If this isn't your first time reading Higurashi's VN, could you tell me how much the anime cut from it?
You're talking about the original anime, right? Mostly, the anime cut out some of the club activities like the curry cook-off in "Cotton-Drifting", which admittedly felt like filler ("Watadamashi" glossed over it), but so much stuff from the TIPS section weren't included in the anime, which is a shame since they reveal a lot of what goes on outside of the perspective of the narrator of the arc (mostly, "Demoned Away" still had most in Keiichi's POV like him being at the grocery store with his parents and then realizing in hindsight someone was watching him). Earlier arcs had TIPS focused solely on Ooishi talking with his colleagues about little details for the case that would otherwise go unnoticed, but it helped to enforce the belief he was Oyashiro's messenger. Keiichi's "I will end it in 1500 seconds" segment that came to be in "Curse-Killing" wasn't present, and if I remember correctly, not even Shion said it as a callback in "Massacre". "Time-Wasting" didn't show Mion (nor Shion) present with the protesters in the dam war, but it also didn't (properly) show how much more brave and cunning Toshiki Inugai is, as he faked a stomachache to get a doctor called over to signal him for help.
Another big one they cut out was Keiichi and Rena's interrogation of Mion in "Cotton-Drifting", as she ends up going on a history lesson about how Hinamizawa survived WWII, and what the Sonozaki family did with canning rations sent to soldiers in that the meat in that it was human flesh.
This is actually an important detail because later on, you find out Shion can't eat canned meat due to being told the story by Kasai as a little girl. Mion knows it, too, but she doesn't obsess over that tidbit like Shion does. They cut that down due to time constraints, but a lot of stuff involving the Sonozakis was cut, thereby watering down their presence and importance in Hinamizawa, like they
really beat it into your head in the sound novel just how influential the family is on the village since it's Rule Z. For the Atonement arc,
Keiichi's confrontation of Mion to see if she was behind the conspiracy after Rena told him about Hinamizawa Syndrome was also cut. She reveals Takano being a kook always telling stories as well as mentions that a secret highway project is in the works to better open up Hinamizawa in the 21st century. This interaction is what leads Keiichi into tracking down Rena at her hideout to try and talk her out of her delusion.
I am still set on saying "Watadamashi" is the closest adaptation of anything Higurashi. Besides giving the doll to Mion, up until they enter the storehouse, it's practically beat-by-beat what went on in the sound novel of "Cotton-Drifting". You ask me, I think had DEEN not cut out the
twin swap revelation, the anime would've had less loose ends left hanging by
Kai. The fact
Gou isn't showing signs of
that potentially being brought up is a shame.
I'm getting ready to do a rewatch of
Umineko with my brother since he hadn't seen it, but the first three episodes
really did cram in so much stuff but also had to skip stuff to get to the nights faster. Still have of yet to read the sound novel, but I have read the first three arcs of the manga, and I started to see why it was fans took issue with it. It had been years since I last watched the anime, and I remember enjoying it, but the cliffhangers of those episodes were... strangely forced, to say the least.
