I hear you! A few of my friends who've watched the anime/read the manga/been spoiled for Higurashi have also expressed interest in going back through the visual novels for the same reason. Some of them once said to me that their biggest problem with the series was that some of the characters lacked depth - and I always wondered if they'd've felt the same way had they read the visual novels first. A lot of the character details and scenes of introspection were indeed (although understandably) left out of the anime, but there isn't a single character in the visual novels who isn't given ample time and attention to come into their own. I hope you've enjoyed the extra levels of characterization provided by the VNs thus far!
Watanagashi is beautiful, I could not agree more. I go back and forth on whether it's my favorite instalment, but I always hold it in high regard regardless of how I rank it. As for Tatarigoroshi, it took me, er, a little while to fully appreciate what that instalment was doing (my immediate response to it was sheer distress, so troubled was I by the final act) but after sleeping on it some, I realized this distress was the intended response and I couldn't help but respect the instalment for just how much of this feeling it had wrung from me. TL;DR I agree with you! Both instalments are fantastic.
If I remember correctly (and bear with me, this is going to get a little confusing) my strongly-held belief of what happened in the fifth chapter of Danganronpa 2 was as follows: I firm-as-cemently believed all throughout the fifth chapter that the dead body wasn't a real body, but rather one of those bizarre robots we were shown in one of the warehouses on the fifth island (the showing of which seemed very pointed to me; I couldn't imagine why else the humanlike robots would be there or why the game would spend enough time showing them to us). As such, it was my stubborn belief that the entirety of Chapter Five's murder was faked, so as to give everyone the impression that the victim had died and cause them to go on operating under that assumption. (Even when the trial went on to thoroughly disprove my theory, I felt validated when the following chapter immediately opened to the victim sitting very much alive on board a boat! I was like, look, I was right, they did fake their death! I must have ignored the part where the chapter following Chapter Five was titled Ch. 0 and was therefore most likely a flashback.) In hindsight, my theory held just as much water as a colander would, but at the time I was convinced, darnit!
I do look forward to hearing your thoughts on You And Me And Her, once you get around to playing it!
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Watanagashi is beautiful, I could not agree more. I go back and forth on whether it's my favorite instalment, but I always hold it in high regard regardless of how I rank it. As for Tatarigoroshi, it took me, er, a little while to fully appreciate what that instalment was doing (my immediate response to it was sheer distress, so troubled was I by the final act) but after sleeping on it some, I realized this distress was the intended response and I couldn't help but respect the instalment for just how much of this feeling it had wrung from me. TL;DR I agree with you! Both instalments are fantastic.
If I remember correctly (and bear with me, this is going to get a little confusing) my strongly-held belief of what happened in the fifth chapter of Danganronpa 2 was as follows: I firm-as-cemently believed all throughout the fifth chapter that the dead body wasn't a real body, but rather one of those bizarre robots we were shown in one of the warehouses on the fifth island (the showing of which seemed very pointed to me; I couldn't imagine why else the humanlike robots would be there or why the game would spend enough time showing them to us). As such, it was my stubborn belief that the entirety of Chapter Five's murder was faked, so as to give everyone the impression that the victim had died and cause them to go on operating under that assumption. (Even when the trial went on to thoroughly disprove my theory, I felt validated when the following chapter immediately opened to the victim sitting very much alive on board a boat! I was like, look, I was right, they did fake their death! I must have ignored the part where the chapter following Chapter Five was titled Ch. 0 and was therefore most likely a flashback.) In hindsight, my theory held just as much water as a colander would, but at the time I was convinced, darnit!
I do look forward to hearing your thoughts on You And Me And Her, once you get around to playing it!