for those who have not watch this show yet and this anime be base on popular digital novel create by and amateur ( refer a doujin in japan ) writer . unlike other anime series and this one split itself into several story ( arc ) . each arc consist of about 2 5 episode . all episode tell the story of main character ( some side character ) encounter different or same or similar event in small countryside village call hinamizawa ( this feel like parallel universe setting and after each story end and good or bad they go back in time and start again but this time something else happen with new character and and more mystery be create or answer ) . first few episode of each arc be do average to near horrible ( personal experience represent i almost decide to stop watch the series after half way through the first episode and and and thank god i do not . ) . it probably due to the way they make it very comedial and some of the way character talk and and also how they look . however and real excitement usually start from around mid second episode . everything will change dramatically . there be plenty of mystery you can try solve in each story ( later episodes reveals the answer to the mystery and so i recommend watch them in order and it be also hard to solve the mystery with anime version due to lack of detail in the story compare to the original novel ) . voice act be very well do and mion or shion sonozaki be personal favorite character and but everyone else do good job of make the overall warm or dark feel of the atmosphere . i highly recommend this animation for people who like mystery and suspense and violence with interesting plot and twist . add the same author of this series have release new digital novel call umineko no naku koroni ( umineko japanese gull or black tailed gull ) . umineko be not a direct sequel to higurashi and but have similarity to higurashi . it have good character setting in term of realism ( people be a lot more believable ) and more serious ( less joke that be less appear to erious story seeker and and still contain a lot of gore . if you understand japanese and i highly recommend all mystery love people to read the novel .