“When They Cry” Complete Box Set Overview

If you’re like me, you wait to buy anime until the entire thing is out in a complete package for about 50% less than if you bought all the DVDs separately.  Its less expensive, you get more for your buck, and you can spend all night marathoning the series you just bought and get entirely no sleep at all.

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni or “When They Cry” finally came out in thinpack form.  I’d been waiting for this series since Geneon first released DVD 1 stateside.  Unfortunately, I never thought I’d see the entire thing since Geneon went under.

Now that the entire series is out, I’m left with mixed feelings.  I love the entire Higurashi series or, The Cicada Killing Show, as a certain someone used to call it.  The mixture of the art style and then the plot devices gives a great show perfect for Halloween.  The first season of Higurashi is based around a bunch of “question” arcs that basically give the viewer a bunch of situations where things go horribly wrong.  People die, friendships are ended, trust is broken, people die, more people die.  Every 4 or so episodes, the world seems to reset and everyone is back to normal and repeating the same actions they did before.  its kinda like a sadistic Groundhog’s Day that involves kids killing each other.  However, I’m not reviewing the series itself, I’m reviewing the box and the contents.

The Dub

I love watching anime in English just as much as I love watching it in Japanese.  Yes, yes, I’m not a true anime fan…blah blah blah blah.  Normally, I advocate watching a series once in English and once in Japanese, its fun seeing how the translators changed a scene or a few lines to make them fit the mouth flaps or make more sense for the culture they’re translating for.  However, with Higurashi, I’m not sure what to make of the English dub.  Maybe I’ve been spoiled by FUNimation, but this dub made my ears cringe at times while at other times I thought it was decent.  The voice actors got the serious parts down pretty good, so when the show goes nuts, its pretty creepy.  The girls who do all the laughing were awesome, if you compare the Japanese laughing to the English laughing, they’re both on par with each other (for something fun, watch the green haired girl laugh in Japanese and then watch Kaname Chidori from Full Metal Panic! do her embarrassed laugh…you’ll never see that series the same way ever again).  Its when they try to do the humorous, or less serious parts where the voice acting falls apart.  The disturbing cuteness feels forced and just hurts your ears.  Apparently higher pitched means that you’re being cuter.

DVD Contents

Being a thinpack and being a (mostly) Geneon release, there really isn’t much in the way of extras on the DVDs.  You have your Previews and Credits and that’s about it.  This isn’t really a bad thing, but don’t expect anything like a gag reel or making of documentaries.

Presentation

The DVD menus are easy to navigate and readable, there’s no menu music, which is unusual and makes it feel a bit rushed although it doesn’t really detract from anything (Its a menu, you really don’t sit on the menu and listen to the music).  You can switch between Japanese with or without subtitles and the English dub and there’s also a Scene select on each DVD.  The one thing that got me was that while you could select which episode you wanted to watch, you couldn’t select it by scene, so you can’t start right after the opening animation or even half way into the episode, you have to manually scene skip once you select an episode.

Packaging

This is your usual inexpensive thinpack.  It comes with all the DVDs jammed into as few cases as possible, all stuffed into a thin cardboard box with some art on it.  They finally did get something right though, the DVD pegs used to be teeth based, and because the cases were so thin, I’d find myself breaking the teeth off on accident either while I was opening or closing the case.  They finally replaced them with some nice thick pegs and lock with each other and don’t have any teeth to break off.  This way you don’t have to worry about any of your new DVDs rattling around in their case.

Overall

Anime – Rating: – I didn’t review the series itself here, but if you like horror, this is a series to check out.

Dub – Rating: – I can’t really recommend watching this series in English, but it wasn’t horrible.

DVD Contents – Rating: – Nothing special.

Packaging – Rating: – Its a cheap, cardboard boxset, you get what you pay for.  But they finally fixed the problem with DVD storage though, so that’s a plus.

If you’re already a fan of this series, this is a good way to get the entire thing for your personal collection.  If you’re new to the series and want to check it out, I’d suggest borrowing it from a friend first.  This show isn’t for everyone.