The Superscription of Narrative
Michael Lee
Rika Furude caught in the endless loop of a GIF.
The 2007 anime Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry) features a time loop mechanic wherein our main characters experience the same summer again and again. Each iteration of the summer of 1983 ends in something tragic befalling some or all of the characters, and the summer resets. One character, Rika Furude, vaguely retains her memories with each loop, layering countless iterations of that summer on top of one another. In the series' third season theme song, Rika's plight is laid bare thematically in the lyrics "kako mo, mirai mo, super scription of data" or "the past and the future [are part of the] super scription of data." The previous loops, any future loops, all write themselves in a never-ending present. Yes, technically the present is always never-ending, as there is always a present moment to be experienced, but in Rika's case, she is aware that she will be stuck in the summer of 1983 as loops continue to pile on.
The interrogation of time is a trademark of postmodern fiction, and Higurashi is a series which creates a great deal of tension in its reconfiguration of time, producing an alternate history temporality that delivers an engrossing bit of fiction.
The odd choice to use "super scription" in the lyrics of the song when a word like "overwriting" would make more sense in English might be intentional. "To superscribe" has a squishy definition that could be interpreted as writing "on top of something" which could in effect be envisioned as a layering of text. As opposed to the procedure of "overwriting data" which in its definition is the deletion of old data to be replaced by new data. For Rika the summers she has experienced and the ones she is destined to continue experiencing are all layered on top of one another and in effect co-exist. While the ideal would be to completely overwrite the failed timelines to avoid retaining their negative memories, Rika experiences a superscription, which tracks with a particularly pertinent implementation of postmodernity in media these days — the reboot.
The Higurashi cast enjoying a carefree picnic.
Once More From The Top
Appearing with much greater frequency now than ever before, the reboot is a way to revive, resuscitate, and renew a franchise by setting it back to the beginning and starting again. This is most commonly seen in superhero stories, where origin stories are revisted time and again, establishing a slightly different version of the hero as a viable iteration of the character. Much like Rika's superscription however, despite the fact that the reboot is intended to replace or fix something that has been struck by an error (following the definition as applied to computers for a reboot), the truth is, as fans of the product, our minds can never be wiped clean of the previous versions of a hero that might exist. The reboot will always be compared to that which came before. While this is to the detriment of both the reboot and the original as the comparisons divide critics and fans, for Rika it allows her a degree of reflexivity. She would like to forget a failed timeline, but cannot completely rid herself of the fragments of memories from those alternate histories. The postmodern perspective is the key for Rika to unlock the mysteries found in Higurashi.
A time loop plot, when done right, makes for a compelling narrative. The characters struggle to grasp just what is happening and with each attempt to break the cycle the worldview grows as characters learn more. We as viewers hope that our heroes can figure it out, and we feel that sense of defeat when things go wrong and the cycle repeats. In the first narrative arc, our first loop as viewers, the pleasant village of Hinamizawa (based on the real life pleasant village of Shirakawa-go) seems innocuous enough. Main character Keiichi has just moved here from Tokyo and has made friends at the local school. The summer of 1983 for Keiichi is one of idyllic Japanese youth. Playing games with friends and exploring his new surroundings as the cicadas sing their summer song. But soon paranoia grips the village, and Keiichi begins to suspect his new friends are trying to kill him. It only takes four episodes for things to end in tragedy. Episode five, however, provides new hope as the summer of 1983 resets.
Keiichi not having a good day.
Higurashi's first season consists of four "Question" arcs that lay out the mysteries of Hinamizawa. Pulling at plot threads, but never fully unraveling the mystery. The second season is made up of three "Answer" arcs (the original game on which the anime is based had four arcs) that answer the questions posed by the arcs in the first season. Revealing what is really happening in Hinamizawa and how our heroes can escape the endless loop. The story reaches its conclusion at the end of season two, but that doesn't mean the loops have to stop. In fact, since the "conclusion" of Higurashi's canonical story, new story arc loops have been written for a variety of media. A live-action film, several video games, a manga series, and a new anime series (at first suspected of being a reboot) have all been released featuring new time loops.
This endless cycle of content is perhaps the unintended consequence of the exploration of time in postmodern narrative. Not knowing when to stop. Particularly when coupled with late capitalism’s penchant for grinding a product down into its signifying elements; Higurashi could (and at this time, continues to) loop endlessly, eventually losing the critical position it original aspired to, and breaking down into empty signifiers of itself. This is the fate that befall most reboots. Affective vestiges of the original work, creating the feeling associated with the original, yet devoid of any deeper meaning that may have been originally intended. It is for reasons like this that postmodernity is often viewed as a negative construct, levelling culture to a state of self-referential nothingness. Postmodern fiction, like Higurashi, seeks to use postmodernity in a positive (or at the very least, critical) way to make a statement about society.
The fictional village of Hinamizawa.
In Perpetouristy
The setting of Hinamizawa is also a character caught in this time loop when we consider that the real world location this series is based on is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shirakawa-Go. The intention behind designating something a World Heritage Site is preservation, something that on its surface appears to be an act of care and reverence, but ultimately functions as an attempt to stop time, situating the site in question forever in its past. This might seem like a challenge to the modernist understanding of time, but the shoring up of a past that is deemed to be "worth preserving" by the powers that be is often from a singular perspective of that history, and as such delegitimizes other narratives that could be found in that space. If not for the potential tourist dollars that may come in, UNESCO status in effect sentences a location to permanent stagnation without a future or even alternate interpretations.
Much like Keiichi and Rika being trapped in their summer of 1983, Shirakawa-go is also stuck in its thatched-roof farmhouse past, endlessly repeating traditions that few actually perform earnestly in the present. If Keiichi and Rika break free, they may also be freeing Hinamizawa from being stuck in its never-ending 'idyllic' past.
Rika performing a shrine ritual to rid the village of Oyashiro-sama’s curse.
The play with time in Higurashi opens up a world of radical reflexivity. Paul Smethurst in his book, The Postmodern Chronotope, explains that postmodernity does not occur after modernity, but at a moment in modernity where temporality has stalled. The looping of time allows for a postmodernist reflective moment wherein rethinkings and challenges to modernist conventions can occur. With regard to Higurashi, an example of how this slip into postmodern time allows for critique of modernity is how the kids come to view the traditional festival to "rid the village" of Oyashiro-sama’s curse. The older villagers are insistent that what plagues their village is the curse of a demon. Every summer in Hinamizawa, one villager dies mysteriously, something that has been going on year after year in the village. The shrine maiden—in this case, Rika— performs a ritual to keep the demon at bay. Dispelling the curse until the demon returns next summer. This long held tradition doesn't seem to be doing anything to help our heroes. If they go along with the ritual, they are doomed to repeat their summer, and “the curse” is always to blame for their untimely deaths at the end of a loop. The children come to see the ritual as meaningless, as it does nothing to save them from a tragic fate. It is empty pageantry. Only through the bending of time away from restrictive modernist thinking can this dated ritual be critiqued and critical questions about the mysterious deaths be answered. Without the reflexivity that postmodernity affords, Keiichi, Rika and the rest are doomed.
In this light, Higurashi can be read as an indictment of the way in which many Japanese participate in rituals of the past without ever truly understanding why they do it or for what purpose these rituals actually serve. It critiques the performative nature of modern society, and challenges the normative behavior expected through participation in these ritual acts. Everyone simply goes through the motions, because it is what the villagers have always done. Viewers see in Rika’s face and through her thoughts, as she performs the ritual time and again, this will not change anything. The time loop creates an opportunity for our heroes to step out of modernity and engage with these cultural norms from a postmodern perspective. Eschewing linear, modernist time in favor of a postmodern temporality allows for critique and subversion to take place.
Keiichi loses his grip on reality.
In the second season of Higurashi, the opening theme, Naraku no Hana (Flower of Hell), the lyrics urge our characters to escape from the time loop, tobikoetette unmei no haguruma kara, “fly away from the wheel of fate.” Imploring them to not be bound by what seems inevitable, as that future is stained with blood once again. it is the rallying cry to break from tradition and the rigid structure of time.
Higurashi’s melding of past, present, and future into one layered temporality is clever, and sneakily introduces postmodern thinking to the audience. When most anime don’t strive to be anything outside of whatever conventional genre they are born from, Higurashi is subversive. The creator, Ryukishi07, has said that he greatly admired the visual novels of well-known studio Key for their emotional plot twists. Their visual novel (and anime) Clannad, remains one of the most highly regarded tearjerkers of all time. Ryukishi07 wanted to achieve the same effect, but through horror. The cute girls who Keiichi is friends with look like the cast of one of Key’s visual novels, setting up the expectation that he might try to romance them, or provide emotional support. There is no time for romance in Higurashi, there is time for gruesome murder though. Coupling this with the critique of modernity and ritual norms through a postmodern construction of time, Higurashi is an absolute standout.
Michael Lee is the Editor of KOSATEN, and is currently pursuing research on Japanese fandom, with a particular focus on doujinshi and other fan-created media.
