UNCOVERED DiD Rika Furude

 

We have Rika Furude of Higurashi: When They Cry being bound and gagged in the nude.

Rika Furude is the true main protagonist from Higurashi: When They Cry and the deuteragonist of its sequels Gou and Sotsu. She is the daughter of the shinto priest in Hinamizawa. She is the miko, or shrine maiden, of the Furude Shrine, appearing in miko garb for her part of the Watanagashi Festival. She appears as the main character beginning with Minagoroshi-hen. She also appears as one of two main characters in Ayakashisenshi-hen (the other being Satoka Hojoo).

Rika seems like little more than a secondary character for much of the first half of Higurashi. As the story progresses, however, viewers learn that she is actually at the heart of most of the strange events, as her death is the trigger for the Great Hinamizawa Disaster and following incidents. Despite only being killed five times on-screen, dialogue eventually confirms that she has been killed once for every arc (excluding Matsuribayashi-hen and Miotsukushi-hen) and all other unseen worlds.

Rika is a younger classmate in Keichi'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 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. Not only is she the only daughter of the Furude clan, one of the three great houses of Hinamizawa, she is also believed to be the reincarnation of the local deity Oyashiro-sama. Although Rika is entitled to attend and have a voice in village meetings due to her family status, she is not required to attend because of her young age.

While she does speak in normal context, she likes to say nonsense words such as mii and nipah and often ends her sentences with nano desu, lit. "it is so"), which inflame Rena's passion for cute things. She also likes to describe events using sound effects, such as "The cat was going 'nya nya' and 'scritch scritch'" or saying "Clap! Clap! Clap!" when clapping her hands. In reality, she is being reborn in a 'new world' at some random time before or during June 1983, and in most of the worlds she is the only one to remember the previous lives. She believes she has lived over 100 years by the time of Tsumihoroboshi-hen, but continues to act like a child in order not to alarm her friends. Prior to Matsuribayashi-hen, she is the only one able to see Hanyuu, who has been an "imaginary friend" to her all her life. Despite her young appearance, she seems to be quite fond of wine, as well as kimchi, which she uses to silence Hanyuu when Rika is in a bad mood; this works because both Hanyuu and Rika's senses are linked together, though this seems to be redundant by Matsuribayashi-hen, possibly because of Hanyuu's coming into the world. It is later revealed that Rika's death would cause an outbreak in Hinamizawa which everyone would go on a rampage of hysteria. Further on, she attempts to stop Takano from her killing spree by pulling her friends and others around her together.

Rika often seems wise beyond her years. As a very young child during Himatsubushi-hen (which is set in June 1978), she predicted her own death in June 1983 to the visiting Akasaka Mamoru. Childish Rika has a tendency to speak using "cute" phrases; including sound effects and nonsense words such as "nipaa", "mii", cat sounds and saying "pachi pachi" (clap clap) while clapping her hands, all of which drives the cute-loving Rena Ryuuguu wild. To add to her "cute" and girly manner, Rika refers to herself with the pronoun "boku", which, although generally used by boys, is considered extremely cute when used by young Japanese girls. She does not address anyone with honorifics, and always greets people using their first names. In Japanese culture, this would be considered incredibly rude and even sometimes degrading, but being the Furude miko, no one seems to mind much.

Rika enjoys drinking wine and eating spicy things, to Hanyuu's displeasure.