On one hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi comes to a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There, he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the "club," Keiichi and the gang plays all sorts of activities ranging from card and board games to hide-and-seek. People will remember that THIS was how playing used to be before the advent of video games.

But just as Keiichi was beginning to be assimilated in simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa. Dam contruction project. Violent demonstrations. Kidnapping and extortion. ARM-AND-LEG DISMEMBERMENT MURDER. As Keiichi dives deeper into the mystery, he finds that his new found friends may not be all what they claim to be.

hm i dont know. so its just an anime about kids hangin out playin hide and seek and stuff? ll doesnt sound too interesting. and u said its cute? i prefer emotional over cute. to be honest i probably wont check this out at all lol well actually i might just to see maybe i will like it lol nice long title too

Lol...

hm i dont know. so its just an anime about kids hangin out playin hide and seek and stuff? ll doesnt sound too interesting. and u said its cute? i prefer emotional over cute. to be honest i probably wont check this out at all lol well actually i might just to see maybe i will like it lol nice long title too

Do you think he saw the rest of the summary?

#####, I didn't even catch the sarcasm either. Must've been ill.
checking this out immediately. ;D Sounds like its totally my bag, sadly. Urgh...Anyways thanks for the tip, Sonic. I'll edit this with some impressions later.

Haha, wow! I didn't catch that sarcasm, either! xDD
I'll try checking this out as soon as I get the chance, it sounds really interesting. Different from what I've been watching lately. ^^

Oh, ok. So I guess - since it came from a game (which I only know a little bit about, thanks to a bit of research) - that each arc is a scenario with the same plot, but something happens to make it different than the last scenario and our job is to figure out what changed the scenario? The more we figure out about that, the more we'll probably be able to piece together what's really going on (I get the feeling the anime isn't going to being conclusive about it). I guess the important part is to know what information is trustworthy and to pay attention to what stays the same and what you learn about the characters as the chapters progress. ^^; Maybe.

Is there a reason that every time you see something crazy happen, it's all from Keiichi's perspective? I hear that the game is all from his perspective - like the white van trying to run over him; you can't be sure if he's just imagining that it's trying to kill him or if he was just in the way, after all it does honk its horn. In the anime it tries to confuse you, I think, by making it all appear like it's in the 3rd person, but even with the van incident, when Keiichi sees the driver 'tsk' - it's all from his perspective.

Another odd thing - how is it that a girl as tiny as Rena manages to hold Keiichi against his will while they try to inject him with that syringe?

About the syringe I think it exists and based on my simple minded thinking, I thought that the guys who infiltrated his house found it and took it with them. But I somehow feel that its not as simple as that. >.<;;

Not a quote on quote translation, but something close to it. All the following are said through Mion's words at that scene:

1. Hinamizawa was formerly known as Onigafuchi

2. The residents of Onigafuchi believed strongly that they inherited demons' blood and considered themselves to be more noble than others

3. However, with the opening of Japan by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, the times in Japan changed dramatically. With the new Meiji government's policy of doing away with the old and introducing newer ideas for rapid modernization, Onigafuchi's name was changed to Hinamizawa.

4. As Japan sped through modernization, it extended its military might in the name of "rich country, strong military." Spanning military victories in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan entered into Pacific War (Pacific Front of WWII).

5*. By this time, Onigafuchi's reverence as a sacred village was in ruins. Villagers and residents from this area were frowned upon as hinin. Slanderous and unsubtantiated rumors about Onigafuchi being an isolated hamlet run by criminals and low-lives became the standard.

6*. People were discriminated for just being from Onigafuchi/Hinamizawa. Parents in the outlying areas told their children that residents of Hinamizawa have a disease. Kids who were touched by children of Hinamizawa cried and parents would actually put salt onto the area where he/she were touched.

7*. Adults would tell their children to never go to Hinamizawa as they would disappear as an Onikakushi, chopped up and eaten. They would tell unsubstantiated horror stories that residents of Hinamizawa lived through a famine in the past by eating human corpses.

8*. Such slanderous rumors did not end within childrens' world. Companies refused to hire people from Onigafuchi. Marriages were also broken; when it was found out that they married a person from Onigafuchi, the other family pressed for an immediate divorce.

[*5~8: These are typical of the burakumin problems that Japan faced/faces since the Meiji Restoration. Residents of blacklisted buraku areas faced/faces huge discrimination, ranging from unemployment and marriage for just being from a certain area. As this is a very sensitive issue, it might be one of the reasons why this section was not explained in the anime]

9. Even under the propaganda slogans of "defending this nation as one" during the war, people in Hinamizawa were still discrimated, despite contributing its residents to the war effort.

10. However, the war finally ended in 1945. Men who went off to war returned, but many did not. However, a bright future for Hinamizawa seemed to lie ahead as General MacArthur's GHQ began to implement a new constitution to get rid of social discrimination once and for all (under the Meiji constitution, discrimination was illegal de jure). Residents of Hinamizawa began to work hard to bring back the rich nature of their beloved homeland.

11. One of the persons who contributed much to redeveloping Hinamizawa and amassing immense wealth was Mion's grandfather, Sonozaki Souhei.

12. Souhei was a food and supplies warehouse manager in Harbin during the war. When the end of the war was announced, Souhei schemes with his fellow members and superiors to smuggle canned military food rations back to Japan. Once back in Japan, he made a fortune selling the smuggled canned foods.

13. But Souhei did not use his new found wealth to his own good. He gave all the money that he amassed to his wife, the head of the Sonozaki family.

14. "Let us rebuild Hinamizawa. All the villagers are family. This fortune shall be shared amongst everyone." said Mion's grandmother, Sonozaki Oryou. This is the main reason why Hinamizawa exists as today and why the Sonozaki family has great influence in this area.

15. Using the money, the villagers helped rebuild the stagnating economy of Hinamizawa. Those that succeeded in turn helped others with their new found wealth. The strong bond of Hinamizawa's residents were reinforced through this process.

16. But by the mid 1950s, a change in the wind took place once again. Suspicions and rumors of the "human canned meat" began to spread. Souhei's former superior officer broke out the shocking news that the canned meat that he sold were in fact, human meat. Because of this, the unfounded discrimination of residents of Hinamizawa as demons that devour on human flesh started to flare again.

17. Why would human meat be in canned foods? Wasn't Souhei just a manager of the supplies warehouse? According to his former superior, Souhei was really just a meager private who exterminated mice and got rid of human corpses - a job fit for a lowly social status coming from his residential records.

18. Souhei would later be transferred as a corpse handler to a certain medical unit of the military. But that unit was a dark area of the military whose staff were doing things that were more inhumane that the unfounded rumors of Onigafuchi.

19. People would know this military unit as Unit 731 - the inhumane medical experimentations on human test subjects to create biological weapons. How obnoxious these military people are - they look down upon a resident of Onigafuchi/Hinamizawa just on baseless rumors and bottom-out-of-sight social economic status when they themselves are doing things that are far worse and horrific.

20. Souhei was transferred to a division within that unit where they were studying how to obtain much needed food for its militarymen. Japan was facing a huge problem during the war in providing its servicemen food in their frontlines. Malnutrition lead to loss of concentration and body mechanisms to fight off diseases. The morale to keep on fighting was also in danger. Hence, this division was given the order to find a way to obtain food in the battlefield. At first they studied stealing from locals and creating survival kits on plants and animals of that region. However, they soon lost sight and opened the door of the unthinkable.

21. What is the most readily available source of protein in the battlefield? Yes, you thought right - human corpses. Bodies of the enemy or our own servicemen, it didn't matter. They believed that its servicemen should eat whatever that is available to live out this war. Mion's grandfather would despise them. These men frowned upon him with baseless slanders of coming from a village that ate human corpses. Yet, these men were the ones that went further. "So what if they call me a corpse-eating demon? These men were the real demons. I don't feel subjugated on no matter what they say." said Mion's grandfather.

22. Several samples were made. But these scientists dared not to try out themselves. So they sent some to the front under the name of "alternative meat." The scientists stamped a logo "circle-alt" on these cans so they don't mistakenly eat them themselves. But the servicemen at the fronts loved it.

23. Did Souhei really sell canned foods that were made by human meat? No one knows precisely. Souhei himself denied it firmly to the end. But there were many who were jealous of Hinamizawa's road to rebuilding it's economy. They called us people who were living off of the wealth made by selling human corpses. Once again, Hinamizawa was back to where it was - being discriminated by everyone.

24. Kids of Hinamizawa were once again thrown stones by other children. That's when Mion' grandmother stepped in. She told the children, "if one child throws a stone at you, throw back with two. If two kids throw stones at you, get back at them with four. If eight kids come after you with sticks, you thwart them off with sixteen. If slandered by thirty, you yell back with sixty. And if a thousand tries to get us, we all come out as residents of Hinamizawa." Sonozaki Oryou stepped up as a leader of Hinamizawa.

25. Residents of Hinamizawa formed a strong bond to look after each other. If a child was bullied, they went to the bully's house. If an adult was discriminated, everyone, young and old, went out to voice their opinion. "Piss off a member of Hinamizawa, you're gonna get into deep #####." That was the thought process behind it. That is the exact reason why Kei was saved by the residents of Hinamizawa who ganged up on those three delinquents.

26 onward: as you saw in the anime




This explanation itselves are quite long (as well as touching several sensitive issues). Hence, the Mion's explanation of Hinamizawa's past was rather shortened to demons of Onigafuchi being bullied by others.

I think the opening of this arc was the end to the last arc, and the opening of the last arc is the end to this arc.

anosa...erm..Is there anime 1st or the game 1st..I had tried very hard to find it game(see it in wikipedia).But still,I can't find it.Hope somebody can tell me where to get it> Oh and also ,I cant understand well what happen in the second story which Mion-san kill Maebara-kun.Can someone explain it to me? Thanks for your help.

I got to say that arc OWNED xDD.