The thing about Higurashi is that it doesn't even disguise the fact that its entire purpose is to have gratuitous and often horrific violence. It's set up so that each arc consists of a few episodes in which one or more characters descend into pure insanity and paranoia and several others die horribly; then at the beginning of the next arc, it loops back around and starts things again, only with a different situation. Although now that I'm three arcs or so in, I'm starting to see connections between them.

And I've heard about Elfen Lied--I've kind of wanted to check it out. It looks pretty insane in the AMVs I've seen it in.

Ooh...I don't know. I might check it out, but things are going to get busy for me from here until the end of the semester. Also, when does the next season start up again??