2013-05-01, 13:48 | Link #32201 | |
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The fact that Yasu wrote it doesn't really connect her with the explosive. Nor it explains how Ootsuki observed it so well he could recognize the writing when Ange showed him the diary and also showed great interest in it, yet didn't bother trying to discover who could have written it. If Ootsuki had showed no interest in it I could wave it away with a: they didn't care about it so no research was done over it. If the police hadn't checked if the writing matched with Eva or Maria I could have accepted they didn't care about it as well. I the police had kept hidden any info about the diary and Ange had leart only they discovered it wasn't Eva's writing nor Maria because a policeman tattled it out by mistake I could have accepted they were trying to cover up everything. However we're presented with people interested in it that's not investigating over it when, apparently, this should be their job/hobby. We aren't even told that the investigation was closed in a rush, that one is our theory due to the explosive matter. No, the whole message in the bottle thing is weak. Ryukishi wanted to assure us it wasn't Maria's doing but, in doing so, he ended up creating a plot hole. It would have been much better if the message in the bottle had never been taken seriously by the police and the witch hunters had used it only as inspiration to start their fanfic production and Ange discovered by herself it wasn't Maria but Beatrice's writing by comparing a picture of it with the writing on the diary. |
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2013-05-01, 17:31 | Link #32202 |
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When it comes to a relative nobody like Shannon, could they even find a decent sample of her handwriting to compare with the note? The only person I can see her realistically corresponding with would be George, and I can see both George (before the incident) and Eva (after) not wanting those letters to be found. Her duties at the mansion or Fukuin House likely didn't involve a great deal of writing, and any schoolwork she had done would probably have been incinerated long before. Eva was the head of a huge business, and Maria was in school at the time of the accident, so finding extant handwriting samples would have been a simple affair.
As far as the diary, the police may or may not have checked it before Ange stole it away, but they almost certainly didn't read it intimately enough to discover a small number of margin notes written in an unfamiliar script. Only Ange was familiar enough with it to recognize it. Another possibility I considered was that "Shannon" and "Beatrice" actually don't write similarly, but I can't see Yasu keeping that up for two long messages. Then again, if Beato uses Yasu's "real" handwriting, while "Shannon" uses whatever the Japanese equivalent of Palmer Method is, I could see it. |
2013-05-01, 19:14 | Link #32203 | |
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So there are samples of her writing that are available. Also in some schools at the end of the last school years students write to each other dedications on year books or similar so her old classmates might have samples of her writing. Plus she took a lot of books from the library so they've to have at least a sample of how she wrote. As you can see the police had many chances to get a sample of her writing if they decided to check if the writing in the message matched with the writing of someone on the island and, if a witch hunter really wanted to check it he probably could have maanged to do it as well. |
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2013-05-02, 23:40 | Link #32204 |
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I always assumed that Beatrice had her own handwriting, though if Ryu had intended this he could have dropped a hint. It certainly wouldn't be out of character for someone like Yasu, who put so much effort into her personalities.
Similarly I often assumed that She roleplayed Kanon off island sometimes, which should have created a confirmation he exists but also a shady and inconsistent past and origins. The least plot-holey solution is that the whole incident was swept under the rug as much as possible. Also I think we put too much faith in the witch hunters' document finding ability. I could be obsessed with a murder, and still really only have accesss to public release info and whatever I read on the message boards. Documents aren't that easy to steal in general, and most casual enthusiasts would not be that way inclined. Though I suspect Ryu just never thought too deeply on this, for fear of a headache. As a random note: I have no solid proof, but I have recently come to believe that Jessica is not so oblivious as to have believed that Kinzo was alive for two whole years. I am guessing she had her suspicions, but was never implicitly made apart of the plan. No-one asked, and no-one had to confront the issue. At least for ep 1 and 2 this works. As in Ep 1 she is siding with her family by not acknowledging her doubts about Kinzo, and in Ep 2 she is dead by the time Rosa starts pretending to have met him. |
2013-05-03, 09:09 | Link #32205 | |
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I for myself arrived at the point that I would say, even the police would be at a loss at certain points. Think about it, you have 17 people missing with Maria very likely being a casualty and the others being at least likely, you have only one survivor who refuses to talk and two highly doubt-worthy reports of mysterious origin. Spoiler for Victims:
Survivor: Ushiromiya Eva: Wife of Hideyoshi. Second in line for headship. Found outside the explosion radius in a mansion hidden in the forest - only directly accessible through second harbor and (now collapsed) tunnel. Who and what would you start to investigate? There is no direct evidence of a crime due to the explosion; the only thing hinting towards that is the existence of two conflicting reports of highly doubt-worthy origin. Eva refuses to speak up about the actual events and is thus of course rumored to be responsible. Even if it was to be proven that the handwriting in the message bottle matched that of the (by herself doubt-worthy) "Yasuda -Shannon- Sayo", what would that proof by itself? One bottle was found on the day of the event, the other was proven to have been sent out in a similar time-frame, the content asks for the crime to be solved, making it questionable if it was written by the culprit of an unknown crime. Also important is the fact that the existence of this "Shannon" as well as her close co-worker "Kanon" is doubt-worthy by itself, which makes it harder for any motive or background to be constructed. Even if this "Shannon" was a fake persona, the most likely solution to be reached was for her to have worked herself into the family for the fortune by getting close to George. The existence of a possible 10th heir (Lion) is highly doubt-worthy beyond a rumor-level. Yasu's birth was never revealed or given in any official birth-records. The whole existence of that person was kept a close secret between Kinzo, Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo and Natsuhi, just as the existence of Kuwadorian Beatrice was between Kinzo, Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo and Rosa and Beatrice Castiglioni's was a secret between the first four. Only Kawabata knew of female items being shipped to Kuwadorian, but not of any concrete resident. |
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2013-05-03, 09:46 | Link #32206 | |
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However, almost none of this information is unattainable.
It's unforgivably sloppy work on the part of the police if they didn't check these things, and incredibly unfair on Ryukishi's part if they did check these things, but nobody who appears anywhere in the stories is aware of what was found.
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2013-05-03, 17:10 | Link #32207 | |||
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In short, if the police checked Shannon's writing and the message they should have been capable to figure out that the hand was the same even if in the message the hand was trying to write differently. Quote:
In short: many random Witch Hunters are likely powerless and can't get info but this doesn't apply to all the Witch Hunters and, more important, it doesn't apply to the police. Quote:
Though honestly, I could never figure exactly when Kinzo moved from friendly grandad who pranked Battler showing him the stakes to unsociable shut in who spent his time screaming Beatrice. I wonder if he ever was as unsociable as Kanon too mentioned Kinzo had some episodes in which he was social with him, even though Kinzo is rumoured to be already a "Beatrice! screaming shut in" when Shannon was hired. Also... Spoiler for What to investigate:
On a sidenote Ep 3 manga version confirmed in red Eva didn't kill Hideyoshi. Also, rereading Ep 6 it was interesting how Rosa's fate resembled Shannon... but also how killing Rosa made Maria angry. I wonder if that's what had happened in Ep 3. Shannon killed Rosa thinking Maria would accept it as Maria was her accomplice but, when Maria realized what Shannon has done and realized Rosa was REALLY dead she didn't feel like supporting her anymore and turned agaisnt Shannon who had to kill her. |
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2013-05-03, 20:43 | Link #32208 |
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Any police investigation would probably be limited to either Eva as a suspect or finding possible survivors of the blast (i.e, their hunt for Maria when the message bottle was found). All the other cousins, as well as Shannon/Kanon, are missing and presumed dead. According to the EP1 epilogue, every other adult on the island has been identified. Police, especially Japanese police, aren't going to go out on a mad quest for the truth, digging up relevant and irrelevant family dirty laundry alike, if it doesn't directly lead to a crime that can be prosecuted in court.
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2013-05-03, 22:04 | Link #32209 | |||||||||
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But to go over your points as I see it personally: Quote:
The problem is, all of the adults have a motive. That's what I wanted to show with my character list. They are all in desperate need of money, everybody besides Krauss would only get a limited access to the family fortune and that fortune doesn't even officially exist anymore. Without any evidence to act upon the police can only come to the solution that it is not unlikely for an adult family member to be a culprit of a possible murder. That is, if the message bottle is actually a plea for help. Quote:
Maybe they would find documents of an older servant named Shannon who served the island in the 70's and then left. Maybe that servant is still alive, but what would her statement be? Shannon: "Yes, there were several servants who looked up to me...and I remember there being one girl who was stationed on the island" Police: "Mam, there is no report of any other girl, could it maybe have been a boy?" Shannon: "No, I am fairly certain it was a young girl..." Police: "Do we have any reports of there being another girl on the island that day?" Then they might stumble upon some school records, IF they make the direct connection between the young girl from the statement and possible school records of the "fake" Shannon. This might tell them that there was a girl, maybe named Yasuda Sayo, who went to Nijima elementary and middle school, there might even be records of that girl living on Rokkenjima and then the police concluding that this girl was the elusive Shannon from the message bottles, as well as the letters to Ushiromiya George, but that is where it would end, isn't it? They basically only learned that there was a servant girl who had the same name as another servant girl from the past. This would possibly be recorded under accidental and filed away, instead of the old Shannon the new one would still only be under likely suspects. Kanon's non-existence on paper would be weird and would be considered strange. But even if the connection to Shannon was made, the idea "he was a fictional construct created by the bodily disfigured, hidden heir of the Ushiromiya fortune, grandchild of an illegal Italian refugee after WW2" is a huge jump without any proof of such things existing. Quote:
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He knew rumors of Kinzo's hidden tunnels but he never saw them apparently. Just like he knew of the hidden harbor and that there was a mansion connected to it (likely how they found Eva), but carrying cosmetics and clothing there in the 60's is not indicative of any criminal activity. There were at least 2 women living on the island (Kinzo's wife and Rosa), Eva was at least visiting and even if Kinzo had an affair, that is not a direct lead towards "a crime happened here". Yes, the transports stopped suddenly in 1967, but what evidence does that give us? Quote:
The number of people who also knew of that device does not have to be limited that much. His children grew up on the island and even if Kinzo claimed that it was a secret device, the fact alone that a business associate knew of it is indicative of other people much closer to Kinzo have equal knowledge. Quote:
Kinzo is dead! Kinzo is alive! Kinzo fled the island to the carribean! Kinzo fell into the ocean! Kinzo commited suicide! Kinzo was murdered! Kinzo didn't like to go out! Kinzo started hating sunlight in 1967! Quote:
Yes, this is carrying it to an extreme, but the problem is that everything important about 1967 existed on Rokkenjima and perished on Rokkenjima. Everything except the hazy memory of a man who is reported dead and is now writing highly fictional reports on this event. Quote:
EDIT: DAMN!! Now I wanna write a story about how that investigation would have proceeded. Maybe even with an Ooishi cameo LOL |
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2013-05-03, 22:12 | Link #32210 | |
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Also they didn't hunt for Maria. Maria's jaw was found along to many other unidentified body parts. As for Japanese police's efficency in questing for the truth honestly I've no idea. |
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2013-05-03, 22:36 | Link #32211 | |
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Besides, if the cops were able to figure everything out, what need would we have for Battler and Ange? What would Higurashi be like if Ooishi had figured everything out the first year and had all the Irie clinic staff locked up? It might be ultra-logical and satisfying to you, but *I* certainly wouldn't want to read it. |
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2013-05-04, 01:26 | Link #32212 | |
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2013-05-04, 07:23 | Link #32213 | |||||
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If it had been turned out the message was written by her or that, at least, she was... let's say suspected alongside Jessica as being the writer of the message, I'll be satisfed but no, the message is important to many but no one in the real world suspected her of doing it. Quote:
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If they go investigating the possibility of an external hand doing the job minor facts like a woman living in secret on the island or a servant dying due to a fall from a cliff become interesting. Quote:
Also unless the police investigated and made sure no one used a time mechanism to make everything explode, that no one left before they reached the island or that no one managed to hide in the other half of the island and left as soon as they left it the possibility of a survivor that's also a culprit isn't that unlikely. All you can be sure of is that isn't Maria as Maria can be presumed death with a pretty high likeliness. Quote:
I'm not saying the police should have solved the mystery. I'm simply saying that the plot must give us intelligent explanations for everything. And since you mentioned Higurashi in Higurashi Ooishi and Co continued to try to figure out what had happened in Hinamizawa even after the incident so, at least in the Ryukishi universe the police isn't all 'oh, it's too hard to figure out, let's not do it.' Last edited by jjblue1; 2013-05-04 at 07:38. |
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2013-05-06, 19:37 | Link #32214 |
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The police had no way of acertaining that there was a crime at all. They could also merely speculate about the events. Yes, "checking about Shanon/Kanon" is speculation too. Even if there was a person roleplaying, there is no proof that this person is also the culprit that killed everyone before mansion blew up. Who can say that it wasn't just a chainreaction that led to the ignation of the whole forgotten explosives on Rokkenjima?
On another Note: I just realized that Natsuhi's "Diary" not showing the truth could be a hint/foreshadowing that "the book of one truth" may show wrong things as well.
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2013-05-06, 23:34 | Link #32215 | |
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There may well have been other reasons to abandon the investigation, but we're not told what they were.
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2013-05-07, 02:45 | Link #32217 |
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Yes, but given her overly extreme sense of honesty, her tendency to identify people by their behavior regardless of their appearance, and an obsession with trying the same things over and over to get different results, it's much more likely that Maria simply exists on the autistic spectrum.
Especially since she's demonstrated extreme examples of savant abilities such as memorization and intuition.
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2013-05-07, 04:49 | Link #32218 | |
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For Ange's emotional journey it is merely important that the crime remains unsolved. What leads the police followed upon and what not are an interesting fact, but they are neither important to the understanding of the core story nor to the understanding of the characters. We do know that it was declared unlikely to be a incident of criminal dimension. Whether that was due to other criminal activity, the police being incompetent, an accident like them forgetting to check Maria's diary before returning it to her kin (Eva and Ange) or simply other evidence being stronger, this is all part of another catbox, which plays strongly into the theme of the story and it is therefore questionable whether it is a flaw that these were not elaborated upon. |
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2013-05-07, 06:23 | Link #32219 |
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To add to the thing on Maria, the text seems to suggest much more to me that it's more like "Maria acts abnormally, Rosa gets angry at this" than "Rosa gets angry at Maria, which causes her to act abnormally". I'm sure there are elements of both of course, but it's pretty clear one of the major roots of Rosa's abusive behaviour is that Maria doesn't act like a normal girl would.
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2013-05-07, 08:05 | Link #32220 | |||
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The diaries for example admit that Krauss tried being kind to her and say that she viewed that kindness as unpleasant that she thought it was out of pity or in an attempt to humiliate her. There's likely no lie in this. Natsuhi is giving a true fact and what were her true feelings in relation to this fact. Krauss' motivations though are left as speculation. Actually it could be that, like her, Krauss in the beginning didn't like her much and acted out of pity than grew fond of her in the same way she grew fond of him. As long as Natsuhi's diary doesn't state that Krauss did something that he did not or imply what's reported isn't Natsuhi's feelings but the truth we can't really say what is written is false, at best we can assume she thought wrongly of Krauss. Umineko has plenty of truthful sentences that hide lies. In that sense though Natsuhi's book can foreshadow that Eva's diary, in its retelling of the truth, might lead that reader to jump to wrong conclusion. So... it's not exactly lying, it's more like tricking the readers. Anyway what I found interesting about the diaries is that she used them to 'seal' those truths of the past, those feelings of her. Yes, Eva might have written a diary for the same purpose but I wonder if the messages in the bottles were written for the same purpose as well. They sealed away Yasu's feelings of anger toward the Ushiromiya and Battler. Quote:
Honestly when ShKanon wasn't proved yet my complains were all about missing hints that should logically exist (the main one being that no one ever mentioned that Shannon and Kanon have the same face despite not being related) and since said hint didn't exist, that in itself was a hint of the opposite (Shannon and Kanon didn't look at all like each other). So if we aren't told that the police for some random reason couldn't check the writing of the message and see if it belonged to Shannon we're lead to assume the police checked and didn't matched. It's true Umineko is, more than a mystery, a puzzle where rain doesn't need to wet people so constructing a theory over a logical fact like: "if you go out in the rain you should be drenched and can't dry yourself that fast, not mention you'll have to change your clothes and someone should notice it" can't be used but still, the fact that Umineko defies logic to hide hints is something that had always annoyed me because it's the same as saying 'for certain things believes in the witches'. Quote:
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