Discussion topic for Rika Furude. Feel free to discuss the entirety of Higurashi without [spoiler] tags, but please tag references to outside works, providing adequate context in parenthesis. This topic will contain massive spoilers, so if you have not finished reading Higurashi yourself proceed with caution.
I really do love Rika, for the longest time after watching the anime she was my favourite character in fiction ever. The idea of a child being put through an endless timeloop and gaining a sort of, inhuman development is infinitely intriguing to me. And the contrast between her outward behaviour and inner thoughts is so fascinating.
Totally agreed. And the way sheâs the âhidden protagonistâ is really interesting, too, because she doesnât have much of a presence until Himatsubushi.
Rika didnât stand out to me when I first started watching the anime, the Himatsubushi anime was my least favorite which didnât help either, but I was mildly interested with Rika in it. Though Tsumihoroboshi was when I really wanted to learn more about Rika and Minagoroshi really sealed the deal as her being one of my favorite female characters of all time.
The shift towards Rika for season 2 was really great too. Yukari Tamura is just love. <3
Ah, Rika certainly is one of the most fascinating characters in Higurashi. She didnât stand out much to me either when I first watched the series, she looked like a cool one but nothing much except for that, but when her true storyline, role and personality where revealed, I found her so compelling. I just like it a lot how she is a hidden protagonist, she knows many things that are going on during each arc and can cryptically talk to or even slightly manipulate the other characters with what she knows. Her true personality is very intriguing really, being wise and cunning and very mysterious too, especially her Frederica Bernkanstel persona, thatâs very subtle meaning that even though you know how she came to be she still seems like a complete mystery. Well, until you read a certain other 07th Expansion work that is.
One thing I really love about Rika is that not only does she embrace her childlike appearance, but sheâs learnt how to manipulate people with it, by being all cutesy and innocent. Contrast that to the way she snaps in Minnagoroshi and Saikoroshi, when sheâs had enough. In fact, even though it would have been terribly depressing had it existed, I think I would have really appreciated an arc about Rikaâs early struggles and failures (before she deduced the rules of the game).
I also loved what she had to go through in Saikoroshi. To me, it was, in a way, the darkest of all the Higurashi arcs and a fitting conclusion for Rika.
Me too! I would have loved that.
I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Saikoroshiâon the one hand, I think itâs an interesting arc, on the other hand, I guess I have a hard time understanding what the ultimate message of it is supposed to be.
I thought it was to have Rika start seeing herself as human again and not as a being from above.
I guess I just never really got the sense that was necessary⌠I mean, Hanyuu already said in Matsuribayashi that that world was the last world, so Rika should have understood that if she died again that would be itâŚright?
Then thereâs Kamikanshi-hen with her using the knife to kill herself to prevent Une from enacting her plan.
This is not normally the kind of thing I pay much attention to - and I know there was not voices in the original novel, but I love the casting choice for Rikaâs Voice Actress. Yukari Tamura is essentially the voice of innocent loli for me, but she also has an interesting distinction for her more mysterious roles that is very iconic of her. Hearing her switch between the two voices is really jarring and yet so familar it is super effective for portraying Rikaâs double faced way of approaching the world.
Yeah I really thought the casting choice for Rika was perfect. She can go from cutesy to dark in less than a second. Just amazing. It really made the script come alive.
The Onikakushi Drama CD was different though. She was more soft-spoken, which is interesting and deep. I wonder who came up with changing it to how it is now?
I wasnât sure whether I should post this in the Rika thread or the Keiichi thread, but does anyone have any ideas on why Rika didnât try to inject Keiichi with C120 even though she tried with Shion and Rena? Maybe Keiichi is like Satoshi and C120 doesnât really work on him? Or maybe she just didnât get the opportunity?
Well didnât Rika say that Keiichi didnât get paranoid as easily? There are a few exceptions like Onikakushi she said.
Otherwise Iâm not sure. You could argue since heâs the newest person in the village he could be the most likely to be paranoid, though hmm.
Iâll admit that I have mixed feelings for Rika. Ryukishiâs second series is responsible for that. My reasons are spoilers for reasons if you must ask, then you already know you shouldnât unspoiler them for
My main issue with Rika is how the Bernkastel personality lies dormant within her. Granted, I certainly find Rika one of the sharpest characters in Higurashi and her subtle hints and foreboding are proof of this, but the one thing that doesnât sit right with me is that. I know thereâs a difference between Rika and Bernkastel, and people with a resolution for my dilemma will no doubt emphatically contradict this point, but the way I see it, Rikaâs devolution into Bernkastel is not a question of âifâ but âwhenâ. And as people mentioned, while itâs perfectly natural to be forced to manipulate people who wonât take you seriously due to your apparent age, itâs a fine line between Rika who does it to create a âperfect fragmentâ and Frederica who does it because she enjoys it. Also, based on the ending of Matsuribayashi-hen, Iâm increasingly believing that she actually had already drifted into the Frederica personality so much that Saikoroshi-hen in my opinion was not an accident but an intended future for Rika, so she may learn to âbe careful what she wishes forâ. Furthermore, the Rika that formerly existed in Saikoroshi-hen before Matsuribayashi-hen Rika entered her fragment is also, in my opinion, the Frederica Bernkastel personality solidified, in a 'perfect 'perfect world created for a perfect âRikaâ. Itâs kind of like Requiem of the Golden Witch in Umineko. Unfortunately, the âperfectâ Rika happened to be Bernkastel, and the Rika who would later inhabit that world would happily live there if the Hinamizawa disease did not exist. That both lived in conflicting worlds seems to me that it was âBernkastelâsâ way of telling âRikaâ that no world will ever wind up perfect for her, which ironically immortalises Bernkastel. This also bears a similarity to Requiem: Bernkastel essentially certifies that in no fragment can Yasu ever live beyond the Rokkenjima murders. It seems to me that the next âseriousâ or canon arc featuring Rika will show the transition to Bernkastel more directly.
Itâs a long post, I know, but to grossly summarise I am ambivalent about Rikaâs character. That said, Rika also happens to be one of my favourite characters from Higurashi given her unwavering faith in a miracle that will help her survive, and how she clings to hope constantly to avoid the tragedy of her fate finally culminating in her success satisfies all readers deep down, knowing that she has something of a future to look forward to.
I wonât comment on what Saikoroshi says about Rika seeing as I havenât seen/read it in a while and that of course isnât the canon Rika we know even if itâs a possible or even âperfect worldâ version of her. On to this, though: I actually want to write an essay about this down the line but I honestly donât know how much we can take the Bernkastel aspect of Rika as a moral judgement on her - Bernkastel is literally just the embodiment of 110+ years of horrific pain and trauma. Itâs not possible to be a remotely stable person after that. More importantly, Bernkastel has borne witness to such extreme violence and pain, the concepts arenât something she understands any more. (Umineko spoilers) [spoiler]I donât see her behaviour in Umineko the same way as that of a typical antagonist - for sure, she enjoys her role, but the whole reason sheâs so awful is because she stopped understanding pain at all such a long time ago (At the first time, I do my best to try again against the inevitable tragedy. In the second time, I become disgusted towards the inevitable tragedy. The third time, disgust is overwhelmed into painfulness. But by the seventh time, this all becomes a farce comedy.). Killing or torturing someone is nothing to her, compared to what sheâs been through and seen. Thereâs also the whole thing about boredom being able to kill her - indeed, itâs amazing Rika didnât become utterly catatonic in Higurashi - and for her, the clearest opposite to boredom and living in general is pain. I believe pain is all Bernkastel understands and knows, literally - she isnât living as Rika with Rikaâs love and compassion for her friends. So, pain is all she understands the world through, and is kind of all all she knows how to cause and experience. I say kind of because thereâs her relationship with Lambdadelta, but that honestly wasnât expanded on drastically and kind of fortifies my point because they largely communicate through hurting one another be it emotionally or physically.
Obivously none of this is a justification for her actions and I totally understand why people might hate her and that part of Rika, but I donât think Bernkastel can be evaluated morally in the same way as another character without her experiences. I truly donât believe she has the ability to understand what she does to other people the way they understand it as regular humans with a drastically smaller scope of experiences. I also donât personally take Bernkastel to be a real âthingâ so much as the embodiment of ideas such as trauma and depression, but thatâs another discussion.[/spoiler]
I wonder if she actually has lived for 100 years or if that is just a metaphor she and Hanyuu use? Maybe her spirit not being broken after so long is because her brain is mentally a childâs, I think virtually anyone else in her situation would give up. Sheâs definitely my favorite character ever, very flawed yet very cool. She must be one of the most morally upright characters to ever exist as well, considering she never lost any of her morals during this whole experience.