Say It In Red

This week Sara and Runa embark on a paranormal investigation of high school rooftops, joined by special guest Mari as all three meet a couple of ghosts (who are also a ghost couple) and witness a whole host of gay teens grappling with their sexuality. Our encounter with these spectral lesbians forces us to ask some deep and thought provoking questions - How do you overcome the anxiety of confessing your love to your best friend when you're still a teenager struggling with the anxiety of daily social interactions? How do you plan to have a long-term relationship when your parents might disown you upon learning that you're gay? Is it Rock to want a girl to bully you?

Kindred Spirits on the Roof (2012/2016 English Release) is a kinetic novel that focuses on protagonist and 2nd year high schooler Yuna as she meets two ghosts on her school's rooftop, then promptly gets pulled into a year long quest to help other students at the school come to terms with and act upon the feelings they have for other girls. Sachi and Megumi, the titular Kindred Spirits, find girls who seem to have romantic feelings for their classmates, seniors, fellow club members, or friends and work with Yuna to find out how they can assist each of these girls in conveying their feelings. Sachi, who died over 80 years prior, has witnessed so many girls who fell in love and then never had the chance or felt secure enough to confess that love, and so she's determined to make sure that this school, at least, can be a place where those feelings can flourish. Yuna is reluctant at first, despite taking readily to the tasks of planning out strategies and plots to help the girls around her, and over time we not only meet a number of Yuna's classmates, friends, and fellow students but also learn more about her own life, the regrets that have plauged her since middle school, and the feelings she's developing for one of her best friends that she may not even notice yet...

Since this game is longer than most others we've covered in the past (it's roughly twice the length of Higurashi: Matsuribayashi) this episode is the first of two covering Kindred Spirits on the Roof. In this episode we cover the events from the start of the game up through the end of August in the game's calendar. Our next episode will focus on the remainder of the game and all of the extra materials that unlock once you reach the ending.

Please note that this is a game with sexual content and while we don't talk about it in detail, it is something we discuss briefly throughout the episode.

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode
00:42:50 to 00:49:15 - Discussion & Critique of a student/teacher romance presented in the game

Coo! Coooo! Cooo!

This week, Sara and Runa go to bird school, which is for dating gorgeous birds in Hatoful Boyfriend, a dating sim about pigeons that you can meet, befriend, and romance at St. PigeoNation's academy. What would Sara and Runa, ostensibly two humans, possibly do at a bird school though? Will they be able to handle bird P.E. with flying lessons and wing stretches? Will they join the student council and learn the intricacies of bird political parties? Will they spend too much time in the infirmary and end up as an experimental subject for a grouchy partridge!?

Hatoful Boyfriend (2011) is a delightful dating sim starring Hiyoko Tosaka, the sole human attending a school for intelligent birds. Set in the late 22nd Century, you follow Hiyoko as she navigates school clubs, electives, exams, holidays, and the milestones of high school life while trying (with varying success) to get closer to the beautiful birds who now fill her daily life. If Hiyoko spends a lot of time studying and joins the infirmary staff, maybe she can get to know Yuuya, the most suave and popular pigeon in school. Maybe if she plays to her strengths and spends all of her time running for the track team, she can finally understand the pudding connoisseur Okosan. Perhaps, even, if she spends enough time working at the library, she'll finally get the reclusive underclassman, Nageki, to open up to her and explain why he never seems to leave that one room. In addition to these pigeons Hiyoko can also get closer to Ryouta, her childhood friend with a weak constitution; Sakuya, an aristocratic fantail from france and apparent Half-brother to Yuuya; Anghel, an absolutely perfect bleeding heart luzon; Kazuaki, Hiyoko's homeroom teacher and math instructor; Azami, a cool java sparrow who rides her vintage scooter with a strong conviction to obey traffic ordinances; or Shuu, the school doctor who seems to be the center of several disturbing rumors about student disappearances and dismemberments.

Where will Hiyoko's time at St. PigeoNation's take her? To lifelong love with a childhood friend, no matter how short that life might be? To an action-packed life on the run with a secret agent? Into the depths of the school to learn the secrets, and tragedies, of its recent past? Whatever routes you choose to explore, Hatoful Boyfriend is a delightful and extremely fun dating sim full of heart, humor, a bit of pain, and a whole flock of gorgeous pigeons.  Join us as we see what it's like to go to bird school, which is for romancing birds!

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:

00:27:45 to 00:31:20 - Discussion of a teacher/student romance route
00:39:00 to 00:46:30 - Discussion of a teacher/student romance where the teacher is Hannibal Lector and wants to experiment on the protagonist.
00:42:00 - Student Murder & Cooking
00:43:00 - Dismemberment
00:43:20 - Loss of Agency
00:46:45 to end - Intermittent discussions of fatal respiratory pandemic
00:52:50 - Dismemberment
00:58:00 - Mentions of body horror
01:01:20 - Suicide mention
01:03:30 - Hostage situation
01:05:00 - Medical experimentation and Suicide

This week, Sara and Runa take the concept of a visual novel book club to its next logical step and join an exciting, breathtaking, Dokidoki Literature Club! What will happen when we spend our days reading novels and discussing manga and writing poetry with cute girls? Will we get to snack on cute cupcakes and get to know our fellow club members? Will we have heartpounding discussions about our favorite literary tropes? Well, whatever happens, I'm sure it will be extremely safe and normal!

Dokidoki Literature Club!(2017) is a visual novel that begins as a very cute, lighthearted dating sim where you play as a faceless high school boy at the beginning of a new week, unsure of what club he might join in school and without any particular direction for the time being. He quickly encounters his childhood friend and neighbor, Sayori, who coaxes him (with the promise of cupcakes) to try out the literature club. Once there, Sayori introduces him to the other current members: Yuri, a tall and introverted girl who reads intricate fantasy and sci-fi novels; Natsuki, a small and contrary girl who loves baking and reading manga; and the club president, Monika, who your protagonist notes is one of the most popular and beautiful girls in school. As you spend more time in the literature club, you'll start to grow closer to Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki, all while Monika is getting closer and closer to something as well...

Please note that, if you haven't played DDLC before, the game features explicit images and themes of self-harm, suicide and suicide ideation, and unreality. The game itself has a more complete list of content warnings and we'll list content warnings for our discussion in the episode below, but we wanted to give you a heads up in case you plan to read along before you listen!

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:

Self-Harm - 00:26:45 to 00:27:40
00:28:30 to 00:29:10
00:36:15, 00:43:20
 
Suicide & Suicidal Ideation - 00:23:00
00:43:20 to 00:45:20

Mentions of Child Abuse - 00:26:35

Sara and Runa may have made it out of Hinamizawa, but the real terminal syndrome is the fondness we developed for the games club kids along the way! This week we're holding a Higurashi wrap party, talking about our thoughts on the series as a whole, taking a look at the anime adaptations (Both the 2006 anime and the more recent Higurashi Gou), talking about side projects like the mobile game, answering listener questions, and making some exciting announcements about the upcoming episodes and projects we've got coming up!

In addition to talking about the spinoffs and adaptations of Higurashi, this episode sees Sara and Runa discussing the intriguing, lingering mysteries of Hinamizawa such as: 

• Is Hinamizawa syndrome a medical or magical affliction?
• What would happen if the adult cast (Ooishi, Irie, Chie, Akane Sonozaki, etc.) were in the same situation as the games club kids and, as teenagers, had to confront these mysterious deaths and murders?
• What really happened in Tatarigoroshi and what do we know with absolute certainty?
• Does Tomitake have a Thomas the Tank Engine OC?
• and a lot more! Severity and gravity varies.

Also if you're reading this, it means our new schedule and special project announcement are both live on our Patreon, so you should go visit https://www.patreon.com/SayItInRed to see the exciting news!

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:
00:29:50 to 00:36:00 - Discussion of Gacha games, gacha pulls, and general gambling.

This week, Sara and Runa make arrangements for a festival and see the world beyond June 19th in the final chapter of Higurashi: Matsuribayashi. Now that we know the truth, how can we avert disaster? Now that we know the truth, how can we forgive each other? With the truth in hand, how much are you willing to lose for the sake of your happiness?

Higurashi no naku koro ni: Matsuribayashi (2006) is the longest and most expansive volume yet as it brings together the culprit's past, all of the circumstances leading up to June of 1983, and even sees characters who were once bystanders jump up to join the fray. All the actors are present, even though we counted out and thought would never play their part again, but is even that enough to change a fate that has held strong for over a hundred years?

As we weave together the events that make the Great Hinamizawa Disaster possible, Hanyuu and Rika begin to see a faint, narrow path toward the future. Their adversary is no longer mystery or fate but the strong will of those with an overwhelming power that has already erased Rika and her friends in dozens upon dozens of timelines. Still, despite the risk involved Rika and Hanyuu both decide to bet everything they have on this world and the belief that, by pulling together everyone who cares about them and wants to see Rika survive, they will finally see a miracle.

We're collecting questions for our next episode!
Our next episode, which will go up on Friday, May 14th, will feature a Q&A and we'd like you to send us questions that we can answer on the air! We'd like you to send in your questions about Higurashi, our theories, the village of Hinamizawa, or questions about visual novels and our podcast in general!  
 If you want to ask us our thoughts on a possible theory or interpretation,

If you want to know more about our process for approaching mysteries and how messy Runa's Meakashi notes were,

If you would like to ask our opinions on Visual Novel tropes and conventions,

Or if you're just feeling curious, send your questions to sayitinred.podcast at gmail.com, or comment with your questions on our patreon at https://www.patreon.com/SayItInRed 

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:
General CW for intermittent discussions of Parasites and Parasitic Infection
00:24:00 - Lobotomy discussion
00:30:45 to 31:30 - dismemberment and live vivisection
00:30:45 to 33:45 - general discussion of dissections
00:41:25 - throat scratching mention

This week Sara and Runa befriend a cute girl with horns, and then they take part in a massacre! In Higurashi: Minagoroshi we finally see the Truth of the incident at hand: Why does Rika die in every timeline, even though she's been trying for over a hundred years to survive? Why does the entire village perish in the span of a single night, but only in some of the timelines? Who is the Perpetrator, and why would they be so determined to keep Rika barricaded behind the wall of June 22nd, 1983?

Higurashi no naku koro ni: Minagoroshi (2005) is the confluence of almost every past scenario, drawing together the events from every past volume and, one by one, defeating each of the terrible fates that Rika and her friends suffered in other worlds. We very quickly meet Hanyuu, a cute girl with purple hair and horns who is, in a sense, the real Oyashiro-sama. Only Rika can see or hear her normally, but each time Rika dies, Hanyuu uses her power to turn back time so that Rika can make another attempt. After going through so many worlds Rika and Hanyuu both begin to despair, even after the miracle that took place in Tsumihoroboshi, but soon Rika realizes things are different now. All of her friends remember, at least vaguely, the tragedies that befell them in past cycles. Now that we can see Hanyuu and hear her perspective on things, and now that Rika's friends have all come together to defeat their own terrible fates, will they finally be able to help Rika escape from June of 1983?

There are only two possibilities open in the end: We will either see a Miracle take place, or a Massacre.

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:
01:05:15 to 1:08:15 - Brief discussion of child abuse
01:37:00 - LAST WARNING BEFORE WE REVEAL THE CULPRIT AND THEIR MOTIVE!
2:23:48 to 2:24:15 - Mention of vivisection & brain dissection

This week, Sara and Runa podcast in the normal way, theorize in the normal way, cry about Rena in the normal way, and hop into a rollercoaster with no safety harness in the normal way! Higurashi: Tsumihoroboshi brings us back to Hinamizawa yet again as we see the world through alternative perspectives, sometimes following Keiichi and at other points, following Rena. When we can finally see the world as Rena does, will we understand the meaning behind her belief in Oyashiro-sama?

Higurashi no naku koro ni: Tsumihoroboshi (2005) leads us through an entirely new scenario - unlike the Meakashi chapter which showed us the events of Watanagashi but through Shion's perspective, we've never seen the events that of Tsumihoroboshi before. This time, we see Rena struggle to adjust after her father begins dating a new woman, Rina Mamiya, and this only gets worse when Rena finds out that that Rina is also the girlfriend of a known con artist, extortionist, and scammer - Teppei Houjou. This relatively mundane misfortune eventually leads to two murders, a dramatic confrontation within the village dump, conspiracies about parasitic aliens and clones, and a plot to blow up the school.

In the midst of all of this, Keiichi suddenly remembers a moment when Mion and Rena brought him Ohagi... during the Onikakushi chapter. What good will that memory do for him though, now that Rena is drifting further and further toward a tragic end?

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:
00:31:40 to 00:33:15: Self Harm, Parasite infestation
00:59:45, 01:02:35 to 01:03:40: BB Gun shooting, Eye Injury
01:17:45 to 01:23:40: School Hostage situation, includes soaking the room and people in gasoline, battery, threats with a hatchet
01:50:25: Mention of self-inflicted throat injury

This week, Sara and Runa look through the eyes of Shion Sonozaki in the first game of the Answer arcs, Higurashi: Meakashi.  The Spring of 1982 arrives and brings with it a daring escape from Catholic School, covert grocery trips through town, and the glimmer of a gremlin's first love. In this volume we'll also finally see exactly what happened to Shion, Mion, Keiichi, and the others during the Watanagashi chapter - do we learn all the facts of the incident, though, or do we simply learn which questions we should really be asking?

Higurashi no naku koro ni: Meakashi (2004) follows Shion's perspective through events roughly the same as those in the Watanagashi chapter, revealing her innermost thoughts, her suspicions, and her actions in both 1982 and 1983. After escaping from an extremely rigid catholic boarding school, Shion hides out in a Sonozaki owned apartment building with the help of her driver Kasai. At first she only intends to lay low and, with Mion's help, pose as Mion to work part time for money to support herself for a while... but then she meets Satoshi, a kind and clumsy boy who catches Shion completely off guard.

If only their lives had been peaceful.
If only their families had been gentle.
If only Hinamizawa and its history didn't loom so ominously in Shion's mind...

With all the new information in the Meakashi chapter, we can outline Shion's actions with certainty and clearly map out the mysterious events of the Watanagashi chapter. Is that really all that we need to understand, though?

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this Episode:
00:19:33 to 00:20:10 - Fingernail Torture
00:32:30 - forced syringe/needle injections
00:32:35 - Graphic Suicide Mention
00:48:30 - Fingernail Removal/Torture
01:36:56 to 01:40:21 - Suicide, Throat injury, self-inflicted injuries, fingernail trauma, forced injections, poisoning, Details of character death

This week, Sara and Runa travel to an unknown realm... 1978. More specifically, Hinamizawa in 1978 where we no longer see Keiichi as the protagonist but a new, freshly minted police investigator: Mamoru Akasaka. We've been entrusted with all of the information we might need to be able to understand Hinamizawa's mysteries, but this volume also throws a wrench in a lot of possible theories as well! Is Rika stuck in a groundhog day style time loop? Is her death in 1983 and the resulting Great Hinamizawa Disaster truly unavoidable? Just how much money has Ooishi skimmed off of discretionary funds over the years and then lost betting on Mahjong?

Higurashi no naku koro ni, Chapter 4: Himatsubushi (2003) transports us further back than we've ever been, to a time before the dam foreman was murdered and before the stirrings of Oyashiro-sama's curse took hold in Hinamizawa. As the protests against the dam reach a fevered pitch, the grandson of the Minister of Construction is kidnapped a Public Safety Police Officer, Mamoru Akasaka, is dispatched to Hinamizawa to investigate and, if possible, recover the kidnapped child safely. We already know from the first three volumes of Higurashi that he succeeds in saving the minister's grandson, but what else happened there when he was in Hinamizawa? Why is he still haunted by that case even years later? Is it possible to save someone in the past simply by learning The Truth of an incident?

As Akasaka investigates, Rika's firm declarations cast all the facts of the case into disarray and leave us all scrambling for answers...

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:

01:02:30 to 01:03:50: Theorizing about a suicide & related possibilities
01:16:45, 01:17:05 to 01:19:05: Discussion of death, syringes, and Torture from the Watanagashi chapter
01:35:50 to 01:37:00: Theorizing about the murder of Satoko's Parents

Sara and Runa once again continue their time in Hinamizawa, enjoying the peaceful days shared by Keiichi and his friends in Higurashi no naku koro ni, chapter 3: Tatarigoroshi (2003). Once again we return to the late spring of 1983 with everyone alive, at least for the moment, for round three of our attempt at uncovering Hinamizawa's mysteries! Now, with the information we've gathered from the first two episode, we can start to answer some of the Big Questions: Why does Tomitake keep dying the same way every episode? Is Oyashiro-sama's curse real? Can you win a baseball game when all your brought with you was a golf club?

The Tatarigoroshi chapter follows Satoko closely and spends a lot of time developing the warm, surrogate sibling sort of relationship between her and Keiichi. As Keiichi learns more about the painful circumstances of Satoko's life, he becomes more and more determined to protect this small gremlin who he cares for as a younger sister.
 
Even if that means sometimes he has to face the torment of slandering the noble institution of Curry in front of Chie-sensei.
 
Even if it means letting Satoko tease him and set up traps that catch him off guard.
 
Even if it means plotting the perfect murder to erase Satoko's uncle from existence.

A general content warning for this episode: Child Abuse comes up in a lot of different forms in our discussion and it comes up even more intensely in the game itself so please take care as you read!

As always, if you like the show please leave us a review! We're hosted on itunes, google podcasts, spotify, and several other places so please check us out and tell your friends! You can also follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod for more updates and episode information!

Content Warnings for this episode:

00:02:45: Description of a corpse including finger trauma, disembowelment, decomposition, and extreme torture
00:41:20 to 00:42:00: Discussion of child physical abuse
00:56:40 to 00:58:25: Vomiting, panic attack, PTSD response due to child abuse, mention of child  sexual abuse
1:09:30 to 1:10:30: A Murder happens with a baseball bat
01:32:55 to 1:33:25: Depictions of the results of child abuse
01:33:45 and 01:36:10: Apparent suicide mention
02:09:20 to 02:15:30: Discussion of a child abuser's role in the events of the game
02:17:20: Suicide mention