Higurashi When They Cry: Time Killing Arc, Vol. 1 - manga (Higurashi, 7) Paperback – June 15, 2010

In 1985, two years after the Hinamizawa Disaster, a detective named Akasaka learns that the young child he met seven years ago on a case was murdered in the shrine the night before the volcanic eruption released the toxic gas that wiped out the village.The story flashes back to 1978, when the village of Hinamizawa is in the middle of protesting the dam project that would see their village flooded beneath an artificial lake. A high profile politician's son was kidnapped and the village's protest group, known to be violent, is suspected. Akasaka is sent to investiage. There he meets Rika Furude, a little girl respected by the village. Akasaka isn't happy to be on this assignment since his wife is in the hospital with complications from her pregnancy.He gets to know Rika as he's given a tour and learns about the village. They seem friendly and he has a hard time believing they could be behind the kidnapping. That is until Rika suddenly begins talking like an adult and warning him that he should leave before he regrets it. She predicts that the dam project will fail within the year and he'll only find grief if he stays.Undaunted, Akasaka soon learns that his cover is blown and he maybe in danger from the Sonozaki family. Will he stay, or will he leave?This short arc provides a lot of the back story. It shows us there is something up with Rika. She's shown herself to have a surprising maturity at times in the story, dropping her girlish act. Now we see her giving threats to Akasaka that have the young detective unnerved.This arc has mystery and gives us clues, providing a great transition from the question section of the series and the answer part. We see that the Hinimizawa disaster and Rika's murder happen in multiple timelines since the Oishi of this timeline doesn't go missing in the woods while investigating Teppei Hojo's murder like in the last arc. It's a hint towards what is going on, though we are still struggling to understand it.There is something evil in Hinamizawa. The question is this: is it Oyashiro's curse or is there a human culprit working in the background. We've had both the Sonozaki family put forth as the human cause, and the curse punishing the wicked on the other end. But the story is murky, and like all good mysteries, nothing is what it seems.The art is great. Young Rika is adorable and the artist captures her childish glee and enthusiasm. It has a mellow story, but the tension slowly builds as new information is revealed, leading us towards the ending driving us towards the ending.What will Akasaka find with Oishi?Higuarshi is an intriguing and engaging series. The characters are likable, making you feel for them when things go wrong over and over again. You are rooting for these characters to survive one of these summers. Will they?You'll just have to read this series to find out.

The book game new and in good condition.

One of my favorite manga series of all time!

I watched the anime of this with my son and it was great. Now he wants the Mangas to read and I hope there just as good.

If you've been following the series so far & have done a little studying of the series, you'll know that this particular arc isn't set during the same time period as the other story arcs. I'm making sure to make you the reader aware of this ahead of time so you don't read it & get frustrated that you aren't getting a look at the next parallel version of Hinamizawa.This arc is set seven years before the events in 1985. A police officer has been sent to Hinamizawa in order to investigate the dam protest group that seems to be tied to the kidnapping of a government official's child. He immediately meets the enigmatic & adorable Rika, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. The longer this officer stays, the more strange & dangerous the deceptively peaceful town begins to seem.I did like this volume well enough, yet I'll admit that this isn't my favorite of the series. It's good in one sense that you get to see exactly how far back the strangeness of Hinamizawa began. However, it just doesn't seem to grab me as much as the other volumes do, perhaps because the main character of this arc (Detective Akasaka) lacks the charm of the other characters. The art in this volume is very nice & in keeping with the quality of the previous volumes, yet part of me knows that if I had my choice I'd have skipped over this arc & gone to the next arcs in the series.I'll warn you- you'll either really like this or you'll be incredibly underwhelmed. I've never talked to anyone who rabidly disliked this arc- most of the people I've talked to online have just expressed a sense of being let down. This could've been a great look into a younger Rika as well as the mounting tensions of the town, but this volume just feels a little flat in comparison to how wonderful the tensions have been in the previous volumes. I'm going to chalk that up to the lack of action in this volume, so hopefully the next volume will improve on this.In good news, the answer arcs should be coming up soon after the release of the second volume of this arc. (There's one more arc between this & the answer arcs!)

The book is not in good condition. It's like it's been handled by children for years. For 30 dollars, it's a lot for acceptable or sub par condition.