天下制覇

That’s… not what I had in mind. Where are the lolis?

Impressions:

We might have seen it coming before, but not like this. This is not a recap, and it definitely doesn’t feel like a first episode. Instead, it sets in stage a few pivotal questions that will be resolved in the next arcs, like “What did actually happen on the Great Hinamizawa Disaster?” or “How did Furude Rika predict her (and other people’s) death?”.

This episode is set almost 30 years after Akasaka’s visit at Hinamizawa. Basically, it is the animated version of a TIP from the visual novel (more on that later) called “Demon’s Script”, set roughly 22 years after the end of Tsumihoroboshi-hen (first season’s final arc), which relates how after all these years Akasaka and Ooshi are still trying to uncover the mystery behind the Great Hinamizawa Disaster (which we got a glimpse of at the end of Tatarigoroshi-hen, the third arc in the series). You might call it Tsumihoroboshi-hen’s epilogue, if you want. Still, there are a lot of differences between the original TIP and this episode, meant to serve as a bridge between the first season (which had lots of important plot points totally skipped) and this new season. The episode itself had lots of dialogue (about some unexplained mysteries in the previous arcs), which will confuse first-time viewers, so watching the first season before this one is strongly suggested mandatory. Also, aside from the old men talk, seeing Adult Rena was sooo worth it. It’s hard to believe that she is in her late thirties.

Overall the animation has leveled up a little bit, but it’s difficult to judge when all you are watching is background scenery (which never was a weak point on the first season) and old men talking nonstop (Yeah, I still can’t get over it). The background music is the same from the first season, so the feel of the show is practically the same. Also, this episode being mostly dialogue is perfectly understandable, since the first season left so many things unexplained. Not a solid step for a first episode, but it was a much-needed sidestep that had to be done sooner or later. And the sooner, the better.

Opening Video

Summary:

(Sorry for the late summary. Sh*t happened)

The show starts with two older men driving on a rural road. One of them talks about how it’s been almost thirty years since he last visited the town, and then introduces himself as Akasaka Mamoru, a detective at Tokyo Police Deparment. He talks about his visit to Hinamizawa in June 1978, and finally reaches an old rustic bus stop, where a very old man called Ooishi is waiting for him. Ooishi remarks about how it’s been quite a long time since they last met. Akasaka starts relating about how they first met, when Akasaka visited Hinamizawa undercover to investigate the kidnapping of a government Minister’s grandchild. Akasaka introduces his junior, Sawada (the one driving before) and Akasaka explains how Ooishi has been watching over Hinamizawa’s developments ever since visit was restricted years ago. After the introduction, they decide to go to the Onigafuchi marsh, which was laid dry sometime after an incident ocurred.

Akasaka mentions the site is considered a UFO landing site on the internet, and Akasaka mentions how Hinamizawa is famious in mystery-oriented boards. Akasaka then proceeds to talk about the incident that happened in June 1983, when the marsh was the source of a volcanic gas emission. That toxic gas completely wiped out all the villagers in one night. After the government declared a lockdown on the place, the marsh was laid dry. Sawada remarks that calling it a UFO landing site just because of that is not logical, but Akasaka says that according to the internet, sealing shut the marsh to stop future gas leaks would be pointless. According to the conspiracy theorist, the Hinamizawa disaster is a cover story made up by the government to uncover the truth, that truth being that the disaster was actually a biological attack by the aliens. Then he mentions “File #34”. While they leave the marsh, they visit the town only hospital, and Akasaka mentions how the file is a notebook was written by a nurse that worked on that hospital, called Takano Miyo. The name of the notebook is actually a pun on Takano’s name, since 34 is “Mi-yo” (Three-four). The notebook contained research and notes concerning the truth behind an old Hinamizawan legend. According to Takano’s research, a UFO landed on Hinamizawa years before and sank in the marsh. The UFO contained an unearthly parasite that contaminated all the villagers. Humans infected by it would go berserk and transform into demons. Takano theorized that when the Aliens discovered what was done to the villagers, they decided to show themselves, and thus Oyashiro-sama (Hinamizawa’s local god) descended. The aleins used their technology to cure the villagers, but they couldn’t fix them, so they used their status as religious idols to impose rules to the villagers in order to quarantine themselves and never spread the parasite.

After the explanation, Sawada ask how the theory is related to the disaster. Akasaka explains that the aliens were protected by the town’s three most important families, and were kept alive for years, being worshiped for generations in the Furude shrine. After some generations passed, the parasite went dormant and became harmless. Sooner after, the villagers started forgetting about this occurrence. Despite this, the three great families (called Gosanke) withheld the power of the aliens and controlled the village for many years. Since the effect of the parasite faded and the villagers stopped relying on the alien technology, the villagers started disobeying the Gosanke, so in order to regain their power the Gosanke startheir power and control over the villagers again.

Sawada remarks how this all looks like an argument coming from a crappy movie, and Akasaka remarks that while that is true, Takano mysteriously died in June 1983, and before dying, as if she knew that would happen, she intrusted the notebook and her will to a girl, who is known as Shoujo A. Shoujo A was Rena, who believed all that Takano had written, went crazy and took the school hostage to alert the authorities about the Gosanke’s biological experiments. The Great Hinamizawa Disaster occurred the day right after this incident, and while it might have been a coincidence, it was filled with strange occurrences, like drying the marsh for no reason, a lockdown that lasted for many years, and periodic bloodtests to the Goverment soldiers that were involved in the lockdown; which leds them to believe that those were human infection experiments. Even if such nutty claims are easily dismissed, there are other more surprising facts. Ooishi says that many claim that no volcanic emission happened during the disaster, that it was all a cover-up, since such a eruption should have left scars on the surrounding area, but nothing was affected. Sawada argues how all of that could be pure BS, including the existence of “File #34”, to which Akasaka replies by showing the original “File #34” right in front of him. Ooishi theorizes how all the alien talk by Takano has no basis, but the actual biological experiments led by the Gosanke could be true, all of this based upon how Takano was mysteriously assassinated.

Next stop is the Hinamizawa school, where they find Ryuuguu Rena (Shoujo A), probably in her late thirties. Ooishi inquires about the events, which Rena has told so many times before, but Ooishi specifically wants to know about her opinions regarding File #34: The Curse of Oyashiro-sama as a local disease, the virus/parasite/bacteria/whatever researched by the Gosanke, and the plans to spread it while promoting it as caused by Oyashiro-sama. Rena regards such stories as ridiculous, but admits that she did believed in them once and still doesn’t know how she came to believe in them and do such outrageous things as taking a whole school hostage. She says she had lots of family problems at the time and that might be the reason for her going crazy. She says she snapped out of it when Keiichi talked her out of that bad dream. Ooishi at first didn’t believe any of that, but the occurrences happening after that, like Irie (the town doctor) taking his life with poison, and Rika Furude’s dead body, and right in the morning all the village wiped out by sudden gas eruption cannot be a simple coincidence. Ooishi inquires about Rena’s hospitalization right after the event, she tells her that it’s alright to say what she really thinks about those incidents. Because of Rena’s doubts about spilling the beans, Ooishi presses even more, arguing that if they uncover the truth she could get her revenge for all her long dead friends. Rena snaps and says how she doesn’t know anything about it, how she doesn’t understand how it all came to happen. The only thing she recalls is Rika having a big secret, and while Mion (the next successor to the Sonozakis, the most powerful of the three families) probably didn’t have anything to do with aliens or biological research, Rika clearly had a connection with all the incidents.

Ooisih asks about this, and Rena takes them to our next location, the scrapyard (Rena’s favorite place back when she lived in Hinamizawa). In the following flashback, we learn how one night (probably before the school incident), Rika found her there while she was hiding from the supposed alien invasion. She was talking in an eerie voice and was holding a syringe, claiming that it would calm Rena down. Rena refuses to be injected, and Rika quickly drops the intent, saying that it won’t matter since “This world will perish soon anyways. I am no longer interested in this Hinamizawa. I will set out to search for the next Hinamizawa”. Rena claims that that person was not the lovely Rika-chan she knew, it was a completely different Furude Rika. Rena says how this aspect of Rika’s personality popped once in a while, and Akasaka remembers the time when he visited Hinamizawa and met Rika.

They go to the Furude’s shrine, the place where they found Rika dead. Akasaka remembers how that day, almost 30 years ago, a very eerie Rika predicted her death in June 1983. Akasaka is tormented because that was Rika’s one and only cry for help, and he did nothing to save her. Rena wishes she could go back to her Hinamizawa from before, enjoying her life with her friends. She has a flashback about how happy those past events were, and then we cut back to Rika’s corpse lying in the shrine (June 1983), and Rika’s words to Rena about dissing that Hinamizawa and going for the next one.