Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Template:Infobox Watanagashi-hen Sono Ichi – Shitto'' (綿流し編 其ノ壱 嫉妬, Cotton Drifting Chapter One- Jealousy) is the first episode of Watanagashi-hen.
In the anime, Watanagashi-hen begins with the club playing a game of karuta in a toy store. The game's leader, in this case the store's owner, reads a Japanese proverb aloud. The first player to grab the card which depicts the matching picture gets a point. The club members quickly gather cards through various methods of trickery, and there is a tie between Mion and Keiichi with one card left to be read. However, the game is ended when the clock strikes three "by the order of Sonozaki Mion". The store owner presents an irritated Keiichi with a prize—a yellow-haired, blue-eyed doll with a pink dress. Put off by his spoils, Keiichi hands it over to Rena, commenting on how her and cute things go together. He explains that it is useless to him, and turning to a slightly flustered Mion comments on how such girly things wouldn’t fit a tomboy-attitude like hers. The five club members separate, Keiichi feeling hungry decides to go to Okinomiya's "Angel Mort".

As the girls at Angel Mort wear scandalous outfits, it takes Keiichi a perverted second or two to realize that the person in front of him looks remarkably like Mion. He thinks that when Mion said she had to leave to work, she actually meant working at Angel Mort as a waitress. Keiichi, abusing the “superiority” he claims a customer has over any waitress, openly mocks Mion for her job. After going too far with his thoughts and receiving a blow to the face, the girl tells him that she is not Mion but in fact her younger twin sister: Sonozaki Shion. Shion calls “Kei-chan”, and hastily asks if she can call Keiichi by the name Mion calls him, revealing a possible crush Mion may have on Keiichi. Keiichi leaves Angel Mort, not entirely convinced that Mion has a twin sister. The camera pans up to show Shion watching Keiichi through a window with a cheerless but poignant face.

The next afternoon, Keiichi, Rena, and Mion are walking home. Keiichi expresses his contempt at his parents leaving “a growing boy home alone”, when Mion turns down a different road as she has to work again. Keiichi says it must be difficult being a waitress, but Mion exclaims (in an embarrassed tone) that she works at the toy store that they played karuta at, assisting the owner watch over it. She states that Shion is the waitress, and Keiichi plays along. Mion explains Shion and she have completely different personalities: Mion is the “nice, caring one”; Shion is “frigid and intimidating”. A confused Rena wonders why she never saw Shion at the Sonozaki residence, but after going through several anime expressions Mion replies that Shion lives in Okinomiya. When Rena inquires as to which restaurant Shion works at, Mion scurries off to work. Keiichi lazily collapses once he walks inside his house, but is shocked to see Shion enter shortly afterwards. She presents him with a bentou, and explains that Mion told her he was starving. Keiichi persists with questions, but Shion says he is a customer, and leaves to her work.

At school the next day, the troupe are about to decide the punishment game when Rika claims she has something else to do, sending Mion pirouetting into a wall. Rika has to prepare for the Watanagashi Festival, as she is practicing to be the shrine maiden and so must perform the festival dance. Rika departs with Satoko to go through the steps. Mion dates the festival to be on next Sunday, and Rena reveals that the dance is called the dance of Hounou and is the main rite of Watanagashi. Some foreshadowing is shown when Mion details how Rika practices with a mallet for pounding rice (as the plough used in the real dance is adequately heavy). Keiichi exclaims that Rika is stronger than she appears, and Rena says that sometimes the opposite of what things look like is closer to the truth. Mion recalls that she has to work yet again, leaving Rena and Keiichi in the classroom alone. Rena explains that Mion, for however commanding and bossy she may appear, is truly a considerate person, and a “cute girl at heart”.

Keiichi returns to Angel Mort that afternoon to give Shion back the box she gave him the dinner in, when he stumbles into a group of motorcycles, knocking them all over in tandem. The bikers who own the motorcycles surround him, prepared to beat him up. Shion steps out of Angel Mort, swearing at the bikers and demanding that they let Keiichi go and leave immediately. As the head thug advances toward Shion, he turns about to find a large crowd of people, of all ages, circling the three bikers with grim faces. The thugs ride off in retreat, and Keiichi turns about to see the crowd smiling back at him—and at Shion. The two of them walk down a street, and Shion explains that the people of Hinamizawa are close-knit. Keiichi relates the people to the Mafia or Yakuza, and returns the bentou box to Shion. She is taken aback, as Shion knows that she never gave it to him (implying that the Shion at Keiichi’s house was Mion). Shion changes the subject, relating their walk together is a date and grabbing his arm. Keiichi tells her that she doesn’t have to pretend to have a twin sister, when the real Mion walks out of the nearby toy store. Keiichi is shocked to find out they are twins, and Mion blushes embarrassedly, but sadistic-looking Shion replies “Didn’t I say so?” The following day, Keiichi is puzzled by Mion’s strange mannerisms, going to the bathroom whenever he glances back at her (15 straight times), and so on. Rena talks with Keiichi in the hallway, and explains that Mion was hurt when she saw Keiichi with Shion. Now that she has “fixed” Mion ("The same way I fix my TV—" (swinging her arm) "You have to do it at a 45 degree angle!"), Rena says she has a favor to ask Keiichi: to forget the day before ever happened. Keiichi agrees to it, and after he is hit on the head with a large pan the camera moves to expose Mion peering from around a corner with the same cheerless expression Shion had.

Characters in order of appearance

Advertisement