[Anime] Umineko - Q & A

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for episode 8:

I guess you are asking about who killed who in the real world. But all that it was said is that it's better for the catbox to remain closed forever.

[fuff]

episode8:

1.who survives just battler and eva?? and ange of course
2.were the witches real?
3.okay i dont get the jessica, shannon thingie...and beatrice...where they the same person?
4.who was the person battler liked? blonde hair blue eyes ? was it jessica?
5.was shanon and kanon one person?
6.who was beatrice (the one that we keep seeing)??
7.)what was the ending/last scene? ange found out everyone was dead?

[Judoh]

I'd wait for episode 8 to be translated for a more accurate answer. We only have summaries. But a few of your questions have answers in earlier episodes.

Spoiler for question 3:

wat?

Spoiler for question 4:

Battler wasn't talking about a specific person. He just likes girls that look like that. Plus he was probably half/joking.

Spoiler for question 5:

Sorta?

Spoiler for question 6:

implied to be Yasu/Shannontrice

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by fuff

episode8:

1.who survives just battler and eva?? and ange of course
2.were the witches real?
3.okay i dont get the jessica, shannon thingie...and beatrice...where they the same person?
4.who was the person battler liked? blonde hair blue eyes ? was it jessica?
5.was shanon and kanon one person?
6.who was beatrice (the one that we keep seeing)??
7.)what was the ending/last scene? ange found out everyone was dead?

Spoiler for Episode8:

You first need to understand that each "game" is a fictional scenario that doesn't show a crime that actually happened in the real world. This is practically a confirmed fact.

Similarly to Episode7, Episode8 doesn't show any game in the way they were done in previous episodes, just a minigame with custom rules created by Bern where the culprits are Battler, Kyrie and Rudolf.

That game however has no real bearing in the real world.

So now for what concern the real world:

1) Battler and Eva are the only confirmed survivors. However Battler suffered some kind of brain damage and became another person. So although he's physically alive, in a sense his personality died. The final scene could suggest that in the end he recovers his former self, but it's dubious.

2) No. There is no confirmation of magic actually existing in the real world in its common meaning. There are some doubts about the existence of the meta world as a separate layer of existence, but it could as well be just a metaphor.

3) It is vastly accepted that Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice are the same person. However it isn't clear how. It might as well be possible that a servant Kanon never actually existed in the real world, not even as a shannon disguised as him. In other words it could be that Kanon only exists in fiction.
Jessica however is simply Jessica.

4) Battler had a crush on Shannon 6 years before, but that crush was soon forgotten. There is no particular person that he liked with blue eyes and blonde hairs. He just said once that his ideal woman would have those characteristic.

5) See point 3

6) The one in the metaworld is a meta-existence. You can think of her as a character in a story. Which is why Battler could "revive" her. The original character creation however was done by Shannon (or actually Yasu) who identified herself/hiimself in her inside her/his ideal world.

7) The last scene is set in the future several decades after 1998. Ange has become a famous writer (books for children sporting Sakutaro as the main character) under the name of "Yukari Kotobuki" and she just learned that Touya Hachijo is a pen name for two authors one of which is Battler, whom she believed to be dead for all those years, incidentally Touya Hachijo is also the new name that Battler took after the incident.
In the end Ange invites Battler to the new fukuin orphanage where she recreated the great hall of the Rokkenjima Mansion and Beatrice's portrait. There Battler has a vision from the past where he meets with all the people that died on Rokkenjima and the even those that never actually existed including Beatrice.

[fuff]

thanks!!! okay i have a few more questions........
1.what is the golden land?
2. is there any info on why maria was crazy throughout the series?
3.so did bern and lambda exist?
4.was there any references to higurashi made

[C-chan]

Originally Posted by fuff

thanks!!! okay i have a few more questions........
1.what is the golden land?
2. is there any info on why maria was crazy throughout the series?
3.so did bern and lambda exist?
4.was there any references to higurashi made

Spoiler for answers:

1) I believe the Golden Land can be interpreted in many ways. For Maria, it's a place where everything is nice and where her mama wouldn't hit her anymore. For others, it's place where they get all their wishes come true. It may also mean the room full of gold at EP3.

2) In the novel atleast, George, Jessica and Battler talked about Maria's split personality behavior. It may have rooted to Rosa's abuse or her own problems that affected Maria the most.

3) In the meta-world, they did, though, their existence doesn't affect the real world. They may be interpretations of human powers; for instance, Lambda represents certainty: the will to do one's desire.

4) One of the special TIPS (Lambda's diary, to be precise), had some connection to Higurashi's Takano. There were also references throughout the novel where in Higurashi was a novel Battler reads and a game which Lambda plays. One connection is Bernkastel herself, whose name was mentioned by Rika at Rei.

well, that's how I understood them. Of course, there may be more accurate answers than mine.

[Oblivion]

I got a question. Don't take my question the wrong way I'm just curious, but if every crime committed is somehow solvable through human means, what's the point in having witches?

And a random question is Bernkastel the same person as the Bernkastel in higurashi? I'm not talking about Frederica, I'm talking about the one who always gets killed.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Oblivion0101

I got a question. Don't take my question the wrong way I'm just curious, but if every crime committed is somehow solvable through human means, what's the point in having witches?

What witches? I'm kidding. One reason is to be an illusion to deny. Another is that it's an allegory for motivations and ways to get shit done. Lamdadelta for example can represent accomplishing something with hard work and minimizing obstacles to a point where she can certainly accomplish it without a lot of effort. Another thing is the witches end up being antagonists a lot. Especially Bern in later episodes.

Originally Posted by Oblivion0101

And a random question is Bernkastel the same person as the Bernkastel in higurashi? I'm not talking about Frederica, I'm talking about the one who always gets killed.

If you don't mean Frederica Bernkastel than you probably mean Rika? The honest answer is we don't know. At best she's a continuity nod to Higurashi and not actually connected to it. Ryukishi's attitude in interviews (plus stuff like Higurashi being a novel in Umineko) seems to suggest he doesn't want Umineko to be connected to Higurashi.

Also episode 8 apparently says

Spoiler for Spoiler ep 8:

She's a character based off of somebody's cat

[fuff]

higurashi is a story in umineko? does that mean higurashi..wasnt really?

or is it just two seperate animes....and both happened/are really...but the creator doesnt want there to connections since they are two different stories

Originally Posted by Judoh

What witches? I'm kidding. One reason is to be an illusion to deny. Another is that it's an allegory for motivations and ways to get shit done. Lamdadelta for example can represent accomplishing something with hard work and minimizing obstacles to a point where she can certainly accomplish it without a lot of effort. Another thing is the witches end up being antagonists a lot. Especially Bern in later episodes.



If you don't mean Frederica Bernkastel than you probably mean Rika? The honest answer is we don't know. At best she's a continuity nod to Higurashi and not actually connected to it. Ryukishi's attitude in interviews (plus stuff like Higurashi being a novel in Umineko) seems to suggest he doesn't want Umineko to be connected to Higurashi.

Also episode 8 apparently says

Spoiler for Spoiler ep 8:

She's a character based off of somebody's cat

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by fuff

higurashi is a story in umineko? does that mean higurashi..wasnt really?

or is it just two seperate animes....and both happened/are really...but the creator doesnt want there to connections since they are two different stories

It's kinda both.

Like I said it seems he doesn't want them to be connected. Save for a few characters like Bern, Okonogi, and Amakusa (Amakusa's character design was used for one of the Yamainu i.e. Hibari 13) who are sorta continuity nods or mythology gags. He hasn't done anything to suggest he wants it all to be tied together as one story.

Spoiler for Episode 5:

Yeah in episode 5 it's revealed Higurashi is Battler's favorite novel. So it probably didn't happen in his Universe. I want to put emphasis on "his unverse" especially.

Then again if Rika got her happy ending why would you expect Higurashi to happen?

[Oblivion]

Originally Posted by Judoh

What witches? I'm kidding. One reason is to be an illusion to deny. Another is that it's an allegory for motivations and ways to get shit done. Lamdadelta for example can represent accomplishing something with hard work and minimizing obstacles to a point where she can certainly accomplish it without a lot of effort. Another thing is the witches end up being antagonists a lot. Especially Bern in later episodes.



If you don't mean Frederica Bernkastel than you probably mean Rika? The honest answer is we don't know. At best she's a continuity nod to Higurashi and not actually connected to it. Ryukishi's attitude in interviews (plus stuff like Higurashi being a novel in Umineko) seems to suggest he doesn't want Umineko to be connected to Higurashi.

Also episode 8 apparently says

Spoiler for Spoiler ep 8:

She's a character based off of somebody's cat

Ah okay makes sense. I was only assuming that Bernkastel was the same in both just sort of like how Battler and meta battler are the same.

[Jan-Poo]

This isn't really very clear but I more or less agree with Judoh. it seems that Umineko exists in a higher layer of existence where both the various Umineko "games" and Higurashi exist as fictions.

Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are suggested to be recurring characters, in other words characters that aren't bound to a specific story but that can appear in different stories, where they can gain different forms and roles. (that's probably why they are called "voyagers")

For example Bernkastel took the role of the villain in Umineko, but she wasn't a villain in Higurashi.

It is implied that Lambdadelta and Bernkastel will meet again in another "when they cry" series, but only the author knows in which roles and under which forms.

[fuff]

so basically,...what i take from the two series...they are two series and everything that happened in the series happened...meaning that higurashi is real and not just some fictional work...

but just to bring higurashi in, in umineko they say its a story

which is something similar to bleach is a manga in gintama...but in bleach its a real thing....hopefully this makes sense hahah and houw in lucky star haruhi is an anime phase, etc, etc

[Winar]

Several logical questions about concept of writing stories (both for novel and anime):

1.

Spoiler for Author:

Many belives Yasu is author of 1,2 arcs but why bottles were found at third one? That mean there are two authors (Yasu + Battler), on the other hand two bottles are fake/fiction and the first author used them like basis for writing Legend and Turn (so only Battler is writer). Which version more truthful?

2.

Spoiler for Dead?:

Beatrice is dead. Yasu is dead?

3.Why Beatrice didn't wrote the third story, in other words why two bottles, not three?

4.

Spoiler for Battler:

We have 8 episodes. Fantasy+mystery 1-6, mystery only 7-8. Battler wrote all episodes and he probably remember the truth. One of episodes is real, others are fiction? Or maybe none of 'em contains the truth?

[Judoh]

Spoiler for spoilers:

I don't think it's implied that the other arcs were used as a basis to write legend and turn. It's actually the opposite that legend and turn inspired the other stories.

I'll quote Renall to give a more accurate assessment

Originally Posted by Renall

The assumption is that 1-2 (the message bottles) came from "Beatrice," and 3 and on were written by Touya (Battler). Of course, there's some fuzziness there. For instance, the whole deal with "Reigonamu was a pen name I used before I started writing as Touya" came from Featherine's avatar character in ep6; was this also true of R-Prime? The answer seems most likely to be "yes, more than likely," and there's not much reason why it isn't, but he's left himself some wiggle room to potentially shake up who the true authors are in the end.

There are additional issues, like whether Meta-Battler is an elevated character or whether he's somehow representative of Battler-as-Touya's internal coping with the memories through fiction, or possibly both at different times. And which layers go where (Featherine having power over Lambda, yet at the end Lambda and Bern seem independent of the story world including R-Prime, etc.).

Beato actually did write a third story called Land of the Golden witch, but that one sank to bottom of the sea.

It would make sense for the forgeries to come in message bottles for an aesthetic effect that makes the lie that the same author wrote them work, but that's speculation at best.

As for the rest we either really don't know (or I don't know) or Battler didn't give us an answer.

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Spoiler for spoilers:

Beato actually did write a third story called Land of the Golden witch, but that one sank to bottom of the sea.

Spoiler for Just for the sake of those unfamiliar with this:

"Land of the Golden Witch" was meant to serve as EP3, and would have been even more difficult to solve than the first two games, something worthy of being called Beatrice's "greatest work" as she called it in EP8. However, it was scrapped because Ryukishi07 thought that the concepts presented in that game would be too difficult for readers who don't know the "answer" to understand. Some elements from that episode are reused in later episodes, particularly EP3 and EP5, but for now, we should assume that it will never come to be. Until someone decides to salvage it from the seafloor...

[Leo_Otaku]

Mine isn't really a logical question of any kind. I was just very concerned. I was told by and have seen many people say the ending is terrible. Without giving spoilers, is this really true? Or are people exaggerating? I suppose it is an opinion but I can't stop this horrible feeling from all day XD I just started getting into it and have spent at least 30 hours playing it so far. If anyone would let me know without any spoilers. Also I heard a fandisk is due, will it clear anything up?

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by Leo_Otaku

Mine isn't really a logical question of any kind. I was just very concerned. I was told by and have seen many people say the ending is terrible. Without giving spoilers, is this really true? Or are people exaggerating? I suppose it is an opinion but I can't stop this horrible feeling from all day XD I just started getting into it and have spent at least 30 hours playing it so far. If anyone would let me know without any spoilers. Also I heard a fandisk is due, will it clear anything up?

Let's just say people weren't expecting it to end the way it did, despite some signs that it probably should have and could have been expected. As for the fan disc, only Ryukishi07 himself knows what will be in it.

[fuff]

did they ever show asmu? or how ever u spell her name (battlers mom) in the game?

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for answer to fuff:

nope she never appears