笑顔・はっぴぃ・ピース♪ (Smile Happy Peace♪)

Rena character song! Potential spoilers!

Higurashi character songs have a tendency toward lyrical dissonance, and both the series and the songs also tend toward mood whiplash. This one has a good deal of both, particularly in the interlude that the lyrics booklet doesn't list. The song is mostly upbeat, happy, and carefree, but wedged in the middle is a selection of Rena's most disturbing lines, including the infamous USO DA!! Actually, it's kind of unfair to her that it's so infamous, given that the viewpoint character's hallucinations heavily taint the scene in question—not that she doesn't say it (probably), but it's surely nowhere near as creepy as we're lead to believe. On the other hand, she gets more than creepy enough when the crazy bug hits her in Tsumi horoboshi-hen, being disturbingly calm and calculating even as she goes off the deep end.

Anyway, when she's not busy being insane, Rena is fascinated with cute things (and people!), with a tendency to lose herself in the thrall of cuteness and try to take them home with her. Whether they like it or not. She also has a somewhat pecular taste in what she considers "cute," with a habit of rummaging through the local dump and fixating on things like Kenta-kun, the mascot of KCF (don't call him Colonel Sanders). Adding to the cute factor, Rena has a number of vocal quirks, from mispronouning かわいい (kawaii) as かぁいい (kaaii)—which I mirror by deliberately misspelling "cute" as "cyute"—to frequently doubling the ends of her sentences, most often かな (ka na, roughly equivalent to "I wonder"), which she overuses to begin with. Beneath the adorable exterior, though, Rena is quite intelligent, and can be rather vindictive when upset, even when she's perfectly sane. Stay on her good side, though, and she's a helpful and loyal friend. Just watch out for that cleaver and hope the crazy doesn't strike, which is never a safe bet in Hinamizawa...

Back to translations index