× • = bj0rN = • ×

Hi there I’m Xak, a friend of bj0rN, and I’ll be writing here now and then in the future. Some info about me: I’m a lazy bugger who’s 21 this year (which makes me the oldest writing here). And as to how lazy I am when it comes to writing this IRC excerpt says it all:

«&Xak» ok i finally went and watched higukai 1
«~bj0rN» LoL
«~bj0rN» MILF RENA FTW
«&Xak» nah
«&Xak» though nakahara mai seriously rocked
«&Xak» i want loli rena back
«~bj0rN» next episode
«~bj0rN» =D
«~bj0rN» in fact..
«~bj0rN» MOE
«&Xak» yeah
«&Xak» anyway i’ll write on it
«&Xak» higukai ep 1 is really good
«~bj0rN» WHEE
«~bj0rN» FINALLY!
«&Xak» op is good
«~bj0rN» like…
«~bj0rN» FINALLY UR WRITING

So I finally got off my fat ass and wrote this post on the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai OP. And then I promptly shelved it halfway until nearly 2 months later. ＿|￣|○

But I finally finished it and here it goes!

The OP is 奈落の花 (Naraku no Hana) by Shimamiya Eiko. She sang the OP for the first season, ひぐらしのなく頃に (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni) as well.

Disclaimer: I am TOTALLY a fan of this song right from the moment I heard it so my views are probably going to be on the extreme side of utter worship.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, lets go into the OP. The first thing that struck me when I heard the OP was how different it is from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. That OP seemed to be emphasizing on the mystery and horror aspects of the show, with the psychedelic flowers, bloody Rena licking blood off her hand, Shion’s emo face and Rena with the machete near the end. Comparing the first portion of the song the difference in focus is evident, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’s mysterious voices as compared to the quiet vocals filled with emotion.

For the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai OP, it starts out with a couple of chords from an electric guitar and the title of the episode “サイカイ”, erased by a flurry of white petals, followed by slow and soft vocals with just a little musical accompaniment. For this portion, the animation is mostly of Rika with her eyes closed and at peace, and Hanyuu to one side looking somewhat troubled or sad, and both of them are dressed in miko outfits. Meanwhile vines are slowly traversing the top and bottom of the screen, changing colour gradually, and white flower petals flutter here and there, now and then. In between lines we get snapshots of a lonely Rena, Keiichi with a determined look on his face, albeit somewhat sad, a pained Mion, and then right before the end of this section, Satoko and Shion, both with sad faces. The section ends with Rika opening her eyes. The lyrics for this section tend towards despair for the future, with phrases such as “forgetting the future” and lines about signs and about being soaked in blood again.

My thinking is that this reflects how in the first season there have already been 4 question arcs, so the summer cycle has already occurred 4 times, and only one could possibly considered even remotely successful, but even then the cycle restarted, and thus if one had the knowledge about these resets, if one had the memory of each reset, one might actually despair of breaking out of the cycle. Of course this one would be Furude Rika, who just so seems to be the focus of the OP, which leads me to guess that in this 2nd season she will be more in the limelight than Rena or Shion/Mion, who pretty much dominated the previous season between them. Further evidence for my gut feeling would be the appearance of Furude Hanyuu in the OP as well. Side-note: I only noticed they had the same surname when I was writing this post. ＿|￣|○

The next segment starts with Rika running as if chasing somebody or something, nearly stumbling at one point, and she is running on a surface just covered with water. At the last point she stretches out her arm as her momentum is arrested and her hair flies forward. The scene then switches to Rena partially in shadow, obviously not at peace with her hair blowing somewhat wildly in the wind and her hat skewed to one side. A close-up of her face shows that she’s tearing and hurting deeply as she swings her head left and right as if imploring someone not to leave. A series of stills featuring some recognisable and significant places and objects are shown next, consisting of a bloody machete, a torture room and a shrine. We then see see Shion (at least I guess it is Shion), with most of her body in shadow, her outline gradually turning into a mosaic. The scene then cross-fades to show the feet, and then the face, of who I think is Satoko, crying in the rain, a grimace on her face. The next scene change shows Rika picking up a crystal from the floor, the background filled with the light of sunrise/sunset. She first looks at the crystal with a sad expression, then turns to face directly into the camera. The scene then pans out to show the entire main cast (Satoko, Rena, Keiichi, Mion and Shion).

Looking at the lyrics for this segment, it first complements Rika’s running with lyrics regarding escaping and breaking free of a sad fate. The Rena sequence, with the phrase “you are not a flower of hell”, is a reference to the last arc of the first season where Rena was the character who distrusted the rest and went crazy, but she eventually saw sense in the end. The sequence of hot-spots and the shadowed Shion (I’m now leaning towards the character being Shion rather than Mion) is combined, with the phrases “not in that place” and “don’t bloom there”, is what I think is a reference to the arcs involving Shion, in which she was tortured and she (probably) killed Rika at the Furude Shrine. My thinking is that it is a plea for Shion’s distrust and hate not to develop, since that was the cause of one of the arcs in which only Keiichi survived. The Satoko segment scene has the lyrics “don’t get tangled up”, which I think would be a reference to how she never was the agitator, but her actions still got her involved with the incidents in many of the arcs. The next section with Rika and the crystal has mentions of “broken pieces of time”, which I suppose would be a direct reference to how in the first season the various arcs were shown to be separate iterations of the same summer. Rika was the only one who knew that the summer kept on repeating, so it would logically follow that she would have a role in picking up and fixing the “broken pieces of time”.

Now, the music for this large section is a great contrast to the first section. While the first section was slow in pace and reflective, the second is fast and active. But the emotion injected into the singing can be heard throughout the entire song. The first section mostly consisted of the vocals, with some minor percussion, a bass guitar playing simple chords and what sounds like an electric organ (I can’t recall what instrument it actually is at the moment) backing up the vocals. The second section saw drums and an electric guitar joining the chorus, with the vocals rising in volume. At the end of the second section comes the now-famous reversed ‘chant’ from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, the OP of the first season.

Now for my final thoughts on Naraku no Hana. The vocals filled with emotion, the bass guitar providing great depth to the song, along with almost all the characters shown in the OP shown to be sad or in pain, and the lyrics that often make allusions to past events of sadness and pain; these elements all combine in an exquisite OP that conveys to the viewer such a strong sense of sadness and pain. At the same time it also reminds the viewer of various memorable incidents from the first season, memories that are further reinforced with skillfully inserted allusions to those events, creating a holistic experience of deja vu for the viewer who has seen the first season. All in all, Naraku no Hana was very well brought off as the OP for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai and a promise of interesting story developments to come.

And now that I’ve finally finished the post I can keep my promise to myself and catch up with this series! And the reason why I finally finished this post is because the OP single album is released today!