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Umineko no Naku Koro ni
2011-08-24 06:57:17
edited 2011-10-14 15:59:38 in Media
Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the last Day.
What's that? Forzare gushing about a Ryukishi07 novel? Surely you jest!
Anyway, I just finished the first episode of Umineko, Legend of the Golden Witch.
I really, really liked it, even if I'm kind of confused as fuck right now.
Unlike Higurashi, I went in without seeing the anime, so I was actually pretty unspoiled. All I knew going in was:
A)Groundhog Day loop
B)There may or may not be witches
C)The main character, Battler, has to try to prove that witches don exits
D)Lots of people die
The characters were good. They were all distinct, and I cared about almost all of them to some extent.
The music was pretty friggin awesome. Especially that one song that played whenever they discovered a fresh batch of bodies. Dunno what it's called.
The art was bad, but I got over it.
I dunno how solvable the mystery is at this point, but thinking it over as I played, I came to some conclusions. The murderer (assuming it's not Beatrice) was probably one of the people who was killed in the first batch of murders. And not Krauss or Shannon, because IIRC, their faces weren't completely bashed in. I base this on the fact that apart from Jessica, George, and Maria, we see the bodies of all of the other victims, and they are all clearly identifiable. And as for George/Jessica/Maria, it's almost definitely not them, because people are murdered while they're in Battler's sight. So it's probably someone who faked their death in a way that their body wouldn't be identifiable by the face, so they could dress a different body up as themselves and run around killing people without being suspected.
That leaves Gohda, Rosa, Kyrie, and Rudolf. I'm not sure how to narrow it down much beyond that. My money is on Gohda, though. He's a servant, so he knows which key is the one that opens the shutters on the storage shed. It's brought up that anyone could have found out which key was the right one, but I still say Gohda. Rosa only visits Rokkenjima once a year, its been six years since Rudolf was there, and Kyrie hasn't ever been (I think). So it's much less likely that one of them would have figured which key was the right one.
Of course, I didn't take notes or anything, so I'm probably forgetting some valuable information that disproves that.
Also, I have no idea how he could have killed George's parents. Maybe he killed them, but he hid in the room, and only left after the bodies had been found, just in time to get chased by/kill Kanon? I dunno.
On another note: Is Bernkastel supposed to be Rika? Her profile thing says she likes spicy food and other things that are Rika-ish, and she says something about how when she was human, it took her a hundred years to realize how fate worked, or something like that, which is what happened with Rika.
Anyway, those are my rambling, first impression thoughts about Umineko.
Anyway, I just finished the first episode of Umineko, Legend of the Golden Witch.
I really, really liked it, even if I'm kind of confused as fuck right now.
Unlike Higurashi, I went in without seeing the anime, so I was actually pretty unspoiled. All I knew going in was:
A)Groundhog Day loop
B)There may or may not be witches
C)The main character, Battler, has to try to prove that witches don exits
D)Lots of people die
The characters were good. They were all distinct, and I cared about almost all of them to some extent.
The music was pretty friggin awesome. Especially that one song that played whenever they discovered a fresh batch of bodies. Dunno what it's called.
The art was bad, but I got over it.
I dunno how solvable the mystery is at this point, but thinking it over as I played, I came to some conclusions. The murderer (assuming it's not Beatrice) was probably one of the people who was killed in the first batch of murders. And not Krauss or Shannon, because IIRC, their faces weren't completely bashed in. I base this on the fact that apart from Jessica, George, and Maria, we see the bodies of all of the other victims, and they are all clearly identifiable. And as for George/Jessica/Maria, it's almost definitely not them, because people are murdered while they're in Battler's sight. So it's probably someone who faked their death in a way that their body wouldn't be identifiable by the face, so they could dress a different body up as themselves and run around killing people without being suspected.
That leaves Gohda, Rosa, Kyrie, and Rudolf. I'm not sure how to narrow it down much beyond that. My money is on Gohda, though. He's a servant, so he knows which key is the one that opens the shutters on the storage shed. It's brought up that anyone could have found out which key was the right one, but I still say Gohda. Rosa only visits Rokkenjima once a year, its been six years since Rudolf was there, and Kyrie hasn't ever been (I think). So it's much less likely that one of them would have figured which key was the right one.
Of course, I didn't take notes or anything, so I'm probably forgetting some valuable information that disproves that.
Also, I have no idea how he could have killed George's parents. Maybe he killed them, but he hid in the room, and only left after the bodies had been found, just in time to get chased by/kill Kanon? I dunno.
On another note: Is Bernkastel supposed to be Rika? Her profile thing says she likes spicy food and other things that are Rika-ish, and she says something about how when she was human, it took her a hundred years to realize how fate worked, or something like that, which is what happened with Rika.
Anyway, those are my rambling, first impression thoughts about Umineko.
Comments
The Rika/Bernkastel connection is... complicated.
^ A lot of focus is placed on just who commited the murders.
If there is, that's that.
But from what I've heard, the murders are actually solvable. Like, there's enough clues and information to figure out the human murderer.
It's kind of confusing, and I don't really understand yet myself.
^ That's the one. And the same some played all three times they found a pile of bodies.
Kinzo is obsessed with a woman named Beatrice, who is supposedly a witch that gave him ten tons of gold, which allowed him to become as powerful as he is, which is supposedly hidden somewhere.
All his offspring start arguing over who gets what, and as a typhoon rolls in so no one can leave, suddenly people start dying.
It may or may not be the witch Beatrice, killing people with magic, and it may or may not be one of the family or the servants killing everyone for their own reasons.
>>The Touhou cosplay was a particularly sweet touch.
wait wat
Umineko's Bernkastel is the personification of all of the dead Rikas, after Rika comes to terms with her current timeline and relinquishes her influence over manipulating time via Hanyuu in the Rei OVA.
and then some other things....
Concerning Beatrice, she actually doesn't exist, and Battler is killing all of his family members.
This is vital information and you all needed to know this
I just have one question. What's the relationship between the Battler on Rokkenjima and the Battler that's with Beatrice? Most of the time, it seems like Rokkenjima-Battler is a different person than Beato-Battler, unaware of the loop and stuff, but every now and then Beatrice will respond to something Rokkenjima-Battler like it was an intentional thing from Beato-Battler, and I'm so confused
Other than that one thing, though, I'm really enjoying it. Worldenddominator is awesome. Kanon's pretty awesome. Battler is awesome.
Everything is awesome.
REVIEW OF UMINEKO EPISODE 2, TURN OF THE GOLDEN WITCH
I just finished Turn of the Golden Witch, and... holy shit. That's really all I can say. That last scene, with Rosa and Maria, with Worldenddominator playing, was beyond amazing.
Overall, I definitely thought that Turn was better than Legend. The awesome fight scenes especially helped, and once again, the music was phenomenal. Even if it doesn't have anything like Higurashi's You, Umineko probably has the best soundtrack out of any work I've seen.
The murderer this time... Once again, I'm not too sure, and I'm probably forgetting important details, but my guess is Genji. He had a master key for the first couple batches of murders, and he was the only one who was unaccounted for when Shannon, George, etc were murdered. That doesn't explain the Kanon supposedly murdering Kumasawa and Nanjo thing, though, and it doesn't take into account the possibility that more than one person was in on it, or his motivation, so I dunno.
Also, haven't read either of the episode 2 tea parties yet.
I get it now. That's kind of what I figured, but there were just a couple moments that confused me.
I think I'm done.
I wanted to love Umineko. I really, really did. Especially coming off of Higurashi, and all of you are sick of hearing how much I love that.
But... I don't know.
It started off really good. The first three episodes especially were engaging, and they really hooked me and drew me int. But the further I read, the more I felt like Umineko was losing it.
It started to go downhill in the fourth chapter. Ange/Maria's sections dragged on far too long, for too little gain.
One huge advantage that Higurashi had was that I actually cared about the characters, and their struggle had purpose. Especially in Kai, when a character went insane or died, it hurt. They had a very real chance to escape their fate and have a happy ending, so when they failed, it actually meant something. In Umineko, the characters on Rokkenjima (the pieces) had no purpose but to die. No matter what they did, nothing would change that. Their only purpose was to die, then be brought back and to do it all over again. It's hard to care about their fate when it's like that.
And then, there's the meta-world. Every chapter introduces more and more witches and demons and furniture, and it's too much. When it was mainly just Beatrice and her servants, it was fine. But as more and more and more characters showed up, the setting just felt like it was getting sillier and sillier, and more and more confusing, especially when it all is very possibly not real. It felt like it was trying way too hard.
In the beginning, the game between Beatrice and Battler was the focus of the story, and that was when it was at it's most interesting. But in Chiru, when that's no longer the case, Umineko just felt... directionless. I found myself unable to care.
Of course, the music is still one of the best soundtracks to anything ever, and the fight scenes are cool, but even those I had problems with. Not enough to keep my interest.
Just my rambling, disjointed two cents.