Hinamizawa Village (雛見沢村) is the first chapter of the Onikakushi manga adaptation.
Summary[]
The chapter begins with a boy crying as imagery of a bloody baseball bat is shown. A poem by Frederica Bernkastel is read out.
A boy, Keiichi Maebara is resting on a train with his family and keeps hearing a girl apologizing over and over again. He says that whoever she's apologizing to needs to forgive her already, and says that there's no such thing as mistakes that can't be fixed. Keiichi's father says that they're almost back to Hinamizawa after leaving for 2 days.
Back in Hinamizawa, Keiichi heads off for school and narrates that he moved to the village because of his dad's job as a painter and has been living there for 3 weeks. Despite Hinamizawa being a rural area far from modern areas, he grew fond of the place. Keiichi had left for 2 days for a relative's funeral. Keiichi goes to meet his friend Rena Ryuugu at their usual meetup spot and head towards school. As they banter, their other friend Mion Sonozaki arrives. Keiichi narrates about Rena and Mion's personalities, and how they're being over-considerate to him as the new transfer student. At school, Keiichi states how Hinamizawa is a small village and there's only one class, where everyone has a different uniform.
The group reaches the classroom, where Mion allows Keiichi to step in first. Keiichi sees that there's an eraser trap set in the classroom door and tacks set on it. He announces that he's uncovered Satoko Houjou's trap, but he still trips on a rope and narrowly avoids falling into an inkwell. Satoko gloats over managing to get the upper hand on Keiichi as Rika Furude pats his head. Keiichi flicks Satoko's forehead as retaliation and she starts crying, prompting Rena to activate her "Kyute Mode" and attempt to take Satoko and Rika home. Mion says that the teacher is coming, and Keiichi and Satoko quickly clean up the trap. Class begins.
After school, Rena asks Keiichi to come with her on a tour of Hinamizawa. Along the way, they meet a female villager who recognizes Keiichi instantly, and Rena says that everyone in the village knows everyone's names since it's so small. Rena explains that the woman was Miyo, a nurse at the Irie Clinic, and introduces other people that Keiichi just met. It begins to grow dark, but Rena asks Keiichi to come with her to another place.
The two go to the junkyard, where Rena gets excited at the prospect of treasure hunting. Rena goes on ahead while Keiichi waits behind, and is soon startled by a cameraman appearing and taking pictures of him. The man introduces himself as Tomitake, and apologizes for startling Keiichi. As they talk, Rena calls out to them and says she'll be done soon. Tomitake asks what she's doing and Keiichi jokes that she's looking for pieces of a dead body she buried, and Tomitake ominously mentions a terrible incident, where they still haven't found one of the arms. The disturbed Keiichi asks what he's talking about when Rena finally returns. Tomitake takes his leave.
As they walk home, Keiichi is confused about Rena taking home a rice cooker she found. Rena says she also wants to take home a Kenta-kun statue buried in the junkyard, and Keiichi offers to help her dig it out later. Still worrying about what Tomitake said, Keiichi asks if anything happened in the junkyard, and Rena explains that there used to be a dam construction project. Keiichi asks if anything happened like an accident, and Rena promptly replies that she doesn't know. Keiichi is disturbed by that instant reaction, this being the first time he'd heard Rena talk like that. Rena explains that she lived somewhere else since a year ago, so she doesn't know everything. Keiichi still wonders what really happened in Hinamizawa.
The next day after school, Keiichi is brought before Mion, Rika, Satoko, and Rena to become a member of their games club. They play some rounds of Old Geezer however Keiichi loses every time, realizing that the club members have memorized the scratches in the cards, allowing them to know exactly which cards he has. Keiichi swears to win next time however Mion says he has to do a punishment game, and holds him down as the rest of the club draw on his face with marker. Keiichi thinks that he enjoys these peaceful days in Hinamizawa, however he's still concerned about what Tomitake said and that it just doesn't fit his idea of the village.
The club splits up for the day and Rena goes off to the junkyard again, expecting to meet Keiichi there. Keiichi asks Mion about it being the remains of a construction site, and Mion explains that there used to be a dam construction project started by the government that would've sunken Hinamizawa and turned it into a lake. The villagers protested and ultimately got them to withdraw the project. Keiichi asks if there were any murders, and Mion promptly replies there weren't any. Creeped out by that complete rejection just like Rena did, Keiichi starts to feel like his friends are just hiding things from him, but he doesn't want to believe it's true.
Keiichi meets Rena at the junkyard and inspects the state of Kenta-kun, who's buried under a pile of garbage. Keiichi tries and fails to get him out, and takes a break as Rena goes off to get some barley tea. Keiichi notices some discarded magazines and figures that they'd have to talk about the dam project if any murders really occurred. Keiichi soon finds an article detailing how a person was murdered by several people with hatches and pickaxes, and that his body was sliced into parts and hidden by the perpetrators; one of the killers and the victim's right arm still haven't been found. Rena returns and calls out to Keiichi, and horrifies him when he sees her holding a cleaver.
They both scream and Rena apologizes for scaring him, explaining that she brought the cleaver to help Keiichi since he suggested using one to dig out Kenta-kun. The two decide to go home for the day and plan to dig out the statue tomorrow. Keiichi hides the magazine in his jacket and watches Rena go, coming to the conclusion that she and Mion really were hiding the fact a murder occurred in Hinamizawa, and wants to know why. Keiichi narrates that at the time, he didn't know his curiosity would result in a bloody tragedy.
Characters[]
- Keiichi Maebara
- Ichirou Maebara
- Aiko Maebara
- Rena Ryuugu
- Mion Sonozaki
- Satoko Houjou
- Rika Furude
- Rumiko Chie
- Miyo Takano
- Jirou Tomitake
Gallery[]
Comparisons to Source Material[]
This chapter adapts the Prologue and Days 0 to 3 of the visual novel.
- The visual novel features banter between Rena, Keiichi, and Mion regarding Keiichi thanking Rena for a jar of pickles she gave to his mom, Mion asking Keiichi about getting game magazines when he was away, and Mion making comments about Keiichi's crotch. The manga shows Mion teasing Keiichi about her breasts and him threatening to grope them, with Rena stopping him.
- In the manga, Mion writes a note on Keiichi's back saying he's fallen into traps 20 times.
- The visual novel features the club getting together for lunch and commenting on Satoko's inability to tell apart broccoli and cauliflower. This chapter omits this.
- In the visual novel, Keiichi, Rena, and Mion go together on a tour through the village and then have a picnic with Rika and Satoko at Furude Shrine. In the manga, only Keiichi and Rena go on the tour, and the shrine picnic is omitted.
- In the visual novel, before the first club meeting, Mion tells Keiichi about a dam project occurring in the past and then denies there being a murder after the meeting ends. In the manga, Mion explains the dam project and denies a murder happened after the meeting.
- In the visual novel, the Old Geezer/Old Bachelor game was Keiichi's entrance exam into the club, with Mion allowing him to be a member after he pulls off a good move. In the manga, Mion seems to let Keiichi into the club with no conditions. Additionally, in the visual novel Keiichi figures out the trick behind the cards and wins a round by putting a new scratch in a card. In the manga Keiichi loses every single round and only learns the trick at the end.
- In the visual novel, Keiichi promises to help Rena dig out Kenta-kun as thanks for the picnic. He later goes home after the club game and goes for a walk when his dad is in a bad mood, and decides to help Rena at the junkyard to make her owe him in club games. In the manga, Keiichi promises to help dig out Kenta-kun as thanks for Rena being nice and heads to the junkyard right after the club game.
- In the visual novel, it's described that the person murdered was the dam construction foreman. In the manga it is vague.
- In the visual novel, Rena brings an axe with her. Multiple adaptations and console ports change this to a cleaver.
- In the visual novel, the detail of the school students having their own uniforms was mentioned in the TIP "We don’t have a uniform?"
Notes[]
Colored page from original magazine (translated by Eternal Bunny Love)
- Keiichi's appearance in the third colored page may have been changed between the original magazine release and the tankobon release.
- The original tankobon releases of Onikakushi-hen Manga Volume 1 featured the colored pages for this chapter in black and white. This was fixed for the official English release and in digital releases.
References[]
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