A Seasoned Veteran and a Sherlock-in-Training Try to Make Sense of Umineko No Naku Koro Ni

Today in Umineko, @MagusVerborum talks to himself for half an hour. Also I believe this is our first introduction to fight math which is the bane of my existence. Other than the reveal of a connection between old Beatrice and Kumasawa, though, I don’t think there’s much to comment on. It’s an anime as all hell scene with some cool character moments. Also shoutout to 15:58 for being one of my favourite reactions thus far.

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Double shoutout to that reaction, Jokrono sent a clip of that moment to me multiple times (I think I still have his phone recording of the screen somewhere on my harddrive…) and holy shit this was such a fun chapter. Knowing what was a bout to happen absolutely did not lessen it for me, this really felt like a moment for Ryukishi to let loose with the bullshit anime shounen… whatever this is… It’s glorious, it’s silly, it’s positively smothering! And the sky just keeps raining down spears… :cackle:

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I wonder what scene Ryukishi had more fun writing, this scene, or (EP4 spoilers) Krauss vs. Goat-kun?

This entire playthough summed up (Beware of Episode 6 spoilers)

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I pitched the story to Jokrono somewhere around reading this scene! it’s actually perfect~

Merry Christmas everyone! We’ve got a special episode just for you! We got murders, we got TV, we got Rudolf bein’ suave as ever, we got… a bunch of murdered servants! Truly it is time for the Christmas spirit! :cackle:

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Did I- did I get it right? IS IT ACTUALLY HAPPENING!?!?

In this episode we team up with an unlikely ally and attempt to solve the First Twilight. There’s laughing, there’s crying, there’s music :wahaha:, it’s like a party in here! I personally enjoy this scene because it actually feels like Battler is halfway competent, it’s like he’s actually fighting back!

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Well hey would you look who’s back from the wilderness of NSW.

Part 10 is live! Those of you who’ve been keeping a good eye on the forums probably remember the whole solving the epitaph adventure I had. This was the episode that spawned this so it’s fun to relive it.

It is so hilarious how many clues we missed (even after having gotten as far as I did). We end the episode with Ben asking ‘what book did you think Eva read?’ but it straight up tells us what book she goes for! It sure was agonising to watch this again and realise how much more I had to work with than I thought.

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Maybe I was testing you :pukuku:

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I doubt it, but either way I failed that test hard

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New whacky hijinks coming your way!

This package includes a free instruction manual for becoming a witch :disgust:

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I love how Rosa is the thumbnail with that title

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I can neither confirm nor deny that I did this on purpose. :pukuku:

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I’ve been really enjoying this series you two have been doing, and it’s been a great way to reread the episodes I’ve already finished myself. As of now I only just started Chiru so the videos will probably get uploaded faster than I go through the novel, but I appreciate the content thus far.

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Glad to have you watching :smiley: @Exdeath

Also in today’s news, I just put up this post for the Episode 6 podcast discussion. Hope you enjoy reading it, and enjoy your friendly reminder that we still have a heap of content to look forward to! :ryukishi:

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Great episode as always! I am enjoying this series a lot.
It may be too early for asking this, but do you guys plan making a let’s play of Higurashi or Higanbana after you finish Sea Cats?

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Thanks for watching! Glad you’re enjoying it :ryukishi:
Short answer is no, we won’t be doing them immediately.
The way we actually do the recordings is a lot of work for both of us and involves a lot of travel for @MagusVerborum. If the circumstance ever gets easier it’s totally on the cards so don’t lose hope :open_mouth: If you want to see it; let us know! Either way it definitely won’t be the last thing you’ll see from us.

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I hope the circumstances will get easier in the future, I would love to watch a Higurashi LP of you guys.

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@Chaos_Alfa it’d probably be decent fun, here’s hoping it happens :ryukishi:

In other news; Episode 3 Part 12!

The best second twilight Beato ever came up with. It was really weird seeing a crime that was so easily possible compared to the utter insanity that was the first twilight this episode. Part of me almost expected Rosa and Maria’s bodies not to be found at all because it almost seemed too easy. We’ll see how that plays out!

You folks here on the forum know what’s up next too, so you can finally actually see the next video in sequence :pukuku:

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We happen to have an entire thread devoted to this, and here’s the public release of the Epitaph theory. I did ask the man to hurry up and make a theory, I have only myself to blame. :pukuku:

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That’s some impressively solid theorycrafting.

I do wonder if @Jokrono has any thoughts on why Kinzo would be angry about Maria’s name being what it is, to the point of demanding Rosa to change it. The kanji 里 in Maria’s name inspired you to look for stuff related to specific kanji, but I don’t think you ended up using the kanji in Maria’s name for anything in particular. Do you think Kinzo’s reaction to Maria’s name is just a random coincidental detail meant to nudge people towards looking at this as wordplay with kanji, or if the kanji in Maria’s name actually have something to do with solving the epitaph?

There also seems to be a bit of a disconnect between how Eva found the solution and how you found yours. Eva used some unspecified book to look up stuff, but then she was confused - she was certain she found the answer, but it wasn’t six letters. Then her younger self suggested that if she was sure she was right, she just had to force the answer to fit somehow, which resulted in her realizing the true answer. Any ideas on what that was about? Your thought process never encountered such a hurdle, I believe.

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I think clearly the character for village does actually factor in to the intended solution for the epitaph. Even in my own solution, the name for Qilian station (in Kanji?) is 唭哩岸, which does actually contain 里, but I didn’t notice that until way more recently because of the extra box shape attached to it (and also because my stellar understanding of Japanese made me think they were different for a while even after I noticed the visual similarity :ryukishi:)

I honestly don’t know why Kinzo would become so upset over this. Sure; it contains the same character, but I don’t know what part of that is so misleading that Kinzo wouldn’t be happy with it. Would he have gone and removed all associated characters from everywhere else around the mansion? It seems like a stretch. Perhaps the implication that Maria was involved with the key was a bit much for him, but I’m genuinely rather confused. Is it because it distracted from the purpose of the epitaph? Is it because Kinzo did not want additional factors to change the difficulty of his epitaph? Is it because he was upset that he thought Rosa was the one coming to an answer? I don’t know, I guess I can only hope we’ll find out.

I think the reason Ryukishi draws attention to it when he does (and Kinzo’s anger over it) probably has something to do with poking readers towards the solution, but I’m sure the connection is intended to be a bit more deep than that. Maybe that connection would be a bit more apparent to someone who understands Japanese, but I don’t even know how 哩 is different to 里 in terms of its use or meaning.

As for the unknown book I’m now certain Eva actually does state (in our E3P10 video) ‘I need to check an atlas’ but somehow we both completely glazed over that fact. Perhaps having read that was what compelled me to not give up on the journey through Wikipedia pages on Taiwan at the time, but it definitely didn’t factor in to the solution consciously. I think part of how those clues are intended to work was worked out by @mimsy during ep5 here, but because of my methodology they weren’t necessary.

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