Welcome to the B-Side, where I just vibe with something from the soundtrack of my life and get personal, controversial, and probably spoiler heavy with whatever Anime topic I’m talking about. These are not full reviews, won’t be for everyone, and will often lack a steady flow or structure. Today, I’m talking about the “window washing” scene shown within the first 15 minutes or so of the starting arc, Batsukoishi-hen, from the Higurashi fourth OVA season, Kira. If you know, you know.

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Before I go any further, allow me to talk about this song and its artist for a bit. I love a large variety of music and this one is special for me. I found it by complete accident one day when I was attempting to find out information about coffee shops a good 15 years back. I don’t fully remember the context of my search. If you ever get to spy on my search history (how dare you?), you’d gouge your eyes out with Play-doh. Citizen Cope primarily does a mixture of blues, hip hop and experimental rock, all of which I'm often immediately drawn to.

I chose this particular track because it’s pretty deceptive with what it’s about while still going down smooth and being a bit more complex than you would think, like this season. What I'm trying to say: this music has layers, and I'll be using those to make my points below.

The first layer would be the obvious first impression of any onlooker without context given. It showed someone who was feeling threatened by an officer of the law at the time of the incident and trying to make sense of it.

The second layer would be more abstract and require a bit of thought. The title of this track, “Pablo Picasso,” could be a reference to his Cubist art style along with how misunderstood he seemed to have been (from the very little research I've done over the years).

The third layer would be the reality of the song. It’s often been perceived that the lyrics are coming from the perspective of a homeless individual on the streets of New York City. They were describing the Statue of Liberty, but I could also see it being an allusion to the gargantuan task of just existing in this crazy world. If you'd like to see some fan theories about this song, check here. There's many creative interpretations.

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This scene set the internet ablaze when the Kira announcement dropped several years back for the When They Cry 10th Anniversary celebration. Without any context, this was most definitely a troubling scene. The girl in black cosplay was 10 year old Rika Furude. The man with the drool and film was 28 year old Jiro Tomitake. This was not a normal situation in the seasons prior but this short clip was in the trailers, almost as if they wanted to stir controversy among the fans.

On the surface (layer one), this looks like some weird fanservice with a child doing repulsive things and an adult getting some sick pleasure from it, right? It really does look like Studio DEEN was lewding a child for the fans that are into that kind of material. I hate to admit this but this marketing ploy worked on me. I'm not into that one bit but as a long-time fan and someone who was a bit disappointed by Higurashi Rei, the third season, I had to see how much harm they were actively doing to something dear to me.

On my first watch, I was furious. There were times when some of the fanservice was kind of fun and got a few chortles out of me, but this was a bit too far, especially after what happened to Rika throughout the story. "She didn't deserve this kind of treatment!!!" I thought. Prepare to have your mind expanded and expect some major spoilers for the core mystery of the main series from here on out. You have been warned. Let's jam.

Upon arrival at the second layer (the abstract anomaly that could be the entire rest of this post), Rika was physically a 10 year old girl but with a major secret she still kept from her closest loved ones: she fit the “loli hag” archetype. You see, she had lived 10 years of her life for over 100 lifetimes due to forever dying at a set point in time. She was emotionally and mentally over 1000 years old due to how the timeloop and resurrection mechanics worked in the story. Can you imagine living your life for 10 years only to randomly wake up your previous self before dying with all of your memories in tact of your current body's life up to that point. This was a horror Anime through and through and her true story was terrifying.

Now to bring this back to a fun place because her character was not all doom and gloom. She did still have her humanity and her cute side. After the events of Rei and late season events of Kai (season 2), I could see her doing something lewd like this to mess with her friends. She had developed a twisted humor and it was implied that she may have often been somewhat drunk during club activities. Where she was able to obtain that alcohol, I can only speculate that her status as a shrine maiden had something to do with it.

Now we arrive at layer three, and hopefully you are ready for the true reality of the scene for no supernatural elements were involved. That was all just an excuse to use the song I did and to make this post. Bwahahahaha.

You may not be able to handle this truth, but this was all a fever dream Keiichi Maebura, the 14 year old male protagonist of the first two arcs of the original Visual Novel and adaptation, was having while sick in bed. It was never made directly clear in this first arc what all was happening outside of the small handful of times he was sleeping and characters not being themselves for once. It honestly required me rewatching Rei and playing through the first arc of the original game to come to that conclusion. He was a pervert but didn't mean anything of true harm in relation to his close friends. On the other hand, there was an even deeper, darker truth.

Rika may look cute and innocent, but when she won a few previous games, she had frequently humiliated Keiichi by patting him on the head and pursuading him to wear similar outfits to what she was wearing in this scene. What's even more disturbing, though, is how much I believe she would willingly wear this outfit to mess with her friends and use her butt to clean that glass. Like I said, she went through hell and came out a bit twisted. I know I would if I were in her shoes.

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My Closing Thoughts

Did you watch this season? If so, how did you feel about it, especially in regards to the core scene brought up in this post? If you enjoyed this content, feel free to reblog, vote and reply. Thanks for reading and I hope y’all have a wonderful evening.