Higurashi When They Cry: Abducted by Demons Arc, Vol. 2
Grade 10 Up–In volume 1, Keiichi moved to a new village and learned that someone has died on the night of the Cotton Drifting Festival for the past four years. Here, he discovers that each of his new friends is connected in some way to the previous victims, and that they may be more dangerous than Keiichi could have imagined. He spends a lot of time worrying, trembling, and talking to himself. Meanwhile, his new friends continue to act sweet and wonderful one minute and darkly terrifying the next–but is that their fault, or are they being controlled by the village curse? Keiichi alternates between being a sympathetic and an annoying protagonist. Sometimes it takes him several pages to worry out loud about whether or not his life is in danger, when the same effect could be achieved more efficiently in a couple of panels. Suzuragi&'s artwork sets a fantastic mood, especially during the scenes in which the girls appear to be possessed and their eyes look like those of a cat reflecting a flashlight in the dark. The cute/scary ratio of the book remains fairly consistent until the ending, which is far more grisly than many readers might expect.–Andrea Lipinski, New York Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.