| Une 采 | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Alternate Name | Sai |
| Nickname | |
| Age | Unknown |
| First Appearance | Kamikashimashi-hen |
| Portrayed By | Aya Suzaki |
Une (采・ウネ) is a character introduced in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hō. She makes her first appearance in Kamikashimashi-hen as she rescues the club members from a deranged mob in Okinomiya in the midst of an outbreak of the Hinamizawa Syndrome.
She appears to be a normal human child at first but is later revealed to be a godly entity like Hanyū, and the leader of her "clan" who had just arrived on Earth. Takano was looking for her under Tamurahime no Mikoto's orders to stop Une's plans of omnicide.
Character summary[]
Une rescuing the club members
After the events of Outbreak, the club members are chased by a frenzied homicidal mob in Okinomiya. Une sees them and lets down a ladder from her window and rescues them, later allowing them to be sheltered at her house for a while. She is later referred to by Keiichi as their "saviour". The club members feel sorry for Une when they realize she is living alone and tells them that her family "hasn't returned".
Eventually Une is ushered by the club members and they take refuge at the Sonozaki Family Office, where they meet up with Hanyū and Rika again. Une is exposed by Hanyū as a godly entity similar to her— the leader of an alien strain of parasitic microorganisms that had recently arrived on earth. Hanyū communicates with her and discovers that their "roots" share the same "strength", i.e., that the parasitic strain of the Une virus was as strong as η-173. Since Class-C Brain Parasites are shown to be biologically competitive, this meant that a host can only harbor either the η-173 or the Une virus on a first come, first served basis if they were to compete. Rika quickly realizes that this meant spreading the Une virus across the globe first would curb the η-173 epidemic and proposes to have Tomitake take Une to "Tokyo" immediately and spread the virus across the suburbs.
Before they are able to execute this plan, Tamurahime no Mikoto instantly expresses her disagreement and Takano barges into the Sonozaki Family Office demanding Une to be handed over to her. As Tamura's miko, she is now armed with superhuman strength and relentlessly pursues Une despite everyone's attempt to subdue her. Hanyū uses her divine powers to momentarily weaken Takano and the club members trick her into capturing Satoko who is dressed in Une's clothes. Une is safe and she is escorted to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and her cerebrospinal fluid is collected and sent to research facilities across the world.
Une is "super" happy
Rika and Hanyū later discover that Une was originally the one Tamura wanted to stop, motivating her to spread η-173 before Une could infect anyone. It is revealed she did so as Une's brethren were actually a strain of highly contagious killer viruses that latched onto host after host until they've depleted them of all nourishment, leaving them for dead. The Une virus soon turns into a pandemic and after seven weeks of infection, human population decreases by a whopping 20 per cent. After there are no more humans left to infect, Une will move to another inhabited plant and spread her seeds of destruction there.
Une thinks herself to be unstoppable after the outbreak, as the pandemic was now out of control and neither Hanyū nor Tamura knew where her physical body was. Rika realizes there was one way to stop Une and kills herself. This winds back time to a point before the events of Outbreak and the club members apprehend Une in Okinomiya, along with the two other gods. Having been captured before she could attempt anything, Une is distraught and confesses that she only wanted to "distribute her flowerbed a little", but Tamura's rejection had spurred her to destroy everything. Tamura, Hanyū and Une incessantly bicker and try to push the blame onto each other and it soon becomes clear that the root of all conflict was their petty rivalry. All three gods are sentenced to play games with the club members until they learn to get along with each other. Une loses her game and dons an embarrassing costume along with her fellow gods for their punishment game as they all lament the outcome and swear to get along better.
Appearance[]
Une appears as a physically young girl around Satoko and Rika's age with turquoise hair and twintails. She has golden-yellow eyes. When posing as a human she wears a plain navy blue sleeveless dress along with a white collar, a red brooch and navy blue mary jane shoes with white socks.
Une's costume as a god is an unusual spin on the traditional miko outift. She sports a fancy white, gold and frill embroidered kosode—having puffed shoulders and long sleeves with scalloped edges that resemble the appearance of a bird's wings when raised. On top of the kosode, she wears a sleeveless, bodice-like black and purple bodysuit that flares into a ruffled frilly skirt (like the Angel Mort uniform). There is also a purple obi around her waist, with a golden obijime complete with a blue magatama-like jewel in the center of the bow-shaped knot. On her head is a golden headpiece resembling her obijime. She also wears matching black thigh highs and zōri sandals.
For her punishment she is forced to wear a white cattail with a turquoise ribbon and a revealing striped white and turquoise bikini set underneath a PE T-shirt. In the Entergram version, she is simply seen wearing a blue PE uniform with bloomers.
Personality[]
Une first appears to be a shy and meek young girl, albeit friendly. Her age and maturity are assumed to be around those of Satoko's. Une immediately comes to the club members' rescue by giving them a ladder to climb up to her apartment and hide from their persecutors and this earns her their trust and devotion.
At first Une is shown to speak in third person, as shown when she introduces herself— "They often call me Une" (菜、……と呼ばれたりもする). She also tends to speak in double negatives— e.g., "There's no way I'm not going to run!" (走らない……、わけはないのですっ).
Une's innocence is later revealed to be a facade and her personality takes a heel turn after her seeds are sown throughout the earth. As soon as the cards are in her favor, she dons an arrogant and wicked personality. She is shown to have no remorse at the prospect of her parasites devouring their victims or destroying the human race and is rather ecstastic about it—unlike Hanyū, who actually regrets the damage the Hinamizawa Syndrome causes to its hosts. Une's cruelty is subject to ambiguity as she reveals she had no intention of devouring the entire human population and just wanted to "distribute her seeds a little". She only decided to do the evil deed later as revenge against Tamura who had rebuffed her existence. In spite of her twisted nature, Une does show a lot of childlike embarrassment when she is forced to wear a revealing costume as a punishment game.
Une's later change in attitude as a god also reflects in her speech as she drops her previous verbal tics and begins to talk in a more haughty and shrill tone. As a god, she speaks in normal Japanese, yet also uses the archaic pronouns that both Tamura and Hanyū also use. She also displays a habit of prefixing "Super" (チョー・chō) to her adjectives when describing situations (e.g., "Super Pleasant!").
Trivia[]
- Une's bio notes that she enjoys breakfast and "eating"; as much as she likes and hates scary people.This is probably an allusion to how her strain of parasites voraciously "devour" their hosts.
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