One of my friends constantly spammed me with “read umineko”, “have you already read umineko?”, “i think it is time to read umineko” and yeah 
at the end i’ve read it and now I Love it (and Bern of course 
)
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I personally found Ryuukishi through the higurashi anime, and went a while without reading umineko before a friend of mine told me a thing or two and then I rabidly consumed it for the mystery, victorian fashion, and occultism.
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Just reading your answer made me think of myself with my friends hahaha.
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I discovered 07th Expansion because there was a girl I liked, and she loved Higurashi (the anime, though) so she always said to me that I should watch it and things like that. Around those times my brother started reading vns (Katawa Shoujo, as an example) so I started to find some interest in visual novels.
After a while I realized Higurashi had a vn, and thankfully I didn’t watch the anime by then, so I decided to read it.
At first I wasn’t sure what the story was about, just that there were crazy girls and a festival, so the begginning of the story was peace and tranquility for me… until the first murder!
What I liked the most of the story was how all pieces came together and give you the anwer. Higurashi Spoiler: I liked a lot the scene when Takano tells the story of demons in Hinamizawa to Keiichi. The first time she tells it, it gave chills to my spine. But the scene that surprised me a lot is when Keiichi was talking with Shion with the phone and Keiichi supects her of being the culprit of what was happening
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Some guy I don’t talk to anymore gave me Umineko on a flash drive back in high school. Keep in mind this was over seven years ago, and ONLY ep 1 had been translated (in a much rougher state than what it is now). I was absolutely blown away, it changed my life. Waited for each chapter to release, biting my nails and devouring them within days. Been an umineko fan since.
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I was skipping class to study for a literature contest 9 and a half years ago. Instead, I watched the first season of Higurashi anime - it was completely worth it. 
A few months later, the second season started airing. After finishing it, I went up youtube and somehow stumbled upon the Umineko novel opening. Waited patiently for the Witch Hunt translation and devoured the first episode.
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I got into Umineko through Ougon fighter I saw on one of the torrent trackers. I downloaded it and even played with one of my female friends, who got addicted to Umineko later aswell. I learned more and more and decided to read a VN. Turns out one of my friend had all of the Umineko EPs on his pc and I downloaded them from him thru some weird p2p client that he was using 
I still haven’t finished Higurashi but I’m rereading Umineko again.
Sorry Aspi, but that’s where I’m technically from. Well, I did put both Higurashi and Umineko on my wishlist when I read the name on discord and liked the synopsis on steam, so I have that going for me. And then, when I had sufficient money a good friend, I was able to begin reading Umineko and liking it so far. So those of you that still haven’t put away their pitchforks even though I told you to, you can do so now, it’s safe to say that I’m also a 07th Expansion fan.
Weirdly, my first experience with 07th was a rather negative one.
I was reading Rewrite at the time, and absolutely loving every moment of it. I had just finished a route, and was about to enter the ever-hyped Lucia route, of which I had heard so much about. While I had heard the names Higurashi and Umineko before, I’d never really looked into either.
As the route progressed… so did my disappointment at what I was reading. Shoddily put together scraps of good scenes and cringeworthy ones with pacing shot to hell. I wanted to personally slap the writer in the face for this thing, it bugged me that much. The ending felt idiotic and it was, by far, the worst part of what I had read up to that point. When I later learned that the route was written by a writer who hadn’t worked on any other part of Rewrite, it all sort of came together. I was not a Ryukishi fan.
Now, how did I start the path to being the Ryukishi fanboy I am now? Well, that started with… uhh… the Higurashi anime. I’m sorry.
To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the first season at all. I had considered dropping it, and definitely would’ve if not for the insistence that it gets better by a friend of mine, who had recommended it to me in the first place.
and oh boy, did it get better. Soon after finishing that, I was informed of the Umineko tea party, taking place on, from what was known to me at the time, “Kazamatsuri’s sister site for mystery stuff.”
After that… it just kinda spiraled into reading as many 07th Expansion related things as possible, like Rose Guns Days, and even being on the Episode 4 podcast for Umineko.
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I actually found 07th Expansion years back through a Higurashi clip on YouTube. I was incredibly put-off. Too violent. To this day, the idea of reading Higurashi is a bit…anticipated, but uncomfortable.
Years later, I discovered Umineko through an internet friend. I was put-off again when I realized it was from the same writer as Higurashi, but read it anyway to understand my friend better, as a lot of her thinking and viewpoints were influenced by the games.
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I’ve actually got a decently interesting story for this.
Many years ago, one of the first anime I ever watched was CLANNAD. Maybe a little more than half-way into the first season, I was already so impressed. I was brand new to the medium and the types of stories it is able to tell, and I became slightly obsessed. I began to do extensive research on it, learning about Key, visual novels, etc.
On the Key wikipedia page, there is an entire paragraph dedicated to Key’s influence on Ryukushi07. Oddly, I have a very specific memory of the moment when I was reading this paragraph, and went on to read the the plot overview of Higurashi… and I was amazed by how cool and intricate it sounded.
The fact that I remember this moment so vividly is ironic to me, because for the longest time I never looked into 07th further. With the popularity of the anime, I heard about Higurashi all the time, and after meeting Aspirety, I heard about Umineko all the time… but they were always something “I would get to soon”, despite sounding so cool.
I took many years… but after reading Umineko Episode 3, I can now officially say that I am hooked.
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This may sound weird if compared to the rest of the stories but the first time I came to hear about 07thExpansion was playing Osu! with some friends (if you are unfamiliar with Osu!, it is a rythm game for the PC and android which songlist is made up by the community, as it has an extensive database of user uploaded songs), we had this thing playing together while taking turns to select the next song, and there was this guy that played a lot of 07th expansion songs, and I really loved them. I asumed it was some doujin music group, it was not until a few years later finishing the Higurashi anime that I found out what 07thExpansion actually was.
I really love the stories, they have changed my lifestyle, but the music has always been a big part for me, it evokes so many different feelings and emotions, from joy to saddness and a lot of passion.
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I discover 07th Expansion from a Higurashi DVD my sister’s friend lend her (which I ended up watching alone) and I fell in love…with the violence and sheer insanity. I didn’t think much and a few years passed, I forgot the title but I still remember sometimes, when I stumbled upon “sound novel” in Wikipedia, which mentions 07th Expansion. That was when I realized the title is Higurashi and it was a game. I started reading the manga, watch anime, incredibly loved it and went to Umineko. That was my downfall to this hell.
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Let me think… it was early 2008… but I saw someone I watched on Deviantart upload a fanart of Rena and I was like “is she from an anime omg!” and that’s when I found out about the Higurashi anime AND the VN at the same time (the person I knew was a fan of both so she told me about it all!)
From there I watched the anime since I didn’t know anything about VNs at the time… then it was as the Kai anime fansubs came out I watched Kai too and I was just in love with the series. I ended up reading analyses about the VN before I eventually bought it digitally from Mangagamer! 
I think I actually read and finished Higanbana before I ever finished the first half of the Higurashi VN tho… I’m a super slow VN reader, I admit. It took me probably 2 years to read all of Higurashi. ANYWAY yeah I branched and found all the other series by 07th after I dove headfirst into Higurashi, and my life has been taken over since.
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It’s quite the story. I was writing Ace Attorney fan cases when I fell into a rut and needed some inspiration. I went on vndb to find mystery visual novels and Umineko was at the top of the list of recommended. My initial impressions from the screenshots were not good, but after I downloaded it, legitimately of course ^_^’, I stumbled onto the PS3 patches which was a huge help. After that I soaked in and submerged myself, it was quite an adventure. Coincidently at the same time, there was a, now defunct, server on Attorney Online that was Umineko based where the people there became good friends of mine and helped me get into things. The community was so kind to me that after finishing the VN and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided to make the Umineko Online fangame for that community. Over the past years I’ve watched the Higurashi anime, am looking forward to getting into the VN one day, and have peaked my interest with all the other 07th Expansion stuff I’ve seen.
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This music video: (Late higurashi Spoilers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lirLSry_rhg
I was super stressed about mid-year exams in my final year of highschool and a friend of mine shared me some music to cheer me up, off one of the recommended videos I found this beautiful piece of music. I loved it so much that I wanted to see where it came from, watched my first first anime series ‘Higurashi’ and I was blown away by the mystery and the themes, themes of friendship which I had long written off as ‘tacky’ yet somehow Higurashi did them right.It did something which I hadn’t thought possible, and down the rabbit hole I went.
I went on to explore the series through a play which depicted the climax of Onikakushi-hen as an inner monologue starring Keiichi (me) and was a little character deconstruction, fun stuff. This in turn led to my love of acting and TTRPGs, so Higurashi has a special place in my heart. I genuinely believe the story changed my life for the better.
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I was 14, I think, and my first year of high school was coming to an end. A friend of mine had gotten me into anime earlier that year, and I wanted to go deeper, so I decided that I wanted to get into Visual Novels. Katawa Shoujo was recommended to me, and I think I played one or two routes, but I wasn’t too into it and was mostly doing it for a friend. I decided I wanted something more out there, and was looking up some of the most highly recommended VNs. I saw a screenshot from the PS3 patch of Umineko Chiru, and I thought, “wow this looks just like Ace Attorney.” …I was kinda dumb, but the screenshot was of the EP5 climax and it had the ADV dialogue box and the Red Truth, so I assumed it would have gameplay and be like Ace Attorney too.
I did some further research and found out Umineko was a sequel to a game called Higurashi, which I got my hands on immediately. I played the original MangaGamer translation and loved every second of it. (I still get nostalgic for the MG OST every once and a while, although I think the Steam version is superior.) I would play an arc of Higurashi, and then watch the equivalent anime episodes afterwards… it wasn’t a bad way to spend a summer. I don’t think I even finished Higurashi before I started Umineko, I was just too eager. Now, four or five years later, I’m still as obsessed as I was on day one.
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I had the worst possible introduction. That was the Umineko anime, I somehow saw some potential in it and kept on watching. Someone in the comments mentioned how this and Higurashi had the same author and Higurashi was far better and well that is how I’ve been led to this.
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I’ve discovered 07thExpension on talking with some friends on twitter, they advised me to read " Le Sangglot des cigales " ( The French traduction of Higurashi ), And Higurashi completely transported me and changed me on many points in my life.
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Technically, the contexto anime was my exposure but never pursued the visual novel. It was with the umineko anime that made me continue. I kept seeing that “The VN is better.” I was curious so I bought the VN import. After finishing 1-4. I immediately bought Chiru. Fell in love with Umineko the most. Rose Gun Days was next and that’s where I am now
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