Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugetsu
Ok... After watching the first 11 episodes and never played the game before I can't understand why so many people like this anime. I admit the gore, the violence and the fan-service are fun. However the plot is very weak. Here is why:
The witch is the equivalent of a God, everyone including Batter is just a toy, she and the other witches are so bored that they invented the twisted game of recreating the a world over and over in which people die time and time again with the sole objective to make the ever stubborn Batter acknowledge that magic exists. I could accept that, but the plot becomes utterly illogical and none sense when Batter himself witnesses all the magic that the witch does in front of him, to the point of being able to see that she is the one allowing him to live and that she could squash him like a bug on a whim, yet he tries to act cool in front her and he keeps insisting that the earth is flat. The only thing that is keeping Batter alive is the fact that the witch has a HUGE ego and she won't give up until this incredibly stupid guy realizes that she and her magic are real.
Can an anime be any more retarded than this? Or am I not seeing something REALLY important in the storyline that makes this anime utterly brilliant?
I would apreaciate it if someone could explain to me what makes this anime so fascinating to the point where it is almost as popular as bleach and naruto with the animesuki community.
Thank you.
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This has been explained to people lots and lots of times in this forum, but I'll give it a go.
1)
Not everything we see is necessarily what happened. If the witch isn't the murderer, then the magical scenes we see
on the gameboard (in other words, in the Real-World), are illusions. That doesn't mean those scenes are worthless, but rather you should consider them to be only metaphorical. They give you clues about what might really be happening, the real truth which we aren't allowed see.
2)
Battler's objective is to prove that a witch didn't commit the murders with magic in the Real-World. Therefore, magic performed in the afterlife/the Meta-World/Purgatorio does not contradict the contention that magic doesn't exist in the Real-World, or that the perpetrator isn't a witch. A person can belief in the afterlife or the supernatural on another plane of existence without believing that it exists in reality. That is where Meta-Battler is situated: he knows he has died. He knows he's on some other plane. He knows that he is observing different realities and that Beatrice (or somebody) is showing him a magical version of events).
3)
With each game that concludes in a "bad end", the magical "corruption" can be said to increase. More and more magical things and beings are appearing, because Beatrice is gaining strength. That doesn't necessarily mean that the magical explanation becomes more and more airtight -- in fact, most people would say it becomes more and more sloppy.
4)
Magic might exist in Umineko, but whether it's the tool used in the murders or it really works the way Beato claims it does is the main question of the story.
The mystery only becomes an open-and-shut case in favor of magic if, as Battler says, you stop thinking. There are MANY, MANY holes in the anti-mystery argument if you look for them.
To flip the chessboard around, too, think about the story a different way. Instead of framing the story as "Battler is trying to prove that Beatrice isn't a witch and the murderer" think of it as "Beatrice is trying to convince Battler that she is a witch and the murderer." Which leads you to the question of why? The magical explanation is "because she needs everyone to believe in order to open up the door to the Golden Land." But if you are arguing from a mystery standpoint, then everything gets a lot more complicated and interesting. Why on earth might Beatrice want to be framed as the murderer? What is going on?
In the end, Umineko is more about what ISN'T being said and shown than about what is readily apparent.
I also recommend reading Ryukishi's "Anti-Fantasy vs Anti-Mystery" TIP which was posted in one of the anime threads recently I think.