Anime Expo 2015 Panel: “The World of Ryukishi07”

Lots of interesting stuff came up on Ryukishi’s AX Panel on Sunday, including the next When They Cry game! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see him again at the con myself like at ACen. But thanks to Isae (who writes an awesome Higurashi tumblr and blog) and an upstanding Anon of 4chan, I’ve been able to record these nuggets of knowledge for posterity.

First up, from Isae:

• Mion has never succumbed to Hinamizawa syndrome, because she communicates with others well.
• His favorite song from Umineko is ‘goldenslaughterer,’ and his favorite from Higurashi is ‘You.’
• His favorite Beatrice is the lively one in Episodes 1~3, but he also likes sad Beatrice.
• He thinks there’s a very good chance Rika will fall in love with Keiichi because of what he did during her 100 years. Plus, Keiichi is likely to turn out like Akasaka. However, he says that Rika is still young, so she might meet someone else in the future (like Ryukishi07). But he thinks that either way, Rika and Keiichi will end up having a deep relationship.
  
• His favorite adaptions of his works are the manga versions, and he would like people to send the manga artists fan letters in English.
• If people want to see a Higanbana or Umineko Chiru anime, they need to make a fuss about it so that the anime producers will know that that’s what people want to see.
• He thinks Satoshi will surely fall in love with Shion, too, because she has been doing her best to take care of him. If not, it might become another massacre.
• He’s definitely planning on continuing the ‘When They Cry’ series, but he doesn’t know in what form yet. As well as a visual novel, it could be an anime or manga, etc.
• If he could choose a type of spin-off game for his works to be made into, he would like to see a survival-horror game like Siren or Resident Evil.
• When he writes, he has a certain goal (scene) in mind that he wants to get to. He compared it to golfing, saying that he sometimes overshoots or undershoots his goal.

Thanks a bunch for contacting me! And readers, please do yourselves the favor of checking out his tumblr and blog. They have some great Higurashi content, including in-depth analysis, summaries of the console arcs, and translations.

The following comments were posted on 4chan’s /a/ thread for Umineko soon after the panel (come on /jp/, you’re falling behind here).

Deep thanks to Anon-kun as well; that’s lots of deep insights and amusing anecdotes to enjoy. And thus ends Ryukishi07’s first two-pronged assault into the USA. Hopefully he comes to my home town for Anime Boston in the future!