That's Higurashi Onikakushi done. I loved it and I'm going to read the next part immediately. More thoughts under the fold, some are smoilers, so beware.
Going in, I only knew Higurashi as "the visual novel that one supposedly really violent anime from the 2000s is based on", so I knew that eventually things would get grim, but not the exact details of how and when and why. I also knew it was something at least one of my partners is really into, and that she described the VN as, at one point, "more stomach turning than the well-known-for-being-stomach-turning anime". Despite that she said Higurashi is very important to her, and since she's in the middle of reading Umineko for the first time, I figured now was a good time to dive in.
I read it as originally released--original sprites and artwork, no voice acting mod. What really stood out to me is despite the sprites being so cutesy and blobby and despite the backgrounds being photographs with filters applied, there were still moments that scared the shit out of me. And it all came down to the presentation.
When Keiichi learns that Hinamizawa, his new rural home, was once the site of a government funded dam project, and that its construction was so fiercely opposed by the residents that they killed the foreman and split his body into six pieces for six people to take separately, the colors invert and a brief song plays that I can only describe as "the feeling of your heart leaping into your throat out of fear, translated musically through erratic piano fluttering."
It's later revealed that this was the first in a string of murders that occurs every year on the day of a Hinamizawa festival called Watanagashi. One person is murdered, and one person vanishes completely, leaving no evidence. Keiichi is talking with an out-of-towner who visits Hinamizawa every year and a woman he's chummy with the night of the festival when he learns this crucial time table. Keiichi, losing composure, asks, if a dam foreman died on the first year, then who died on year two the day of the festival? And year three the day of the festival? And four?
"Keiichi-kun... that's today." And indeed that night, someone dies, and someone vanishes. "Onikakushi" means to get "spirited away by demons".
Later Keiichi learns through a police detective investigating the death and disappearance that his friends are involved with every previous death, and has reason to believe this latest death is no different.
There's a particular song in the soundtrack that is absolutely gut turning. It starts with what like a distant howl or horn blare being played in an empty room, a cold wind. And whenever it's used, it's used in tandem with either Keiichi Maebara realizing he's in danger or having learned something unsettling.
And of course, the sprites where the light leaves Rena or Mion's eyes. The first time the sprite of Rena looking at the viewer lifelessly is used comes 7 whole chapters in, after Keiichi accuses her of hiding something from him, to which she retorts with the same question. The usual sound of the cicadas chirping stops cold, tense music plays, and she stares at you with cold, lifeless eyes. After seeing Rena be a silly little airhead obsessed with taking "kyute" things home, this actually startled me to the point that I was startled awake by dreaming about it that night.
And then of course, moments later when Keiichi says he's not hiding anything, an even scarier face erupts from Rena, in which she screams "LIES!!!!", one of the only times Rena ever looks angry in the entire first part.
Keiichi is frightened by this moment and is fully aware he's in danger... but he decides to try and ignore it. Rena is his friend after all, maybe the violent outburst was just a misunderstanding and if he ignored it everything would go back to normal, right? Oh look, Rena and Mion came to check on him after he missed a day of school after being so terrified by his friends' behavior, and they brought homemade mochi too!
Oh one of them had a sewing needle in it.
Keiichi realizes his fantasy of just ignoring his friends' obvious connection to the deaths and going back to being their buddies is over, and things spiral downhill from there, until it's Keiichi's turn to die.
...I was hooked. It's every bit as good as I was lead to believe, if not better. I'm already starting the next part.