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Old 2013-05-01, 13:48   Link #32201
jjblue1
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Originally Posted by GreyZone View Post
Don't forget that a lot was covered up because of the whole "a big bunch of explosives was unknowingly sold to a private person and then detonated". Imagine this would become public knowledge... So then what did the government do? Put a blanket over it and use the typical "it was a gas explosion accident"-excuse of course!
It still doesn't explain why the police let know they investigated on the message, checked it wasn't Eva but then didn't discover/declare the writing belonged to a servant.

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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Old 2013-05-01, 17:31   Link #32202
MysteriousLurkerGuy
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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.
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Old 2013-05-01, 19:14   Link #32203
jjblue1
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Originally Posted by MysteriousLurkerGuy View Post
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.

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.
First of all the letters she wrote to George are known to the public as they're used in EP 8 to prove the honesty of her feelings. Also she probably had to make tests at school and those are generally conserved for a longer while.

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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Old 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.
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Old 2013-05-03, 09:09   Link #32205
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Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker View Post
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.
I thought about this discussion a lot today, because it is one of the things that actually still open to a lot of discussion: In how far was the investigation of Rokkenjima unrealistically sloppy?
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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Old 2013-05-03, 09:46   Link #32206
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Originally Posted by haguruma View Post
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.
No, I'm sorry, it was a sloppy investigation, and precisely for all the existing information you just provided. You've explained more in just these few paragraphs than it appears entire groups of people in the future appear to know, even though they totally should, because they have better access to some of this information than you do.
  • We know the adults' business dealings can be investigated, because that information does not somehow die with them. If they had a motive, it can be explored.
  • Shannon and Kanon are suspicious as hell. At the very least, the idea that Shannon was a gold-digger couldn't be ruled out, so why not investigate further and find out that, uhhh, Kanon doesn't even appear to legally exist? Who is this guy in the stories? Why was he put here? Did anybody ever see him? Wait, so somebody had seen him, with Jessica at her school? What the hell? We better follow up on this.
  • When was the last time anyone outside the group of people who coincidentally just died saw Kinzo anyway?
  • Kawabata had particular knowledge of things, and there's every reason to speak to him extensively given that he was the last person to have seen most of the family alive. He also happens to have a critical piece of information about Kinzo's activities in the 1960s as well as his hidden mansion. Granted, he refused to tell people, but that might've been different had he been properly interviewed by police at the time of the incident. Was he? Who knows!
  • I should note that the ep8 manga claims that a business associate of Kinzo was aware of the clock detonator story. So the source of the island's explosion actually shouldn't be a mystery at all. This is manga info, so I'm not sure if this can be sourced reliably to Ryukishi, but it's there. Was that story true?
  • How much information might exist on why the island would be able to explode like that? Are there old Imperial Navy records on Kaiten torpedo transfers? Surely there are veterans of WW2 still alive in 1986 who might recall the existence of the base; not everyone who built the thing or moved equipment to it was probably killed there.
  • What's up with these message bottles? Do they hint at premeditation, at motive? Who wrote them? How can we find that out?
Any of these questions could have, and should have, been raised in 1986. Unless the answers to them were literally impossible to find, there should be more existent knowledge in 1998 than there appears to be (although it's clear some information was deliberately obscured, such as the explosion not being directly referenced in ep4 despite being common knowledge).

However, almost none of this information is unattainable.
  • We know for a fact that the adults' dealings were made public knowledge after the incident, as they fueled speculation for Witch Hunter and media theories.
  • Shannon and Kanon should have legal records on file at Fukuin House, which did not explode. If those don't exist, then that's highly suspicious and should be a lead.
  • It should be possible to get at least confirmation of the last time anyone who wasn't on the island that weekend definitively saw Kinzo alive or spoke to him. Precisely how active he was isn't clear, but there should be enough information to explain a sharp decline in his public appearances (like say... 1967 or so? And/or 1984?).
  • Kawabata not only remembers who he took to the island and who he saw there in his brief time anchored at the dock, but also knows about the shipments he made to the hidden dock in the 1960s and that he was asked to stop right around 1967. Hmmm, that year must be significant somehow.
  • If the clock detonator story is actually a well-known rumor, it provides the only reliable lead anyone has as to why the explosion happened. This would narrow down significantly the number of people who might be considered suspects if the rumor is that it was something Kinzo kept in a secret location. Only people who knew about the secret location could have activated it, right?
  • Again, someone has to be aware of what the Imperial Navy was doing in WW2. Sure, there's been "forgotten" Japanese outposts in the Pacific, but Rokkenjima is very close to the home islands. It wouldn't have been completely overlooked. Kinzo may have used his clout back when he bought the place, but I would think the occupation government would've been quite interested in old military records and wouldn't have just shredded them. Though again, if there mysteriously isn't any documentation, all it takes is one old man who is like "That's weird, I was on a boat that stopped at that place in '44 to drop off some supplies" to throw the whole thing into question.
  • The message bottles must've meant something to the police, because they kept the one they found and verified the authenticity of the one the fisherman supposedly found. They also released it to the public. They're clearly important in some respect; they anticipate a crime and provide a possible culprit, and as it so happens a crime totally appears to have occurred.
I don't see Eva's refusal to talk as an obstacle. There are tons of other avenues to explore to whittle down a picture of what that weekend might have been like. Will it get you all the way to the truth? Probably not. Will it get you at least further than it appears anyone in Ange's 1998 got? I would think so.

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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Old 2013-05-03, 17:10   Link #32207
jjblue1
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Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker View Post
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.
Well, it's possible as Jessica in Ep 2 didn't recognize the note as written by Shannon... nor someone recognized the message Beatrice sent as written by Shannon. However a different handwriting is troublesome to recognize for a not-expert person. Someone who's an expert should be able to figure it out.
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:
Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker View Post
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.
Likely Ryukishi didn't give this much thoughts, though since some of the Witch hunters are healthy they could bribe people to get info. Ootsuki was even showed the message in the bottles, one of which was supposed to be in the hands of the police.

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:
Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker View Post
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.
I've the feeling Jessica suspects something but she's turning her eyes away, sort of how she does with Beatrice. She doesn't want to talk about her because it makes her uncomfortable and likely the idea her parents are hiding her grandfather's death is even more unpleasant.

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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Old 2013-05-03, 20:43   Link #32208
MysteriousLurkerGuy
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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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Old 2013-05-03, 22:04   Link #32209
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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
You've explained more in just these few paragraphs than it appears entire groups of people in the future appear to know, even though they totally should, because they have better access to some of this information than you do.
I kind of always got the feeling that this was all investigated, it was just not given to us as clear information because it would limit the scope of alternate solutions that could be made (which is one of the primary goals of Umineko and every type of mystery like it). Considering the fact that 12 years have passed since the incident and the investigation was likely closed even before Hachijo Toya started writing his fictions, it's not impossible to believe that a lot of half truths have formed around what was actually released as police information.

But to go over your points as I see it personally:

Quote:
We know the adults' business dealings can be investigated, because that information does not somehow die with them. If they had a motive, it can be explored.
This was apparently revealed to a large deal, with the individual Ushiromiya companies going bankrupt after Eva returned and the tabloids being after her when the tide suddenly turned and she was in the money again.
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:
Shannon and Kanon are suspicious as hell. At the very least, the idea that Shannon was a gold-digger couldn't be ruled out, so why not investigate further and find out that, uhhh, Kanon doesn't even appear to legally exist? Who is this guy in the stories? Why was he put here? Did anybody ever see him? Wait, so somebody had seen him, with Jessica at her school? What the hell? We better follow up on this.
What would happen if they follow up on this? It would likely lead them to Fukuin House, but their connection to Rokkenjima (apparently Genji) would have been lost and there were likely never any documents about Yasu before she was brought into the orphanage.
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:
[*]When was the last time anyone outside the group of people who coincidentally just died saw Kinzo anyway?
This could also have been a likely part of the investigation and blame would fall to the personal physician as well as the family members who would take direct care of him. Even in case Kinzo was dead , this would call for a whole other investigation and any connection to the crime is only speculative. All medical care was probably carried out by Nanjo, as "Kinzo did not trust anybody", and medical bills can be forged.

Quote:
[*]Kawabata had particular knowledge of things, and there's every reason to speak to him extensively given that he was the last person to have seen most of the family alive. He also happens to have a critical piece of information about Kinzo's activities in the 1960s as well as his hidden mansion. Granted, he refused to tell people, but that might've been different had he been properly interviewed by police at the time of the incident. Was he? Who knows!
It's possible that he was interviewed by the police, even very likely considering that it was probably him who reported the crime. But what would his statement be? "I brought them to the island, when I returned everybody was dead and the island was destroyed."
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:
[*]I should note that the ep8 manga claims that a business associate of Kinzo was aware of the clock detonator story.
It is not impossible, but this is again not proof but just a claim that cannot be proven in any way. If that person had photographic evidence of both the switch and the explosives, yes. But like this it only leads to a very likely explanation towards what might have happened.
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:
[*]It should be possible to get at least confirmation of the last time anyone who wasn't on the island that weekend definitively saw Kinzo alive or spoke to him. Precisely how active he was isn't clear, but there should be enough information to explain a sharp decline in his public appearances (like say... 1967 or so? And/or 1984?).
Yes, that is true. But what does that indicate? An old man who is escaping from the world? A crazy recluse who hates people? The death of his wife made him weary of human contact? His family tried to keep him out of the public because of his weird occult obsession?
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:
1967. Hmmm, that year must be significant somehow.
After the year 1967 captain Kawabata stopped shipping cosmetics, food and female garments to the island. After the year 1967 Kinzo started developing strange habbits and became reclusive. This is certain prove that the secret daughter of an illegal immigrant from Italy during the end of the war, who also illegaly carried a large amount of gold into the country, has died within the secret mansion and her child out of incestual rape by Kinzo, that had been secretly given to Kinzo's first son's wife, had a freak accident in which it was nearly killed. After this the head of the house staff and his associates decided to hide the child in the family's orphanage in order to raise it towards becoming the actual heir of both their beloved master and their secret mistress.

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:
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.
But doesn't this make it rather a question of "what is fair?" in the context of mystery writing in general? What is fair and how much does a mystery need to give in order to be understandable? Does a mystery NEED to be understood anyway?

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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Old 2013-05-03, 22:12   Link #32210
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Originally Posted by MysteriousLurkerGuy View Post
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.
Hum, no, they identified only Maria ergo all the other adults could be alive somewhere and if they're alive somewhere and culprits they can be prosecuted if evidence is found.
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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Old 2013-05-03, 22:36   Link #32211
MysteriousLurkerGuy
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Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
Hum, no, they identified only Maria ergo all the other adults could be alive somewhere and if they're alive somewhere and culprits they can be prosecuted if evidence is found.
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.
I misremembered the epilogue. Oops. Still, the possibility of another survivor is remote enough to where it's not worth pulling dozens of police off of their normal jobs and approving them a big enough budget to account for all the travel and overtime needed to dredge up the laundry lists of evidence thrown out there as proof of their "sloppy" work. Cops aren't exactly goat butlers.

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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Old 2013-05-04, 01:26   Link #32212
Renall
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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.
Well the main difference here is the police couldn't prevent the incident from actually happening. That's not really an excuse for botching the follow-up though.
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Old 2013-05-04, 07:23   Link #32213
jjblue1
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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.
As far as I'm involved the point isn't if the police would be able or not to connect the dot and figure out the whole of what Shannon did and who she was but that they weren't able to figure out the minimum about her.
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.

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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.
However a fake Kanon could be used to build a theory of a conspiration against the Ushiromiya in which a young boy was sent there to study how things worked in the island so that whoever caused the incident could have inside help and inside information.

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It's possible that he was interviewed by the police, even very likely considering that it was probably him who reported the crime. But what would his statement be? "I brought them to the island, when I returned everybody was dead and the island was destroyed."
The manga implied the crime was discovered due to the fact it was hard to miss the explosion, in fact they even knew when it happened. As it's unlikely Kawabata was there at midnight I'll say he didn't report the crime, probably someone was sent there in a rush to see what had exploded.
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.


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I misremembered the epilogue. Oops. Still, the possibility of another survivor is remote enough to where it's not worth pulling dozens of police off of their normal jobs and approving them a big enough budget to account for all the travel and overtime needed to dredge up the laundry lists of evidence thrown out there as proof of their "sloppy" work. Cops aren't exactly goat butlers.
You're basically saying that if it's hard for them to do their job they can confortably avoid doing it.
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.

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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.
You're advocating dumb plot as the excuse to make the story interesting.
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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Old 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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Old 2013-05-06, 23:34   Link #32215
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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?
The fact that there are messages in bottles describing a crime that happen to coincide with a massive explosion are at least heavily circumstantially suggestive of criminal activity. No sane police officer is going to go "Well, it could've just been an accident, I mean we can't be sure" and then abandon the investigation.

There may well have been other reasons to abandon the investigation, but we're not told what they were.
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Old 2013-05-07, 01:36   Link #32216
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An interesting but unrelated note on Maria:

Stress (including environmental, relationship and you know, straight up abuse) can cause emotional regression in children. This is includes acting like a younger age than they are.
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Old 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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Old 2013-05-07, 04:49   Link #32218
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There may well have been other reasons to abandon the investigation, but we're not told what they were.
The question is, do we need to be told?
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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Old 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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Old 2013-05-07, 08:05   Link #32220
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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.
I wouldn't say Natsuhi's diary didn't contain the "truth". It's more like it contained a past truth, one that had been overwritten, facts filtered by her feelings and so interpreted. When she wrote that diary Natsuhi wrote them according to her feelings but, with times, things changed and she stopped hating the Ushiromiya, therefore looking at things with a new view.

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.

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The question is, do we need to be told?
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.
Not being told certain things is misleading.

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'.

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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.
I think it's more of a vicious circle. Due to lack of affection (but it can even be Maria had problems on her own) Maria grows more slowly, the fact irritates Rosa who grows even less affectionate, which worsen Maria, which irritates Rosa further, which makes things worse in Maria and so on.
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