Og higurashi he's less a "decoy" and it was more a case of like "something mores going on here" and then you get some answers to what exactly the fuck was going down when the thing goes and starts swapping to other character's perspectives . It goes from a single protagonist to a main cast kinda situation. This is like if you took that and then proceeded to just instead of doing that went "ACTUALLY THERE ARE ONLY 2 PROTAGONISTS AND ONE BEATS THE FUCKOUT OF AND MURDERS THE OTHER ALSO THIS IS A SEQUEL"
I wouldn't really consider Higurashi to have an ensemble cast, personally. Some of them get a good showing in their own arc, but the overarching metaplot is firmly focused on Hanyuu and Rika, with Takano as the main antagonist, and the others lose relevancy quickly when that comes to the forefront.
Hell, Mion was a useless fucker from start to finish. If you want to talk about characters getting shafted, she should be the first one to come to mind, especially given that she has roots all the way back in Hinamizawa Bus Stop. And while Satoko is incredibly relevant to the backstory of like, two-thirds of the cast, she was always treated as a plot device first and a character second. And the less said about poor, sweet Satoshi, the better.
Keiichi and Rena get a good showing in their own arc, as does Shion, even though she's not even part of the main cast and fucking steals Mion's arc from right under her nose, but I never got the feeling Ryukishi really knew what to do with them afterwards. Only Keiichi feels like he really lasted beyond a single chapter.
I guess Shion at least gets some personal closure in Matsuribayashi, but I'm still annoyed that she's the one who is involved with Satoshi while the story ends with Satoko remaining in the dark. It's such a fucking bizarre decision that Satoshi is suddenly more relevant to the girl who he only knew for a couple months and whose name he only learned days before being hospitalized, than the little sister whom virtually his entire character revolves around. I unironically find Rika and Satoko's murderous yuri obsessions more believable than Shion's obsession with Satoshi, because at least we're given significant reasons why they'd be so unnaturally obsessed with one another.
I really don't think that Ryukishi can manage to balance a large cast well, despite his apparent compulsion to insert more and more characters in his works. Most of them just end up feeling superfluous once the narrative moves past them. Gou/Sotsu really would've benefitted if it either made an effort to include the rest of the cast into the main plot, or if it just made it clear from the onset that it was going to be all about Rika and Satoko with the rest of the group relegated to a much less notable position, but its inability to commit to one or the other just makes the whole thing a huge mess.
The manga seems to be putting more focus on the rest of the cast as the key to escaping Rika's current fate, so as long as Tomato doesn't fuck that up, they might end up being more relevant in Jun, at least. Maybe we'll even get a better looper vs. looper setup, too, if Tomato decides to opt for Meakashi-style answer arcs instead of showing the exact same fragments from a different perspective.
