Higurashi: When They Cry - GOU

I watched several episodes of this because I'd heard "When They Cry" was a great anime series and I actually didn't realize that this wasn't that show but a remake. And I was really confused because what I saw was so bad and I thought, how could this be a classic?

I watched three episodes before I realized my mistake, then watched the original, which is notably better. While the first two episodes of this remake are all cutesy games and banter with almost none of the mystery and horror, the original got going by episode 2, and the card game in episode one was genuinely entertaining, unlike the more elaborate games of this sequel.

One of the big annoyances of this series is the nails-on-chalkboard voices of the girls. They are all painfully cutesy. In the original there was more variety, with Rena's cutsiness balanced out by Mion's dryer delivery. I wondered if it was just bad dubbing so I watched one episode with subtitles but they did the same thing in Japan.

The animation is also more straightforward and less wild, and I found that rather dull and conventional.

I will say that the third episode was mainly horror/mystery and was much better than the first two, but no way I could keep listening to those squeaky voices.

Even though I didn't ultimately *love* the original, which is intriguing and compelling but a bit too intense in places for me, it is certainly much better than this one.