I’ve read on to Meakashi, so in fear of blurting out accidental spoilers, I shall mostly refrain from participating in this Tea Party.
I’m loving what I see so far, though!
@VyseGolbez holy hell that’s amazing work
How about… From very early on in the story Keiichi was afflicted with something which leads to greatly increased paranoia and causes minor hallucinations while paranoid. In addition it creates a powerful desire to kill oneself after remaining in the body for a certain amount of time.
Tomitake was inflicted with the same “thing” as Keiichi but before him, with timing such that he entered the suicidal phase just after the festival.
I claim it is the same van, and that it was really parked in that place.
One at a time:
What motive could one possibly have for doing that?
Takano was leaving town along that river (knowing about the incident that would soon occur) while transporting the various items that she had used to perpetuate the killings. They saw Keiichi there, and decided to save him on a whim, possibly because they thought it might be amusing.
How could they know a disaster caused by a motorbike was coming?
After deducing Keiichi had killed someone, Takano decided to investigate things herself. There was a town superstition about tossing “artificial” things in the swamp, and Takano’s research meant that she knew the practical reason that it had likely stemmed from. As she retraced Keiichi’s steps she realized where he had discarded the bike.
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When listing all these questions, I somehow forgot the main question opened up by this part:
How did Rika predict all the incidents from 1979 to 1982 and her own murder?
Now for your theories:
Why was Keiichi only inflicted with this condition in Onikakushi? Furthermore, How was he inflicted with that? Through some culprit, or something natural?
Oh yeah, when going back through the podcasts and the chapters, I noticed something odd. Back in the Watanagashi discussion, we assumed that Rika was killed because Mion/Shion learned about Keiichi confessing everything to her through that phonecall. However, that doesn’t fit with the timing. The call at Keiichi’s house happened at 10 PM. Rika and Satoko didn’t touch their dinner though, therefore, they would have already been missing when Keiichi got the call from Mion/Shion. What I am proposing here is basically this: Mion/Shion (whichever sister did the killing, as that was open to debate) learned of Keiichi telling everything through Rika. She then decided to move the conversation with Keiichi in a direction that would cause him to tell her the same thing, most likely so that he would assume that Rika getting killed was his fault; so basically to torture him on a psychological level.
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[quote="pictoshark, post:22, topic:46]From very early on in the story Keiichi was afflicted with something which leads to greatly increased paranoia and causes minor hallucinations while paranoid. In addition it creates a powerful desire to kill oneself after remaining in the body for a certain amount of time.
Tomitake was inflicted with the same “thing” as Keiichi but before him, with timing such that he entered the suicidal phase just after the festival.[/quote]
This implies that Tomitake would have also suffered from symptoms akin to Keiichi’s leading up to his death. Does he seem to be highly paranoid in any of the chapters?
Think of my silly hypothetical as a really big multiplier to any paranoia that someone might feel.
It is possible that Tomitake never went through any scenarios that would cause him to feel even slightly paranoid in the lead up to his death.
The repeated looping of slightly different events is occurring in universe. This is one of the few fantasy elements in this story. In addition, Rena is in some kind of unique position where she is capable of keeping her memories between the loops.
He seemed to have joined the club at a much later date in Onikakushi than he did in the other arcs, right? Maybe that’s connected?
It delights me that more and more people are agreeing with this crazy theory because, hey, it just makes sense 
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Oh yeah, there’s another question that opens up through that though: How was the GHD caused in Himatsubushi?
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I remember the TIP What’s in the Box? hitting me pretty hard the first time I read Higurashi. It was the first time I ever ran into a VN doing these sorts of shenanigans and the commentary it makes as a result blew my mind a little.
It’s still one of my favorite Himatsubushi scenes even now. I love its message.
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Sounds a bit doubtful to me. As far as I know, I sincerely don’t believe Takano just drags him into the storehouse, he knew ahead of time he was going to be breaking into it, and considering what he knew of the previous years, he probably knew very well that what he was doing could end up killing him. I’d say that’s more than enough reason to feel paranoid.
In general, I don’t subscribe very much to the idea that the syringe was just friendly means to cure anyone of paranoia, I’m more inclined to think of it as a weapon. Two things I’m not remembering very well, but if you say the syringe has a cure, wasn’t Keiichi actually given the shot in Onikakushi? Why did he go ahead and kill himself anyway? Wasn’t Tomitake injected too, yet he clawed at his neck?
And another one for the trip home. Wasn’t Mion NOT injected, yet she DIDN’T claw her throat out?
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Keiichi is never shown being injected with the syringe. The scene cuts to his room with Mion and Rena dead just before they inject him with the syringe.That’s because he wrestled Rena off and killed them before they could inject him!
I never said that Mion was undergoing the same thing that Keiichi did, did I?
All I said was that Rika thought that Mion needed that syringe.
I still think that it ended up as a struggle with Mion vs Rika with Mion being able to overpower Rika before she could even use the syringe.
Also:
You’re right, he is never shown being injected in Onikakushi; but that does not discount the possibility that he was injected by some other party after he killed Mion and Rena