[Anime] Umineko - Speculation & Theories (for first time viewers)

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Uh wait, the three younger brothers didn't think the gold actually existed. If they did they wouldn't let him have the 62,5% of the whole thing. They used the gold legend as a cover up. What they really thought was: "Krauss is embezzling money's father". And then they came up with an "excuse" to let Krauss save his face in exchange for money. With their elaborate strategy they practically told Krauss "We know that you are embezzling money, but we will just pretend that you have found the gold and that's where the money come from, however we want our share". And when they said they wanted their "share of the gold", the real meaning was "we want our share of what you are embezzling from father".

So in the end Krauss was the only one who actually believed in the gold's existence, and his three younger siblings were the ones who actually thought it was just a legend. However Krauss pretended to think the gold was a hoax and the younger siblings pretended to believe it was real.

OK it make more sense now, maybe you should add them into the tip's thread (assume that it's not there yet, i still avoid spoiler there with all of the misused of Ep).
Watching the anime alone (before check out what the anime missed out), make audience misunderstand that Krauss had a clue about where the gold hidden, and Natsuhi felt unwell because it's all dark then suddenly all the light of the gold flashed into her eyes.....



A bit out of topic: but damn.... k//eternal's avatar looks cuter every time i looks at it.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

OK it make more sense now, maybe you should add them into the tip's thread (assume that it's not there yet, i still avoid spoiler there with all of the misused of Ep).
Watching the anime alone (before check out what the anime missed out), make audience misunderstand that Krauss had a clue about where the gold hidden, and Natsuhi felt unwell because it's all dark then suddenly all the light of the gold flashed into her eyes.....



A bit out of topic: but damn.... k//eternal's avatar looks cuter every time i looks at it.

The TIPS aren't a compilation of VN player's observations, rather it's data that the game itself provides for the player that appears in the menu after certain important events. Most of what's listed in the TIPS thread are from the game itself, with a bit of added information to expound on them. In this case they aren't really spoilers.

[risingstar3110]

Well i understand that the tips are not really players' observation. But i remember how in Higurashi tips , "Rika and Rena's conversation" in the trash dump(even when it's not the tip) make the whole final arc in S1 make much more sense. Like 10x times more sense.

After that i started to find what important scenes each eps missed out to ensure that i can enjoy later eps more.....

[Alaya]

The TIPs of Umineko will only provide these information:

- Information about characters.
- Information about victims (injury, etc) and confirmation of death.
- Some notes, such as the Witch's letter that Maria read.

And that's all, so there are not many things in the tips in Umineko.

[plzd0ntkeelme]

Originally Posted by Teapot

Say, I don't remember Kyrie being outside with Battler and the others looking for Maria. Yet she knew the umbrella she was given was white. And in open discussion, no one said anything about the color.

I'm not sure which sub that you watch but Rosa clearly said "shiroi kasa" (white umbrella) at the family dinner.

@ Alaya: rofl, Beatrice is a midget if that's her grown-up form in the painting. The face is way too round and the body is just too small.

[June 1983]

Originally Posted by plzd0ntkeelme

I'm not sure which sub that you watch but Rosa clearly said "shiroi kasa" (white umbrella) at the family dinner.

@ Alaya: rofl, Beatrice is a midget if that's her grown-up form in the painting. The face is way too round and the body is just too small.

Er, that's because they took the painting from the original game and that's Ryukishi's art style. The fact that the figure in the painting has BREASTS might tip you off that she's not a child.

[Nih]

Oh dear, it seems some questions will remain a mystery forever.

[Klashikari]

No, Ryukishi didn't draw the painting.
That said, I certainly cannot see how the proportions are off, considering the style which is much more western than anime-like.

[MikaMikado]

After watching the anime (and playing the game up until the point of the beach) I read a blog analyzing what happened so far, and I replied to it. I have written 1000+ words theory I thought I might as well share it here, right? It is only about the anime and what happened so far in the anime, game material. Here goes:
It was a reply to this: http://animehistory.wordpress.com/20...ndom-comments/



Alright, I do not own my own blog, and this place seems like the perfect place to state my opinion. I’ve thought about what happened actually for some time, and got into a certain conclusion. Your analysis didn’t change my opinion, but rather gave me more evidence. I haven’t played the game (well, I AM playing it, but as I’m writing this my last save game is on the beach- so no extra knowledge there. And, wow, the VN sure is way slower than the anime. It’s almost tiring xD) and I’ve watched both episodes.

I think it’s: Natsuhi

We have several suspects, but Natsuhi fits the bill the most. She is a woman and could easily fool Maria into everything, like convincing Beatrice wants this to happen, or as you said, make her paraphrase things or in the weirdest case, change clothes and act like Beatrice.

She also obviously survived, and disappeared quite a few times suspiciously as you said.

She also is the one that seems the most detached from everyone. The ONLY one she seems to love/trust is her daughter (although their relationship is very very very poor) and the head of the family, Kinzo.

But there are also issues. Kyrie’s doubts etc. Why use Maria, and why such a complicated letter and way of working? And then the crucial part: MOTIVE. There is no crime without motive.

Well the answer to that is one thing: the motive.

She cares allot for the family, actually, that’s her number one goal. But nobody shares this except Kinzo (and he lost hope). Even her own husband doesn’t care much for her cause. She in despair, has constant head aches, and people act irrationally when in such state.
SPOILER FOR HIGURASHI KAI::::

Spoiler for Higurashi kai:

think about the ‘criminal’ in Higurashi. She was also in a bad mental state.

/////SPOILERS END 8D

So, as shown in her brief conversation with him, she only seems to have full support in Kinzo. She greatly cares for him (thus the family). He is the head of the family after all. And what does Kinzo want? Beatrice! Whether she exists or not, whether he is mad or not, he wants to see her. Natsuhi thinks that the family is the most important thing in the whole universe, therefore will she do anything to help Kinzo. Whether SHE believes in Beatrice or not – she TRIES to make her appear. But how? THE EPITAPH. That’s the key (she thinks) to summoning beatrice/ OR/ that’s the way to make Kinzo believe that Beatrice will be summoned.

“At the first twilight, you shall lift up as sacrifice the six chosen by the key.”
Six people need to be offered, so she does this.
ALSO! When writing this long post, I scared myself, as I gained more and more evidence for this theory. When I quoted this I realized that the epitaph shows even MORE proof.

Natsuhi received the ‘key’! She was given the key to Kinzo’s room, and perhaps with that, the key to his heart (or so she believed). Maybe she was caring for Kinzo in such a long time, but THIS made her do all this, after all it is written in the epitaph she thought! It must be fate/magic/madness! So maybe unconsciously this is a hint towards her being the criminal, or the thing that made her go over the edge, but it certainly is some nice evidence supporting this case. I didn’t think of it as I started writing and stumbled upon it when casually reading over the epitaph ~ this happened several more times as you’ll see if you continue to read on.

Why use Maria? Well, obviously, she is incredibly easy to manipulate (in the VN it is shown even more, with her repeating everything what everyone else says). She seems to be the only person (other than Kinzo) who believes in Beatrice, which makes this even easier. Natsuhi wants to show the family that Beatrice is coming ==> so the way with lending the parasol and the letter would be the best one.

When Kinzo throws out his ring she could’ve found it, OR! Maria found it while searching for the rose and Natsuhi convinced/manipulated her in giving/using it to her in name of Beatrice. This of cource, if Beatrice doesn’t exist, if she does, then the theory changes slightly into Natsuhi cooperating with her, but see the final notes at the end of this for that.

Also > the blood on her door. I have really to little information to say anything about it, and I don’t want to be ‘making things up’ just to make this theory more credible. But it has something to do with Natsuhi/Krauss perhaps. Anyway it points towards Natsuhi in one way or another.

Now for another piece of evidence I scared myself with when writing this. I was looking at the HINTS for the death people of the first twilight, just to see whether anything can be explained with them and BOOM! Evidence!

‘… chosen by the key’ is written in the epitaph. She picked her victims, and knows that they are sacrifices for Beatrice (see notes for a possibility that she doesn’t believe/does believe)
Smashing their faces seems to be part of this or something, perhaps to show that they are just sacrifices and that this is not a personal murder. BUT! TWO of them have only half of their face smashed. It really freaked me out when I saw it: Krauss and Shannon! Didn’t Shannon make Natsuhi incredibly angry during the day? It was an enormous disgrace for Natsuhi (mainly towards Eva) after all is servant incompetence the fault of the host (=Natsuhi). And Krauss, it isn’t shown well in the Novel, but it the Novel she was very mad at him/distressed/in despair, for not telling her about the gold piece he had earlier.
So she DID have personal reasons to hurt them and to let everyone know that they are dead. WHY she did that to their faces I do not know for sure to be honest, but when you look at the two victims that stand out, they proof more and more that Natsuhi is the murderer.

Now most of you should say: But wait! Wouldn’t she kill EVA then? I was wondering about that for some time too… until when writing this I read the epitaph:
“At the second twilight, the surviving shall tear apart the two who are close.”
Two people who are close will need to be torn apart. As Natsuhi prepares the ritual she knows that she will need to do this. She has killed all of the other couples already, and only Eva and her husband remain. It was planned.

Also: for some reasons why she wants to tear their relationship apart==>
Natsuhi had great troubles with conceiving a child, and Eva was really making her miserable with hers. She wants to tear apart that family, because of personal grudge. And maybe she thinks that doing this will be the worst thing she can do to Eva.
I think that in episode 3/4, the second twilight, something will happen with the relationship between Eva and her husband.
And maybe will Natsuhi kill her in the third twilight right? She has enough time to murder, and torturing her in fear, taking her relationship away etc. is way more evil. And only Natsuhi seems the person to hate Eva’s guts that much.

NOTES:

Beatrice.

God she makes this analysis hard. I know that this VN will have supernatural elements to it, as the Ryukishi seems to like that. So does she exists, or doesn’t she? For sake of this analysis it doesn’t matter that much, but I think (this is outside of the theory) that she does. Just my intuition.
OR it’s Natsuhi acting her out you see.

Because Natsuhi could have more reasons to perform the Beatrice summoning ritual. You can think of plenty yourself; Gold, wish to revive something (the honour of the family) to please Kinzo, to meet the person that made the family awesome. Plenty. I figured that her emotions towards the family, THUS Kinzo, and her detachment from the rest (hey! Just like Kinzo!) made her do all of this.

Whether she acts it out for Kinzo, or believes it herself, or acts it out to take revenge xD, it doesn’t really matter. The main unknown is whether beatrice exists and whether Natsuhi knows this. Perhaps they cooperate. Perhaps Natsuhi is mind raping everyone. PERHAPS NATSUHI=BEATRICE!. I cannot tell at this point, but even without filling in that blank, I have allot of evidence pointing towards Natsuhi.

[risingstar3110]

Nice theory MikaMikado....

However, I personally think it is too early to pinpoint out who is the criminal as there are still alots of things left untouched (we haven't even reached 10% of all the question arcs yet). But yeah, it's possible for Natsuhi to be the culprit, especially how suspicious her past is.

[plzd0ntkeelme]

Originally Posted by MikaMikado

After watching the anime (and playing the game up until the point of the beach) I read a blog analyzing what happened so far, and I replied to it. I have written 1000+ words theory I thought I might as well share it here, right? It is only about the anime and what happened so far in the anime, game material. Here goes:
It was a reply to this: http://animehistory.wordpress.com/20...ndom-comments/



Alright, I do not own my own blog, and this place seems like the perfect place to state my opinion. I’ve thought about what happened actually for some time, and got into a certain conclusion. Your analysis didn’t change my opinion, but rather gave me more evidence. I haven’t played the game (well, I AM playing it, but as I’m writing this my last save game is on the beach- so no extra knowledge there. And, wow, the VN sure is way slower than the anime. It’s almost tiring xD) and I’ve watched both episodes.

I think it’s: Natsuhi

We have several suspects, but Natsuhi fits the bill the most. She is a woman and could easily fool Maria into everything, like convincing Beatrice wants this to happen, or as you said, make her paraphrase things or in the weirdest case, change clothes and act like Beatrice.

She also obviously survived, and disappeared quite a few times suspiciously as you said.

She also is the one that seems the most detached from everyone. The ONLY one she seems to love/trust is her daughter (although their relationship is very very very poor) and the head of the family, Kinzo.

But there are also issues. Kyrie’s doubts etc. Why use Maria, and why such a complicated letter and way of working? And then the crucial part: MOTIVE. There is no crime without motive.

Well the answer to that is one thing: the motive.

She cares allot for the family, actually, that’s her number one goal. But nobody shares this except Kinzo (and he lost hope). Even her own husband doesn’t care much for her cause. She in despair, has constant head aches, and people act irrationally when in such state.
SPOILER FOR HIGURASHI KAI::::

Spoiler for Higurashi kai:

think about the ‘criminal’ in Higurashi. She was also in a bad mental state.

/////SPOILERS END 8D

So, as shown in her brief conversation with him, she only seems to have full support in Kinzo. She greatly cares for him (thus the family). He is the head of the family after all. And what does Kinzo want? Beatrice! Whether she exists or not, whether he is mad or not, he wants to see her. Natsuhi thinks that the family is the most important thing in the whole universe, therefore will she do anything to help Kinzo. Whether SHE believes in Beatrice or not – she TRIES to make her appear. But how? THE EPITAPH. That’s the key (she thinks) to summoning beatrice/ OR/ that’s the way to make Kinzo believe that Beatrice will be summoned.

“At the first twilight, you shall lift up as sacrifice the six chosen by the key.”
Six people need to be offered, so she does this.
ALSO! When writing this long post, I scared myself, as I gained more and more evidence for this theory. When I quoted this I realized that the epitaph shows even MORE proof.

Natsuhi received the ‘key’! She was given the key to Kinzo’s room, and perhaps with that, the key to his heart (or so she believed). Maybe she was caring for Kinzo in such a long time, but THIS made her do all this, after all it is written in the epitaph she thought! It must be fate/magic/madness! So maybe unconsciously this is a hint towards her being the criminal, or the thing that made her go over the edge, but it certainly is some nice evidence supporting this case. I didn’t think of it as I started writing and stumbled upon it when casually reading over the epitaph ~ this happened several more times as you’ll see if you continue to read on.

Why use Maria? Well, obviously, she is incredibly easy to manipulate (in the VN it is shown even more, with her repeating everything what everyone else says). She seems to be the only person (other than Kinzo) who believes in Beatrice, which makes this even easier. Natsuhi wants to show the family that Beatrice is coming ==> so the way with lending the parasol and the letter would be the best one.

When Kinzo throws out his ring she could’ve found it, OR! Maria found it while searching for the rose and Natsuhi convinced/manipulated her in giving/using it to her in name of Beatrice. This of cource, if Beatrice doesn’t exist, if she does, then the theory changes slightly into Natsuhi cooperating with her, but see the final notes at the end of this for that.

Also > the blood on her door. I have really to little information to say anything about it, and I don’t want to be ‘making things up’ just to make this theory more credible. But it has something to do with Natsuhi/Krauss perhaps. Anyway it points towards Natsuhi in one way or another.

Now for another piece of evidence I scared myself with when writing this. I was looking at the HINTS for the death people of the first twilight, just to see whether anything can be explained with them and BOOM! Evidence!

‘… chosen by the key’ is written in the epitaph. She picked her victims, and knows that they are sacrifices for Beatrice (see notes for a possibility that she doesn’t believe/does believe)
Smashing their faces seems to be part of this or something, perhaps to show that they are just sacrifices and that this is not a personal murder. BUT! TWO of them have only half of their face smashed. It really freaked me out when I saw it: Krauss and Shannon! Didn’t Shannon make Natsuhi incredibly angry during the day? It was an enormous disgrace for Natsuhi (mainly towards Eva) after all is servant incompetence the fault of the host (=Natsuhi). And Krauss, it isn’t shown well in the Novel, but it the Novel she was very mad at him/distressed/in despair, for not telling her about the gold piece he had earlier.
So she DID have personal reasons to hurt them and to let everyone know that they are dead. WHY she did that to their faces I do not know for sure to be honest, but when you look at the two victims that stand out, they proof more and more that Natsuhi is the murderer.

Now most of you should say: But wait! Wouldn’t she kill EVA then? I was wondering about that for some time too… until when writing this I read the epitaph:
“At the second twilight, the surviving shall tear apart the two who are close.”
Two people who are close will need to be torn apart. As Natsuhi prepares the ritual she knows that she will need to do this. She has killed all of the other couples already, and only Eva and her husband remain. It was planned.

Also: for some reasons why she wants to tear their relationship apart==>
Natsuhi had great troubles with conceiving a child, and Eva was really making her miserable with hers. She wants to tear apart that family, because of personal grudge. And maybe she thinks that doing this will be the worst thing she can do to Eva.
I think that in episode 3/4, the second twilight, something will happen with the relationship between Eva and her husband.
And maybe will Natsuhi kill her in the third twilight right? She has enough time to murder, and torturing her in fear, taking her relationship away etc. is way more evil. And only Natsuhi seems the person to hate Eva’s guts that much.

NOTES:

Beatrice.

God she makes this analysis hard. I know that this VN will have supernatural elements to it, as the Ryukishi seems to like that. So does she exists, or doesn’t she? For sake of this analysis it doesn’t matter that much, but I think (this is outside of the theory) that she does. Just my intuition.
OR it’s Natsuhi acting her out you see.

Because Natsuhi could have more reasons to perform the Beatrice summoning ritual. You can think of plenty yourself; Gold, wish to revive something (the honour of the family) to please Kinzo, to meet the person that made the family awesome. Plenty. I figured that her emotions towards the family, THUS Kinzo, and her detachment from the rest (hey! Just like Kinzo!) made her do all of this.

Whether she acts it out for Kinzo, or believes it herself, or acts it out to take revenge xD, it doesn’t really matter. The main unknown is whether beatrice exists and whether Natsuhi knows this. Perhaps they cooperate. Perhaps Natsuhi is mind raping everyone. PERHAPS NATSUHI=BEATRICE!. I cannot tell at this point, but even without filling in that blank, I have allot of evidence pointing towards Natsuhi.

About the key, Natsuhi received the key to Kinzo's room after the murders. If that literal key is the one in the "epitaph", Genji is a more likelier murderer. She was also shown to be sleeping after Genji and Kanon walk around to find the missing ppl. For Natsuhi to perform all that then sleep afterward, she must be some superwitch with sorcery lvl over 9,000.
Also I think it's already established that the murderers can only be performed either by high-tech weaponry, supernatural abilities, or that several ppl collaborating in a team.

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by plzd0ntkeelme

About the key, Natsuhi received the key to Kinzo's room after the murders. If that literal key is the one in the "epitaph", Genji is a more likelier murderer. She was also shown to be sleeping after Genji and Kanon walk around to find the missing ppl. For Natsuhi to perform all that then sleep afterward, she must be some superwitch with sorcery lvl over 9,000.
Also I think it's already established that the murderers can only be performed either by high-tech weaponry, supernatural abilities, or that several ppl collaborating in a team.

I don't think high tech weapons or manpower is needed. You can lure them into the shed, lock and gas them with various domestic chemicals

[chiryu]

Originally Posted by Nih

I wonder how to reply to this without offending the involved parties. Whoever drew that portrait has my infinite admiration. This is meant as a comment from one artist to another.

The artist for the painting is Takahito Ekusa, artist of Binchou-tan.
I personally love those paintings as well.

[Goilveig]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

The servants shifts actually has them patrolling the mansion even during the night into the wee hours of the morning, its really the guesthouse that's questionable if anyone was up and about. So far Shannon being one of the patrolling servants was attacked and killed while Kanon was not. This leads to the assumption that the killer didn't kill based on opportunity, rather chose the victims for a personal selection basis.

There's a problem with this reasoning -- it's more clear in the VN (though it's mentioned in the anime as well), but Shannon isn't supposed to be in the mansion that night. She and Kanon had just been reassigned (by Krauss) to the night shift in the guest house. Gohda was the only one who was supposed to be on the night shift at the mansion, and Genji and Kumasawa are off-duty but supposed to sleep in the guest house.

It's implied that Shannon goes to the mansion only because she was so flustered by the ring that she needed to get away from George for a while.

If you assume the victims were deliberately selected, and the killer(s) knew both the servants' new schedules (recently changed by Krauss) and assumed the adults would stay in the mansion and the kids go to the guesthouse, then the killer(s) would expect the following:

Mansion: Kinzo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Gohda
Guesthouse: Jessica, George, Battler, Maria, Genji, Kumasawa, Shannon, Kanon, Nanjo???

To the best of our knowledge, the only difference is that Shannon was in the mansion not the guesthouse (though of course we don't know for sure where she was at the time she was killed). I'm not sure we know where Nanjo spent the night, or where a killer would assume he would spend the night. I'm assuming he normally spends nights at the guest house, but I'm not sure if even the VN clarifies that particular point.

[plzd0ntkeelme]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

I don't think high tech weapons or manpower is needed. You can lure them into the shed, lock and gas them with various domestic chemicals

I highly doubt this due to a few problems.
1. Look at the size of the shed. In order for 6 grown-ups willing to cramp themselves inside such a small dirty shed, there's better be an extemely smart lure. Heck I don't think the servants will be allowed to enter together with the siblings. Most likely the servants will be told to stay away.
2. The gate opening to the shed is huge! Once the gate is open, the interior of the shed is visible already, excepts some small corner where the Shannon corpse is. Lure such as there are 10 tonnes of gold/Beatrice/whatever inside the shed would immediately be viewed as a trick once the gate is open.
3. 6 of them must also be lured at the same time in order for this to work. Which means the 6 of them must gather at the same place at some point in time. However this is unlikely since the siblings would never allow the servants to be around while they're discussing about the gold.

[MikaMikado]

Perhaps Natsuhi was aided by Beatrice? Hohohohoho~

If I should be really honest, I think that Natsuhi is the red herring, and that my whole 1000 words+ theory was exactly as 07th planned it. But yet, I had pretty convincing evidence.

Something else that comes into my mind:

Perhaps Krauss and Shannon were'nt PLANNED. That's why their face got partially smashed and the faces of the others got completely smashed. The 1 second shots from the anime do not suffice but look here (it are the TIPS from the game right after finding the bodies)
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0885/EP1-1FT01
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0767/EP1-1FT02
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0675/EP1-1FT03
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0572/EP1-1FT04
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0372/EP1-1FT05
http://h.imagehost.org/view/0276/EP1-1FT06
You can see that Shannon and Krauss have only partially their head wounded. Why? I do not know about Krauss, but I think that the murderer 'stumbled' across Shannon. (Maybe she saw the murderer, or she was just unlucky, who knows) So she was done 'additionally' and roughly, quickly. Perhaps did the person see her and out of rage kill her, and realize that since she is already dead she can as well add them to the sacrafices. The same with Krauss. Who would rage against them? Natsuhi!

Well I really suspect her, and its WAAAAY to early to suspect anything supernatural, but as we all know, it is impossible to solve everything without including that. But right now she is the one that will go to jail with me.

EDIT: Also, as stated above by Goilveig conveniently, all victims were in the Mansion (except Shannon, but it was said she walked around, and I think it was hinted at in the anime when the shot of her noticing something and walking towards it was shown (and written in the VN, I don't know, didn't play it up to that part)
SO it's logical that the MURDERER was also in the mansion. It wont be Eva and her husband as I think that they are needed for the second fornight; Kannon? Murdering Shannon? Kinzo? Perhaps, but he's locked in his building, he is afraid to go out.... who remains? Yes. Yes. NATSUHI THE BI*CH. *ahem*

So more evidence, yay.

I highly doubt this due to a few problems.
1. Look at the size of the shed. In order for 6 grown-ups willing to cramp themselves inside such a small dirty shed, there's better be an extemely smart lure. Heck I don't think the servants will be allowed to enter together with the siblings. Most likely the servants will be told to stay away.
2. The gate opening to the shed is huge! Once the gate is open, the interior of the shed is visible already, excepts some small corner where the Shannon corpse is. Lure such as there are 10 tonnes of gold/Beatrice/whatever inside the shed would immediately be viewed as a trick once the gate is open.
3. 6 of them must also be lured at the same time in order for this to work. Which means the 6 of them must gather at the same place at some point in time. However this is unlikely since the siblings would never allow the servants to be around while they're discussing about the gold.

True BUT, they were malformed AFTER the death. This means that they coul've been killed at an other time at other places and then put right into this nice crime scene. So you're right about the luring, and gasing, but Risingstars' point remains. You don't need allot of high tech weapons or manpower to kill some peoples. Heck I'm sure I could murder everyone around me if they would be asleep/ 'harmless Shannon who doesn't do anything'-mode.

[Karlson]

Originally Posted by MikaMikado

*snip*

Did Shannon make Natsuhi angry during the day? Must be something that was cut because that sure as hell wasn't demonstrated in this anime adaptation . Unless I completely missed it

However this is a really nice theory just one major problem with it, the key to Kinzo's study, Natsuhi recieves this key after the first twilight not before it. I heavily doubt it is the key described in the epitaph anyway and if it is, it makes Genji the more likely suspect not so much Natsuhi.

As for the door, I think it really just comes down to this...Its relevance to this mystery is dependant on what viewpoint you look at this particualr situation from. If you look at it from the realistic standpoint where you really believe these murders were done by the hands of humans directly then it's really not gonna make any sense whatsoever (unless you look at it as a sign of foreshadowing). With the fantasy approach where you believe some form of supernatural elements were at play here, it would lead to a few more possible theories and speculations but it wouldn't answer any questions either.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by MikaMikado

You can see that Shannon and Krauss have only partially their head wounded. Why? I do not know about Krauss, but I think that the murderer 'stumbled' across Shannon. (Maybe she saw the murderer, or she was just unlucky, who knows) So she was done 'additionally' and roughly, quickly. Perhaps did the person see her and out of rage kill her, and realize that since she is already dead she can as well add them to the sacrafices. The same with Krauss. Who would rage against them? Natsuhi!

I really really wonder what is the fact or proof backing your last statement. Not to be rude, but there is absolutely nothing that imply such kind of things in the anime series. Therefore, I really wonder if you aren't already in touch with the manga/VN.

Furthemore, nothing prevent the culprit to smash Shannon and Krauss face if their murders were a blunder/not planned. Therefore, them being still partially smashed is a bit weird.

[Goilveig]

Originally Posted by MikaMikado

EDIT: Also, as stated above by Goilveig conveniently, all victims were in the Mansion (except Shannon, but it was said she walked around, and I think it was hinted at in the anime when the shot of her noticing something and walking towards it was shown (and written in the VN, I don't know, didn't play it up to that part)

Shannon definitely was in the mansion at some point during that night. The scene just before midnight when it shows Shannon checking the windows is the mansion, not guest house. That's implied in the anime (she says she will go to the mansion, it shows an exterior of the mansion, it shows her checking windows). If you want to know about the VN, you can PM me and I can give you the details on the (quite a bit longer) scene with Shannon in the mansion, which I assume was cut short for time constraints.

[plzd0ntkeelme]

Originally Posted by MikaMikado

True BUT, they were malformed AFTER the death. This means that they coul've been killed at an other time at other places and then put right into this nice crime scene. So you're right about the luring, and gasing, but Risingstars' point remains. You don't need allot of high tech weapons or manpower to kill some peoples. Heck I'm sure I could murder everyone around me if they would be asleep/ 'harmless Shannon who doesn't do anything'-mode.

Nope, not from what is shown at the activities before midnight. In fact, that's the whole point of that part in the show is to tell the viewers that the victims were not asleep. Right before the clock tolls, Gohda was doing puzzle, Shannon patrolling, the rest of the four in a discussion (I assume it's about the gold/Beatrice).
Since the murderer must kill them without any noise while they're awake. The murderer must be using "modern" weaponry (I realize that high-tech is a wrong word, what I mean is something along guns with silencer, poison gas, and the like). That or each of them is ambushed by several people.
In order to carry them out, you can't drag the corpse in a trolley or something like that cause it'll make a lot of noise. Even tho outside is raining, the noise would still be quite loud. The only way to solve this is by lifting the corpse one by one. But lifting an over 150 lbs all the way to the shed for 6 times back and forth will dissolve your shoulder. That's where the multiple killers part comes in.