I discover 07th Expansion from a Higurashi DVD my sister’s friend lend her (which I ended up watching alone) and I fell in love…with the violence and sheer insanity. I didn’t think much and a few years passed, I forgot the title but I still remember sometimes, when I stumbled upon “sound novel” in Wikipedia, which mentions 07th Expansion. That was when I realized the title is Higurashi and it was a game. I started reading the manga, watch anime, incredibly loved it and went to Umineko. That was my downfall to this hell.
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Let me think… it was early 2008… but I saw someone I watched on Deviantart upload a fanart of Rena and I was like “is she from an anime omg!” and that’s when I found out about the Higurashi anime AND the VN at the same time (the person I knew was a fan of both so she told me about it all!)
From there I watched the anime since I didn’t know anything about VNs at the time… then it was as the Kai anime fansubs came out I watched Kai too and I was just in love with the series. I ended up reading analyses about the VN before I eventually bought it digitally from Mangagamer! 
I think I actually read and finished Higanbana before I ever finished the first half of the Higurashi VN tho… I’m a super slow VN reader, I admit. It took me probably 2 years to read all of Higurashi. ANYWAY yeah I branched and found all the other series by 07th after I dove headfirst into Higurashi, and my life has been taken over since.
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It’s quite the story. I was writing Ace Attorney fan cases when I fell into a rut and needed some inspiration. I went on vndb to find mystery visual novels and Umineko was at the top of the list of recommended. My initial impressions from the screenshots were not good, but after I downloaded it, legitimately of course ^_^’, I stumbled onto the PS3 patches which was a huge help. After that I soaked in and submerged myself, it was quite an adventure. Coincidently at the same time, there was a, now defunct, server on Attorney Online that was Umineko based where the people there became good friends of mine and helped me get into things. The community was so kind to me that after finishing the VN and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided to make the Umineko Online fangame for that community. Over the past years I’ve watched the Higurashi anime, am looking forward to getting into the VN one day, and have peaked my interest with all the other 07th Expansion stuff I’ve seen.
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This music video: (Late higurashi Spoilers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lirLSry_rhg
I was super stressed about mid-year exams in my final year of highschool and a friend of mine shared me some music to cheer me up, off one of the recommended videos I found this beautiful piece of music. I loved it so much that I wanted to see where it came from, watched my first first anime series ‘Higurashi’ and I was blown away by the mystery and the themes, themes of friendship which I had long written off as ‘tacky’ yet somehow Higurashi did them right.It did something which I hadn’t thought possible, and down the rabbit hole I went.
I went on to explore the series through a play which depicted the climax of Onikakushi-hen as an inner monologue starring Keiichi (me) and was a little character deconstruction, fun stuff. This in turn led to my love of acting and TTRPGs, so Higurashi has a special place in my heart. I genuinely believe the story changed my life for the better.
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I was 14, I think, and my first year of high school was coming to an end. A friend of mine had gotten me into anime earlier that year, and I wanted to go deeper, so I decided that I wanted to get into Visual Novels. Katawa Shoujo was recommended to me, and I think I played one or two routes, but I wasn’t too into it and was mostly doing it for a friend. I decided I wanted something more out there, and was looking up some of the most highly recommended VNs. I saw a screenshot from the PS3 patch of Umineko Chiru, and I thought, “wow this looks just like Ace Attorney.” …I was kinda dumb, but the screenshot was of the EP5 climax and it had the ADV dialogue box and the Red Truth, so I assumed it would have gameplay and be like Ace Attorney too.
I did some further research and found out Umineko was a sequel to a game called Higurashi, which I got my hands on immediately. I played the original MangaGamer translation and loved every second of it. (I still get nostalgic for the MG OST every once and a while, although I think the Steam version is superior.) I would play an arc of Higurashi, and then watch the equivalent anime episodes afterwards… it wasn’t a bad way to spend a summer. I don’t think I even finished Higurashi before I started Umineko, I was just too eager. Now, four or five years later, I’m still as obsessed as I was on day one.
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I had the worst possible introduction. That was the Umineko anime, I somehow saw some potential in it and kept on watching. Someone in the comments mentioned how this and Higurashi had the same author and Higurashi was far better and well that is how I’ve been led to this.
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I’ve discovered 07thExpension on talking with some friends on twitter, they advised me to read " Le Sangglot des cigales " ( The French traduction of Higurashi ), And Higurashi completely transported me and changed me on many points in my life.
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Technically, the contexto anime was my exposure but never pursued the visual novel. It was with the umineko anime that made me continue. I kept seeing that “The VN is better.” I was curious so I bought the VN import. After finishing 1-4. I immediately bought Chiru. Fell in love with Umineko the most. Rose Gun Days was next and that’s where I am now
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*Higurashi anime. Jesus that autocorrect
The Umineko anime.
I know, I’m horrible.
i remember it being such a mess that my friends and I would laugh about all the time for not being competent at all. It’s funny how bad it is.
Later, I heard that the VN was better. I figured that was probably true, but never read it. Then one day, the Umineko VN appears on Steam at a time while I had happened to be sitting on a considerable entertainment budget, and I decided to go for it.
Did not expect a 10/10 masterpiece. But I sure am glad it happened, because that lead me to the wonderful Higurashi, too.
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I am glad you were willing to give the Umineko VN a chance after that anime. I know people, who even as fans of Higurashi (anime admittedly, not VN or manga) wont touch Umineko in any capacity now. In that capacity the Umineko is possibly the truest tragedy of the series.
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