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Imagine everything Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was not, and you've got Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai. While Higurashi Kai certainly ties up a number of much needed loose strings causing incoherency issues within the first season, it ultimately degrades the series into meaningless tripe. It seems that the first season followed the original games/manga to the tee, but the second takes on extremely, and I emphasize extremely, watered down adaptations of the original storyline's ending. There is no gore or horror present save for perhaps one or two very light scenes, and the violence is toned down substantially as well, as most of what's present is almost comical in nature.
Needless to say, I was immensely disappointed with Higurashi Kai, as it ended exactly like most anime intended for young children rather than an honorable, intellectual dramatic masterpiece. Save for perhaps one or two minor incidents, all the duplicitous aspects of the main cast of characters' personalities vanish, and it becomes a real chore to convince yourself you're watching the same show. The final two "answer" arcs also happen to be twice the length of the prior six arcs in season one, and are subsequently packed full of filler-esque material which really causes the series to drag in many places - completely opposite of the first season, where constant angst and tension kept you on the edge of your seat and constantly looking over your shoulder while you watched.
Ending and conclusion aside, the sole purpose of Higurashi Kai is to provide the viewer with the story behind everything that occurs in the first season, and on that note it succeeds. Rika takes a much more central role in the second season, explaining many of her mysterious talents such as her vast score of knowledge and her prophetic capabilities; which, in essence, explains who Oyashiro-sama is and what his curse entails with rather great detail. Again, though, the enormous, anti-climactic ending dwarfs the importance of such revelations, as it sucks the very life out of the drama they were supposed to be explaining. While it provides closure, this closure is quite poor, and as such I have a hard time swallowing the series as a whole.
As far as color vibrancy goes, Higurashi Kai got a substantial boost in quality, but that's about the only noticeable difference in quality. I made a point not to increase the animation score, though, since the total lack of dramatic emphasis took away the first season's exemplary use of facial expressions to convey morbid atmospheres. The additions really didn't do much for me, especially with the huge abundance of stills in most of Higurashi Kai's action scenes.
Without a doubt, my favorite aspect of Higurashi Kai is its second, absolutely superb opening theme. Aside from that, though, the musical score remains virtually identical as the first season, and the voice actors again do a great job, though their roles are made less intensive.
I was really quite flustered with how the characters panned out. For obviously having severe paranoia issues, Keiichi seems perfectly normal for most of Higurashi Kai, a far cry from the neurotic xenophobe who has quite a difficult time distinguishing reality between the varying Himizawa worlds in the first season; Rena's random, sporadic violent tendencies disappear entirely, and I hardly see her lift a finger during the first half of the series; Shion displays one instance of her blood thirst, but it's tamed rather quickly and her character immediately seems to revert after with no future signs; the list goes on. The characters simply didn't carry the same feel, and that really gave me pause when trying to rationalize them in the context of the second season. In the first season each of the characters suffered from very fragile and delicate personality problems, and the fact that these problems cease to exist in the latter arcs is simply baffling.
Unfortunately, because of how Higurashi's first season pans out, Higurashi Kai is a must watch to understand the progression of the story. Perhaps I'm overreacting a bit to how much I disliked Higurashi Kai, as I did enjoy the first fourteen episodes, but the last arc was simply atrocious. All in all a settling sequel to the first season, but don't expect to have your brain played with in any sinister fashion - you'll just end up utterly disappointed.
It is the year 1983; and in the village of Hinamizawa, on the night of the cotton drifting festival and in the days following it, a series of deaths occurs. The only hope for the village and its inhabitants is the shrine maiden Furude Rika who, with the help of her invisible partner Hanyuu, is able to travel back in time and alter the events that led to disaster. Unfortunately, regardless of what changes are made, each voyage ultimately ends with the death of Rika and many of her friends. But when Rika’s friends start remembering things that happened to them in previous worlds and take steps to avoid the same outcomes, Rika realizes that their chances of survival have never been better. Can she really challenge and defeat fate itself?
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Though I'm a big fan of slice of life and romance, I'll watch just about anything that catches my interest. My opinions tend to be pretty level-headed, but I have been known to be controversial from time to time! Feel free to lay into me if you so desire, as I always appreciate feedback - positive or negative. I hope you enjoy reading!
StevenSAKUJO
This anime was like karate kid + swiss family robinson along with some good old civil justice and friendship conquers all. Opposed to the blurry, somewhat difficult to predict Ni, if you didn't read the entire plot line of Kai by about episode four then your brain is missing something. There was no horror, mystery, action or any real drama in Kai, like Sheex says you may as well watch it but honestly, Kai was enjoyable because of Ni but if you look at it without taking into account what Ni set up for Kai then it's terrible.
All that being said I still enjoyed Kai but from an-attempt-to-be-objective point of view, Kai wasn't any good.
CrimsonSunShine
Oh great one, your word is law.
Joking.
Clannad gets an eight, and this masterpiece is disgraced with a five? Really?
...Really?
It's a matter of opinion, but, I am just unable to see how anyone could come to this conclusion. No, perhaps if the first season had been ranked poorly as well, I could accept this, because not everyone will be interested in a series of this genre. So, it's more a matter of...ranking the season that strayed from the Visual novel, left out many many important scenes, exaggerated the murder aspect of the series, (and have you seen the animation) higher than the season that was done better? R07 himself stepped in to help with this season, seeing as he was less than pleased with the first adaption. In my opinion, the ending would have been done better, had they chose the alternate ending, Miotsukushi-hen, but by no means is the ending they chose bad, nor is this an anime deserving of such a low ranking.
GGXtreme
While the second season really didn't have the same impact for me as the first one, and the ending did seem ramped-down, normal and somewhat thoughtless in comparison, I didn't feel it was particularly bad. In fact, I only rank it a couple of notches below, but this may have been affected by me watching both seasons as a unit and having more of an 'overall' opinion and feel for the series.
WhiteKnight
I hate to say it but you should really watch all four seasons before you really get down to weather or not you liked this season. I played the game, and while they did leave out some things I think that was probably better. I must say that in the end I absolutly loved this series regardless of what everyone else says anyway.
What, a negative review for Higurashi that hasn't metamorphosed into a troll-magnet? Good for you, Sheex, I guess...
Anyways, I agree with many of your points although I liked the second season only slightly less than the first one which I love. To me the first season is a morbid and dark psychological bloodbath with no hope at all to be found, and season 2 is a fairly depressing, yet not entirely hopeless, follow-up. I like how they play out together. And Rika is awesome as usual.