[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Very good job!

BTW, in regard to the VN Version vs the manga version, I've noticed sometimes when I happen to read the manga, I get a completely different feeling from a scene, as if it was the first time I saw/read it... when it actually was in the VN and, skipping some slight differences in the translation, really the dialogues are just the same. But the scenes, the movements and faces of the characters just give me a different feeling.
Anyone else feel the same?

And since the discussion is sort of dead recently I propose something rather simple:
if Ep 8 will give us more additional material what would you like to know that wasn't said in the VN? Or which of the remaining scene would you like the manga to fix better?

[Agiel]

Hey all! my copy of the newest episode 7 volume just arrived, and inside it chapter 38, the second half of will and claire's duel. I hadn't been able to find this chapter online, and I assume other people have had the same problem. I dunno if anyone wants a translation for the latter solutions, but I'd be happy to give one if people do!

[punchyout]

Originally Posted by Agiel

Hey all! my copy of the newest episode 7 volume just arrived, and inside it chapter 38, the second half of will and claire's duel. I hadn't been able to find this chapter online, and I assume other people have had the same problem. I dunno if anyone wants a translation for the latter solutions, but I'd be happy to give one if people do!

You're right, I've been looking all over the place for this chapter and I haven't been able to find it anywhere! So if you could provide us with the translations, that'd be truly appreciated.

[GoldenLand]

I also get a different feeling from the manga and the VN in places, due to the more elaborate expressions and settings. Even though I think the VN does exceptionally well at expressions, a manga just has more scope for these things.

And Agiel, I would love to see the second half of the ep 7 duel solutions! Many thanks to you if you do post them.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

if Ep 8 will give us more additional material what would you like to know that wasn't said in the VN? Or which of the remaining scene would you like the manga to fix better?

There are a lot of things that I'd like to know about, but in particular I'm keenest to know what happened to Battler on the last day on the island. There are things that we know must have happened but haven't seen the details of. Eva knew that Battler was alive at least up to a point. Beatrice must have explained the details of everything to Battler. Did Battler see the bodies, and what did he learn about who might have killed people? That sort of thing.

I also want to see the scenes with the mass goat battle. It was possible to read the VN scene as being critical of the fanbase - so to what extent will that be shown in the manga, or will it come over differently?

[Agiel]

Appologies if I'm off on anything, my Japanese is by no means perfect.
Second Game First twlight, Rosa is confirmed to be an accomplice along with nanjo and the servants, the door was never locked.
Second twilight: Kanon's corpse doesn't exist.
Fourth fifth and sixth twilights: Shannon explained herself to George, who rejected her, causing her to kill him and Gouda, and commit suicide by the mechanism explained in the keiya interview.
Seventh and eighth twilights: Genji killed both of them before going to find Rosa, Battler, and Maria

Third game, first twilight: Shannon's "corpse" left after being discovered, and moved to the chapel as Kanon.
Second twilight: Eva killed Rosa in a struggle, then silenced Maria
Fourth fifth and sixth twilights: Interestingly enough, here it notes that Eva and Hideyoshi were bought. I always assumed that Eva was just running around killing people with no knowledge of yasu's plans. Rudolph and Kyrie are shot, but a wounded Kyrie manages to kill Hideyoshi.
Seventh and Eighth twilights: Eva strangled the pair.

Fourth game, first twilight: Excluding battler, literally everyone was in on the scheme. The first twilight's text reads: The spirit world is a lie created in conspiracy.
Second twilight: George and Jessica are merely moving according to the scenario.
Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth twilights: The text here reads The demon, the witch, everything is a lie. On the next page, it shows Shannon shooting everyone, with "corpses can't speak" superimposed over the page.

After the solutions, Claire's sword explodes into petals, and Lion exclaims "how beautiful." Claire then asks Beatrice's final quesiton: "Who am I?"

The next page is a bit more of an enigma, possibly outside of my level of Japanese. In the text bubbles, it reads "The promised god of death, regardless of the will of the witch, closes the curtains on this tale." A fairly clear reference to the bomb. However, the text underneath reads, その死神こそが私。, which I would translate as "I am that god of death." which I can only take to be a sentence from the perspective of the bomb, strange though that is. The images on the page are of the bomb, and the island being blown up, but it would seem more natural to me at least to use これ rather than 私.

Claire finishes her tale, and the final two pages read:
To be born in sin, living to be forgiven by someone
Alternatively, born as a mystery, living to be solved by someone
Humans are mysteries
The world known as the self is the most obscure of mysteries
Living, wishing to be solved by someone
Finally, her wish was fulfilled
Her soul wanders no more.
Inside the coffin of the catbox,
Rest in peace for all eternity

It can't compare to reading the thing yourself, but I hope that helped anyone who couldn't find the chapter!
On a related note, I was surprised Eva beatrice's final red truth wasn't touched on, considering everything else was.

[Ayu-ayu]

Actually a lot of that was covered here earlier, including links to some pics of the pages from this chapter...check this page:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=5117177

Might be good to compare notes with what was translated back then.

Edit: looking back, I don't think there was much discussion of the latter portion, though, but the pages for it can be viewed here:

http://beatotsundere.tumblr.com/post...-of-the-golden

[Agiel]

Shoot, and I thought I had been thorough in making sure it hadn't come up before, sorry bout that =P

[GoldenLand]

How could I forget that Haguruma already told us a good amount about the solutions to the latter games, after all the many great translations Haguruma's done for us at the forum here. But, there are a couple of extra details in your translation, Agiel, so that is really helpful stuff to know, and thank you very much for translating all that.

[GuestSpeaker]

I wonder why Eva would kill Kraus and Natsuhi in that scenario?

We knew it had to be herfrom the start though, there is no way Umineko would show us a heartwarming scene filled with Kraus' regrets regarding his strained relationship with Eva and NOT have it be a cover for her brutally murdering him.

As for Shannon and George in ep 2, Ryu always maintained that George would accept Shannon if she were honest. Maybe he just needed some time to come round, or maybe he was just less supportive when she also mentioned she was murdering his family in an attempt to get Battler's attention...

[Agiel]

I assume she was just fulfilling the epitaph at that point, she was an accomplice after all.
Agreed on the Shannon-George thing, killing someones family and sadistically stuffing candy in their stomachs makes for some damn hard explaining later.

I was re reading the episode four ura tea party earlier, and I noticed a confusing statement that I was hoping someone on here could explain.
Lambda notes that Beatrice only lowered one arm when she was 'defeated.' and bernkastel seems to understand what lambda is insinuating. What am I missing here? What does Beatrice's left arm have to do with anything?

[Kealym]

I'm assuming it was further insinuation that Beato was still holding something back, even though she claimed she was "exposing everything"

After all, Lambda basically just told Bern outright that most of Battler's answers were wrong, in that scene. Her dropped hand could correspond to her letting go of the mystery relating to the bomb, while her still-raised hand could concern the parts of her heart about Shkanonigans, which Battler hadn't even approached at that point.

Mind you, Ryukishi played fast and loose with how the Meta world "worked" several times (for example, Battler solves everything in EP4 but Beato is only sent comatose, whereas when Erika solves everything in EP5, Beato outright dies), but "she was still holding some good unplayed cards," I think, was the general intended sentiment.

[GoldenLand]

Who do you all think the best developed character in Umineko is?

On one level, the best developed character definitely ought to be Yasu (in all her identities). The main aim of the series is to unravel the mystery of her identity and wishes, and when it's all added up I don't think there's any doubt that her various identities have had more time spent on them than any other character. In many ways she's been dealt with very subtly. Especially in the early few VNs, there were so many hints about Beatrice's mindset woven in with Kanon and Shannon. We've got a really good feel for the personalities of each of those three (even if Kanon gets less than the others), and for the author behind them.

But at the same time, the breadth of her personae can make her a little hard to grasp. We get to see Yasu's backstory and the way that she established the stories for those characters, but we don't exactly get to see her in action as a single, whole person in anything but flashbacks. It's not that I think Ryukishi necessarily messed up a lot with portraying her, but her nature is a bit stretched out and fragmented. So even though Yasu/Beatrice/etc ought to be the best developed character, it's a bit hard to say that she definitely is.

What about the others? I think it would have to come down to Eva, Rosa, Natsuhi, and Maria. Eva's personality was well handled regarding the treatment she received as a child and the problems it caused her, and the way that her ambition to prove herself to her family continued on even into adulthood but ended up at times making her someone she didn't like. Since Eva gets to live in some cases, she does get the added benefit of developing past the point of the last family conference, and the way that her relationship with Ange soured even while Eva still wanted to protect her in some ways is very interesting.

Natsuhi comes over as a very well fleshed out personality. I think her character is an especially distinct one even in a cast of memorable characters. We know her history in the family and exactly how she felt in the time before she had Jessica - her relationship with Krauss, and with Kinzo and the disdain from other family members. I don't think her relationship with Jessica gets a huge amount of time spent on it, but it's still an interesting one, with Natsuhi having such a lot of expectations for her and a strict attitude which must be partly a reaction to Natsuhi's feelings of inadequacy around the family. Then there's all the stuff with Kinzo's death and Natsuhi's reactions to it, where she's shown to be very driven and proud and also a bit delusional...and doing the wrong thing for the sake of her pride.

Rosa comes over as strongly characterised to me as well. I really like the juxtaposition of her as an apparently mature and brave adult and as a really childish person who shirks responsibility and blames others but also to some extent gets eaten up by guilt. It's obvious how she got that way and the sort of pressures she was under, and the whole cycle of abuse thing playing out with her and her daughter seems very realistic. Ryukishi is really good at making his characters simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic. I like some of the details with her a lot - for example, that she just works on the assumption that her siblings (or at least Eva) will always be a few steps ahead of her, but we also get to see that she's every bit as capable as Eva of solving the epitaph. What is really sad is that it's only in the ep 8 manga scenes for her that she starts to show real promise for breaking out of the abusive cycle she's in.

I'd need to think more about Maria. She does get quite a bit of attention, though it's a bit more spread out than some.

[Levani]

The best developed character in my opinion was Beatrice. She starts as this awesome villain that you can't help to like. And there are tiny nuisances about which are part of the mystery of who she is. With the past, the human who represents her, the witch's love for Battler. She's a mystery and you change the way you view her character when you're playing Umineko. I'm pretty sure that's what character development does.

I also think the female adults were very developed. Like Natsuhi, Kyrie, Rosa and especially Eva. Eva's an awesome character, I never would have thought to sympathize with such a bully. But she's so complex and complicated.

From the cousins... they're pretty much the same in terms of development. They aren't ignored but they don't give out the vibes the parents do. Well, maybe except for Maria. By Episode 4 you understand how her minds works and how she deals with her problems. Like Beatrice, you change the way you look at her character.

None of the characters feel like card-board cut outs in Umineko if you ask me. Well, maybe except Genji and Gohda. But Genji being Genji is part of the mystery so I don't know if I should blame Ryu for not giving him enough screentime. I mean, Genji holds the answer to everything, right?

[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Who do you all think the best developed character in Umineko is?

Rosa. Definitely Rosa. Hands down.

(Even in EP8 when she becomes a cardboard badass -which is poor in terms of writing- she's still pretty awesome.)

[GuestSpeaker]

So here's a question.

When Bern first meets Ange (in the main series that is), she states that she tried to bring her a fragment where her parents come back to show her. We later learn from Lambda that she couldn't because there is simply no chance that the Ange who has lived without her family for 12 years could also ever be the Ange that got her parents back. However, here's the thing. Does this mean there is NO world in which her parents came back? If there was why didn't Bern just show her that and imply that it could be her world. If there is no world where that happened, shouldn't Bern have known that anyway? Did Ryu just say she tried so he could set up the reveal later?

What do you think, narrative convenience or actual reason?

I used to think the reason was because the fragments of Higurashi were about possible futures, while the fragments of Umineko are reinterpretations of the past, however we know they can also conflict with reality (since Eva dies a lot). There should be no reason that someone didn't write a story where her parents returning occurred, unless it just didn't gain particularly large following or didn't have the power of the authors who have reached the truth behind it or something.

[Levani]

So here's a question.

When Bern first meets Ange (in the main series that is), she states that she tried to bring her a fragment where her parents come back to show her. We later learn from Lambda that she couldn't because there is simply no chance that the Ange who has lived without her family for 12 years could also ever be the Ange that got her parents back. However, here's the thing. Does this mean there is NO world in which her parents came back? If there was why didn't Bern just show her that and imply that it could be her world. If there is no world where that happened, shouldn't Bern have known that anyway? Did Ryu just say she tried so he could set up the reveal later?

Bernkastel claims that she wanted to find that fragment and bring it to Ange as a gift in Episode III Tea-Party. She couldn't find it and for the Witch of Miracles that pretty much means that no such fragment (world) exists.

I used to think the reason was because the fragments of Higurashi were about possible futures, while the fragments of Umineko are reinterpretations of the past, however we know they can also conflict with reality (since Eva dies a lot). There should be no reason that someone didn't write a story where her parents returning occurred, unless it just didn't gain particularly large following or didn't have the power of the authors who have reached the truth behind it or something.

Higurashi's gameboard is a bit different than Umineko's. Since Higurashi ends with fantasy side winning (and proving the existence of the occult - Hanyuu, Oyashiro-sama)

In Umineko we have the human side winning with the illusion of the witch destroyed. We have to face the harsh reality that no happy ending came to these people.

Wasn't this the premise of EP8? Ange was in a dilemma : believe in magic and have hope for her family's return or face the reality of them being dead for good.

[AuraTwilight]

There could be a fragment where her family comes back, but THIS Ange can never benefit from it. Additionally, Lambda's criticism is that Bern "promised to look" She never promised to find it, so technically she can just peer at like....ten fragments, and then pack it in.

Witches are kind of assholes like that.

[GuestSpeaker]

It just seems like an unnecessary lie for Bern to open with, to control Ange should could have just promised to look without saying she already had.

Also, in a funny way Battler in ep 8 is doing exactly what Virilgillia accused Lambda and Bern of in Ep 5. Making characters do something that is POSSIBLE for them, but something they would never do. His scribbles on the chessboard are just in prettier colours.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

I think the main motivator was kind of "I need your help to find one. Help us defeat Beatrice, and that Kakera/Fragment will surely be a happy one. If you don't, no Onii-chan for you".

[Mr. Dent]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Also, in a funny way Battler in ep 8 is doing exactly what Virilgillia accused Lambda and Bern of in Ep 5. Making characters do something that is POSSIBLE for them, but something they would never do. His scribbles on the chessboard are just in prettier colours.

Huh, I always thought that was supposed to be the family coming together after realizing what absolute assholes they were in life and the previous episodes. After all, and the manga seems to back me up on this, they all seem pretty self-aware when they're on their own. I mean, aside from Kinzo, I can see them behaving this nicely of their own will. After all, since this is the final game, and they're all dead anyway, why fight over money and the inheritance? If they all know the secrets that they've been hiding from each other, why not trust? Would they have acted this buddy-buddy in Prime? Very unlikely, but I would buy it in the Metaworld. (I wouldn't be surprised if they were just written to act that way by Battler either, but that seems somewhat less likely to me.)