[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[ChaosDimension]

I agree with you Chronotrig, but here's the thing. Since Ryukishi has barely any fanbase at that moment, he had to resort to the popular culture. I mean look at all the cliche's he has borrowed from other animes and used on Higurashi.

-Harem(Boy moves into town with tons of girls, barely any other guys)
-Slice of life(yeah half the anime could've done without this)
-Underage kids(I mean seriously a murder story with underage kids?)
-Over the top violence/killing methods(yes people love gore especially when kids are doing it)
-Cutesy characters(yeah seriously, I never liked maria, having double or triple that in higurashi, naw don't think so.)
-Kakera Traveling Rika(this idea is akin to "it was all a dream solution" or "I can start over solution = I can milk my cash cow again")
-Nipaa/Hanyuu (you know you made a good story when people refer your character's catchphrases)

For the reasons above, I refuse to read Higurashi. I can't shake off the fact that there's a intricate storyline hidden beneath all those reasons. I mean Ryukishi could've just omitted all those above and created the next "Monster"(the actual anime/manga) and it would've given him the same effect but I guess he wasn't confident in his writing then.

[Klashikari]

^ And if Ryukishi didn't use these points, it wouldn't be Higurashi, but a very generic murder mystery without much things to be interested about.

What makes Higurashi unique is the arc system, but also the colorful cast that can attract sympathy and empathy.
Harem? I'm sorry, but do you know the real definition of harem? That is basically a single male protagonist with several romance possibilities with tons of girl. That is not the case here: it is basically a giant lure and the romance were left by far minimal (at best the romance was a triangle, and it was NEVER the driving element of the story).

The slice of life is actually what makes the whole story as "lively" instead of having "murders, next". What is the point then? To have nameless grunts being killed without any sense of attachment? Likewise, Umineko retains some of this aspect, with a lot of similar casual discussions, be it in the gameboard or meta world.

Underaged kids? And so? What makes a story less credible with kids? The fact there are adults don't mean anything the story "is mature". Likewise, the fact the protagonists are children don't mean it is a cliché. There are psychotic children, child soldiers etc IRL you see.

Over the top violence? How are they over the top? See elfen lied, Naru taru etc, and we will see afterwards.

Cutesy characters? I'm sorry but this is just a facade: the story has shown that all characters have a very distinct past and personality, that the "cuty cuty" aspect is again an illusion, a misleading information. And they were blatantly explained to say the least.

The Kakera makes the whole thing required to use an approach of "different result" and therefore, an expanded mystery regarding the butterfly effect and so forth. Why would a story must rely on 1 single timeline? Dream solution? How when the rest of the experiences were awful? When the past couldn't be changed?

You are basically expecting Higurashi to be Monster, with superflous flaw. Actually, I believe you are waiting for the very wrong genre.
I don't want to expand the offtopic even more, but if you remove the essence of Higurashi, it seems you are waiting for a VERY catered genre which Higurashi doesn't belong to.

Barely any fanbase? more than half of the fanbase was from Higurashi. Did he need pop culture? He is basically trampling on them: if you noticed how it was done with the anime, Higurashi was an absolute curve ball: all "prejudice" were quickly wrecked into pieces when the real plot emerged. It was nothing about predictable cliché.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by ChaosDimension

I agree with you Chronotrig, but here's the thing. Since Ryukishi has barely any fanbase at that moment, he had to resort to the popular culture. I mean look at all the cliche's he has borrowed from other animes and used on Higurashi.

-Harem(Boy moves into town with tons of girls, barely any other guys)
-Slice of life(yeah half the anime could've done without this)
-Underage kids(I mean seriously a murder story with underage kids?)
-Over the top violence/killing methods(yes people love gore especially when kids are doing it)
-Cutesy characters(yeah seriously, I never liked maria, having double or triple that in higurashi, naw don't think so.)
-Nipaa/Hanyuu (you know you made a good story when people refer your character's catchphrases)

For the reasons above, I refuse to read Higurashi. I can't shake off the fact that there's a intricate storyline hidden beneath all those reasons. I mean Ryukishi could've just omitted all those above and created the next "Monster"(the actual anime/manga) and it would've given him the same effect but I guess he wasn't confident in his writing then.

I see, there's the problem. This part also didn't come across as well in the Higurashi anime, but Umineko is making it more obvious.

These so-called "cliches" are totally intentional. Instead of simply writing an entirely new story (which would have been fine), Ryuukishi likes to take existing cliches and twist them around, basically parodying the genres they come from. Onikakushi looks like the most cliche of horrors, but in actuality, there isn't a single true horror aspect that is shown (except for Tomitake's death).

Even Umineko is filled with cliches. EP1 is so much like "And then there were none" that it's almost funny sometimes. The fact that Ryuukishi can borrow so much and yet make a story that's completely original is perhaps his greatest gift.

-Kakera Traveling Rika(this idea is akin to "it was all a dream solution" or "I can start over solution = I can milk my cash cow again")

Umm, could you name another series that used the same Kakera system as Higurashi? There are very few that are even similar, and not a single one that is completely identical.

Far from a cop-out, it forces him to make every single arc possible with only a few very small changes. There are about 5 or 6 tiny events that are responsible for 90% of the differences between Higurashi arcs. In other words, he's made almost the exact same story look like a half dozen different genres by using the exact same pieces.

And you can't say that there are no connections between the arcs. It is not a "dream" solution...not even close.


Edit: Sorry for ganging up on you like this
Still, I think it's important to understand what Higurashi was all about before reading Umineko. That's really all I'm trying to say.

[ChaosDimension]

Once again, I am referring that, that is what lead to Higurashi's success. His intended demographic is all those I listed above. Sure it's not exactly a harem, but nobody cares about that. If the picture shows 1 dude with like 7 other girls, harem fans will buy it.

Slice of life is more along the lines of Key animes Kanon/Air/Clannad, sure he may be using it as backgrounds for each character but that doesn't still change the glaring fact that he's obviously trying to lure that demographic's fanbase.

I could go on and on about the other cliches but you get the idea. In Higurashi he put all those cliches together to "sugar coat" his novel and then when all those fanbases check it out, they go "new and exciting!"

In retrospect to Umineko, Ryukishi has toned down to use of anime cliches. Because ultimately, he wants to stray away from that. Sure he's not gonna drop it off completely as he wants to hold on to his fanbase. That's why we still got Lambda and Bern. But in truth, he probably wants people to know that he is capable of doing better and without those cliche's to boot. When that happens we win

[marebito]

What also seems to be the problem for me is that way too many people consider like... any girl of minor age as a loli, which simply is incorrect use of the term.

As for ryukishi's introduction, I don't really get where exactly anyone could see a problem there. Why should someone point out every possible solution for his work right at the beginning? As already pointed out previously, that's like mentioning 'In this game there will be a huge unexpected twist near the end, so look forward to that!!'. Any premise fails when it already tells too much right at the beginning. For example there's also a reason for Beatrice showing up at the end of Episode 1 and not right from the start of the events.

-Kakera Traveling Rika(this idea is akin to "it was all a dream solution" or "I can start over solution = I can milk my cash cow again")

How can he milk the cow again when the story did not even get actual closure? Furthermore you can't call that the dream solution since there never were any dreams, it's about an infinite number of parallel universes and what happens in one of these universes stays that way.

As for other cliches you mentioned... what's so wrong about them as long as they are just one litte aspect of the whole thing? Apart from those ryukishi's plots have a complexness that can not be found that often.

Comparing Higurashi to Monster seems quite ridiculous to me. I know both (Monster Anime and Higurashi in almost every version available) and IMO Higurashi mixes genres much more and in a more interesting way while Monster just took the German crime thriller genre and added some mystification aspects. I also think Monster is and excellent series, but it's nothing more than that and while Monster had a couple of really interesting and realistic characters none were as complex and fleshed out as Higurashi's characters. Furthermore you can not compare a manga/anime to the adaption of a novel... And with that I mean you can't really compare Monster with Higurashi since for Monster there is only the manga and the anime adaption while in Higurashi's case the manga and anime are only adaptions of a huge novel series. The possibility of adding details and fleshing out every aspect to the extent of a novel can not be achieved in any other medium

[Kitsu]

In retrospect to Umineko, Ryukishi has toned down to use of anime cliches

-Tsundere [check]
-Maid [check]
-big boobs [check]
-Milfs [check]
-loli [check]
-killer girls [check]
-brutal murders [check]
do I have to continue?

[marebito]

Originally Posted by ChaosDimension

In Higurashi he put all those cliches together to "sugar coat" his novel and then when all those fanbases check it out, they go "new and exciting!"

In retrospect to Umineko, Ryukishi has toned down to use of anime cliches. Because ultimately, he wants to stray away from that. Sure he's not gonna drop it off completely as he wants to hold on to his fanbase. That's why we still got Lambda and Bern. But in truth, he probably wants people to know that he is capable of doing better and without those cliche's to boot. When that happens we win

I'm really amused at how you claim to know what he is thinking. How do you know that he himself is not satisfied with the fact that his works belong to popular culture and that they do to some extent and in a twisted way contain cliches? If he wanted to stay away from what he did in Higurashi's case he could have done so witch Higurasi's success, but no, he even releases Umineko as a doujin product series again.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by ChaosDimension

Once again, I am referring that, that is what lead to Higurashi's success. His intended demographic is all those I listed above. Sure it's not exactly a harem, but nobody cares about that. If the picture shows 1 dude with like 7 other girls, harem fans will buy it.

I'm sorry but most fans weren't even interested by the outcome of Keiichi's romance interest, incomparison with the identity of the real culprit etc.
The main point of a harem is to leave the possibilities to shipping faction (or whatever you can call it) to have their "horse" to root for. There were people who were "tricked by this" and discovered it wasn't anything about that.

Slice of life is more along the lines of Key animes Kanon/Air/Clannad, sure he may be using it as backgrounds for each character but that doesn't still change the glaring fact that he's obviously trying to lure that demographic's fanbase.

Key animes have a marginal chunk of slice of life. If you really want that kind of genre, it is basically series like Honey & clover.
And no, having some background for character isn't about fanbase or whatnot: it is about exploring character psychology and motives.

I could go on and on about the other cliches but you get the idea. In Higurashi he put all those cliches together to "sugar coat" his novel and then when all those fanbases check it out, they go "new and exciting!"

Sugar coating? So actually it is only about the presentation? Oh sure, so basically Elfen lied would have been "much more mature" if Nyu has a perma adult form, huh?
It might an attractive element for certain fans, but it doesn't make the series at all. It is all about taste, but also purpose of such elements. And if it was only for selling, why would you actually bother with backgrounds and the like? These are contradictory.

In retrospect to Umineko, Ryukishi has toned down to use of anime cliches. Because ultimately, he wants to stray away from that. Sure he's not gonna drop it off completely as he wants to hold on to his fanbase. That's why we still got Lambda and Bern. But in truth, he probably wants people to know that he is capable of doing better and without those cliche's to boot. When that happens we win

Hou really? How about the cliché inheritance issue? The otaku elements (touhou, tsurupettan, references etc)? The slice of life? The fanservice? The stakes? Beatrice?
You are telling me these aren't mangled cliché either? He couldn't decently use the same kind since he changed the setup of the story, but that doesn't mean he didn't use any cliché "like you said". And even if he does, is that anything problematic? As far as I can see, you are just putting these elements are flaws and unecessary elements, despite these stories don't have the prestumptious aim to follow the rest of the "same genre".

And if Lambda and Bern are for the fanbase, it is rather ludicrous: Bern is nowhere close to what we know from Higurashi, and Lambda is basically a new character.

[ChaosDimension]

Ok, guys this is spiraling out of control and yes I give up. I don't know how it ended up being a discussion about Higurashi but I will probably lose regarding that as I have only watched the anime(yes I know how things are lost in conversion from VN to anime).

Here's what I'm really trying to get across.
In the Umineko introduction Ryukishi challenges us to a mystery, "Do witches exist or not?". It's merely question of YES and NO. What I'm trying to warn people about is that people are theorizing both are a possible outcome. While it is a possible, they are now going into the realm of MAYBE. Which, in my opinion, not what Ryukishi is aiming for. I am sorry for saying that there is only 2 possible solutions, 100% anti mystery and 100% anti fantasy that was wrong of me and I should've worded that as a the "yes or no question." Also, I acknowledge that having 100% mystery is possible while acknowledging witches. That too should've been worded differently. My intended warning was to those that had theories but hit a wall and used witches as a scapegoat because it couldn't be explained. Not to people with theories that had 100% mystery theories with witches either helping battler find out the truth or some other variation of the sort.

Hope that clear things up. And I'll try to read higurashi, I have it installed since forever but I guess having the anime influence you first hurts your first impressions doesn't it

(That and so I got coherent backing when I'm arguing using higurashi )

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by ChaosDimension

Ok, guys this is spiraling out of control and yes I give up. I don't know how it ended up being a discussion about Higurashi but I will probably lose regarding that as I have only watched the anime(yes I know how things are lost in conversion from VN to anime).

Here's what I'm really trying to get across.
In the Umineko introduction Ryukishi challenges us to a mystery, "Do witches exist or not?". It's merely question of YES and NO. What I'm trying to warn people about is that people are theorizing both are a possible outcome. While it is a possible, they are now going into the realm of MAYBE. Which, in my opinion, not what Ryukishi is aiming for. I am sorry for saying that there is only 2 possible solutions, 100% anti mystery and 100% anti fantasy that was wrong of me and I should've worded that as a the "yes or no question." Also, I acknowledge that having 100% mystery is possible while acknowledging witches. That too should've been worded differently. My intended warning was to those that had theories but hit a wall and used witches as a scapegoat because it couldn't be explained. Not to people with theories that had 100% mystery theories with witches either helping battler find out the truth or some other variation of the sort.

Hope that clear things up. And I'll try to read higurashi, I have it installed since forever but I guess having the anime influence you first hurts your first impressions doesn't it

(That and so I got coherent backing when I'm arguing using higurashi )

For me, the challenge was never "Do witches exist or not?". The challenge came at the end of episode 1 in the form of a letter:

Spoiler for Maria's Letter:

By the time you have read this, I will probably be dead.
Although there may or may not be a body.
You who have read this. Please find out the truth.
That's my only wish.

This challenge letter does not mention witches once and is almost the same as the letter left in Higurashi.

Like you said, everyone has their own opinions but I recommend not dropping this one.

We'll all be rewarded with the truth in the end.

[Kaiba]

In the Umineko introduction Ryukishi challenges us to a mystery, "Do witches exist or not?".

Not really. The goal is to figure what truly happened in Rokkenjima. Battler can't hardly be expected to disprove witches in all their entirety, as he would then have for example prove that the metaworld doesn't exist, which would be pretty stupid - and after all, proving that the Rokkenjima murders were committed with human means does not prove that witches don't exist, only that they had nothing to do with the human murders. The goal is to find what truly happened, not to prove the existance of witches one way or another.

[ChaosDimension]

To get back on topic, here's part 2 of my theory. Have fun tearing apart this one

Spoiler for Anti-fantasy theory:

I like this theory because it's vaguely familiar with another VN I've read(if you know what it is, please don't name it out loud). Also I tried to aim for a way to explain the witches, meta world, as well as new demons people via purely mystery stance. Hope you like it.

Once again, I'm still basing this theory that Kyrie is the culprit, basically this is the aftermath of the Rokkenjima incident and what happens after it.

Like many people, I am using the first game as the true events of Rokkenjima, you'll see why as you read on.

The Aftermath of Episode 1:
-Kyrie succeeds in killing everybody aside from the kids. Maria knew from the start it was Kyrie all along so Maria writes the message in a bottle. (since it was Kyrie parading as Beatrice)
-Kyrie confronts everyone at the end of episode 1. She knows Maria knows too much and shoots her in the jaw. As for Battler/George/Jessica, Kyrie feels pity upon them so she spares there lives but still takes them hostage.
-Kyrie has prepared a boat to escape the island and brings the children with her. (including maria's body, but her jaw is left in the mansion) What she plans to do with the children we don't know.
-At this point, Kyrie reveals everything to them, and her motivation for taking the gold and leaving the sumidera heir.
-Battler is shocked that her mother is the mastermind, and prepares to take down Kyrie with the help Jessica/George. Cue epic boat battle.
-Ultimately, the children fail. Jessica/George are shot and fall overboard. Battler is either also shot or just falls overboard. Jessica/George could be either dead or alive but we know for sure Battler survives.
-She disposes of Maria's body and throws her also into the ocean, Kyrie does not know that Maria has the message in a bottle with her and so it seperates from her body where it washes on to the shore and is found.
-Kyrie feels remorse after what she has done but escapes Rokkenjima with all of Kinzo's gold.(probably planning to turn it into actual money via black market) She also escapes the burden of being the heir of Sumadera by faking her own death.
-Time passes and people find Maria's bottle, people begin try solving the Rokkenjima case but come up with nothing.
-Kyrie knows that normal people outside the relatives involved with the case would have no clue how to solve this mystery but she is wary of the victims' actual relatives snooping around.
-As a final counter-measure, Kyrie uses self postmarked letters that return to the sender and tries to make it as a work of the "witch". She sends this to immediate relatives of the victims(i.e. Nanjo's son/Kumasawa's relatives/Ange etc.) Basically saying "Here's 100k, don't go looking for me." Sure enough, it works and nobody looks for Kyrie.

Now here's where things get interesting and vague, there's many possibilities for what could happen next but I'll try to piece together one outcome.

The Fate of Battler:
-Battler survives after being thrown overboard and washes ashore.
-Due to the shock of Kyrie being the mastermind or from being shot as well as the whole Rokkenjima incident as a whole, he loses his memory and gains amnesia.

Kasumi Sumadera's search:
-Kasumi becomes the heir to Sumadera and gains limitless power.
-Either out of concern for her sister or suspicion, she uses her power to investigate Rokkenjima as well as search for bodies and the missing children.
-Police find Maria's jaw showing that the the kids either must've escape or are somewhere out there.
-Luckily for Kasumi, she finds Battler before the police do.
-She interrogates Battler but to no avail, it seems Battler has acquired Anterograde Amnesia. Basically, Battler is reliving the begining of Rokkenjima over and over again. The only way to cure his sickness is for him to realize who the true culprit is. That might be hard for Battler as his mind probably---because of the shock---already has hidden kyrie in the deepest parts of his brain.
-Kasumi will do anything to coerce the truth out of Battler and thus begins her research and preperation on Rokkenjima. At this point Battler is kept hidden from the rest of the world and is confined until preparations are complete.

Recreation of Rokkenjima, Explanation of Game 2-5, Year of 1998
-12 years of research and careful planning, Kasumi is successful. She hires actors that can play the part of every victim in Rokkenjima, as well as recreating Rokkenjima itself. Battler is persuaded and and believes that this scenario of Rokkenjima is the real one.
-Ultimately Kasumi's goal is for Battler to remember what ACTUALLY happened in Rokkenjima and disprove what she's going to show him for 3 episodes. (and to maybe shed some light to Kasumi on what really happened in Rokkenjima)
-In episode 2 Kasumi's throws Battler a "fantasy curveball" aka Some actor portraying as Beatrice actually materializes in front him. Of course in Battler's experience, that's not what really happened, witches didn't exist in Rokkenjima so he tries to disprove witches. Of course he does not succeed, and so Kasumi restarts the game over.
-Episode 3, Rokkenjima is recreated once more, but this time Kasumi comes at Battler harder, showing more crazy fantasy, even showing that a witch posseses Eva and becomes the culprit. Of course Battler knows that there is no way in hell that Eva is the culprit so he'd rather believe in Witches than to acknowledge Eva as the culprit. Both don't solve anything, Kasumi tries once more.

It's getting late so I'll post part 3 tomorrow. Tell me what you guys think so far. Theres obviously a lot of holes and I bet this theory will be torn apart, but this prove how it's possible to have multiple games while still retaining the antifantasy stance.

[Littledgn]

Um, in EP4's 2nd Tea Party...

Spoiler for EP4:

...the identities of all unidentified corpses are guaranteed!

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Not really. The goal is to figure what truly happened in Rokkenjima. Battler can't hardly be expected to disprove witches in all their entirety, as he would then have for example prove that the metaworld doesn't exist, which would be pretty stupid - and after all, proving that the Rokkenjima murders were committed with human means does not prove that witches don't exist, only that they had nothing to do with the human murders. The goal is to find what truly happened, not to prove the existance of witches one way or another.

It might be true now after you have seen various episodes, but in origin when episode1 was released it really was "the witch exists or not" the "magic exist or not".

[Littledgn]

Didn't the whole argument start when Battler disagreed that Beatrice killed them all on Earth/real world?
Then the real Beatrice shows up in Purgatory and tells him to prove it.

[Jan-Poo]

Battler in the first purgatorio scene clearly says that witches and magic do not exist and everything that his cousins say are nonsense. At the same time Maria as been saying "majo ga iru" like a broken recorder since the first chapters.

EDIT: discussion proposal:

Spoiler for Episode5:

The scene were Natsuhi remembers that Shannon is the only person that knew her favourite season is autumn was only shown once and was never developed.

Hint or red herring?

As you probably already realized, it is a very easy trick to do, it's really the ABC of a magic performer. Since only 4 possible answers are possible, the mysterious man only had to place four cards around each one with a different season written on it.
However just because it is an easy to trick to do it doesn't necessarily mean it was indeed a trick. At the very least it seems that the mysterious man knew that answer wasn't summer.

There's another thing to consider, if Natsuhi's season preference wasn't a secret, this "trick" wouldn't have had any effect. It had the desired effect because Natsuhi was sure it was impossible for someone to know. But how could he know this? It is also possible that the culprit knew that Shannon was the only person supposed to know this "secret". And in that case again the question is: Was it a hint? Or an attempt to frame an innocent person?

hint or red herring?

Also. Did you notice that the mysterious man initially was using "ore", and then he suddenly switched to "boku"?
hint or incosinstency? XD

[Rias]

Just a quick thought I've generated when analyzing the red/blue text of ep5. A bit busy lately, so it's not well detailed yet. Will add more details later:

Spoiler for Knocking sound mystery:

The knocking mystery is one of the most well guarded mystery of ep5. Tons of red text support for the witches' side, blowing up wild imaginations and weird tricks. It has to be a real knock that no one mistook, and knocked by a human hand. However, upon further inspection, it seems that it's dependant on some lines:

食堂の全員の誰も、いいえ、もっとシンプルな言い方をするわ。２４時の時点で屋敷内にいた誰一人！　あの手 紙を廊下に置いた者はいないわ

２４時の時点で、２階廊下にいた、蔵臼、夏妃、源次の３人と、食堂にいた全員以外の、一切のニンゲンは屋敷 内に存在しなかった

２４時の時点で、屋敷以外に存在するのは、ヱリカ、譲治、朱志香、真里亞、南條、郷田、熊沢の みである

The reoccuring word is, ２４時の時点で

Thinking back at the hint at the end of ura-party, a possibility came up:
Someone played with the clock; the knock did not happen at midnight. Therefore all the red text indicating the location of the people, and the related red text, are irrevelant.

And there's no red text that states the knock did happen at midnight.

[hodil]

Ahhh my eyes! ep 5 spoilers!

Anyone agrees that Genji was most probably the one who did the 2nd, 4th and 5th twilights of chapter 2?

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Rias

Just a quick thought I've generated when analyzing the red/blue text of ep5. A bit busy lately, so it's not well detailed yet. Will add more details later:

Spoiler for Knocking sound mystery:

The knocking mystery is one of the most well guarded mystery of ep5. Tons of red text support for the witches' side, blowing up wild imaginations and weird tricks. It has to be a real knock that no one mistook, and knocked by a human hand. However, upon further inspection, it seems that it's dependant on some lines:

食堂の全員の誰も、いいえ、もっとシンプルな言い方をするわ。２４時の時点で屋敷内にいた誰一人！　あの手 紙を廊下に置いた者はいないわ

２４時の時点で、２階廊下にいた、蔵臼、夏妃、源次の３人と、食堂にいた全員以外の、一切のニンゲンは屋敷 内に存在しなかった

２４時の時点で、屋敷以外に存在するのは、ヱリカ、譲治、朱志香、真里亞、南條、郷田、熊沢の みである

The reoccuring word is, ２４時の時点で

Thinking back at the hint at the end of ura-party, a possibility came up:
Someone played with the clock; the knock did not happen at midnight. Therefore all the red text indicating the location of the people, and the related red text, are irrevelant.

And there's no red text that states the knock did happen at midnight.

Yes this is one of the first things I have thought. In ep5 we ha a good example of how the red truth can be used to completely distorce the reality so this is quite possible. Right now I don't get how to explain the knocking in another way but I see a possibility to explain the letter:

Spoiler for episode5:

Basically the problem is that noone placed the letter on the floor. Well then the truth is that noone placed the letter on the floor. Kanon simply had it all along, he just lied about finding it on the floor.

Anyone agrees that Genji was most probably the one who did the 2nd, 4th and 5th twilights of chapter 2?"

If Genji did the second twilight then Shannon is an accomplice. Same for the 4th and 5th. I don't know frankly, I'm still of the idea that Genji Kumasawa and Nanjo are out of the question. Which means following your same reasoning I'd rather say Shannon is the culprit. She was in his same position in all the aforementioned twilights.

[sword5880]

Spoiler for umineko ep5:

~Beato Doesn't gain anything~so it mean other will gain something, if Beato was doing all this game for Battler then maybe Beato is trying to make Battler remember something, proof can maybe found where Battler is always last one to die or diappear.~Beato doesn't enjoy killing~ maybe this would make sense that Beato is rushing[in Ep4] beacuse she also doesn't want to kill them. If Beato have feeling of love toward Battler then this also can be proof why Beato is rushing,because she doesn't really want to kill him even if this is a game.

Spoiler for Asumu-Battler:

Battler Mother isn't Asumu. How about Battler is Direct son of Kinzo. I saw that in Ep5 Bern [joke] say that maybe Natsumi and Kinzo Had a special Relationship. Okay what if this is a hint? What if it is not Natsumi who had special relationship with Kinzo Maybe it is another Woman
Asumu is not the real mother of Battler but Battler remember her raising him,if Battler is Direct Son of Kinzo and Kinzo doesn't want his children to know,so he gave Battler to Asumu and she raised him as he was her real son. If Battler is really a Grandson of Kinzo Then there is two thing i can think 1st maybe Kinzo had one more child and this child gave birth to Battler but after giving birth to Battler his real Parent died so Kinzo gave Battler to Asumu so she will be able to marry Rudolf It couldn't be Kyrie because as i see at Ep4 Kyrie Family and Ushiromiya Family didn't had good relationship,but then accept when she gave up her family name. 2nd maybe Battler is from others like Eva,Rosa,and Natsumi or his father might be other like Krauss or his father is Rudolf but his mother might be other woman then how did Asumu got Battler?it is possible that Eva,Rosa,Natsuhi,Krauss,Rudolf or Woman X gave him to Asumu. But If is really Eva,Rosa,Natsuhi,Krauss "okay now lets add" Hideyoshi then why do they need to hide Battler?maybe Battler is from other man, not their husband or from other woman, not their wife.

Okay now

Spoiler for possible:

~Beato Denied to state in red that~ "Ushiromiya Battler is not Kinzo's grandson" but this doesn't really mean that Battler is Kinzo's grandson, because it is also not state in red that Battler is Kinzo's grandson, So as long as it nobody state in red that "Battler is Kinzo's grandson" then many theory can be made and as long as nobody state in red, then it also can be counted as truth."