Anime and Manga suggestions.

[Roz~]

I finally decided to finish watching Higurashi no naku koro ni. It was so good ;~;
Recently I watched Sword Art Online. I thought it was pretty interesting, although at one point it got kinda boring (2 episodes in particular ugh)
Also anyone here watched Oda Nobuna no Yabou? I was told to watch it, but eh... I don't know.

[Jompa]

FINALLY someone else who's seen Higurashi!!! You did watch the second season too right?

[Yugi]

Wasn't Higurashi a visual novel?

[Jompa]

Yes, but it's been adapted into an incredible anime.

[Roz~]

No, not yet! I didn't really have any time to do anything this semester, but I'm planning on watching it during the holidays. I can't wait to watch it, season 2 looks pretty good!

[Jompa]

Ehm, actually, you haven't even gotten to the good part, then.
Season 1 is where your sense of what's real, and what's fiction really gets challenged, and you're sitting there biting your finger nails off out of curiosity. We get some aswers to some degree, but this is pretty much the mystery part of the show.
But season 2 is where we really get to see what's going on, and we're now biting our finger nails off in excitement over all the epic fighting and mystery solving we get to see. Every single little loose thread from season 1 is unveiled, like even why the lights suddenly went off when Keiichi started killing people in the first arch, or why Rena's steph-mother only showed up in one specific arch and not in the others.
Season 2 is definitely the most thrilling - and that's saying something!! And there are sooo many tear-moments!!!! I am soo gonna watch it again, which'll be the fourth time.
So yeah, WATCH IT!!!!!!!! it's sooo great :'D

[Mashi]

I agree, Season 2 was a lot better in my eyes.  Season 1 felt like a lot of senseless murder, but Season 2 added a fair degree of plot to it all.

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Bernkastel is best character.

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[Jompa]

it was by no means senseless murder,

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it was like the main thing about the curse (you know what I mean by curse).

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But it sure feels that way before you've seen the second season!

Have you seen Umineko Mashi? (as you mentioned Bernkastel)

[Mashi]

Spoiler

The murders were senseless regardless of explanation.  You don't show a collage of each and every murder someone commits to 'prove' that a murderer murdered 200 people or elicit sympathy or sadness.  Most of the murder scenes in Season 1 were gratuitous and reflected poor writing in my eyes.  The audience doesn't know the explanation for these murders, so to even keep interest until Season 2 when explanations are finally made just reflects a poor taste if no foreknowledge is there.  This isn't a case like Silence of the Lambs where there's a clear motive for the scenes.  Without Season 2, Season 1 is literally senseless murder.  With it, if not senseless, Season 1 is at least gratuitous.  I frankly cannot understand what the directors were trying to convey with it, the pathos was there without an entire Season devoted to it.

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[Jompa]

Spoiler

No but it's the "curse" that is what it's all about - not sympathy or sadness. the "collage"-deal is more of a medium of presenting the conflict of the series, the mystery about

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The Hinamizawa Syndrome, and how there are people behind the scenes (Tokyo, and Takano's people) plotting greater schemes.

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It was a great, and extreme way of presenting the seriously of the conflict. It would be really lame if all the curse did was making people have nightmares or drawing on each other or something.
I don't agree one bit with you saying that the pathos would be there without a season devoted to it - I think it is because of this that Higurashi is gold
It made great horror too - I've met people who only started watching it for the horror, and that's completely gone in season 2

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[Mashi]

Spoiler

It doesn't matter about the syndrome (and it would be absolutely ridiculous for the target audience to view Season 1 without any emotional response whatsoever).  One doesn't just wish away devoting a season to random murders by supplying an explanation in the following Season.  If someone started watching Higurashi and stopped at the end of Season 1, the entire season was just senseless murders with no literary merit.  Season 2 does a great job explaining them all, but without it, Season 1 falls on its face.  The ends don't justify the means in this case.  What I'm saying is that I felt that Season 1 was unnecessary.  I think the show would have been better without Season 1; it's completely watchable if one skipped to Season 2.  Season 2 did a fair enough job of detailing other murders without going over the top, I felt.  Season 1 of Higurashi is tantamount to what Endless Eight tried to accomplish in Melancholy, honestly.  Because that was literally the intention behind it.

Fair enough on the horror part (though, I don't see why people would look to cartoon gore for horror rather than in person gore).  I don't think it was a wise decision to devote a pure season to horror only to devote to plot the next, however.

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[Jompa]

Spoiler

But you're thinking too separately of the two seasons - they are adapted from a series of visual novels that together make out the story (like the archs), and just because they couldn't go over the 26 episode limit (which is the normal episode count for a season) doesn't mean that the series is complete without haveing wathced the rest (ofcourse, it's ok to exclude season 3 & 4, because those are just ludicrous)
You said:

If someone started watching Higurashi and stopped at the end of Season 1, the entire season was....

But that would be the same as stopping in the middle of episode 5 or whatever - the story isn't over at this point, so if you think you've completed the show after season 1, then yes, everything would definitely seem senseless - but when you've watched season two (which wasn't a "crazy explanation made up long after the earlier parts of the story was made", but rather an equally integrated part of the story) you know that all the shit that happened wasn't senseless, because we get to know that the Hinamizawa Syndrome is the big deal here.
The fact that season 2 was made separately at all is because the episode count that is normal to use is 26, and therefore they decided to go with this.

it's completely watchable if one skipped to Season 2.

noooooo it would NOT. I cannot believe you're saying that.

Fair enough on the horror part (though, I don't see why people would look to cartoon gore for horror rather than in person gore).

I'd say that in horror, it is 100% relying on shock value, which Higurashi did well.

An important point I forgot to mention:
There were a lot happening more than just murders (even if they were senseless) in the first season! I recommend wathing it again, really, because if you don't remember more than murders, then you probably didn't pay attention.

Just sayin' this again; you are thinking WAY too much about the seasons as separate stories.

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[Dude]

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You thought this would be about Higurashi, didn't you?

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[FSM-Reapr]

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You thought this would be about Higurashi, didn't you?

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nope just clicking spoilers for fun

[FierceDeity]

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nope just clicking spoilers for fun

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ftfy

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