Daijoubu

Yeats once wrote:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;“

I thought of these lines while watching this episode, because everything falls apart so quickly with the return of Houjou Teppei. Rika’s renewed sense of desperation is highlighted through the return of those contorted Higurashi faces. Its even worse for her this time, because she had been so confident at the end of the last episode.

Because of all the previous arcs we’ve been through, we understand what Rika must be feeling. The minute Satoko appears with those glazed eyes, we know it’s bad. But now they try to play by the rules with the teacher involved and a visit to social services, rather than murder, but bureaucracy fails as usual. K1 is really strong here, as he stands up to Shion (maybe he was thinking, “a chair to the head is not the worst you can do, Shichan!” lol). He’s really been showing some determination in this arc, which is a far when they cry from his paranoia and terror in Onikakushi-hen. So, things are not as bad (yet) as in the Yeats poem, where the next lines are: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.” K1 still has conviction, so we’ll see what he does next.