[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Oliver]

Abrupt tangent. I wonder how much gold is Kinzo really supposed to have.

10 metric tons of gold is just above half a cubic meter. Even if we remember it's in bars, and therefore takes considerably more space, it still would fit in a single cubic meter stack. But every time the stock of gold is described or drawn, it appears the pile is much larger - at least three times more in the anime - and nobody seems to count the bars.

Also of note is the fact that one bar normally seems to be assumed to be 10kg in the text, and the anime even goes so far as to draw that on the bar itself. Historically, gold bars normally weigh a whole number of ounces, not in metric units, and the closest standard size is 400oz, which translates to 12.44kg.

I really wonder where he got it, but if all of those subtleties were taken into account by Ryukishi, it can't be official foundry gold of any kind.

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Abrupt tangent. I wonder how much gold is Kinzo really supposed to have.

10 metric tons of gold is just above half a cubic meter. Even if we remember it's in bars, and therefore takes considerably more space, it still would fit in a single cubic meter stack. But every time the stock of gold is described or drawn, it appears the pile is much larger - at least three times more in the anime - and nobody seems to count the bars.

Also of note is the fact that one bar normally seems to be assumed to be 10kg in the text, and the anime even goes so far as to draw that on the bar itself. Historically, gold bars normally weigh a whole number of ounces, not in metric units, and the closest standard size is 400oz, which translates to 12.44kg.

I really wonder where he got it, but if all of those subtleties were taken into account by Ryukishi, it can't be official foundry gold of any kind.

We already know there's a large amount of research Ryuukishi skipped out on doing for Umineko, so I'm pretty sure his incorrect interpretation of ten tonnes of gold can simply be called as a lack of knowledge.
There's no reason to doubt he has the all the gold, we know it's been seen and used in the past, and Eva, Rosa and Battler finds where it's hidden.
Even more so, you seem to be indicating there's more than ten tonnes there. I thought the whole point of ten tonnes was to be an unrealisticly huge amount in the first place. More would just be... ridiculous, in my opinion.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

We already know there's a large amount of research Ryuukishi skipped out on doing for Umineko, so I'm pretty sure his incorrect interpretation of ten tonnes of gold can simply be called as a lack of knowledge.
There's no reason to doubt he has the all the gold, we know it's been seen and used in the past, and Eva, Rosa and Battler finds where it's hidden.

I thought something of the sort too, until I've stumbled on George spending a page describing the difficulties involved in handling and storing ten metric tons of gold in Ep1, the first time the legend is mentioned.

It may of course be that Ryukishi did not account for the density of gold and imagined a 10kg bar to be about 1.5 times bigger than it really should be, but I'm certain he did at least some research on that one.

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

Even more so, you seem to be indicating there's more than ten tonnes there. I thought the whole point of ten tonnes was to be an unrealisticly huge amount in the first place. More would just be... ridiculous, in my opinion.

Actually, you'd be surprised. It's an unrealistically large amount of gold in one place because only countries and large banks store metallic gold in such amounts, but in current US dollars it's only $388 million. It was considerably less in 1986 dollars -- George's estimate is in fact almost two times off. It's a lot of money, but it is not what I would call 'fabulously wealthy'.

The whole issue may seem beside the point, being part of the plot premise, but some hints about where did Beatrice-1 come from may be around there somewhere. Also, here's one other interesting calculation:

Let us assume that the 100 million yen found by Nanjo's son in his deposit box really existed and were not fake. Let us now hypothesise that they originate in the legendary gold stash.

In 1986, each 10kg gold bar would cost just over 10 million yen. Let us assume that George's estimate is correct instead and say it's 20 million, because if Ryukishi did any calculations, that's the value he was using.

It takes five gold bars to fill one deposit box with cash. If there really were 20 or more boxes, that's 100 bars. Ryukishi is clearly aware of how difficult it is to transport a metric ton secretly, as George expounds on that for a whole page. Generally, you can expect to carry at most five bars at once, (50kg) and you can't carry that much undetected. The most you could hide in a normal luggage of any kind is about 10kg, and even that is quite heavy.

It's extraordinarily difficult to move 100 bars of gold without being found out, as to do it secretly you need 100 man/trips, so one of the following should be true:

• Only two boxes contained money, that's just 10 bars. You can arrange to move them out in a few trips.
• All twenty boxes contained money. In that case, one of the following is true:
  • Jessica knows the secret location of the gold. She's the only one who makes trips to and from the island daily and would accumulate 100 trips in four or five months and 50 trips even sooner if she can lug around two bars at once.
  • Multiple people know the secret location of the gold and worked jointly to move it off the island.
  • Only one person knows about the secret location of the gold and it's not Jessica. Then the plan to send money was in preparation for over two years, possibly much more than that.
  • Kinzo himself arranged for the money while he was alive.
• None of the money actually comes from the gold.

Which do you think is more likely?

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Oliver

It may of course be that Ryukishi did not account for the density of gold and imagined a 10kg bar to be about 1.5 times bigger than it really should be, but I'm certain he did at least some research on that one.

The background might not be all that reliable for the size considering the state of mind the people who find it are in. Most of the backgrounds he gets are from real rooms and houses anyway so if he didn't draw the gold bars himself he might have taken pictures of real ones and made them look like his other backgrounds. Plus the size you think they look like might just be because of perspective. I mean the people who find the gold are really excited when they do find it. Showing the gold from a close up view would be one way to capture those feelings. Another way to capture that is make it look like there is no end to the amount of gold you can see in the room.

[DaBackpack]

Random tangent:

Is it ever said in Red how Kinzo obtained his gold?
Or, rather, what happened to his family?

It's said that his immediate family died in the Earthquake, but this hasn't been exactly confirmed.

I've recently been thinking how similar Battler is to Kinzo. This is referenced to in the game in a few places.

I've also been thinking, what if this earthquake is actually a cover-up for another tragic event?

We know that Ryukishi has used cover-up stories before ("The Great Hinamizawa Disaster," anyone?) so it's not outside the realm of possibility.

Perhaps what is happening to Battler on Rokkenjima actually happened to Kinzo as a child, too?

Pardon me for not remembering the details, but I know that Kinzo's family died a long time ago and he was presented the gold from his "alchemy advisor" Beatrice.

So, I'm kind of curious about Kinzo's past now. After, history does tend to repeat itself; perhaps we can find more Kinzo-Battler parallels to help solve the mystery.

After all,

Family dies in accident > Kinzo becomes family head.
He meets Beatrice > Kinzo gets gold.

So,
Family dies in "accident" > Battler becomes head (At least in Episode 5)
He meets Beatrice > Battler gets gold?


Who knows, I may be completely wrong, but it's worth considering.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Who knows, I may be completely wrong, but it's worth considering.

The parallels definitely are intended, they're presented rather obviously.

However, the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake is not just some earthquake, but a very real historic event, which significantly affected the entire Japan, not just the Ushiromiya family.

It could accidentally cover up a serial murder if Ryukishi was so inclined, because due to the predominantly wooden architecture of the time and an unlucky typhoon, it was accompanied by firestorms. But all hints seem to point to Kinzo being in Taipei, Taiwan at the moment it hit, so unlike Battler, at the very least he wasn't present.

There are a number of candidates to be the source of the gold, if we assume it actually has any historical sources:

• Russian Empire gold stockpile was taken by White Army and used to pay for war supplies in the Far East campaign in the Russian Civil War. For this, it was deposited into Japanese-owned banks in Korean territories. Of 425 tons they appropriated, only about 184 were spent. Some of what remained was withdrawn by surviving officers. Much of that gold ended up property of Bank of Tokyo, but a lot remains unaccounted for to this day and 10 tons would be nothing. Most of it was in gold coins, and to conceal it's sources would have to be melted into gold bars.
• Nazi Germany gold. The total quantity of assets appropriated by Nazi Germany remains uncertain, as well as where it could possibly be. Most of it is believed to have ended up in Swiss banks - either directly or indirectly through the Vatican Bank which supposedly confiscated a lot of it. However, relatively little of that was actual gold, (mostly, what was appropriated from Belgium and Netherlands) as much of it was in art works and other valuables. Various books repeat accounts that remain largely unconfirmed about "Bormann Treasure", but that's supposed to have ended up in Argentina. Very little of it was ferried over to Japan if any.
• Yamashita's gold, allegedly looted in Southeast Asia during WWII and named after General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who commanded Japanese forces in the Philipines in 1944. Looting was reportedly organized on a massive scale by yakuza representatives working on the orders and with the participation of members of the Imperial Family itself. Most of it is supposed to have been concealed in Philipines, some of it was carried back to Japanese mainland, some ships supposedly sank along the way. Incidentally, historians question the logic of ferrying it to Philipines and consider Taiwan to have been a more likely destination - but, by 1944 Kinzo didn't live there anymore. Some sources I find rather dubious claim that 2000 metric tons were on the hospital ship Tenno Maru, which sunk somewhere in Tokyo Bay. At least, I think that's what it means to say...

I think that's all of them, at least I couldn't find anything else sufficiently likely in our time period and searching for treasure stories from before Meiji is tricky. In my eyes, the Russian Empire stockpile and the Yamashita treasure seem to be the two most likely contenders, with the Yamashita treasure being the strongest.

[Renall]

Mind you, there was a La Plata Theory about the epitaph, so Argentina as a midpoint destination is not as crazy as it might appear. There's also a fair number of Japanese in South America. Having said that, I believe the La Plata Theory was largely discredited by ep5, which gives it an outside chance.

How popular are the Russian and Yamashita gold stories in Japan? I'm thinking it would be something people would be inclined to think about tangentially when thinking of gold stories. Westerners would immediately go "Oh right, like Nazi gold!" but that may not be true of Japanese readers and authors. What I'm saying is, is this information as well-known and widespread as the whole Nazi thing is here?

[DaBackpack]

I realize that the Kanto Earthquake was indeed a real earthquake, but I guess my question is how do we know that the family really was there in the first place? Or that it affected them?

(As in, the family was dead before the event happened and THEN the earthquake occured, or something.)

I'm not sure, it just seems a little fishy to me that no specifics are given about Kinzo's rise to power.

It's kind of like how magicians do their magic tricks: they rely on the art of distraction.

It's implied that the main secret about Kinzo's past is his affair with Beatrice, but maybe Ryukishi07 is just trying to direct our attention away from the past generations of the Ushiromiya family.

Something like this could have happened:

1.) Ushiromiya family reunion in Japan, at the family's headquarters.
2.) Murders occur at the reunion in a similar fashion to that at Rokkenjima.
3.) Kinzo usurps the family head and obtains the gold.
4.) Kinzo flees the country with his gold.
5.) Before the events could be investigated, the Kanto Earthquake happens and effectively destroys the crime scene.

Although you are right, there is not much evidence supporting this claim at all.


I guess I'm just looking too far into this.

[Judoh]

Well we do get a bit of explanation on that in episode 1 and 2. If I remember right Kinzo's entire family probably wasn't killed because even though he did become the head it was said that the main branch treated him like a puppet. Kinzo didn't even get to chose the person he was supposed to marry everything was arranged and prepared for him. He was really just a figurehead that worked for the family. That said I'm sure SOME of his family might have died in the Kanto earthquake, but definitely not all of them. And really the main point about the Kanto earthquake in Umineko was that the damages ruined the Ushiromiya family business leaving Kinzo to be chosen to revive it because the main family couldn't decide who among them should be the heir. All of their resources and assets were lost in the disaster. Kinzo definitely did survive that earthquake, but there is actually nothing saying that his family all died in the earthquake like with the Rokken isle explosion accident.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

How popular are the Russian and Yamashita gold stories in Japan? I'm thinking it would be something people would be inclined to think about tangentially when thinking of gold stories. Westerners would immediately go "Oh right, like Nazi gold!" but that may not be true of Japanese readers and authors. What I'm saying is, is this information as well-known and widespread as the whole Nazi thing is here?

Very hard to say not being actually well versed in Japanese. But Yamashita's gold has a Japanese page in Wikipedia, and seems to have featured in a Japanese tabletop RPG in 1996, so it was famous enough for that. The Russian gold doesn't even have an English one. While the Russian page describing the story exists, it is not linked to an equivalent Japanese one if that one exists, so I can't tell if it's any famous.

While trying to determine how famous it could be, I have finally found a pre-Meiji candidate - the Tokugawa treasure. That has a Japanese page but doesn't have an English one.

There's also apparently "M Funds" -- funds secreted away by US command in Japan during the occupation period and used to fund black operations, which is also a strong historical story candidate, if I'm reading it right.

Even then, the list of possible sources is rather short, so I expect that with some digging a likely theory can be cooked up.

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

I'm not sure, it just seems a little fishy to me that no specifics are given about Kinzo's rise to power.

It's kind of like how magicians do their magic tricks: they rely on the art of distraction.

It's implied that the main secret about Kinzo's past is his affair with Beatrice, but maybe Ryukishi07 is just trying to direct our attention away from the past generations of the Ushiromiya family.

Well, some specifics are given, it's up to you how much to trust them:

• Kinzo became the figurehead of the family as a compromise candidate pretty much immediately after the 1923 earthquake, due to the surviving elders being unable to agree otherwise.
• He was essentially powerless and remained uninterested as a head until an unspecified dramatic experience during the war, while he was in the army, radically changed him.
• Meeting with Beatrice, whoever that really was, has also occured after the start and before the end of the war. It is reasonable to conclude that this was one and the same experience.

That is, however, pretty much all we've been told, the rest is a blank.

[Renall]

Some thoughts on possible connections:

• We know Kinzo played ball with the Americans. If Allied High Command thought him trustworthy for some reason he could've somehow gotten gold. "Beatrice" could have been the link there.
• "Beatrice" has very western features, at least in the portrait. This sort of edges out the Russian prospect, but it makes it hard to say otherwise. She seems to believe she's European though.
• Beatrice mentions Italy a time or two, but this is probably a reference to Dante rather than a hint about her origin (especially since she isn't Kinzo's Beatrice).
• The names Kinzo gave his children are, by and large, all German names (or can be).
• The Stakes were supposedly manufactured near New York City.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

Some thoughts on possible connections:

• We know Kinzo played ball with the Americans. If Allied High Command thought him trustworthy for some reason he could've somehow gotten gold. "Beatrice" could have been the link there.
• The Stakes were supposedly manufactured near New York City.

These are the strongest links towards an "M Funds" source, which would mean that the gold is initially Japanese own, appropriated by US occupation forces and not listed as proper trophies. I don't think US Army had a lot of female staff in that period, but that can be researched.

"M Funds" are apparently frequently used in a 419-type scam in Japan these days. Amusingly, the name "William Frederick Murcutt" which is supposedly the origin of "M" in "M Funds" is completely missing from the English web, I'm not sure the gentleman actually existed or at least, his name isn't written properly. So we might be dealing with an indigenous Japanese treasure story here, which complicates research a lot.

Curiously, it is never written just what kind of services did Kinzo's business perform for Americans before the Korean War hit. While the mansion has been completed during the Korean War itself, it is likely to have taken long enough to have started before it hit. Also, even if we assume captain Kawabata is rounding his estimates of Kuwadorian deliveries up, it is likely that he started those before the Korean War started, it's two and a half years lead, which would imply Kuwadorian was completed before the Korean War and before the main mansion. Kinzo is actually implied to have acquired Rokkenjima before the occupation ended, (because the process, as described, involved the occupation authorities, otherwise the island would have ended up property of Tokyo Metropolitan Area authorities even if US Army wanted a storage depot there) so this is probably the case.

Originally Posted by Renall

• "Beatrice" has very western features, at least in the portrait. This sort of edges out the Russian prospect, but it makes it hard to say otherwise. She seems to believe she's European though.

Mind you, Romanovs at the time were something 3/4s of German ancestry -- I'd need to look up the family tree .

Further research on the Russian Empire gold indicates that almost exactly 10 tons of that gold missed the Bank of Tokyo and ended up in possession of the 59th regiment of the 14th division of IJA (I wish I knew what the proper Japanese terms these numbers go with are.) in Utsunomiya, not listed as registered trophies. In the 1920s, when rumours spread about the gold being stored in a warehouse, the division command supposedly set the warehouses on fire and hauled the gold off 'somewhere towards Tokyo', whereupon the trace is completely lost. The source for that particular story is a non-fiction book by a prolific Japanese writer Matsumoto Seichō (松本 清張), "Showa-shi hakkutsu",《昭和历史発掘》 so at least it's well documented and should be a relatively well known story.

That's about as far as I can get on this lead without getting off my chair. It's a bit too early for Kinzo to have attained it, though, and we know he had to have acquired it during the WWII. Whoever had that particular stash had to be an IJA officer, and how could a Western-looking Beatrice end up involved is unclear, so I suspect that is a dead end -- even though that's the only batch of gold in the entire list I'm pretty sure really existed.

Originally Posted by Renall

• The names Kinzo gave his children are, by and large, all German names (or can be).

Except the ones his grandchildren ended up with, in particular, Battler. Which keeps reminding me of Rhett Butler every single time I look at it. Also remember how his sprite is shortened to "BUT" in the code.

P.S: Oh, the Stakes. Almost forgot. Would you think that for a Japanese, Arkham, MA is "near New York City"?

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Oliver

P.S: Oh, the Stakes. Almost forgot. Would you think that for a Japanese, Arkham, MA is "near New York City"?

Come on now. Let's not insert H.P. Lovecraft into Umineko. That'd be way too weird. I don't want to imagine Kinzo's madness as being caused by a Cthulu that makes everyone go crazy.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Come on now. Let's not insert H.P. Lovecraft into Umineko. That'd be way too weird. I don't want to imagine Kinzo's madness as being caused by a Cthulu that makes everyone go crazy.

No, that would just imply they're exactly as fake as a Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon.

[NarkNarks]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Come on now. Let's not insert H.P. Lovecraft into Umineko. That'd be way too weird. I don't want to imagine Kinzo's madness as being caused by a Cthulu that makes everyone go crazy.

Sorry but that sounds awsome
1D6 investigators die every twilight

Though Oliver has a point there, the books in Kinzo's study will contain fakes as well as "euthentic" ones. Supposed copies of the Lovecraft books would be good ones

[Jan-Poo]

Well I'd be surprised if Kinzo never had a fake copy of the Necronomicon however so far there has never been any reference to Lovecraft's mythology and it'd be kinda lame if it were to pop up at this point.

[KnightOfTwo]

I hate to be the person that asks this but as I am too lazy to read back through the past 100 or so pages I will anyway. I am curious as to who you guys believe the culprit(s) is. I only ask because I am wondering if there are any current theories that seem to be widely held or simply make the most sense. I have a handful of different theories but at best they only fit a few episodes and at worst they are situational. For example one of my theories that fit EP 1 and 2 is somewhat strengthened in EP 3 but practically crumbles with EP 4 and with the out of game TIPS. I keep looking at things from all sorts of different angles and coming up with a multitude of theories and I cannot quite get all of them to fit perfectly. I just wanna see if there is something that mentioned that I have either forgot, overlooked or just didn't think of.

Personally my number 1 theory (albeit I am grabbing at straws when it comes to motive) is that Rosa is the mastermind. EP 1 and 2 I can make fit if some if not all of the servants helped her even if its unintentionally. EP 3 diverts in that Eva finds the gold and Rosa finds out about this. Lets say Rosa in fact dies in this episode and the servants, not knowing she is dead or that Eva found the gold as they faked their deaths, continued her plan without her. EP 4 however is where I start to lose track of things, while it makes a bit of sense for EP 5 again as her plans change when battler finds, and leads everyone to the gold. I have not read EP 6 yet though, though I know the gist of it, and so cannot make any sort of comment there without examining everything. I highly doubt this is actually the case but when I started thinking about it, it seemed to make sense to me.

[Judoh]

I guess I'll just list my favorite culprits then.

From the time I've been here I've suggested quite a few different masterminds

1. George

2. Kyrie

3. Jessica

4. Asumu (Ssol's theory)

I like George as a mastermind the best for the following reasons.

• He's the only family member besides Krauss and Natsuhi specifically shown to order the servants.
• He suggests he has his own source on occult knowledge and knows things about the scorpion charm and resurrection ceremonies he shouldn't know.
• 07151129 is in his tips and it's possible he could of written the number before he died if he had a key to the parlor. Furthermore anyone in the business world could have put the illegal money in the safety deposit boxes, and George is said to be well on his way in the business world. He also says himself that he's always prepared.
• Is always the first person to point out Beatrice's letters at dinner when Maria takes them out of her bag. And was also the first person to notice Beatrice's letter in the chapel in episode 2.
• He's good with kids and he seems to like to protect Maria from the adults.

Rosa and Eva are really red herring culprits to me sorry.

EDIT: A working theory I have is that the mastermind/handler (whoever it is) Choses Sub-culprits to lead certain groups, which the leaders of which are different in each game.

There are many factions people on here have suggested. i.e team beatrice, team fake deaths, team epitaph, team closed room and stakes, team justice, team bomb, team rescue, etc

The leaders of whatever group chose accomplices like you would chose the players on your team in a basketball game. Since the leaders are chosen at random the accomplices are always different.

For first twilight fakery though it's a lot easier if you suspect Jessica is the person in charge of that group. Since she has make up and stuff and she's involved in at least two of the more obvious fake death plots. And even if the leaders aren't different every time I suppose accomplices could still be chosen at random if you believe in the author theory.

[KnightOfTwo]

Hmmm, never really though much of George as a culprit but it does make sense. Kyrie is by far the one I have had the most suspicion in, though I have not been able to string together a decent theory as to how events take place with her (which annoys me to no end). Its a good thing I am replaying the first four, I can direct where I look. Thanks.

[Judoh]

Well the theme of Umineko is love. A Bonny and Clyde type of murder with either George or Jessica as masterminds would fit perfectly.

Plus if Shkanon is true that automatically makes George and Jessica suspicious because they would have to be in on it.

I'm also partial to the idea that Jessica is the other Battler too.