Shion Sonozaki

"Think I'm joking, do you? I'll do it. Sonozaki Shion will do it. I am a person capable of killing anyone who blocks her path."

- Shion Sonozaki

Shion Sonozaki is one of the main protagonists of the Higurashi franchise.

Backstory
During two of the many arcs in the series she is portrayed as a villain rather than a hero, killing off most of the other characters, excluding Rena and Oishi. Shion Moved to Hinamizawa after a long time at a boarding school else where in Japan. Here she found her sister Mion Sonozaki, the only character not to kill anybody, who would have taken her in if her Grandmother wouldn't force her to torture herself for it. After a while she was saved from a group of bikers by a boy named Satoshi Houjo. She fell in love with him, even to the point of being the assistant manager for his baseball team to get more time around him. Her grandmother found out she was there, and that she was in love with one of the members of the "traitorous" Houjo family, she was forced to tear her nails off with a traditional Japanese torture weapon often refered to in the anime as the Nail Ripper. A while after, Satoshi goes missing. This drives her to a point of almost breaking. The thing that broke her though was when Keiichi gave a doll to Rena instead of her. This caused her to go on a strategic but violent murderous rampage, so that she could get revenge on all of the people who were involved in Satoshi's death. Having killed her grandmother, the village chief, Rika, Satako, Mion, and Keichii, she falls off the a ledge on the 8th floor of the hospital she was in. Rena was the sole survivor of the arc.

Personality
She is often shown to be Mion's polar opposite. While Mion is tomboyish and strict, Shion is more feminine and free willed.Though this is mainly due to their different upbringings. Although she was taken out of the main house due to an error when she and her sister switched places as young children, she has a great relationship with Mion.

In spite of their contradicting personalities, Mion and Shion switch places very often, which can easily cause confusion in Chapter 2 and 4. Also, both seem to also differ in the acts of Hinamizawa syndrome, in which Mion is the only character to never succumb to the paranoia or vicious anger that it causes (though it is debatable due to chapter 1 using her and Rena Ryuuguu as the main antagonists), while Shion is one of the most memorable victims. She was in love with Satoshi before his "disappearance", and seems to have a crush on Keichii due to his similar appearance.



Like most Higurashi characters, she has a very contradicting personality when under the effects of Hinamizawa syndrome, in fact, she may have arguably been one of the worse case scenarios in this instance, as claimed by fans. In her case, she develops rather severe Paranoid Schizophrenia, before full on Psychosis. With this, she is shown to be the series most violent character. One of her most intense moments took place in chapter 4 (which shows the events of chapter 2 through Shion's point of view). In this chapter (which takes place before the 4th festival to after the 5th festival), she falls in love with Satoshi Hojo, a boy with a troubled and dysfunctional home life, and forms a love/hate relationship for Satoshi's abused little sister, Satoko. In this chapter, she is forced to be de-nailed three times due to her family's hatred for the Hojos, and is put under the impression that this will free Satoshi from any curse the family places on him.

When Satoshi kills his aunt and later goes missing, Shion believes her family lied to her, which causes her to go on a warpath where she kills her Grandmother, Oryo Sonozaki, with a tazer, before beating her corpse with a whip and burning her face. She then hangs her grandfather, imprisons Mion, beats and nearly kills Rika (who escapes death from Shion by stabbing herself in the head repeatedly) all until she finally victimizes Satoko (whom she blames for bringing Satoshi to death because of her constant crying for him). It is after she kills Satoko where she realizes that she had forgotten her last promise to Satoshi, to watch after Satoko. With this, Shion officially believes she has sunken below the Moral Event Horizon, and not only kills her sister, but returns to Keichii to stab him in the stomach (which does not kill him).

Weapons
Shion uses a lot of weapons in the game, the one you see her use the most is a taser that she keeps in her back pocket for self defense. Among her others are a knife, and a boulder. She also uses an assortment of Japanese torture devices in her pursuit to get her revenge, such as a device used to tear off the nails of her twin sister Mion as well as other characters, which later became a Ritual Tool Devil known as Nail Ripper in Ayakashisenshi-hen. In Matsuribayashi-hen, Shion is shown to have access to an AK-47 assault rifle, and to be trained in its use.