{Lighty Lively}

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Episode 26: Tsumihoroboshi Chapter Five - Retake

September 30, 2006 on 3:20 am | In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Anime Review | Synthroid Without Prescription Inderal No Prescription Nexium For Sale Prevacid Generic Buy Elimite Online Prevacid Without Prescription Ultram No Prescription Prevacid For Sale Ultram Generic Buy Prednisone Online

Summary Pure Impression

A minute into the episode and Rena reappears at the school…and promptly holds a loli hostage. The final episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is off to a good start.

Rena kicks everyone out the school except for her classmates, which she ties up with a lot of jump ropes. Keiichi gets the honor of sitting like an arrested teenager. How does one girl with her cleaver stuck in the teacher’s podium manage to overpower a lot of kiddies? Keiichi, here’s your chance to seize the cleaver and beat some sense into Rena.
But no, Rena walks over and hands the phone to Keiichi. Officer Delicious is on the other end, attempting to befriend another unsuspecting person.

Rena takes the phone back before Oishi can tell Keiichi the latest chapter of the Oishi X Akasaka saga. She scratches her neck again but only white maggots of delusion crawl out this time. Does this mean Rena has lost her blood supply to the neck?
Oishi wants Takano’s latest Saito X Siesta fanfiction, so Rena sends it out with Keiichi. Keiichi gives the scrapbook to Oishi and receives a short note, a wiretap ear piece, and something that suspiciously resemble a mini-bottle of hair spritz in return. Of course, Keiichi, being the nakama he is, doesn’t even try to make a run for it outside of the school building. If anything, he’s ready to use the hair spritz on himself…in hopes that Rena would be distracted by his beautiful, voluminous hair.
Keiichi returns to the classroom in time to catch Rena repainting the place with diluted ketchup gasoline. Nowadays, this waste of flammable fluid is enough to make a grown man cry. Rena doesn’t care, though, since she probably got it all either from her van-home in the junkyard or from producing biodiesel with junkyard materials.

The police finds Rena’s love note in Takano’s scrapbook. It details Rena’s indecision between setting everyone on fire or blowing up the school as a good way to die.
Inside the classroom, Rena starts beating Mion with the handle of her cleaver and causes Keiichi to break out in his Manly Tears of Why?!? again. What turns out to be more effective in stopping Rena’s violence spree, though, is another phone call from Oishi.
There’s no gasoline on the floor.

While Oishi points out the finer details of the methods of writing eloquent love letters to Rena, the ear piece buzzes in Keiichi’s pocket. He pops it into his ear and Kuma-chan informs him of a bomb in addition to the BBQ grill that Rena has prepared to turn the classroom into. Keiichi realizes that his lifelong dream of disarming a bomb, a la Bond, has come true. Satoko and Rika offer to join in on the mission, as long as they get to set traps.
The gasoline is still nowhere to be seen.

Keiichi gets excused out of the classroom because of a strange sound. Uh-oh, he’s getting the Shion Syndrome. And of course, he’s not going to the bathroom, either… Instead he starts searching for the bomb and lo’ and behold, finds a suspiciously long cable on the ground. Keiichi follows the cable through several rooms until it stops at the back of a table clock/timer. He picks it up and realizes something wrong with it, possibly, “Wasn’t this on sale last week at Target?”, or “I could use one.”
The timer turns out to a decoy. All those doors that Keiichi opened and closed, plus him running around a very small school, has Rena trailing behind him. She’s angry that he betrayed her trust again and threatens to cleave him alive, but Rika comes dashing into the room and tackling Rena in the nick of time.
p = mv
Complete inelastic collision! (Both girls fall together onto the floor)
…How did Rika get out of the jump rope restraints?

Rika’s WWE tackle knocks Rena’s lighter away and Keiichi picks it up, happy that he just got another one for his collection. Rika urges Keiichi to go to Satoko while she holds off Rena. Keiichi reluctantly leaves.
Rena taunts Rika about her getting killed, but Rika’s Oyashiro Mode has activated and she utters her infamous line, “I’ll play with you. Come at me, CleaverGirl!” Maybe Rika will have better luck with Rena than she did with Shion…but no, she doesn’t have her syringe! What does Rika have to fight against a cleaver-swinging, paranoid girl, then?
Keiichi confers with Satoko, who has gotten out of her jump ropes, too, in the hallway. They figure out that the real timer of the bomb is located on the school rooftop. As a reward, Keiichi pets Satoko like a small animal. Before he can make a mad dash for the classic rooftop scene, Satoko throws Satoshi’s bat to him. Satoko sees a likeness to her Niinii in Keiichi and realizes that, given Keiichi’s athletic abilities, he is far more likely to fall off the roof, knock himself out with the bat, or both, than anything else.

To reach the rooftop, Keiichi smashes a window that he probably has to pay for when the ordeal ends. He sees the timer at the edge of the roof with seconds left until explosion at 7pm, so he slides into home the off switch. When the dust settles, Keiichi finds that he stopped the bomb from going off with, of course, one second to spare. He laughs maniacally at his accomplishment and his classmates take it as an all-clear signal to crawl out the classroom window. All of them are already untied… So they were waiting in the classroom all this time for the bomb to be disarmed? Shouldn’t they have ran away from the school building the moment they got themselves free?
Surprisingly, Mion is doing fine, even after those blows to the forehead. Perhaps her skull has thickened after all those abuse from Shion and/or Onibaba.
Back on the rooftop, Rena has caught up with Keiichi. Now Keiichi has three ways to die: by accidental fall, by suicide, or by cleaver. He decides to stay on the roof, since Rena is his nakama and he can always jump to his death when all else fails. Rena attacks Keiichi and he parries her, causing a flash of fireworks between the cleaver and the bat. Is a (metal) bat really that strong?

Keiichi and Rena exchange more blows while their classmates cheer Keiichi on and Mion mulls over the profitability and publicity of a bat/cleaver duel in the future Watanagashi Festival. Rika finally exits the school building and collapses. How did she live through Oyashiro Mode Rena w/Cleaver?
After at least a dozen clashes, Keiichi and Rena are still going strong on the roof. Rena has Oyashiro Mode powering her and Keiichi has the prospect of having Rena treating him in a maid-master relationship motivating him. The two pauses briefly to reminisce about the good ol’ days when they dueled with water pistols and Keiichi ups the ante by telling Rena that if he wins, Rena has to publicly say, “He is my master.” If Rena wins, Keiichi will believe in anything she says…aliens, parasites, all of the supernatural Takano stuff. Rena agrees and the two run toward each other in their final exchange…
And Rena wins. No “Goshujin-sama” for Keiichi.
What are Officer Delicious and the police doing during all this while?

As Rena is about to deliver the final blow, she snaps out of her paranoia and starts crying about “where did all of those days of fun and happiness go”. Keiichi is overjoyed to see that he is going to live to a ripe, old age after all (until the Great Hinamizawa Disaster strikes) and embraces Rena.
The police and their classmates are still watching from below. Officer Oishi wonders how many things Rena can be charged with now (running away from home, evasion of arrest, holding a dozen people hostage, multiple attempts of homicide, etc).
Rika weeps shining tears of relief for the prevention of the tragedy in this universe…right?

Epilogue

The village of Hinamizawa. Population: Approximately 2,000.
Life seems to go on as usual for Keiichi and his friends in their club activity…until the animation artist decided to draw them into really horrible-looking and disfigured cartoons. Rika gets put on the same hot seat as Keiichi and Rena in Oishi’s car. He inquires her about Crappy Photographer Tomitake and she enters Oyashiro Mode. The cycle of rebirth goes on…

Impressions

Instead of ‘emo facial distortions’, this is just plain bad animation.