Between this and Gou, these are some of the strangest watching experiences I have ever had with an anime.

I watched Gou as it was airing, excited for a new Ryukishi work shortly after I'd read my now favorite visual novel, Umineko. With each passing episode I realized it wasn't just a simple remake of Higurashi as it was marketed, but a weird split between retread and new material, an indecisive mess that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be its own thing, or a "New" Higurashi. When Sotsu aired I didn't bother watching even a single episode, I didn't care, by the end of Gou I was so disappointed that I didn't see any value in continuing it. But then I kept hearing things about it as it aired- not good things, but interesting things, fascinating things, really fucking funny things! Over a year after Sotsu finished airing I watched it myself; I went in with 0 expectations, I already knew I hated Gou, and I knew Sotsu wasn't going to be any better, and because of those low expectations I loved it! Oh I still viewed it as an absolute garbage fire, one of the worst things I'd ever watched and certainly the worst thing I'd experienced with the 07th Expansion name attached to it, but it was a fun mess, a comedy of errors the whole way through. 1 year later I re-watched it with some friends, and while I think going in with slightly higher expectations for a comedy lessened the fun compared to a first viewing, I still enjoyed it, it was still just as much of a schlocky mess as I was hoping for. I'm writing this immediately after my 3rd viewing, this time with my partner, both of us are now well into adulthood, both have had somewhat troubled childhoods, but she in particular has had experiences that hit very close to home on the topics touched on by Higurashi. It's a very different experience watching something like this, a sequel to Higurashi, a story that so deftly handled it's coverage of extremely sensitive subjects, on a repeat viewing alongside someone severely affected by what this series originally aimed to shed light on, compared to a first viewing expecting nothing more than a comedically mishandled follow-up to one of my favorite stories in anime.

What I had initially viewed as a terrible, but nonetheless ironically enjoyable show, has turned into one of the worst, most infuriating things I have ever watched. I despise Higurashi Sotsu, there is not a single anime out there that simultaneously brings me as much genuine frustration and exhaustion as this trainwreck of a sequel does...

I could go on for hours about everything this show does wrong, every single little thing that annoys me and spits in the face of the entire message of Higurashi: Hinamizawa Syndrome effectively becoming an instant crazy mode switch, the complete lack of relevance of Satoko and Rika's entire friend group in the main plot, the laughably bad characterization of everyone, Satoko especially! But the only thing that makes me want to vomit out of pure anger is how poorly Teppei, and his relationship with Satoko is handled.

In the original Higurashi Teppei was an irredeemable piece of trash, a child-abuser so abhorrent and with so little humanization that he could only really work as a plot device to further the narrative. Gou/Sotsu sought to humanize Teppei and give him a redemption arc, and the best way the writers could think to do that was to make his personality do a complete 180 within minutes after seeing premonitions of his own death, immediately coming to the conclusion that the only way he could save himself was to return to Hinamizawa, move back in with Satoko Houjou, a small girl that he had brutally abused and traumatized years prior, become a nice, upstanding citizen overnight, and dedicate the rest of his life to blindly following anything, even the most ridiculous requests from said 11 year old child without even the slightest hesitation. At its best this is incredibly unrealistic, nobody, not even the most dedicated to reforming themselves can completely invert their personality and lifestyle overnight; and it really is basically overnight, Satoko herself even directly mentions near the end of one of the loops that she and Teppei had only been living together for 1 week. But it gets so, so much worse, an unrealistically fast depiction of someone reforming themselves I can live with, I may not love it, but as a single element in a greater story I could forgive it, what I could not forgive is the depiction of Satoko becoming the abuser, and Teppei the innocent victim in Sotsu. Satoko is a child, yes she is mentally much older due to looping, but both her and Rika, in the original Higurashi and even within this sequel, are depicted as children, not only visually, but they usually act like children, deal with the daily problems of children, and only have as much power and influence on their surroundings as a child typically would; Satoko is a child and one who suffered abuse at the hands of Teppei in fragments of the original story, and within the past of all timelines. Yet in Sotsu Teppei isn't abusive toward Satoko, it's flipped, Satoko, the previously abused, helpless child, constantly manipulates Teppei, the grown adult, by acting like a helpless, abused child while secretly being perfectly fine.

Child abuse scenarios don't exist! Any time a child has ever been taken out of custody of "abusive" adults it was all a ruse formulated by the horrible child purely to intentionally cause trouble for their innocent guardians! Okay, obviously I don't think that was actually the intended message of the whole Satoko and Teppei relationship in Sotsu, it was likely set up that way to make Teppei look nicer, and Satoko more like a witch, however it really does come off as that, and there are terrible people in the real world who do seriously believe that all child abuse is fake, it's not the greatest message to send, intentional or not. By contrast, Higurashi handles its equivalent arc near flawlessly, yes Teppei is cartoonishly evil, but the focus isn't put on him, it's put on Satoko and those around her, and it's a shockingly accurate depiction of a household plagued by abuse and the challenges of helping the victim escape. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt that the intended message by Sotsu was a chain of abuse, Teppei previously abused Satoko, and now Satoko has become the abuser, but it's handled so sloppily, and making Teppei, the origin point of that chain of abuse, the new victim only makes it look like that origin point never existed at all, and that Satoko is just evil in a vacuum. It's a classic case of trying to thread the needle on a sensitive topic and failing so miserably that it gives the exact opposite of the intended message, and it's a shameful way to follow-up such a careful depiction from its predecessor.

I do not think I will ever feel such visceral hatred for an anime as I do for Higurashi Sotsu.