In an announcement made on January 6th, it was revealed that Higurashi: When They Cry (which happens to be one of my favorite horror anime of all time) will get a brand new anime project from studio Passione, with character designs from the veteran artist Akio Watanabe (the Monogatari series, Nurse Witch Komugi, The World God Only Knows). We do not yet know what format the new anime will be or anyone else attached to the cast or crew but we do have a snazzy looking promotional video that was released with the announcement.
If you missed When They Cry (Japanese title Higurashi no Naku Koro ni) when it was released a decade and a half ago, you missed one of the finest examples of horror that the medium has ever produced.
Originally a doujin visual novel released at Comiket in 2002 by creator Ryukishi07, the series was first adapted into a 26 episode anime series in 2006 and then received a 24 episode sequel series in 2007. The first season was originally released by Geneon in the west before the license was taken over by Funimation. From there the series remained in limbo for a short time before Sentai Filmworks picked it back up and released the entire anime series on home video in 2016.
Sentai Filmworks describes the story as:
Moving to the picturesque town of Hinamizawa is going to be a big adjustment for Keiichi. For all its beauty, it’s also tiny… so small that there’s only one school, one where most of the students have known each other all their lives. Fortunately, he soon meets four girls… Rena, Mion, Satoko, and Rika, who’re willing to let the new guy in town join their afterschool club. And for a while, things seem wonderful. Until Keiichi starts discovering strange things, like the project manager for a controversial dam project being found dismembered five years ago. As he digs deeper, there are whispers and rumors of other murders and disappearances, stories of a town curse, and mysterious rituals. And then people he knows start to die. What secrets have the people of Hinamizawa kept hidden from the rest of the world? And could his new friends somehow be involved?
Source: Comic Natalie
