Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Spinoff

Here's the first of the reviews I said I would do! Enjoy!

Now I love Higurashi, it's got mysterious and dark, nice characters and effective contrast between happy and scary. The spin off however... Not so much....

The spin off, whatever it was called, is quite a bit different from the rest of the series. First of most of the original characters aren't even in it and those who are aren't a central part of the plot. This is not a problem by itself but it requires the Author of the spin off to come up with and develop their own set of likable and sympathetic characters so the audience cares. This spin off did not do that.

It seems like too much effort was put into making the female main character the average girl that her actual personality was completely forgotten in an attempt to make the audience relate to her more. I have no idea if this works for the average girl since I am sure I am not average but since Higurashi is Seinen, aimed at men in their twenties, I doubt it was such a good idea.

No, actually, scratch that. The original higurashi was seinen, the latest spin off is definitely shojo. The art style makes it look like Tokyo Mew Mew and suddenly a classic shojo romance with prince charming and bland school girl takes a central place in the plot. Prince Charming, of course has got no personality besides being her boyfriend.

Is that Momoiya Ichigos twin sister? No, it's Higurashi, can't you tell?

To anyone who's read or heard about Higurashi a shojo romance might sound strange since Higurashi is usually dark and bloody and people murder each other. It is strange, very strange. It's a badly blended mix between a shojo romance and murder mystery where on one page Bland Girl is on a date with Bland Boy and on the next one Bland Girls grandmother is drowning puppies in the bath tub. Oops, spoiler.

Oh well, I am making this sound worse than it is. It's actually pretty decent and the dark parts are still entertaining even though there's boring shojo drama in between them and the characters are bland. Compared to the rest of Higurashi it's trash but for a shojo horror manga it's actually pretty good.