Back in 2014, I started to watch more anime. I mean, I have watched quite a few in my childhood, like "Digimon", "Pokémon", "Tenchi Muyou" and "Yu-gi-oh!" But I was looking for something more... Adult.

Then I found out about "Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni". I loved it. It was dark, it had likeable characters, and a very good story. That was the same time when I started to enjoy Visual Novels. Then I tried "Umineko no Naku Koro Ni". It was made by the same author, so it could be cool. However, Umineko was so great that it made it to the top of my favorite VNs of all time.

Ryukishi07, the creator of the "When They Cry" series announced last year "Ciconia no Naku Koro Ni", the new entry in the When They Cry series, and for the first time, it would have an english release along with the original japanese, so I wouldn't have to wait for a fan-translation. However, I was very skeptical about Ciconia because:

- Higurashi and Umineko takes place in the past. Ciconia is in the future.

- Higurashi and Umineko are about murder mystery and horror. Ciconia is about sci-fi.

- The characters in Higurashi and Umineko are regular persons. In Ciconia, they use a Gauntlet that gives them "superpowers".

Honestly, I was excited, but at the same time, very worried about what was coming. I thought maybe Ciconia would be the first in the series that I would give up after a couple of chapters.

I finished the first episode (out of 4) yesterday, and... Man, that was incredible! Ryukishi07 is a genius!

The story is about the possibility of a fourth World War, and the young Gauntlet Knights fighting to prevent it. But that's not all. It has secret organizations, betrayal, and even a main character that maybe doesn't exist (?) and the soundtrack... The soundtrack is amazing.

Is it better than Umineko? Probably not. It's going to be very hard to top Umineko, at least for me. But if you enjoy Visual Novels, give Ciconia When They Cry a chance. I will stop here to avoid spoilers.

However, I would recommend to wait for a price cut or a promotion, because it's kinda expensive on Steam.

And yeah, I support this coming to consoles.

How is it connected to Higurashi?

Honestly, the only connections to Higurashi are some characters returning, like Okonogi, Tomitake and Takano. It's only the first episode so far, I think more connections will appear in future episodes.

The ending of Phase 1 is confuse and obscure, just like Higurashi and Umineko. So probably until later episodes, we'll have to try and solve the mystery by ourselves (I think it's impossible to solve with only 1 episode, though).

Also, we don't know yet if the story will loop, like Higurashi and Umineko.

Yeah, that was what I thought at first. However, if you enjoyed Higurashi and Umineko, you will probably like Ciconia. People are allowed to post up to chapter 7 on Youtube, so maybe you can check it out to see if you like the plot before purchasing it.

Well, the first chapter took me around 22 hours to read.

If they wait for all 4 chapters to make an 26 episodes anime, I fear that a lot of content will get rushed.

Just a few decades now until I can enjoy a truly confusing anime.