June Updates

Hey everyone!

Here's a late June updates post to let you know what the next video is going to be. Still playing around with titles, but I'm going to be trying something a little bit different next: a guide to Watanagashi-hen; specifically how to differentiate between Mion and Shion in the first half of the arc. Of course, the video will be much more than just a list of hints, and will include plenty of my usual analysis.

In essence, I see a really significant amount of people continuing to struggle to make this distinction, attributing Mion scenes to Shion and so on. Watanagashi/Meakashi are probably the arcs the DEEN adaptation struggled with most (to put it lightly), with a significant amount of major changes and omissions pertaining to Mion and Shion's characters which no doubt contributed to the confusion. I found myself writing up a thread for Twitter on this subject a while back only to realise there was more than enough material here for a whole video, and here we are. I hemmed and hawed over this one for a while because I do of course already have a video on Mion with which there will be minor overlap, but there's plenty more to dive into here both regarding really clever details in the narrative and execution of this arc specifically as well as what all of this says about Mion as a person. I'm overjoyed to have found an opportunity to talk about her again and to hopefully help people to understand and appreciate her just a little more, as that is what this part of Higurashi is all about -- she is challenging us to see the real her.

Mion's birthday is the 10th July, technically starting on the 9th in the UK because of timezones, so the idea is to hopefully get the video up by then -- very soon, I know! I am still busy with some uni deadlines right now but being that I know Higurashi pretty inside-out when it comes to stuff like this and thus will only have to do fairly minimal preparation, I do think it should be feasible to get the video done by then. Still, I want to be as thorough as possible and to make sure I don't miss anything or make any mistakes, so we'll see. There's also no saying how limited the focus of the video will end up being as I will obviously be talking a bit about Mion's relationship with Keiichi and Shion as well. Nonetheless, I'd ideally like for the video to be under twenty minutes and not too much of an ordeal on my side.

In general, as I said at the start of the year, I hope to continue to diversify the kinds of videos I'm making -- I know lots of people would like to see some shorter and more frequent videos from me, and I would love to make more of them. Every time I think I'm coming to the end of my list of Higurashi videos something new occurs to me, not least of all thanks to Gou/Sotsu, so I'm trying to allow myself some breathing room with making videos like this now even when I already have another video on Mion ("we have a Mion video at home" lmao).

With any luck, the next you'll hear about the video will be when I post it in a few weeks, but I will of course keep you in the loop if it doesn't look like I'll be able to get it up by Mion's birthday -- it's definitely possible I won't manage it. Either way, I really look forward to celebrating this wonderful girl some more with you all very soon (especially ahead of what looks to be a rough time for her in Sotsu 🥲).

Sometimes I forget I'm a whole human being and not just a person who makes videos when I'm writing these, so in other updates, I feel very fortunate to have gotten my first dose of the vaccine today, and I also had my last lecture for my whole degree this week (which has been an incredible experience, if a very challenging one)! Once I finish up my last few bits of coursework, it's full steam ahead with my research until I submit my dissertation and finish the course in October, but I'm very much looking forward to grabbing some much-needed rest time between the two in a few weeks. I've been taking a lot of joy in the simple things recently: being outdoors in the sun, and spending time with other human beings! I'm also looking forward to having more time to watch anime again and, of course, to Sotsu. I hope you're all well and enjoying the summer (or whatever season it is where you live), however you're spending it.

Speak soon!