Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei

Synopsis The endless cycle of murders has been broken and Rika is finally able to settle down for a normal life with her friends. However, she is involved in a traffic accident and wakes up in a world where everything is different. A world where no one commited the sins that shaped them into the persons they are. It's up to Rika to discover the truth behind this world and whether or not it truly is perfect.

Main Character

Keiichi Maebara (前原 圭一)

Age: 16
Birthday: April

Maebara Keiichi is the main protagonist of the first 3 Higurashi Arcs, Onikakushi-hen, Watanagashi-hen, and Tatarigoroshi-hen. He is the son of a famous and extremely wealthy artist, and recently moved to Hinamizawa after an array of unfortunate and awful events in his hometown. As a charismatic, lively attitude, and his talented tongue allow him to quickly fit in the town and make new friends, and also win some club activities. In the first couple arcs, paranoia drives him to murder his friends and others, but in the other arcs, he gains inner strength and faith in his friends, enough to change the fate of Hinamizawa, sometimes by remembering the events of Onikakushi-hen. When in need of a weapon, he wields Satoshi's old bat. Keiichi often receives the butt of the jokes in the club's activities from which he was the correct answer to some games they play, to wearing embarrassing costumes whenever he loses punishment games.

Keiichi has brown hair with dark blue eyes and is described as charismatic to others.

During his school days, he wears a red shirt under a white one, black pants, a belt and red shoes. However, during his free days, he wears a black sleeveless shirt under a short red one, green shorts with a blue belt and shoes.

Hanyuu (羽入)

Hanyū is the mysterious "transfer student" in Matsuribayashi-hen. She has a pair of dark colored horns on her head, one of which is chipped slightly (however, no one seems to notice or mention them, with the exception of Takano, who calls her a "monster").

In fact, she has appeared to Rika all her life, but only in Matsuribayashi-hen and Miotsukushi-hen did she gain the power to interact with others, posing as a distant relative of Rika's and given the name "Hanyū Furude." Like many of the characters, she can be frightening when angered, and with her spirit-like nature, her appearance can change with her mood until she takes a physical form.

She is very meek and often makes the noise "Au au, au au…" when she is nervous or uncomfortable, or sometimes while trying to make a point. She also tends to end her sentences with nano desu (なのです?, lit. "it is so").

She dislikes alcohol and kimchi, which Rika imbibes in large amounts as punishment when she finds Hanyū annoying (as both Hanyū's and Rika's senses are linked together). She mentions that she is a "being above humans" after being sacrificed to atone for the sin of humans, while both Rika and Takano describe her as a kind of deity.

Rika refers to her as "Oyashiro" when talking with others (evident from Shion's chat with Rika in Meakashi-hen) but does not personally think of her as Oyashiro; instead, she sees her as a close friend.

In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei, Hanyū tells Rika that she was sacrificed to atone for the sins of the people of the village, and Hanyū asked Ōka Furude (Hanyū's own daughter and Rika's ancestor) to kill her and then make the village a better place.


She is the one responsible for the eternally repeating June 1983, which she created in order to save Rika from being murdered.

Rika Furude (古手 梨花)

Birthday: August 25

Rika is the main character in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai. She is a younger classmate in Keiichi's school, and is in the same grade level as Satoko. Naturally, she is great friends with her, as they live together in the same house. She is revered by the villagers as the heir of the local shrine, and plays the role of a miko in the annual Watanagashi Festival. She has been the head of the Furude house since her parents died, but rarely attends town meetings due to her young age. While she does not speak a lot, she likes to say nonsense words such as "mi~" and "nipa~" and often ends her sentences with "-nano desu", which inflame Rena's passion for cute things. She also likes to describe events using sound effects, such as "The cat was going 'nya nya' and 'scritch scritch'" or saying "Clap! Clap! Clap!" when clapping her hands. Despite her young appearance, she seems to be quite fond of wine, as well as kimchi. The wine she drinks is hinted to be Bernkastel vintage.

It is later revealed that Rika is the "Queen Carrier" of the lethal Hinamizawa Syndrome, and in turn keeps the virus under control and prevents it from spreading. Any that leave her presence will exhibit symptoms of the disease, which explains why anyone who leaves Hinamizawa is immediately stricken. According to the late Doctor Takano's research, in the event of Rika's death, within days the entire village of Hinamizawa will fall victim to the disease, and it is also said to spread to neighboring vilages if this occurs. For this reason, Rika is sought out and mysteriously murdered in each arc.

She has lived for hundreds of years and she's the only one (together with Hanyuu) who is aware of the time loop, although her friends eventually become aware of their deeds in previous worlds.

Satoko Houjou (北条沙都子)

Birthday: June 24

Satoko is a younger classmate in Keiichi's school. She has a distinctive style of speech, ending all of her sentences with 'wa' which, at times, is grammatically incorrect. In spite of her young age, she is quite clever in setting up traps, and likes to practice on Keiichi. 

Although her personality is quite energetic and mischievous during the events of the games, Satoko's past was full of trauma; her parents died in an accident, she was abused by her foster parents (her aunt and uncle), and her beloved brother Satoshi disappeared. However, in Matsuribayashi-hen, Irie suggested she killed her parents, as she had a bad relationship with them and felt threatened, and so to her it was an act of self-defense. She is suffering from the Hinamizawa Syndrome at that time, and though Takano wanted to disect her alive for study, Irie fought to save her life. She is one of the few characters to ever recover from Level 5 of the Syndrome, but has to take shots on a regular basis. Though she greatly misses Satoshi, and feels that by being strong he will return, she comes to regard Keiichi as her new "nii-nii" (a cute term for older brother), and once even regards Shion as "nee-nee" (a cute term for older sister).

She dislikes japanese pumpkin, and cannot tell the difference between cauliflower and broccoli, because she is colorblind.

Mion Sonozaki (園崎 魅音)

Mion is the oldest kid in Keiichi's class. As the elder, she is the class president and everyone looks up to her as the leader. Her social skills are on par with Keiichi, whom she highly respects as a friend and rival (though it is later shown that she has a crush on him).

She acts like a tomboy, and calls herself oji-san (meaning old man), but has a hidden girlish side. She is next in line to be the head of the Sonozaki household, one of the Three Families which holds tremendous influence in Hinamizawa. She is often seen with a holstered airsoft gun, even though she is never seen using it, and was removed in the PS2 adaption of the game; she is, however, very adept in the use of martial arts.

Mion also serves as leader of the after-school club consisting entirely of the main characters. She organizes a variety of strategy-based games for the members to play with penalties for any losers. Penalties usually involve wearing embarassing or frilly outfits on the way home. Each game she organizes involves bending the general rules or using questionable and crude methods to win such as playing cards with a marked deck or using feminine wiles to discourage opposition.

She is notable as the only character that has never been driven to the extreme paranoia (on screen) that causes the others to kill in the question arcs and the first two answer arcs.

Her real name is actually Shion, as she was born second to the family, but due to sister swapping even at a young age, she was mistakenly taken as Mion and branded with the oni tattoo, ultimately causing her stay as Mion.

Rena Ryuuguu (竜宮 レナ)

Birthdate: July, 1967

Rena is the main female protagonist of the question arcs and a girl who returned from Ibaraki to Hinamizawa one year ago, she is in the same grade level as Keiichi.

She is very kind and takes care of Keiichi whenever possible, but is also naïve and is usually subject to light teasing by Keiichi, it is hinted later in the series that she loves him. She is distinguished by her obsession with things she perceives as adorable calling them kāii (かぁいい?, a slurred form of kawaii (かわいい?), meaning "cute"), which are usually moekko characters or items she finds while scouring the local dump. Generally, these things are not considered cute by others.

She also utters the phrase haū (はぅ〜?) when excited or flustered, and has a habit of repeating phrases at the ends of her sentences, most famously kana? kana? (かな? かな??, lit. "I wonder, I wonder?")

Every now and then, she goes treasure hunting in the town's trash heap, searching for 'cute' things to collect, and whenever she sees something that grabs her attention, she proclaims "I wanna take it home!" (お持ち帰り〜, Omochikaerī?) and proceeds to try and do so, becoming virtually unstoppable during these intervals.

When in "Take it Home" mode, she comically becomes stronger and faster. Despite this disarming trait, Rena is shown to be amazingly observant and perceptive about the things around her (in Watanagashi-hen, she was able to deduce that both Rika and Satoko went to the Sonozaki house by looking through the contents of their fridge and a flier).

When she needs a weapon, she uses a large cleaver that she found at the dump (in the anime) or a toolshed (in the manga and game).

According to Mion, while Rena might seem cute herself, people should be careful not to anger her as she becomes quite scary when angered.

Rena's real name is Reina, a name she used normally before she moved from Hinamizawa to Ibaraki with her parents one year prior to the events of the story. There she discovered her mother having an affair, causing Reina to smash all the windows in her new school and assault three male students with a metal bat under the influence of the Hinamizawa syndrome. Believing herself to be cursed by Oyashiro for leaving Hinamizawa, Reina returned to the village with her father shortly after the incident and abandoned her real given name to "Rena" out of shame of her parents' subsequent divorce, holding herself responsible and hoping to begin life anew. So as not to alarm Keiichi, Rena claims to be a relative newcomer to Hinamizawa herself. Because of the incident, Rena is sensitive about the topic of Oyashiro, believing strongly in the existence of the deity and the curse, and becoming angry and unstable whenever anyone questions it.

Rena is especially sensitive about the topic of Oyashiro; in Tsumihoroboshi-hen, her delusions about the god's true nature go so far as to make her take the school hostage, trying to unreasonably force a police investigation into the matter.

Rena's last name, is in double "u". So the correct name for Rena is Rena Ryuuguu, not Rena Ryuugu.