All the horror anime I've watched have been sadly pretty lacking; being either not scary at all or purely shock value. I'm looking for something that's neither of those, I want a genuinely scary narrative that doesn't rely on jumpscares or gore to be scary (I'm fine with them as long as that's not the main element of the show.) Any recommendations welcome!
I dont really watch horror anime. I remember thinking the original Higurashi anime was really unsettling back when I was a teenager. Not sure if it holds up...that said the visual novels are quite good. I suffer from schizophrenia and the Higurashi VNs really got the feeling of paranoia down. I will also say the VNs are a lot of slice of life and slowburn stuff until things pop off I do enjoy them a lot though.
I do enjoy VNs from time to time, will check them out. Thank you!
In fact if you are interested the first part "Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi" is free to play. The games are kind of standalone but there is an overarching narrative (so it makes sense to play them in order). One thing they all have in common is that they play in the village of Hinamizawa which is based on a real village in Japan they also all play during summer time.
Short write up : June, 1983. The summer heat has arrived earlier than it does most years. By day there are cicadas, and by night, the higurashi.
Hinamizawa, a small village in the Japanese countryside. While there are fewer than two-thousand people there, every year, 'something' happens.
For the past 4 years, someone has died, and another has gone missing.
This series of deaths and disappearances is connected to the local resistance against a now-abandoned dam construction project. A murder during the construction, covered up by the local authorities, is being re-enacted year after year.
I dont wanna spoil to much. Its best to go in blind. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Sounds interesting, will check it out. Is the anime adaptation any good?
Uff. So there's the old anime, which I will fully admit I have no idea if it holds up. Then there's the new anime... which I think is best watched AFTER you play all the visual novels (in my humble opinion). The new anime does something interesting, but I wouldn't really call it horror.
Either way, I think the visual novels are better than either. Just as a sidenote, there is basically no input or choices in the VNs. There are some things like news articles you unlock while playing the games. Other than that, it's just music, text, and characters. As I said I do think they are really good. Currently there are 10 games. Each of them about 10hs in lenght. You dont have to play all 10 of them to get something out of it. For example Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi is basically a story in the larger plot. The more chapters you read the more you will know about the mystery of Hinamizawa...what exactly happened and what is real or ficiton. Screenshot below.
I see, thanks! This was really helpful
I tried playing this. I had to mod it to replace the default sprites with the remastered sprites lol
coward, ryukishi sprites are good