A manga review of Higurashi: Curse Killing Arc by Ryukishi07 and Jiro Suzuki.
Higurashi: Curse Killing Arc by Ryukishi07 and Jiro Suzuki is another story in the Higurashi manga series. In this story, Maebara is finding out the story of one of the younger girls and their life in Hinimizawa from before he came to the town.
During his time at Hinimizawa, Maebara, the only male in the picture, becomes close to a whole group of girls, as pictured above. In this curse killing chapter he becomes particularly close to Satoko, the little girl front left with yellow hair, as a brother figure and finds out that her real brother Satoshi had disappeared a while ago and had left without saying goodbye to poor Satoko.
Maebara learns about Satoko’s life, she lived with her mum, dad and brother, when the dam construction site was happening they did not do anything to stop it, and during the cotton drifting festival Satoko’s parents died under mysterious circumstances.
Satoko and her brother Satoshi had to go and live with their uncle and had a miserable time because he mentally abused them both by calling them names and making them feel stupid, he also made them do all the hard labour even though they were just kids. Luckily her uncle decided to leave Hinamizawa and Satoko is free to live with her friend Rika and then she and Maebara meet and have happy times together.
Maebara feels angry about what had happened in the past, so he vows to look after Satoko no matter what and to protect her, so when Satoko’s uncle returns what is going to do?
It’s a very sad story because there is not much Maebara and his friends can do, they can’t take the law into their own hands and they all feel powerless to stop Satoko’s uncle as he start abusing her again. Maebara decides to do something about Satoko’s uncle and he soon finds that he might be more powerful then he first thought.
Again there is Oyashiro-Sama’s curse floating about, and there is a twist to the detective character who was portrayed as helpful in the previous stories but he turns into a nasty cop in this one. You also see more of the doctor who tells Maebara about Satoko’s life and that wants to look after Satoko by adopting her but can’t because he needs to be in a relationship and sadly is not in the story.
This is more of a psychological thriller with a supernatural twist included. If you’ve read the other stories, like the demon arc, the cotton drifting arc, the time arc then of course you have to read this arc as well otherwise you would not be able to find out what the special key things are (of course I still have no idea but by writing these blogs I seem to find more connections and theories as to what the real story of Higurashi is about).
Happy reading!
