When I finished watching When They Cry, I immediately started watching it again from the beginning. I can't recall the last time I did that - possibly never. But I was so fascinated and enthralled by the show that I had to see it again, to try to get a handle on the strange, elliptical story.
As you may have gathered from other reviews, this series is about a group of children in a small rural town. One or more of them becomes so desperate and/or insane that in the end people get killed. Then the story is "reset", and goes off in a different direction. These different arcs also have other subtle differences. The connections between the arcs, the similarities and differences, and the slowly building suspense as people's lives are endangered, all these factors make for a really fascinating show that has justly been widely praised.
However, on second viewing, when the suspense isn't as great because you know what to expect, the show's flaws become clearer. The pace of the story telling is extremely slow, and the characters make long speeches to each other about things we already know from the previous arcs. You really wish they would tighten the story up and get to the good bits. But, paradoxically, the factors that make second viewing dull are the same factors that make first viewing so suspenseful. I would have settled for less immediate suspense and more rewatch value, but that's just the way I am.
The first two arcs have been made into live-action movies in Japan, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the story is handled in these films. Hopefully the whole When They Cry story will eventually be treated this way - it could be a kind of anti-Harry Potter!
Unwary viewers must be warned, this show gets EXTREMELY violent, much more than the supposedly ultraviolent Elfen Lied. The ultra-disturbing quality is actually part of the entertainment value, as in "This is so, so horrible that I just have to laugh," but obviously this kind of thing is NOT for everyone.
(By the way, my top choice for moe horror would probably be the complex, atmospheric Boogiepop Phantom, worth checking out if you haven't already.)Get more detail about When They Cry: Complete Box Set (Viridian Collection).
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