Shion Sonozaki

Sonozaki Shion is one of the main characters in the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series, Sonozaki Mion's twin sister, and the antagonist of the question arc Watanagashi-hen and its answer arc Meakashi-hen. She is well known for her spectacular mental breakdown and the ensuing bloodbath in those arcs, her mischievous nature when it comes to teasing the other club members, as well as for her relationship with Hōjō Satoshi, which has been the subject of at least four different songs. She and her sister are implied to be 14 in most media (or around 17 in the live-action adaptations) as of June 1983. The new anime-only arc Satokowashi-hen confirms that in June, 1984, Mion has entered high school which puts the twins at 15 in 1984. Shion resembles Mion in every way, except Shion leaves her hair down and has a sunshine yellow ribbon tied on the back of her head to differ from her sister. In her Matsuri and Kizuna sprites, she has two yellow ribbons pulled back on the sides of her hair. Like Mion, Shion has long, mint green hair and turquoise eyes. Starting with Minagoroshi-hen, on her school days Shion wears a short sleeve buttoned white shirt with a navy blue- or white-striped ribbon tied around the collar, and a navy blue mini-skirt. On her free days, she wears a sleeveless vertical-striped turtleneck shirt. On the chest region of the shirt, there are what appear to be sunshine yellow gems of some sort. She also wears a black buttoned mini skirt and small white heels. Shion's original boarding school uniform is only seen in the beginning of Meakashi-hen. It consists of a long sleeved white blouse, a red tie, a pale gray blazer, a navy blue skirt, white socks with blue stripes on the top and brown shoes. It is sometimes included in art or other media, but officially it is only seen that time. In the concluding panels of the manga version of Matsuribayashi-hen, she visits Hinamizawa dressed in her St. Lucia uniform primarily to dote on Satoko and insist she call her "Nee-nee." Her weapon is a stun gun. Despite her being seemingly more girly and refined than Mion, thanks to schooling at St. Lucia, she is incredibly shrewd, manipulative, and delinquent, more so than Mion. She hated St. Lucia, calling it a "factory for manufacturing ladies" and got in trouble with the administration numerous times for various misdemeanors. To escape, she studies all of the school's security systems, guard schedules, and behaviors of the administration staff, to the point where she manipulates them by propagating a rumor of her having a love affair with a male teacher. In Watanagashi-hen, she enjoys teasing Mion and making her jealous by taking control of Keiichi whenever she has the chance. In Meakashi-hen, when the motorcyclists attack her, she is capable of mapping out how to ruin their reputations in numerous ways to create the most entertaining and interesting outcome for her own enjoyment. Also in Meakashi-hen, Shion easily manipulates the whole village of Hinamizawa. When Furude Rika, Hōjō Satoko, and Kimiyoshi Kiichirō go missing, Shion exploits the resulting paranoia to her own advantage in order to lure all of her targets to their deaths in perfect fashion and fulfill her own "promise" to Satoshi. Shion is not immune to embarrassing situations herself however, as shown by her mother teasing her in Minagoroshi-hen and accidentally making a fool of herself by unwillingly luring the Yamainu in Matsuribayashi-hen. Like Mion, Shion often behaves as a very cheerful and friendly girl. In the arcs where she is protective of Satoko, Shion acts like her older sister by both helping out whenever she can and teasing as a sister would. She has a very supportive personality and openly supports Satoshi, convincing the store owner selling the large stuffed bear he wanted to give to Satoko for her birthday to hold it for him to allow him to earn the money to pay for it. Under the influence of the Hinamizawa Syndrome, Shion will become violent as her paranoia grows as it did in Keiichi and Rena. In Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen, Shion tends to become envious very easily and frequently, which contributes to her progression of the Hinamizawa Syndrome, her violent insanity, and how she chooses to seduce the victims "to make sure they get what they deserve." In Meakashi-hen, Shion's inner "demon" awoke out of jealousy when she was listening to Mion talk about Keiichi; she found it unfair for Mion to have a living crush nearby when her own crush was possibly dead. Other things that drive Shion's jealousy include Mion's status as the next heir of the Sonozaki family, Rika's status as the reincarnation of Oyashiro-Sama, Satoshi's protection and love for Satoko, and, as Shion describes it, Ryūgū Rena's own inner "demon" which far surpasses her own in terms of power and monstrosity: "In the heavy downpour, I saw those eyes. It was like a situation where, because I knew how to play tennis, people admired me for being able to beat other novices at tennis. But then I met a girl who said she also played tennis; she even took private lessons. When I competed against her, she completely beat me, and I felt humiliated when everyone began to admire how she was much better than me. To me, that was Rena. I could sense her aura, that her demon was much more fearsome than my own." Despite being cold to hating Satoko in Meakashi-hen, Shion also has the capability to become fiercely protective of her. In Minagoroshi-hen, when the club members were trying to plan out how to save Satoko from her abusive uncle, Hōjō Teppei, she threatens to kill everyone who stands in her way of killing Teppei, even those whom she cares for. However, Keiichi points out that in reality she doesn't actually want to do that and that she instead just wants Satoko to return without anyone she cares for getting hurt or going to jail, in fact she calms down when Keiichi allows her to vent by bashing his head with a chair, whereupon she stops offering murder as a solution and the next day agrees to help him bring Teppei to justice using legal means, feeling embarrassed when Keiichi teases her about her previous violent behavior, to which she responds that she's serious now and even becomes passionate about convincing the child welfare center employees about saving Satoko. She also fights the Yamainu with her friends at the end by using her stun gun to temporarily incapacitate them instead of killing them. In this arc and possibly others, Shion is willing to die for Satoko. Later in Minagoroshi-hen, when she pleads to Takano to kill her but spare Satoko, she agrees and kills Shion by shooting her in the head, though Takano later kills Satoko anyway after she answers a question. In Matsuribayashi-hen, she's willing to sacrifice her life so that her friends can escape from the Yamainu, and even though she has access to firearms, not once does she kill her pursuers and instead just tries to delay them or disarm them later on when she and Kasai use a sniper rifle. This is a sharp contrast to the far more aggressive Shion in the first half of the previous arc, showing that she can now control her emotions and make rational decisions even when her loved ones are in danger, as she even recalls the events of Meakashi-hen and treats them seriously, much like Rena and Keiichi did with their respective personal arcs in Minagoroshi-hen to learn from their own mistakes.