This week kicks off with the gang in the classroom cleaning some old junk that they are planning to sell at the auction. Mion shows up with her box of homemade ohagi (OH SHI-).

Currently in the transition between worlds, Rika accounts the previous storylines she has encountered. Like Keiichi showing Bonds that you don’t need steroids to do some serious damage with a baseball bat (or maybe it was roid rage after all).

After a recap of events leading up to this episode, we finally arrive at the midnight scene of the mysterious men tripping Satoko’s clapper alarm.

The festival is here – it’s time for some killin’!!!!

June 11. The fated day is approaching. Rika tears another day off the calendar with a heavy heart and a futile resolve. She tries to keep her spirits up for the sake of her friends, but her emotional fatigue cannot hold up much longer. Maybe a trip to the festival grounds can cheer her up?

Her spirit transcends time and space, but yet is unable to control the very fate that binds her to the force of inevitability. She laments the tragedy of those who have suffered time and time again, and yearns with a hardened despair for those days of happiness that continue to elude them. No, the promise land is nothing but a distant dream, and yet, Rika will continue fighting for those she loves.

Enter Mamoru Asakasa, the forgettable police detective who had the run-in with ni-paa Rika way back when. It’s about 30 years after the events of the first season, and he’s back in Hinamizawa to check up on the status of the now-deserted town.