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Tyabann · 2011-01-03, 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rias

One thing to keep in mind is that Ryukishi07 did express that he si thinking about writing "Rei" for Umineko. IMO, Saikoroshi-hen was a better wrap up than Matsuribayashi-hen was.

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

witchfan · 2011-01-03, 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Circular Logic

I'd say the fact that many anime series will simply 'end' after one season (with several manga volumes published/in production) with them walking off into the sunset/beating the boss of the arc and going back to school/deciding to compete for the protagonist's love (yes I'm most definitely thinking of harem anime here) shows that they are rather more tolerant of stories with no resolution.

There is a difference between having no resolution to most of a story's intrigue and having an open end, and there is a difference between the adventure genre and Umineko's pseudomystery genre.

Quote:

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

I love Higurashi. I don't hate Umineko. So sure, I'm willing to give this franchise another run.

rainz · 2011-01-03, 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

In a way, I think R07 gets the courage to write a story like this only after he built a reputation as a good mystery writer from Higurashi.

He knew what readers expect of him and proceed to bait us with mystery hooks. Worked well.

In the next WTC series, he just needs to figure out what audience expect from him then and find a way to hook us in, again.

Maybe we'll see a slight shift in genre. I doubt a straight up truth-finding mystery will work again.

AuraTwilight · 2011-01-03, 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirroha

Sorry if I'm wrong, but isn't Lion's gender almost confirmed to be female? After all Lion was the same person as Yasu, and Yasu was definitely stated to be of the opposite gender of Battler. At the worst I'd think it's an infertile female, but probably not hermaphrodite/male.

Yasu's gender is never confirmed. Regardless of what gender s/he is, they had an accident that apparently damaged their ability "to love and be loved" and they were raised as a female. One of my theories is that the injury mangled Male!Yasu's genitals, and so Nanjo had to give him a false vagina so s/he could still urinate and such.

She's so small and petite because without testicular glands, she never experienced a proper puberty.

Quote:

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

I'm not sure. Unless the premise of the next one really grabs me, I probably wont; I don't think he can top Umineko's greatness at this point; for all it's flaws, it's effectively his magnum opus for the incredible emotional manipulation it pulled on tens of millions of people.

musouka · 2011-01-03, 15:59

Just talking about purely in terms of what disappointed us about the ending, I would say that the mystery aspect is the least of my concerns. I've said time and time again that I found the EP7 ending perfectly satisfactory in that regard, so there wasn't much more to work with from the "reveal" angle.

My issues really stem from the EP7 Tea Party. I think EP8, as a whole, would have been a lot stronger if the EP7 Tea Party had been cleanly excised from Umineko as a whole. (It's hard to get riled up about Ange burgering herself over the truth if she's already burgered herself over something that is, if not the truth, is very close to it. Likewise the sheer brutality of what Bern did made it hard for me to accept her role in EP8 without some resentment on my half.)

But, I can't accept cutting it out either, because the EP7 Tea Party holds my entire heart in its grip. I am a Beatrice fan. I love Ange with all my heart. I am truly happy she got the ending she deserves. But throughout EP8, my mind kept on returning to Clair's body torn to bits on the silent stage, and of the young woman who looked out between the bars of her prison and dared to dream of Lion, only to have that dream cut down in front of her very eyes.

In that respect, I found it hard to like the scenes where Will and Lion were dumped in with all the other meta characters without a word. I find it hard to accept a Lion that can blindly say "I'm Beatrice's last hope" without that having anything to do with the actual plot of EP8, as opposed to EP7 where it actually meant something. And Battler and Beatrice's ending was so beautiful it made me cry, but deep down it also felt a little hollow because there was so little context around it.

I felt like EP7 ended the mystery beautifully. But I felt it left Beatrice in a place where she was still suffering, and it hurt to see that go unacknowledged in EP8. (I actually found the scene in the finale where Ange kept winking her in and out of existence because she dared to flirt with her own husband a little repulsive.) I felt like it flattened Will and Lion by bringing them in without giving them anything important to do.

There are a lot of things to really love about EP8, but I did have those problems in particular with it.

Used Can · 2011-01-03, 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

If people are disappointed, then they probably weren't paying very much attention.

I don't think it's about paying attention, and I think that's a rather arrogant thing to say, since I'm sure many people who have been reading this novel, and have been "paying attention" as you say, are probably disappointed as well. EP7 was supposed to be the end of the mystery, but given the rather unclear resolution we had in EP7, it's no wonder some people expected something out of this epilogue to make this apparent mystery a bit more clear. I won't deny, though, there were many people who seemed to expect EP8 would suddenly be full of twists about how all the apparent clues and leads we received in EP6 and EP7 would turn out to be fully misinterpreted and we'd reach an entirely different conclusion. That was delusional. However, expecting a bit more clearness and tidiness is something I cannot blame the readers for.

Let us not even mention not everyone reads R07's interviews, nor is the duty of the reader to do so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by witchfan

I love Higurashi. I don't hate Umineko. So sure, I'm willing to give this franchise another run.

Maybe, but I'd wait until it ends, read some opinions on the whole thing, and then see if I think I want to read it.

Renall · 2011-01-03, 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

I wouldn't. I liked Umineko in spite of Higurashi, and I'm not all that impressed with Umineko in the end. That's not to say I don't like it, I just don't think it's good enough for the time invested. Had it not taken four years it'd be one thing (taken entirely on its own, Legend of the Golden Witch is a pretty good story, but the time/quality ratio starts flagging by mid-Alliance and craters in Chiru).

He's a good character writer, a good dialogue writer, a terrible descriptive writer, a terrible expository writer, handles his themes hamfistedly (but competently compared to most amateurs), and he desperately needs an editor. For a professional writer (and he is a professional writer, even if WTC is a "doujin" series), he is merely not bad at what he does.

Call me a picky snob (I am) but I didn't get out of many years' interest what I put into it. I have no particular reason to believe he's likely to change and improve unless he makes a definite commitment to professionalism in the future.

Will Wright · 2011-01-03, 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

I'm going to read it, but I'm not going to think about it. I only caught up with Umineko once episode 7 came out, but I can only imagine just how pissed I would be if it build up for four long years until this sort of ending.

I'll read it with a "eh why not" sort of approach. It's not a very expensive series, and it has got decent length.

Circular Logic · 2011-01-03, 16:23

I think one can look at the entire series more sympathetically if it's read back-to-back rather than as serialised. I read eps 1-7 two weeks ago in the space of five days and then ep 8 as it came out. As a result I didn't really spend that much time theorising over the whodunnits. Indeed by the end I felt most of eps1-4 didn't matter as much (that is to say I felt a resolution wasn't what r07 was aiming at). If you've been mulling this over for four years and were expecting a complete solution I can understand why you'd be annoyed (even though I don't agree).

On a more humdrum note:

One particular flaw I found with the construction of Ep8 itself was the final battle with bern/erika. Whilst the library side of the battle was relatively interesting, if slightly drawn out, the golden land side was horribly boring, especially in the first half. Endless descriptions of a fake argument nearly sent me to sleep. In the entire battle nothing really happened and *was* as planned, simply a stalling tactic. That's all very well, but did r07 have to do devote so much time to it? I think a bit more fleshing out of the tea party and the ???? would have been a lot more productive.

Also I rather felt that zts' lastendconductor was rather wasted on that fight scene.

re the would you read another WTC game? Definitely. However as AuraTwilight said, it's essentially his magnum opus, so I'm not entirely sure where he'd go from here. Also I imagine that everyone would be rather more on the look out for hijinks

EDIT: Damn, Will Wright read my mind.

Mikachiru · 2011-01-03, 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

I give up on his series for now. Unless his next one is going to sound interesting (like Umineko was), I'm not going to bother. He's good at writing characters, but he fails in the mystery department (yes, I know. Umineko was never said to be a mystery. But it really felt like one by the end of Alliance). Now, I'm going to lurk and be more butthurt about this...

Cao Ni Ma · 2011-01-03, 16:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

As I said before, I'll probably read it depending on the word of mouth. I wont follow it though thats for certain, I'll wait till all of it is done before I dedicate any time to it and it would be entirely passive. I'll just read it and go with it, I wont dedicate any time to reason with it or anything.

DaBackpack · 2011-01-03, 16:40

I haven't read the entirety of EP8, but I read the solution and some spoilers about it.
Mulling over the conclusion,
I decided that it was both incredibly meaningful and wholly unsatisfying.

If you consider the themes of the entire series (especially the stuff about the catboxes) then it makes sense. Ryukishi didn't betray us. He didn't troll us, either. I'm almost certain that he DID have a solution when he designed the series. He just didn't tell us what it was.

He left the final solution to our own interpretations.

I know a lot of people (mystery fans) will be upset by this ending. I know that some people will not be as accepting of this meaningful ending as I am. Even so, you shouldn't be angry at Umineko. You should not forget all of the good things that happened over the whole series. Events like Rosa Musou in EP2 and Logic Battles in EP6 kept me coming back. Yes, I wanted a solution, but there is more to Umineko than just solving mysteries. I will not forget all of the fun I had speculating here and reading everyone else's theories. Sure, I've been called stupid and my theories useless, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the series as a whole.

It's what I call a more "open" ending instead of the typical mystery genre ending. Frankly, I think there should be more of these. I don't hate Umineko. I can't say I'm too pleased about not being given an answer to all of my questions, though. Still, that is not grounds to call EP8 "useless" or Umineko "a waste of time". In my opinion, anyway.

Renall · 2011-01-03, 16:58

Look, you can have an ambiguous ending and not cock everything up in the process.

Take Blade Runner (the film, that is). I guess I'll spoil this in case...

Spoiler:

The Director's Cut adds some things in to raise the question of whether Deckard himself is a replicant (which was not really addressed but sort of possible in the original film cut). The ending doesn't answer this definitively and not even the people behind the movie agree (the producer and Harrison Ford think he was human, Ridley Scott thinks he was a replicant).

There are hints which suggest at the ambiguity, but the difference is that while they are mysterious, they clearly support a particular contention. Gaff is a mysterious character whose ability to predict the actions of both replicants and humans rises to an almost supernatural level. We're never told how he knows this (is he the one who programmed the false memories into replicants?), but we're given hints that he knows and that he wants to make sure other people know (Deckard's unicorn dream and Gaff's origami unicorn). It's plausible to believe he could know these things, and it supports one interpretation while still not being provable evidence that the other interpretation is false.

None of this changes the theme of the movie, which is very clear and not muddled at all (Roy Batty saving Deckard's life doesn't change meaning whether he's a replicant or not because that was the entire point).

Now you might say "yeah well none of the details change Umineko's theme either," and that's true, but the difference is whether the minor details might change something significantly or whether those minor details actually mattered for any particular reason.

It'd be like if Gaff just periodically showed up and said cryptic and wholly unrelated things that didn't help us speculate on Deckard's true nature. At the end of the film you'd be right to ask "So what was the deal with that dude in the trenchcoat?" And there wouldn't really be an answer. The origami animals and dialogue about Deckard's humanity make it clear that Gaff exists as a character and as a mystery in order to support this theme.

In contrast, you have a detail like "Why sign the message bottles 'Ushiromiya Maria?'" Thematically, it really doesn't matter what Yasu signed there; Ange didn't even believe it to begin with, so she never even suggested that Maria was actually the author. If she had used just about any other name it wouldn't make a difference. If she'd simply never signed the message bottle at all it wouldn't make a difference. Signing it Maria created a mystery for us that really ultimately didn't matter all that much. I can try to justify why it matters and interpret what that means, but it's ultimately all guesswork. It has no meaningful foundation in the work.

I don't have to justify why Gaff exists in the plot of Blade Runner, even if I can debate what the things he did meant.

DaBackpack · 2011-01-03, 17:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

Look, you can have an ambiguous ending and not cock everything up in the process.

Take Blade Runner (the film, that is). I guess I'll spoil this in case...

Spoiler:

The Director's Cut adds some things in to raise the question of whether Deckard himself is a replicant (which was not really addressed but sort of possible in the original film cut). The ending doesn't answer this definitively and not even the people behind the movie agree (the producer and Harrison Ford think he was human, Ridley Scott thinks he was a replicant).

There are hints which suggest at the ambiguity, but the difference is that while they are mysterious, they clearly support a particular contention. Gaff is a mysterious character whose ability to predict the actions of both replicants and humans rises to an almost supernatural level. We're never told how he knows this (is he the one who programmed the false memories into replicants?), but we're given hints that he knows and that he wants to make sure other people know (Deckard's unicorn dream and Gaff's origami unicorn). It's plausible to believe he could know these things, and it supports one interpretation while still not being provable evidence that the other interpretation is false.

None of this changes the theme of the movie, which is very clear and not muddled at all (Roy Batty saving Deckard's life doesn't change meaning whether he's a replicant or not because that was the entire point).

Now you might say "yeah well none of the details change Umineko's theme either," and that's true, but the difference is whether the minor details might change something significantly or whether those minor details actually mattered for any particular reason.

It'd be like if Gaff just periodically showed up and said cryptic and wholly unrelated things that didn't help us speculate on Deckard's true nature. At the end of the film you'd be right to ask "So what was the deal with that dude in the trenchcoat?" And there wouldn't really be an answer. The origami animals and dialogue about Deckard's humanity make it clear that Gaff exists as a character and as a mystery in order to support this theme.

In contrast, you have a detail like "Why sign the message bottles 'Ushiromiya Maria?'" Thematically, it really doesn't matter what Yasu signed there; Ange didn't even believe it to begin with, so she never even suggested that Maria was actually the author. If she had used just about any other name it wouldn't make a difference. If she'd simply never signed the message bottle at all it wouldn't make a difference. Signing it Maria created a mystery for us that really ultimately didn't matter all that much. I can try to justify why it matters and interpret what that means, but it's ultimately all guesswork. It has no meaningful foundation in the work.

I don't have to justify why Gaff exists in the plot of Blade Runner, even if I can debate what the things he did meant.

You bring up a good point here. You mentioned Maria's signature on the letter bottles. There are some things that the author could have clarified and STILL have been able to have the same ending.

There are too many loose ends for my tastes. Things that aren't fully addressed. Maybe Ryukishi just forgot about them or deemed them unimportant. Things like Maria Ushiromiya's signature. Like I said, I haven't read EP8 yet, I've been going on what people have been saying.

I haven't decided for myself whether I like EP8's ending yet. I like the idea of it, the more I think of it. It does fit in with the themes of the series. But I cannot say I don't feel a little shafted from how this ended.

Antera Caramichael · 2011-01-03, 17:31

Personally, there's a question that I read sometimes ago, about another mystery in Umineko unanswered:

Spoiler for Ep 4:

Yondaime · 2011-01-03, 17:47

Well, going by the

Spoiler:

Ayu-ayu · 2011-01-03, 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

You bring up a good point here. You mentioned Maria's signature on the letter bottles. There are some things that the author could have clarified and STILL have been able to have the same ending.

There are too many loose ends for my tastes. Things that aren't fully addressed. Maybe Ryukishi just forgot about them or deemed them unimportant. Things like Maria Ushiromiya's signature. Like I said, I haven't read EP8 yet, I've been going on what people have been saying.

I haven't decided for myself whether I like EP8's ending yet. I like the idea of it, the more I think of it. It does fit in with the themes of the series. But I cannot say I don't feel a little shafted from how this ended.

I don't see the problem with it being signed by Maria. In Battler's game in ep 8, Yasu-Beatrice states that the bottle messages were her attempt to emulate Agatha Christie in her game with Battler.

My assumption from this was that in Yasu-Beatrice's scenarios, she wanted to cast the message writer/narrator as her accomplice* Maria as a red herring and to share the fun, or perhaps to share some credit in the creation of her fantasy scenario. And as misdirection, it served its purpose, if not in the manner she intended.

That said, I'm not done reading Twilight just yet. I'm just at the entrance to Bern's Marvelous Mysterious Maze of Perplexing Purple Proclamations.

For my part, at the point where I'm at right now, I really feel like I'm getting a sense of what Ryuukishi07 is trying to accomplish, and it's actually rather moving, if so. If as R07 says, many mysteries do ignore the "heart", the true whydunnit, in favor of whodunnit/ howdunnit, then Umineko is a tale of the romance and fantasy that coyly lurks behind the surface of the mystery genre (perhaps behind the mystery creation process itself and/or the minds of the readers exploring the work), the magical realm of possibilities before the cat box is opened in those missing last ten pages. I really like the echoes of the events that reverberate throughout the eight arcs and the illustrative way concepts and rules are anthropomorphized or otherwise brought to life. It's not so much either a mystery or fantasy, but an illustration of appreciation for both. The "whydunnit" doesn't simply refer to the culprit, but the author of the mystery him/herself (whether in or out of the story).

I have thus far found the work incredibly engaging. I hope I'll continue to feel so after turning the final "page".

*Clarification: by accomplice, I don't mean as culprit, but as "apprentice witch and friend who helped inspire her". Sorry if my choice of words is confusing.

DaBackpack · 2011-01-03, 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

I don't see the problem with it being signed by Maria. In Battler's game in ep 8, Yasu-Beatrice states that the bottle messages were her attempt to emulate Agatha Christie in her game with Battler.

My assumption from this was that in Yasu-Beatrice's scenarios, she wanted to cast the message writer/narrator as her accomplice Maria as a red herring and to share the fun, or perhaps to share some credit in the creation of her fantasy scenario. And as misdirection, it served its purpose, if not in the manner she intended.

That said, I'm not done reading Twilight just yet. I'm just at the entrance to Bern's Marvelous Mysterious Maze of Perplexing Purple Proclamations.

For my part, at the point where I'm at right now, I really feel like I'm getting a sense of what Ryuukishi07 is trying to accomplish, and it's actually rather moving, if so. If as R07 says, many mysteries do ignore the "heart", the true whydunnit, in favor of whodunnit/ howdunnit, then Umineko is a tale of the romance and fantasy that coyly lurks behind the surface of the mystery genre (perhaps behind the mystery creation process itself and/or the minds of the readers exploring the work), the magical realm of possibilities before the cat box is opened in those missing last ten pages. I really like the echoes of the events that reverberate throughout the eight arcs and the illustrative way concepts and rules are anthropomorphized or otherwise brought to life. It's not so much either a mystery or fantasy, but an illustration of appreciation for both. The "whydunnit" doesn't simply refer to the culprit, but the author of the mystery him/herself (whether in or out of the story).

I have thus far found the work incredibly engaging. I hope I'll continue to feel so after turning the final "page".

I figured it was a red herring from Yasu, especially when it was stated in EP7 that "And Then There Were None" directly influenced Yasu's behavior (this would inspire the message bottles). But I didn't know it was put in EP8, sorry about that

Maybe it was a bad example.

I forgot to consider the "heart" of the mystery, anyway. And I certainly do like thinking of Umineko as an appreciation of the "whydunnit". It adds another layer of complexity to the whole. Thanks for that, man I can't wait until I'll be able to read EP8.

Even if the ending does disappoint me.

Sheep_ · 2011-01-03, 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Speaking of which.... after this, how many people here would be willing to read another WTC series?

Not sure at this point.

I don't know if I can handle the trolling, a ending like this, or just the over all mass theory and thought I put in to everything while reading.

Circular Logic · 2011-01-03, 18:28

Out of interest, how many have actually read EP8 as opposed to the spoilers?

Just wondering whether it has an effect on people's impressions.

2011-01-03, 15:59	Link #185
musouka Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003	Just talking about purely in terms of what disappointed us about the ending, I would say that the mystery aspect is the least of my concerns. I've said time and time again that I found the EP7 ending perfectly satisfactory in that regard, so there wasn't much more to work with from the "reveal" angle. My issues really stem from the EP7 Tea Party. I think EP8, as a whole, would have been a lot stronger if the EP7 Tea Party had been cleanly excised from Umineko as a whole. (It's hard to get riled up about Ange burgering herself over the truth if she's already burgered herself over something that is, if not the truth, is very close to it. Likewise the sheer brutality of what Bern did made it hard for me to accept her role in EP8 without some resentment on my half.) But, I can't accept cutting it out either, because the EP7 Tea Party holds my entire heart in its grip. I am a Beatrice fan. I love Ange with all my heart. I am truly happy she got the ending she deserves. But throughout EP8, my mind kept on returning to Clair's body torn to bits on the silent stage, and of the young woman who looked out between the bars of her prison and dared to dream of Lion, only to have that dream cut down in front of her very eyes. In that respect, I found it hard to like the scenes where Will and Lion were dumped in with all the other meta characters without a word. I find it hard to accept a Lion that can blindly say "I'm Beatrice's last hope" without that having anything to do with the actual plot of EP8, as opposed to EP7 where it actually meant something. And Battler and Beatrice's ending was so beautiful it made me cry, but deep down it also felt a little hollow because there was so little context around it. I felt like EP7 ended the mystery beautifully. But I felt it left Beatrice in a place where she was still suffering, and it hurt to see that go unacknowledged in EP8. (I actually found the scene in the finale where Ange kept winking her in and out of existence because she dared to flirt with her own husband a little repulsive.) I felt like it flattened Will and Lion by bringing them in without giving them anything important to do. There are a lot of things to really love about EP8, but I did have those problems in particular with it. __________________ 雨の日も晴れの日もいつの日も愛してたそれだけは今もまだずっと変りはしない

2011-01-03, 16:58	Link #193
Renall BUY MY BOOK!!! Join Date: May 2009	Look, you can have an ambiguous ending and not cock everything up in the process. Take Blade Runner (the film, that is). I guess I'll spoil this in case... Spoiler: The Director's Cut adds some things in to raise the question of whether Deckard himself is a replicant (which was not really addressed but sort of possible in the original film cut). The ending doesn't answer this definitively and not even the people behind the movie agree (the producer and Harrison Ford think he was human, Ridley Scott thinks he was a replicant). There are hints which suggest at the ambiguity, but the difference is that while they are mysterious, they clearly support a particular contention. Gaff is a mysterious character whose ability to predict the actions of both replicants and humans rises to an almost supernatural level. We're never told how he knows this (is he the one who programmed the false memories into replicants?), but we're given hints that he knows and that he wants to make sure other people know (Deckard's unicorn dream and Gaff's origami unicorn). It's plausible to believe he could know these things, and it supports one interpretation while still not being provable evidence that the other interpretation is false. None of this changes the theme of the movie, which is very clear and not muddled at all (Roy Batty saving Deckard's life doesn't change meaning whether he's a replicant or not because that was the entire point). Now you might say "yeah well none of the details change Umineko's theme either," and that's true, but the difference is whether the minor details might change something significantly or whether those minor details actually mattered for any particular reason. It'd be like if Gaff just periodically showed up and said cryptic and wholly unrelated things that didn't help us speculate on Deckard's true nature. At the end of the film you'd be right to ask "So what was the deal with that dude in the trenchcoat?" And there wouldn't really be an answer. The origami animals and dialogue about Deckard's humanity make it clear that Gaff exists as a character and as a mystery in order to support this theme. In contrast, you have a detail like "Why sign the message bottles 'Ushiromiya Maria?'" Thematically, it really doesn't matter what Yasu signed there; Ange didn't even believe it to begin with, so she never even suggested that Maria was actually the author. If she had used just about any other name it wouldn't make a difference. If she'd simply never signed the message bottle at all it wouldn't make a difference. Signing it Maria created a mystery for us that really ultimately didn't matter all that much. I can try to justify why it matters and interpret what that means, but it's ultimately all guesswork. It has no meaningful foundation in the work. I don't have to justify why Gaff exists in the plot of Blade Runner, even if I can debate what the things he did meant. __________________ Redaction of the Golden Witch I submit that a murder was committed in 1996. This murder was a "copycat" crime inspired by our tales of 1986. This story is a redacted confession. Blog (VN DL) - YouTube Playlists Battler Solves The Logic Error

2011-01-03, 17:31	Link #195
Antera Caramichael French Maid Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Poitiers; France Age: 32	Personally, there's a question that I read sometimes ago, about another mystery in Umineko unanswered: Spoiler for Ep 4: Who is Battler's mother actually? Is it answered in Ep8?

2011-01-03, 17:47	Link #196
Yondaime 4th Hokage 四代目火影 Join Date: Dec 2003 Age: 42	Well, going by the Spoiler: the Battler sprite with the white hair near the end, makes me wonder if that's old age Battler, or Battler whose hair turned white cuz he's actually Kyrie's son __________________ Without love it cannot be seen. - Umineko no naku koro ni

2011-01-03, 16:23	Link #189
Circular Logic 土は幻に Fansubber Join Date: Dec 2005	I think one can look at the entire series more sympathetically if it's read back-to-back rather than as serialised. I read eps 1-7 two weeks ago in the space of five days and then ep 8 as it came out. As a result I didn't really spend that much time theorising over the whodunnits. Indeed by the end I felt most of eps1-4 didn't matter as much (that is to say I felt a resolution wasn't what r07 was aiming at). If you've been mulling this over for four years and were expecting a complete solution I can understand why you'd be annoyed (even though I don't agree). On a more humdrum note: One particular flaw I found with the construction of Ep8 itself was the final battle with bern/erika. Whilst the library side of the battle was relatively interesting, if slightly drawn out, the golden land side was horribly boring, especially in the first half. Endless descriptions of a fake argument nearly sent me to sleep. In the entire battle nothing really happened and was as planned, simply a stalling tactic. That's all very well, but did r07 have to do devote so much time to it? I think a bit more fleshing out of the tea party and the ???? would have been a lot more productive. Also I rather felt that zts' lastendconductor was rather wasted on that fight scene. re the would you read another WTC game? Definitely. However as AuraTwilight said, it's essentially his magnum opus, so I'm not entirely sure where he'd go from here. Also I imagine that everyone would be rather more on the look out for hijinks EDIT: Damn, Will Wright read my mind.

2011-01-03, 16:40	Link #192
DaBackpack Blick Winkel Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Gobbled up by Promathia	I haven't read the entirety of EP8, but I read the solution and some spoilers about it. Mulling over the conclusion, I decided that it was both incredibly meaningful and wholly unsatisfying. If you consider the themes of the entire series (especially the stuff about the catboxes) then it makes sense. Ryukishi didn't betray us. He didn't troll us, either. I'm almost certain that he DID have a solution when he designed the series. He just didn't tell us what it was. He left the final solution to our own interpretations. I know a lot of people (mystery fans) will be upset by this ending. I know that some people will not be as accepting of this meaningful ending as I am. Even so, you shouldn't be angry at Umineko. You should not forget all of the good things that happened over the whole series. Events like Rosa Musou in EP2 and Logic Battles in EP6 kept me coming back. Yes, I wanted a solution, but there is more to Umineko than just solving mysteries. I will not forget all of the fun I had speculating here and reading everyone else's theories. Sure, I've been called stupid and my theories useless, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the series as a whole. It's what I call a more "open" ending instead of the typical mystery genre ending. Frankly, I think there should be more of these. I don't hate Umineko. I can't say I'm too pleased about not being given an answer to all of my questions, though. Still, that is not grounds to call EP8 "useless" or Umineko "a waste of time". In my opinion, anyway.

2011-01-03, 18:28	Link #200
Circular Logic 土は幻に Fansubber Join Date: Dec 2005	Out of interest, how many have actually read EP8 as opposed to the spoilers? Just wondering whether it has an effect on people's impressions.