[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Personally I have a feeling that those kinds of statements might just be translation issues? Japanese language seems to be pretty gender-divided, so things like "As a man, I can't afford to lose" might be common expressions there.

That does seem to be the case, at least with the 'as a man' expression. However, there are many examples of similar stuff which is literally in everything he's written. It is possible that we are blaming him for a lot more than he is actually guilty of, but it is a fact that his views about the differences between the sexes are sort of... creepy.

And that's all the more strange considering that if you overlook the wildly sexual depiction of women (which is more apparent in Higurashi) which you can attribute to the standards of Japanese media, his own text doesn't treat women or men in a partial way.

Battler's stupid breast-grabbing antics also seem to be a cultural thing; that would be seriously frowned upon over in the West, but everyone in Umineko just seems to kind of laugh it off as normal male behaviour and Kumasawa even goes along with the joke by inviting him to rub her own breasts (and no one seems to find this creepy), so it seems like the Japanese are just really open about sexual expression and don't have the same kind of sensitivity to it that we do. Again, this is something that I've seen in a lot of Japanese media, not just Umineko.

I'm also not very familiar with the Japanese culture, but one thing I can say for sure is that nobody would just laugh off a man trying to grab a girl's breast in public (and without her wanting to) without finding it at least a little disturbing in any culture.

At any rate, Japanese media seem to be overflowing with such stuff, it is pretty common to see a boy getting smacked because of his pervertness in anime, so I guess the reason for that is not Ryukishi being sexist but just following the stupid comedy stereotypes, possibly aiming for laughs.

Regardless, it is pretty low-rate humor and it could very well be avoided. And Battler's justification of it as 'a trick to break the ice' is wildly surreal and makes the whole thing more creepy than it already was.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Yasu in the toilet stall says "The period..." "...even though everybody else already had it", which implies that 'she' hasn't had her period at a point when it is strange not to, further solidifying the male-theory.
All the way to the right it says "Something like me being an illegitimate child has to be a lie!" Going by the pronoun "watashi" being used, it's clearly Yasu (since Battler used "ore" even as a child.

Thanks a lot for this translation. I can't wait for the manga to get a scanlation now! It seems like it will be an informative revision of EP8, that much is apparent from even the first two chapters, I really want to see where they are gonna go with it.

His comments on Japanese popular culture is apt and I'd say that in a way he is trapped in that system. I find it funny how everybody was praising his use of kawaii/moe stereotypes in Higurashi, claiming that it was a total reversal of stereotypes. Yes, I also think that he inserted the uber-perfect school-life as a tool to cause an even bigger break after the Watanagashi, it still didn't stop fans all over Japan (especially male fans) to concentrate on this moemoe-kyunkyun'ness of Higurashi...hell, look at the existence of anime-spinoffs like Higurashi Kira.

Higurashi itself seems to be constantly making fun of all these stereotypes (albeit, that also gets a bit creepy sometimes). The sexism I was reffering to has to do with subtler things, like the way his character speak about the two genders or the general consesus that seems to exist about it sometimes.

The existence of these OVAs is just.... a matter that I wouldn't like to touch. Some things are better left unsaid....