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== Plot ==
The story was initially marketed as a remake of {{higurashi}}. On one hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi comes to a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There, he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the "[[The club|club]]," Keiichi and the gang plays all sorts of activities ranging from card and board games to hide-and-seek. But just as Keiichi was beginning to be assimilated in simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa. As Keiichi dives deeper into the mystery, he finds that his new found friends may not be all what they claim to be.
Eventually, the story was revealed to be a sequel rather than a remake. [[Rika Furude]], hidden protagonist of the original story, is forced back into the cyclical June of 1983, despite her success in {{matsuribayashi}}. Rika endeavors to discover why she is being tormented again and learns the dark truth about what occurred after she previously escaped the endless loops of Hinamizawa.
== Characters ==
=== Main characters ===
;{{Nihongo|[[Keiichi Maebara]]|前原 圭一|Maebara Keiichi}}
:The son of a famous artist, his family recently moved to Hinamizawa after a violent incident event involving him in their hometown. His charisma and remarkable talent for rhetoric allow him to easily make new friends and become popular in the village, not to mention win some of the club activities.
;{{Nihongo|[[Rika Furude]]|古手 梨花|Furude Rika}}
:Rika 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 [[Wikipedia:miko|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. Rika occasionally uses nonsense words such as {{nihongo|''mii''|みぃ〜}} and {{nihongo|''nipah''|にぱ〜}}. Having previously overcome the traumas of June 1983, Rika is once again forced into a loop of fragments alongside Hanyuu.
;{{Nihongo|[[Satoko Houjou]]|北条 沙都子|Hōjō Satoko}}
:Satoko is a younger classmate in Keiichi's school. She has a distinctive style of speech, ending all of her sentences with ''~wa'', and is known for her boastful laugh. In spite of her young age, she seems to have an impressive arm strength and is quite clever in setting up traps, and likes to practice on Keiichi.
;{{Nihongo|[[Rena Ryuuguu]]|竜宮 レナ|Ryūgū Rena}}
:Rena is a girl in the same grade level as Keiichi and the main female protagonist of the question arcs. She is very kind and takes care of Keiichi whenever possible, but is also naïve and is usually subject to light teasing by Keiichi. She is distinguished by her obsession with things she perceives as adorable, calling them {{Nihongo|''kāii''|かぁいい||a slurred form of {{Nihongo|''kawaii''|かわいい}}, meaning "cute"}}, which are usually [[Wikipedia:moe (slang)|moekko]] characters or items she finds while scouring the local dump.
;{{Nihongo|[[Mion Sonozaki]]|園崎 魅音|Sonozaki Mion}}
: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 is in love with 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.
=== Recurring characters ===
;{{Nihongo|[[Kuraudo Ooishi]]|大石 蔵人|Ōishi Kuraudo}}
:Kuraudo Ooishi is a veteran police investigator at Okinomiya who has vowed to solve the mystery of the Hinamizawa murders before his retirement, to avenge the first victim who he was friends with. Due to his uncouth tactics and the lengths that he goes to in order to solve the mystery, he is looked upon as a nuisance by the villagers, especially the Sonozaki family.
;{{Nihongo|[[Jirou Tomitake]]|富竹 ジロウ|Tomitake Jirō}}
:Jirou Tomitake is a freelance photographer who occasionally visits Hinamizawa. Despite being only an occasional visitor, he seems to know a fair amount about the darker elements of Hinamizawa's past.
;{{Nihongo|[[Hanyuu]]|羽入|Hanyū}}
:A goddess accompanying Rika's journey through various fragments.
== Production ==
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