>>81531This copypasta is nice. But allow me to clarify why it's wrong and will always be wrong.
Whilst yes there are indeed characters who act as stage hands or actors, what Ryukishi has said is that they are more along the lines of individuals playing out cosmic roles further represented by more abstract archetypes. And when the show is done, the Actors clean up the set and get ready for their next role. As for the supernatural phenomena, it is all explicitly real and a tangible presence in the series. It's as extant and literal as anything else and you're unfortunately as dense as Battler if you think otherwise. In the manga epilogue Ikkuko (the human form of the Witch Featherine) speaks in Red, one of the languages of Magic. Now this should be impossible because Red is something only Witches or magical beings can speak, and the only other method for doing so involves decapitated corpses that are nowhere in sight during that press conference. Then when she is asked by Ange why she has not aged at all since the last time she saw her, in 1988, literal decades ago, Ikkuko simply states "Witches don't age". The events of EP8 also aren't possible for anyone to know about in any way since it touches on personal aspects of Ange's post-Rokkenjima life that Ikkuko and Tohya couldn't have possibly known about.
Then there's the fact that every other entry in the series from Higurashi and Ciconia to Trianthology and even the likes of Rose Guns Days support the existence of magic, the supernatural, and Witches in general.
Finally, the newest Higurashi anime which is completely written by Ryukishi (the original writer of all the franchise), has Featherine in it, proving definitively that Witches are a real phenomenon in the shared cosmology.
