Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Now this show, has got to be one of the best cartoons that Japan had to offer. To think of the plot, think of Happy Tree Friends meeting Pokemon. In the show, a boy named Keiichi, moves to the town of Hiniwazama. There he meets these girls, and they start acting rather strange. On a day that is called the Day of Cotton (I presume), one person is brutally murdered, and one is spirited away by "demons." They believe that their local god was responsible for this, and believed that he was judging them. Now the plot, is kind of a mind screw, but somehow, a loop occurs over and over, and the characters enter another world after they had failed in one. In season two, it was explained that the villain was a nurse named Takano Miyo (whom I despise) who was trying to kill Rika, to see if the village would fall with her, and become God (OF COURSE!). And it was also revealed that there was a disease called the Hiniwazama Syndrome, that made all the characters crazy, and Miyo used the disease to kill off her villagers. Despite it being dark, it was rather enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend it to children though, unless they watch it with their parents.

Once upon a time, a young man who had grown to love those about him began noticing things; little things at that, and too many little things. He was then to die, and he did. Suddenly it began again. The young man was alive and he loved those about him; and they loved him. With each of the chapters, little more is revealed of why there are murders which occur during each 'Watanagashi Fesitval', however, with each chapter, more IS revealed through our ignorant Keiichi (our unlucky-as-all-hell protagonist who is to experience this all). Every chapter begins fresh, with time having seemed to rewind it's self and Keiichi having no memory of having suffered; as do also most every other of the characters.Each chapter can be divided as beginning simple and very humorous (Rena, the secondary character, has an obsession towards cute things and finds garbage and the like as such), and this will contrast with it's inevitable climax (that tends to be extreme in that some or most of the character die, and in brutal ways). The transition between points A and B is very organic and unclean, in that it never seems too 'planned out'.The characters become very interesting through this transition. Again, the character of Rena begins cute and innocent (moe urges growing!) though she is not without her 'moments' during point B. The character of Keiichi changes also. During each 'begining', he is 'simple', and during point B, he is then already paranoid towards every of the supporting cast. This change only adds to the suspense which builds it's self gradually. This show is perfect, in that it masters what even most films try and cannot: the ability over an audience's fear, and it uses little gore so to do this (though that's not to say that it's without such 'scenes'). Watch this show and enjoy it's intro sequence (which I think captures the exact feel of the show it self).The only thing negative I can say about this show is that it's English voice cast is weak, or course, and that it's animation dose not transition with it's subject matter (it's too cute during point B, but I'm just complaining for the sake of complaining about something). 10/10

For those who doesn't know about Higurashi. Three points: (1) Higurashi has 50 episodes in total. Second half (24 episodes) are called "Higurashi no nakukoroni Kai". "Kai" means "Answer to mystery". You won't get answer and you won't understand the whole story until you watch "Kai" part. (2) Style is somewhat similar to US drama "Lost". You will keep wondering if bizarre phenomenon will be explained by science and logic, or by pure fantasy. (3) If you don't know about Anime, you may think some part are very childish, silly or weird. There are many "Moe" elements in this anime, which are prevalent in current anime. Maid dress, multiple very young female characters with one central male character, are typical "Moe" elements, and you should just ignore them and they shouldn't distract you from concentrating on the main story. What's new about Higurashi is the combination of "Moe" and horror, not unlike "Elfen Lied" which combined "Moe" and Science fiction. But "Moe" part may be just annoying for those who like serious drama.

For those who have not watched this show yet, this anime is based on popular digital novel created by and amateur (refered as 'Doujin' in Japan)writer.Unlike other anime series, this one splits itself into several stories(arcs). Each arc consists of about 2-5 episodes. All episodes tells the story of main characters(some side characters) encountering different/same/similar events in small countryside village called 'Hinamizawa' (This feels like parallel universe setting, after each story ends, good or bad they go back in time and start again but this time something else happens with new characters, and more mysteries are created or answered).First few episode of each arc are done average to near horrible (Personal Experience: I almost decided to stop watching the series after half way through the first episode,,,thank god I didn't!). It's probably due to the way they made it very 'comedial' and some of the ways characters talk, and also how they look.However, real excitement usually starts from around mid-second episode. Everything will change dramatically! There are plenty of mystery you can try solve in each story (Later episodes reveals the answers to the mystery, so I recommend watching them in order, it is also hard to solve the mystery with anime version due to lack of details in the story compared to the original novel).Voice acting is very well done, Mion/Shion Sonozaki are personal favorite characters, but everyone else does good job of making the overall warm/dark feel of the atmosphere!I highly recommend this animation for people who likes mystery, suspense, violence with interesting plots and twists.*Added - The same author of this series has released new digital novel called 'Umineko no naku koroni (Umineko - Japanese Gull/Black tailed gull)'. 'Umineko' is not a direct sequel to 'higurashi', but has similarity to higurashi. It has better character settings in term of 'realism' (People are a lot more believable), more serious (less jokes that was less appearing to 'serious story' seekers, and still contains a lot of gore. If you understand Japanese, I highly recommend all mystery loving people to read the novel!