because I donāt recall there being an unfinished club activity in ch.3ā¦)
Also, to lighten the mood after having finished such a dark chapterā¦
Ā°Ėā§ā(ā°āæā°)āā§ĖĀ°
Iām trying! I donāt have any particularly strong theories though, but with what I read from the next chapter, I think I might be able to put together one.
Incidentally, some (not all) parts of the story within the chapters feel really obvious, but the overall mystery is still having me second-guessing things, heheh.
