So this season is pretty much done and the question is… will there be more? Why wouldn’t there be more? They do seem to have enough material for another full series and I suppose this season was successful… wasn’t it?

As everyone knows there are 2 more ‘answer’ arcs in the original PC run of the game (Minagoroshi-hen, Matsuribayashi-hen), but there are also another 3 NEW arcs in 「Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri」, the PS2 port of the game getting released in December. One of those new arcs, according to wikipedia, is going to be the real ending. The following bit is from the wiki (spoiler free).

Taraimawashi-hen (盥回し篇, Power Cycling Chapter?)
Tsukiotoshi-hen (憑落し篇, Lost Resort Chapter?)
Miotsukushi-hen (澪尽し篇, Canal Drying Chapter?)
(…) And according to the original author, Miotsukushi-hen will be the “True End” of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (…)

With 5 arcs they could easily spend another 26 episodes on the show. Do you think they will let the series die with only one season? I hope they don’t let it die… I really don’t know what to believe after the 4th episode of Tsumihoroboshi-hen…

So I still don’t know why this was released under a Higurashi banner (image album?) but I’m glad that’s how it is. If it was just ~Kakera Musubi~ I probably wouldn’t even know about it and I would skip a track with Haruka Shimotsuki (vocalist of kukui). That wouldn’t be good.

So what exactly is this CD? A collection of songs and instrumental tracks produced by Voltage of Imagination camp who were responsible for the ending theme to 「Higurashi no Naku Koro ni」.

Is the CD any good? Why yest it is! I’m really enjoying the two darker tracks, 「hymn」 and 「蝕み」 and I would love to hear them used in the actual show. There are also some rather good happy tracks - 「my home」, which is the Haruka track I mentioned, and 「samsara」. I’m not enjoying every single track though. Those tracks would be 「M･A･T･S･U･R･I - Meet Your Match！」 and 「when they cry」, I just don’t like them. I’d like to say a bit more about 「you - Visionen im Spiegel」 which is a new version of 「you」 from the Higurashi game 「Thanks/You」 CD and I think it is in fact a very good song but this version really needed better mastering - it’s one loud sound, you can’t tell different instruments or vocals from eachother, it’s a loud mess IMHO.

The disc also comes with a Rika-chan card, which I thought would be part of the second OST package…
 

「hymn」, 「蝕み」, 「my home」.
 

Don’t really know what this is, but after listening to few samples I decided it’s worth giving a try. I want to hear the full hymn and samsara.

「 ひぐらしのなく頃に -かけらむすび- 」 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni -Kakera Musubi-   Voltage of Imagination 2006.09.27 : FCCM-156