Rika Furude

Rika Furude is the ultimately true main protagonist of the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni anime and games.

Rika is the daughter of the late shinto priest of Hinamizawa. She is the current miko/kannushi, or shrine maiden/priestess, of the Furude Shrine, appearing in miko garb for her part of the Watanagashi Festival.

Appearance
Rika appears as a very young girl with purple eyes and long blue hair styled as a hime cut. She is very small, slightly shorter than Satoko Houjou. At school, Rika wears a white short-sleeved shirt with a pink bow, a navy blue skirt, navy blue suspenders, and white socks. Her casual clothes consist of white sandals and a green sundress with a white bow. During the Watanagashi Festival, Rika wears a traditional white and red miko outfit.

While working at Angel Mort, Rika wears a combination of the standard Angel Mort uniform and a school swimsuit.

Personality
Rika often seems wise beyond her years. In Himatsubushi-hen, Rika accurately predicts the deaths of several people including herself, to the bewilderment of Mamoru Akasaka. Outside of these moments, Rika has an overtly "cute" and childish personality, often saying nonsense words and making cat sounds. She typically refers to herself with the pronoun "boku" to enhance her "cute" mannerisms.

When alone or with Hanyuu, Rika's cute personality disappears and she adopts a much more cynical nature. She stops using the pronoun "boku" in favor of "watashi" and, in the anime, her voice drops to resemble an adult woman. She also frequently uses mature language. Seeing as this is the way Rika speaks in internal monologues, it can be assumed that this is Rika's true personality.

Rika is notably insecure about her adolescent body despite how long she has lived. The manga often uses this as comic relief when Rika compares her own breast size to that of Miyo Takano.

Abilities
As a daughter of the Furude clan, Rika is thought to be a "Queen Carrier." Early theories on the Hinamizawa Syndrome hold that the Queen Carrier is a necessary part of the village's survival and without her, the villagers would go mad in 48 hours. This theory is brought into conflict in Watanagashi-hen, in which when Sonozaki Shion kills Rika, and Meakashi-hen, in which Rika commits suicide. In both instances, the villagers do not react and life for them goes on normally, even into the Heisei Era and past the year 2000, as shown by Meakashi-hen' s endgame TIPS. In that arc, though, it also seems to be true as well, because Ryūgū Rena went partially insane when she was under the stress of her parents divorce while living in Ibaraki and when she returned to Hinamizawa she went back to normal in every world shown in the series other than the Ayakashisenshi-hen arc, in which there are no clear backgrounds for any of the characters due to the wild difference between this world and every other world (such as Keiichi and Satoshi being together and Hanyū being a fairy of some sort), and the  Saikoroshi-hen arc, where the world was sinless, and Rena (who called herself Reina, her given name) had never moved to Ibaraki and never suffered from Hinamizawa Syndrome.

However, some of the deference shown to Rika by the villagers may be an unconscious acknowledgement of her role as Queen Carrier. How exactly the status of Queen Carrier is handed down is unclear, though it appears that it is passed down through the females of the Furude clan. It is because of this inheritance that Takano Miyopursues her as a research subject. Her parents refuse to allow Rika to be used in this manner, and in order to get her way, Takano is more than willing to get rid of them. Rika's father dies after being drugged by the Yamainu, and Rika's mother was vivisected for being the Queen Carrier before Rika. Eventually, Takano decides that, after years of observing, she needs to kill the Queen Carrier as well. Rika's death is the pivot point for each of the scenarios of Higurashi; with her death, Takano can wipe out the entire village using the forces at her disposal, in order to "prevent" the "doomsday scenario" her grandfather predicted for the village, while at the same time achieving "god" status for her and her grandfather.

Trivia

 * Rika's appearance and name bear great similarities to Erika Furudo from Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
 * It is implied in Meakashi-hen that Rika has yet to have her first period.
 * Rika has attempted to avoid her fate by running away from Hinamizawa and living in the forest. She managed to live until mid-July before the Mountain Hounds found and killed her.
 * Rika's favorite wine, as seen in the Saikoroshi-hen manga, is "Bernkasteler B...". The full name of the wine is probably "Bernkasteler Badstube", a riesling wine produced in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. Curiously, the label of the wine says "Riesling Spätlese" (late harvest riesling in German), and Riesling wines are white, however the wine that Rika drinks is red. There do exist red Riesling wines, but they were not commercially avaliable until 2006, well after when Higurashi takes place.
 * Rika was BT's favorite character.