Furude Rika is one of the main characters in the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series. 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.
Role in Falica's Overact[]
She was hynotized with all ther heroes During the first battle with the Titans, She and all the heroes was free from the curse was was sealed in the Triforce of protection.
Character Summary[]
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.
The villagers of Hinamizawa hold Rika in high esteem, as 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.
Rika lives with her classmate and friend Hōjō Satoko in a small house by the Furude Shrine.
Appearance[]
Rika has long purple/blue hair in a hime cut, fitting her image as a miko. Her eyes are fairly droopy and purple, and she is the shortest character of all. On school days, Rika wears a white short sleeved shirt with a pink bow, a navy-blue skirt, navy suspenders, white socks and red or brown shoes. On free days, she wears a green sundress, with a white bow in the front and white sandals. During the Watanagashi Festival, she wears a traditional miko uniform, complete with a ornate hoe topped with tassels.
Personality and Mannerisms[]
Rika often seems wise beyond her years. As a very young child during Himatsubushi-hen (which is set in June of 1978), she predicted her own death in June of 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 Ryūgū Rena wild. To add to her "cute" and feminine 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 Hanyū's displeasure.
True Personality[]
When revealing her True Personality, Rika's cuteness disappears and she turns cynical and more mature. She switches pronouns from "boku" to "watashi" and her voice drops to something more resembling a grown woman's than a child's. This is the persona Rika uses when thinking and when speaking to Hanyū, so it can be assumed it is her real personality, which she keeps under wraps to avoid scaring her friends. Rika's second character song,S.A.G.A. ~Rinne no Hate ni~, is sung almost entirely with her True Personality. This personality is also considerably bold and occasionally rude to people.
The first time her True Personality is shown is in Himatsubushi-hen, when she warns Akasaka to go back with his wife and save her from dying. It appears that over the hundreds of worlds she has been through, Rika's True Personality has become understandably somewhat distorted and sly, as she seems to derive some pleasure out of taunting people, such as Akasaka, with knowledge that she should not have. Rika used to resist her fate with much greater enthusiasm, but over time she was mentally worn down and eventually resigned to her fate. As a result, she seems to have almost no interest in anything, as she has been through everything many times already (save for Sonozaki Mion's whimsical club activities, which seem to be one of her few pleasures in life), and she welcomes any kind of change, good or bad. The TIPS reveal that when her parents were still alive, she showed no emotion, only reacting to something unexpected. This greatly concerned her mother, who couldn't understand Rika no matter how hard she tried, and made their relationship difficult. However despite her cold personality she still cares for her friends and most importantly Hanyū, it is shown that she also cares for her mother, when after she woke up from her coma, she cried thinking that she killed her mother to get back there.
Trivia[]
- Out of all the characters, Rika has died the most number of times.
- She is the only one (out of all her friends) in all the arcs (including spin-offs) to have never been a sole survivor.
- Rika has not survived in any arc other than Matsuribayashi-hen and Miotsukushi-hen.
- Because Rika is immune to Hinamizawa Syndrome, she is the only one in the main cast to never go mad and commit murder. Even though she had supposedly killed her mother in Saikoroshi-hen in order to escape that world, as even Rika herself believed that she had, it turned out to all be a dream sent by Hanyū, so Rika remains as the only one who has not committed a murder.
- Rika is fond of wine and kimchi, often purposely getting drunk to either bother or block out Hanyū through their mysterious connection to experience each other's senses.
- In Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Bernkastel's weapon is a scythe. In Higurashi Daybreak Kai, Rika wields a similiar scyhte and also talks in her mature and cynical-about-life way.