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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni? lit. When Cicadas Cry) is a Japanese murder mystery dōjin soft visual novel series based on the NScripter engine, produced by 07th Expansion. The series is focused on a group of young friends and the strange events that occur in the village that they live in. The first game in the series, Onikakushi-hen, was released on August 10, 2002 and the eighth and final game in the original PC series, Matsuribayashi-hen, was released on August 13, 2006. In addition to the original series, new arcs have been created in manga form and in video games for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS in order to expand upon the story further.

The series became very popular and was made into a set of drama CDs; the first, based on the Onikakushi-hen part of the story, was released on in May 2005.[1] A manga series adapted from the games began with seven different manga artists working separately on one to three of the multiple story arcs, and is published by Square Enix and Kadokawa Shoten. The manga was licensed for release in English in North America by Yen Press under the title Higurashi When They Cry and will release the first volume in November 2008. Following the manga's release in Japan, two anime series have been produced by the Japanese animation studio Studio Deen in 2006 and 2007; a third anime adaptation, which will be released as an original video animation series, has been confirmed for winter 2008 and is directed by Toshifumi Kawase.[2][3][4] The first anime series had been licensed by Geneon in English under the title When They Cry - Higurashi,[5] but has since become unavailable due to Geneon pulling out of the American anime market. Funimation subsequently picked up the licenses in July 2008.[6] A live action movie adaptation of the series, directed by Ataru Oikawa, premiered in Japanese theaters on in May 2008,[7] with a sequel forthcoming.

The word higurashi is the name of a kind of cicada.[8] Naku can mean "to make sound" (鳴く, "to make sound"?), specifically referring to those sounds made by non-human organisms, or "to weep" (泣く, "to weep"?). It so happens that the English verb "to cry" carries the same double meaning as naku. According to the original creator, Ryukishi07, the red Na (な) in the logo is an official part of the title.[9]