When They Cry again, part 0
Higurashi: When They Cry is an enjoyable series of mystery visual novels. Although it has some weaker entries, a few standout arcs push the series towards greatness. Unfortunately, what should be the exciting climax of the story just becomes a chore in explaining away plot holes and incongruencies which have been building up arc to arc.
Kuroneko Byouinzaka’s Broken-World Lecture
Our Broken World (Sekai Series vol. 1) is the kind of novel which believes that If the master of the manor is found dead in the second chapter, there must be a rifle hidden somewhere in the first chapter.
Four days plus change of When they Cry, End
The final post of my Higurashi readathon. With the Questions before us, time to theorise an Answer.
Four days plus change of When they Cry, part 4
Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. Keiichi Maebara! You are the culprit! Higurashi races towards an exciting mid-story climax.
Four days plus change of When they Cry, part 3
Chapter 3 of Higurashi is not a wholesale break with what has come before by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make a pretty decent departure from the status quo.
Four days plus change of When they Cry, part 2
Higurashi has shown a real talent for giving its characters interesting things to do. The kinds of things which seem to effortlessly bring out the best in these characters.
Four days plus change of When they Cry, part 1
Both of the major entries in the When they Cry franchise, Higurashi and Umineko, have been on my radar for a while. And so, I am going to read Higurashi.
Loups-Garous and the mythology of domestication
Natsuhiko Kyougoku’s Loups-Garous is a thrilling blend of traditional Japanese storytelling forms with modern genre sensibilities. It is my pick for book of the year for 2020.
An abridged stylistic history of Japanese mystery fiction
All human stories have two eternal subjects: sex and violence. These, combined with the two primordial genres of Ancient Greek theatre, grant us a basic vocabulary with which we can categorise some of the “raw material” which makes up basic storytelling — all human societies create stories about romance, tragedy, war, comedy, and crime.
The crisis of straightness
Intimacy is on the sharp decline among other-sex attracted persons, but not same-sex attracted persons. The fundamental assumption held for generation upon generation that men and women have an unmovable need to have sex with one another is being rapidly exposed as too simplistic.
