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Old 2011-03-11, 00:02   Link #21
Judoh
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Originally Posted by Kealym View Post
Wait ... seriously?

People were seriously accusing Nats after EP2? Or EP3?
Based on what? I'm not gonna pretend I was able to solve very many of the murders on my own, but even I was able to rule Natuhi rather early.
It was the Japanese fanbase that did and that was why he wrote that large amount of back story and framed her in episode 5. The logic apparently went "Natsuhi is covering up Kinzo's death therefore Natsuhi = culprit".
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Old 2011-03-11, 00:06   Link #22
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Well...I do remember AT's ranting about all the stupid shit of the Japanese fanbase(Will=Battler, Where are Rena and Keiichi?, etc). And when Erika's protrait was first released, there was some 'LOL Natsuhitrice' stuff out there(This is from YouTube).
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Old 2011-03-11, 03:36   Link #23
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I really enjoyed Ryu's Meta-World, it just has limitless possibilities. But as for the story itself...Episode 8 made me want to cry in a bad way. All in all I'm glad I picked up Umineko I just wish it ended better. Also Dlanor got the short end of the stick, a desk job...-shudders-
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Old 2011-03-11, 09:04   Link #24
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
R
But even without that, come on, it's not like explosives are hard to come by. I suppose a rich fellow like Kinzo could buy as much as he wanted in secret.
I... just... can't overlook this...

You must be strongly (understatement) underestimating the problem of acquire 900 tons of explosives.

And you are strongly overestimating Kinzo's wealth. As much as he was rich he was still a single man, and there's just no comparison with the kind of wealth a huge worldwide organizations can get, especially if they have hooks with oil magnates and rogue states.

In other words, if what you say was even remotely true, your country would have a lot more problems to face terrorism. Even the 9/11 didn't actually involve explosives at all.

Clearly it's not that easy.
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Old 2011-03-11, 12:08   Link #25
naikou
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
I... just... can't overlook this...

You must be strongly (understatement) underestimating the problem of acquire 900 tons of explosives.

And you are strongly overestimating Kinzo's wealth. As much as he was rich he was still a single man, and there's just no comparison with the kind of wealth a huge worldwide organizations can get, especially if they have hooks with oil magnates and rogue states.

In other words, if what you say was even remotely true, your country would have a lot more problems to face terrorism. Even the 9/11 didn't actually involve explosives at all.

Clearly it's not that easy.
You'd be surprised. C4 only costs $11-$20 per pound. Dynamite is even cheaper. Assuming $20 per pound x 900 tons x 2000 lbs/ton you'd only need $19,800,000. Well within Kinzo's buying power.

The main problem is not the cost of explosives, but the difficulty in transporting them. TNT is not difficult to manufacture, states with enough money could easily produce it themselves. It's not like making nuclear weapons, where the raw materials are rare and closely watched, and you need huge manufacturing facilities, and people with very rare technical skill sets.

Getting 900 tons of explosives into mainland Japan would be really hard... but getting it to Rokkenjima, an abandoned island where you don't have to pass customs? Probably pretty easy, if you know who to bribe.

But all that is a moot point, because Kinzo merely used the explosives left by the Japanese navy, right? He didn't have to spend a dime.
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Old 2011-03-11, 13:02   Link #26
Renall
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40-year-old explosives. Or, if they're shelf-stable construction explosives, why did the Japanese Navy need so much for a sub pen based out of a natural cave? One way or another, something is fishy.
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Old 2011-03-11, 13:43   Link #27
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900 tons seems pretty high, especially for a Japan that was running low on supplies near the end of the war. However, it's not an unreasonable number. For instance, the U.S. stored the same number (900 tons) of explosives on Parry Island: http://www.realwarphotos.com/wwii-famous_battles

Probably Ryukishi was just trying to find a big number to write down. He guessed a bit high, but eh, so what. Even 100 tons would have been more than enough to blow the mansion sky high.
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Old 2011-03-11, 13:46   Link #28
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Where do we get the information on the amount of explosives? It could be something of an exaggeration.
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Old 2011-03-11, 16:09   Link #29
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The whole bit about the explosives was a second-hand rumor Ange heard from Ootsuki about a story someone else allegedly heard from Kinzo, who wasn't above starting crazy rumors about himself to make business rivals afraid of him. So... no, that number isn't trustworthy.
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Old 2011-03-11, 16:19   Link #30
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From the Episode 7 tea party
;「六軒島には、旧日本軍の基地跡がある、という噂話を聞いたことがあるが……。まさか……。」[Krauss]
`"There is that rumor about the remains of an old Japanese military base existing on Rokkenjima... Could it be......"
;「ご賢察の通りです。……この島の地下には、戦時中の旧日本軍の地下基地跡が眠っています。そしてそこに は、900tの爆薬も眠っているのです。」[Beato]
`"Your guess is correct. ......Beneath this island sleep the remains of an underground Japanese military base from the time of the war. Along with 900 tons of explosives."
;「きゅ、……900tやて?! と、とんでもない量や! そない爆発したら、想像もつかん! 屋敷どころ かクレーターが開くっちゅうもんやで!!」[Hideyoshi]
`"N, ......900 tons?! Th, that's unbelievable! If that exploded, the result would be unimaginable! Forget just the mansion blowing up...it'd leave a massive crater!!"
;「専門家の推定では、直径1km、深さ数十mの大穴が開くとか。」[Beato]
`"I believe an expert's estimate measured it as a hole several dozen meters deep and a kilometer across."
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Old 2011-03-11, 16:22   Link #31
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Originally Posted by rogerpepitone View Post
From the Episode 7 tea party
;「六軒島には、旧日本軍の基地跡がある、という噂話を聞いたことがあるが……。まさか……。」[Krauss]
`"There is that rumor about the remains of an old Japanese military base existing on Rokkenjima... Could it be......"
;「ご賢察の通りです。……この島の地下には、戦時中の旧日本軍の地下基地跡が眠っています。そしてそこに は、900tの爆薬も眠っているのです。」[Beato]
`"Your guess is correct. ......Beneath this island sleep the remains of an underground Japanese military base from the time of the war. Along with 900 tons of explosives."
;「きゅ、……900tやて?! と、とんでもない量や! そない爆発したら、想像もつかん! 屋敷どころ かクレーターが開くっちゅうもんやで!!」[Hideyoshi]
`"N, ......900 tons?! Th, that's unbelievable! If that exploded, the result would be unimaginable! Forget just the mansion blowing up...it'd leave a massive crater!!"
;「専門家の推定では、直径1km、深さ数十mの大穴が開くとか。」[Beato]
`"I believe an expert's estimate measured it as a hole several dozen meters deep and a kilometer across."
Well, that explains a lot.
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Old 2011-03-11, 16:51   Link #32
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*shrug*

Like I said, everything important about Rokkenjima was explained pretty well. Whether or not 900 tons is a realistic number is an entirely different issue.
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Old 2011-03-11, 18:50   Link #33
Chron
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
*shrug*

Like I said, everything important about Rokkenjima was explained pretty well. Whether or not 900 tons is a realistic number is an entirely different issue.
Considering the only physical evidence we have presented that anything even happened in Rokkenjimma is the fact that there's a giant crater where the mansion used to be.

The fact that the only explanation we're given is an over the top handwave at best doesn't explain anything. I mean, Ryuukishi went out of his way in Episode 7 to explain that the Rokkenjimma base was completely unimportant, and it had to have been, or else Kinzo would never have gotten away with hiding the gold, or being the only survivor of the garrison.

Unless Japan was nuked in around that very same month, then there's simply no way that an island base would have been stocked with 900 tons of explosives (which is such a blatantly over the top number by any account) and then forgotten about by the Japanese army. It's stupid.

At least "The Island" was handwaved as being magical, so all the shit on Lost can be summed up as "a wizard did it". The problem with Umineko is that everything is set up in such a way that we're supposed to be able to interpret and at least get a grasp of what happened on Rokkenjimma.

On the other hand, if, from the very beginning, all Ryuukishi was doing was trolling us, or just pulling stuff out of his ass, then he is not just a terrible writer, he is an abominable one. It makes the entire Umineko work disingenuous to a sickening degree.

So let's ignore that worst case scenario for a moment. You say "all the major mysteries of Rokkenjimma are answered." No they're not. Will's explanations don't cover the real doozies of the Question arcs (episode 3's Nanjo murder, for example), nor, for that matter, do we even get a grasp of what the hell actually happened. We have alternative explanations thrown around so much in this series that we have no basis to judge whether or not the explanations given in Episodes 7 and 8 are even the actual truth. How do we not know that Twilight isn't just another forgery, this time written by Ange? There's no reason to assume it isn't, we just do so because we think that there's no way Ryuukishi would be so absurd as to have been trolling us all along, without giving us some kind of basis of the event that isn't entirely 2nd or 3rd-layer fiction.

Spoiler for Agatha Christie:


Ryuukishi has shown he's willing to stoop to such tricks himself already.

The thing is, in a story where all evidence and events are already 2nd or 3rd layer fiction, we have no way of confirming the true course of the narrative. Or even if there ever was one in the first place. The red, ostensibly, was supposed to be our grounding, but that was itself a troll on Ryuukishi's part.

No questions were really answered, each one just had several explanations thrown around to choose from, or patently absurd ones were presented that are frankly impossible to take seriously. 900 tons of explosives is a figure a fool would throw around in the setting Ryuukishi constructed. It's simply impossible for someone who clearly has done as much research as he has to have been serious when presenting that explanation.

Spoiler:


There's a lot of little inconsistencies like that which make Ryuukishi's given explanations unreliable. Hell, we're outright told that a great deal of theories presented in the text are incorrect, and even our perspective of events is flat out shown to be unreliable as an objective means of assessing the story.

As a tl;dr, I'll say this: Ryuukishi has given us no reason to take his explanations at face value. the explanations we're given only go so far as we're willing to suspend our disbelief, and the 900 tons of explosive is one of the most glaring examples of that.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:13   Link #34
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I don't see why you're so caught up on what "actually" happened. The whole point of Umineko is that there are a bunch of competing theories for what might have happened.

That's not hand-waving or a cop out. A cop out would be providing no explanation, not providing 10 valid interpretations of what might have happened.

I mean, are you really just dying to know exactly what happened in Ange's kakera? Who cares about that particular one?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron
Unless Japan was nuked in around that very same month, then there's simply no way that an island base would have been stocked with 900 tons of explosives (which is such a blatantly over the top number by any account) and then forgotten about by the Japanese army. It's stupid.
They were nuked soon after that. It was the end of the war when all of this occurred!

And yes, 900 tons is a lot, but who cares? It doesn't cause a plot hole, it just means that it's not perfectly historically accurate. Since when does historical accuracy matter in mystery novels!?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron
we have no way of confirming the true course of the narrative.
Who cares? We know what probably happened. Ange's kakera is not necessarily "reality", anyway. It's just one of an infinite number of kakera.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:23   Link #35
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I don't see why you're so caught up on what "actually" happened. The whole point of Umineko is that there are a bunch of competing theories for what might have happened.

That's not hand-waving or a cop out. A cop out would be providing no explanation, not providing 10 valid interpretations of what might have happened.

I mean, are you really just dying to know exactly what happened in Ange's kakera? Who cares about that particular one?

They were nuked soon after that. It was the end of the war when all of this occurred!

And yes, 900 tons is a lot, but who cares? It doesn't cause a plot hole, it just means that it's not perfectly historically accurate. Since when does historical accuracy matter in mystery novels!?

Who cares? We know what probably happened. Ange's kakera is not necessarily "reality", anyway. It's just one of an infinite number of kakera.
Then how on earth can you say "most of the questions have been answered"? The ones who are answering the questions are us. Ryuukishi is simply making us go to the effort of constructing a cohesive narrative for him, rather than deftly weaving together parallel stories into a flowing tapestry.

It's lazy.

For crying out loud, you're taking way too much for granted. In mystery novels, what matters isn't necessarily historical accuracy (I know all too well that Carr was the exception), but rather logical cohesiveness. Even if the answer is itself ridiculous on it's head, if the narrative doesn't possess, in all the flak and static, a clear line of logic between the mystery and it's solution, then it is simply a failure of a mystery.

The 900 tons of explosives is blatantly absurd. At least the Yasu issue has a good deal of psychology behind it, which justifies it's use. But. The 900 tons thing is a simple, unsubstantiated handwave, which is rendered illogical by an explanation of the situation in that very episode.

In fact, the explanation itself is taken for granted. "There was a base on this island, therefore there was 900 tons of explosives." It's as if the justification of the base there were enough to handwave the number. And this is coming from a writer who took the trouble to research a plausible means of submarine engine failure, and wrote the epitaph.

Either Ryuukishi is horribly inconsistent in his application of effort, or we're not supposed to take that number seriously in the first place.

So, let me just put it to you this way. My problem with the "multiple answers" thing isn't indicative of my own burning desire for answers. My only true appreciation for mystery was sparked less than six months ago, after episode 7 came out.

My problem is the laziness on Ryuukishi's part that he would let the readers explain his narrative rather than provide coherence to it on his own. That is terrible writing.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:32   Link #36
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I'm still confused about what you aren't understanding. We don't know the details of what happened to Ange's family. That is the only part of the narrative that wasn't explained. How does that make the narrative incoherent?

Would it make it more coherent, for example, if we knew that the Episode 1 events were the "true" events?

I'm not trying to be belligerent here, I just don't understand what you're saying.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron
The 900 tons of explosives is blatantly absurd.
No it's not, I provided a link earlier showing that the U.S. stored a similar amount of explosives on a different island.

And anyway, are you saying that Ryukishi would suddenly be a much better writer if he replaced "900 tons" with "30 tons"? It's just a number, dude. It doesn't make that much of a difference.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:32   Link #37
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Chron, uh... would you mind explaining a way in which Ryukishi could give an "absolutely certain" answer given that the entire point of the series so far has been the lack of certainty surrounding the events? I mean, even if he gave a really, really specific answer that would just be another piece of second order fiction (and one which doesn't make sense because noone's alive to say what happened in many cases).

I dunno, I think he wants it to be as if we're actually living in the Rokkenjima universe, and that we don't have access to any more information than the characters give out.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron View Post
The thing is, in a story where all evidence and events are already 2nd or 3rd layer fiction, we have no way of confirming the true course of the narrative. Or even if there ever was one in the first place. The red, ostensibly, was supposed to be our grounding, but that was itself a troll on Ryuukishi's part.
Damn, it's almost as if uncertainty about what happened and having to come to your own conclusion is the main point of this series.

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Spoiler:
Spoiler:
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:42   Link #38
Chron
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
I'm still confused about what you aren't understanding. We don't know the details of what happened to Ange's family. That is the only part of the narrative that wasn't explained. How does that make the narrative incoherent?

Would it make it more coherent, for example, if we knew that the Episode 1 events were the "true" events?

I'm not trying to be belligerent here, I just don't understand what you're saying.
The problem is we have no way of knowing, and are being told to draw the conclusions ourselves. It's honestly not about the facts themselves, but the writing. We simply have no way of knowing what happened, we have no firm ground to base our conclusions upon, nothing.

Ryuukishi spends the entirety of Chiru undermining the credibility of the information presented to us. With the exception of Shkanon, all possibilities have doubt thrown on them, deliberately to obfuscate.

Quote:
No it's not, I provided a link earlier showing that the U.S. stored a similar amount of explosives on a different island.
And the U.S. Government wasn't able to hide it.

So let me repeat why the number is a problem:

Why would a "forgotten, unfinished, and abandoned cave" be invested with an amount like 900 tons of explosives? And in addition to that, if the Imperial Army/Navy/whomever were to use that cave why wasn't Kinzo taken up on treason charges? Why did Kinzo get away with being the only survivor? Why didn't the Japanese government know about the gold?


Quote:
And anyway, are you saying that Ryukishi would suddenly be a much better writer if he replaced "900 tons" with "30 tons"? It's just a number, dude. It doesn't make that much of a difference.
What I'm saying is that the 900 tons thing is one indication of a larger problem, and explaining why that is, is all.

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Originally Posted by Leafsnail View Post
Chron, uh... would you mind explaining a way in which Ryukishi could give an "absolutely certain" answer given that the entire point of the series so far has been the lack of certainty surrounding the events? I mean, even if he gave a really, really specific answer that would just be another piece of second order fiction (and one which doesn't make sense because noone's alive to say what happened in many cases).

I dunno, I think he wants it to be as if we're actually living in the Rokkenjima universe, and that we don't have access to any more information than the characters give out.
I'm not even saying that's necessary. We just have nothing to work with. No grounding. No nothing, just endless speculation, spinning our wheels in the mud, for no reason other than to heckle one another.

I find it insulting.

Quote:
Damn, it's almost as if uncertainty about what happened and having to come to your own conclusion is the main point of this series.
So Umineko is just a ridiculously long "Choose your own adventure" novel? Man. Well, that's not my taste, but if that's what you like, then I can't really complain about that.

Quote:
Spoiler:
That's one of the points I'm making. All speculation is inherently pointless, and a complete waste of time. Nothing is reliable, therefore, nothing can be used as a justification for one's own interpretation. Umineko isn't a puzzle.

It's like someone got a bunch of blank jigsaw puzzles that were completely different, mixed them together, and then conned us into trying to correctly solve each puzzle from that big, jumbled up pile.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:50   Link #39
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Originally Posted by Chron View Post
The problem is we have no way of knowing, and are being told to draw the conclusions ourselves. It's honestly not about the facts themselves, but the writing. We simply have no way of knowing what happened, we have no firm ground to base our conclusions upon, nothing.

Ryuukishi spends the entirety of Chiru undermining the credibility of the information presented to us. With the exception of Shkanon, all possibilities have doubt thrown on them, deliberately to obfuscate.
You're being very vague. Our conclusions about what? Conclusions about what happened to Ange's family? Is that what you're asking?

They died. Either in an explosion, or because they were murdered by Yasu. Does that clear things up for you?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron
Why would a "forgotten, unfinished, and abandoned cave" be invested with an amount like 900 tons of explosives? And in addition to that, if the Imperial Army/Navy/whomever were to use that cave why wasn't Kinzo taken up on treason charges? Why did Kinzo get away with being the only survivor? Why didn't the Japanese government know about the gold?
Did you even read that segment?

The Japanese government put the explosives there, then became preoccupied with other problems, like the U.S. government dropping nukes on them. If it helps you out at all, the Japanese didn't have any materials to build more ships at the end of the war, so all the explosives in the world did very little good (hence why huge amounts of explosives were wasted on suicide runs - they had lots of bombs, but very little fuel).

Kinzo wasn't take up on treason because the Japanese government didn't exist anymore. There was a new puppet government set up by the U.S. military. And besides, no one besides Kinzo knew what happened on the island.

The Japanese didn't know about the gold because they were never told about it. The sub from Italy arrived, and the Japanese commander didn't report the gold to HQ because he wanted to keep it for himself.
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Old 2011-03-11, 19:53   Link #40
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
You're being very vague. Our conclusions about what? Conclusions about what happened to Ange's family? Is that what you're asking?

They died. Either in an explosion, or because they were murdered by Yasu. Does that clear things up for you?
All conclusions. I'm talking about every single conclusion in the narrative. We can't even be sure that there was an explosion to begin with, the only time Ange is shown visiting the island is in 2nd-level fiction.

Quote:
Did you even read that segment?

The Japanese government put the explosives there, then became preoccupied with other problems, like the U.S. government dropping nukes on them. If it helps you out at all, the Japanese didn't have any materials to build more ships at the end of the war, so all the explosives in the world did very little good (hence why huge amounts of explosives were wasted on suicide runs - they had lots of bombs, but very little fuel).

Kinzo wasn't take up on treason because the Japanese government didn't exist anymore. There was a new puppet government set up by the U.S. military. And besides, no one besides Kinzo knew what happened on the island.

The Japanese didn't know about the gold because they were never told about it. The sub from Italy arrived, and the Japanese commander didn't report the gold to HQ because he wanted to keep it for himself.
Think the situation over and put it in chronological order. You're overlooking something very obvious to me.
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