Yeah, my feelings exactly. Umineko’s story is complete, or as complete as can be. If Ryukishi wants to add more to it (there are many ways to do it), I’m sure it will complement it well. Even a side-story will do!
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Well, it might be something just like Higurashi Hou then, giving more information on aspects of the story that were left vague, which again, I’m guessing is more information on witches.
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Seems like most the responders prefer to let the witch sleep in peace. To counter balance this, I think we should hype what we would like to see or would be interested in.
While as a story Umineko was complete, it had several ends left open. I for one, would not mind revisiting the Kinzo WW2 massacre, were the truth was only hinted at.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to have Erika heartlessly tear it apart and have another set of purple mini-games to give more clues on: How did the incident start? Who killed who? How did Kinzo and Beatrice alone survive? How did Kinzo make 10 tons of gold vanish before the Imperial Japanese Army arrived?
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That tidbit about a new Episode of Umineko Chiru sure is huge–I didn’t expect Ryuukishi to suddenly return to Umineko. Maybe it has to do with the fact he decided to put out the complete Umineko “Hou”–he could have looked back at Umineko now that years have passed since Episode 8, and decided the story wasn’t quite “complete” without another Episode. Or maybe after he started to work on WTC5, he realized he needed to go back and tweak WTC4 as part of laying the groundwork, for some reason (maybe like @Sapphire said, more info on witches). Alternatively, taking a step back, it’s also possible that there was a miscommunication between the Twitter user umezawa_report and Ryuukishi, and the new content won’t be as full-fledged as we’d expect from the tweet’s description. I hope we’ll learn more details at winter Comiket or earlier.
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I don’t think the tweet or my article made any statement about how “full-fledged” the episode will be. I’m expecting something more like the bonus chapter of Rose Guns Days The Best than a complete sequel or anything.
How long were the Hou arcs compared to the main arcs anyway? If anything it’ll be an unused script like Hinamizawa Bus Stop, or some supplementary World Building like Kamikanshi-hen.
Whoops, said I wouldn’t have expectations…
I, for one, am pretty excited about an extra Umineko episode. Even though the main story itself does not need any additions to it, I feel the setting and the characters have still room for further exploration. Just the thought of having characters who didn’t have a chance to interact to any meaningful degree in the main story share some spotlight with each other sounds interesting to me. Some metaworld characters we know precious little about, and I’d be happy to find out more. It doesn’t have to be anything earth-shattering that changes how I look at the characters, just expanding a little on what is already there is enough to get me on board.
And then there’s the meta nature of Umineko and how it could be leveraged to write something based on, for example, fan theories about Umineko. Considering how Black Battler exists as a personification of in-universe theories about Battler being the culprit, I wonder if something similar could be done with the Rosatrice theory people came up with at some point. Of course, I don’t consider it particularly likely that that particular thing would happen, but the point I’m trying to make is that the setting of Umineko leaves room for interesting stuff like that, and thus I feel a self-contained Umineko story has potential to be interesting even if it didn’t contribute to the main plot and was essentially filler.
If it comes packaged in a murder mystery, it just makes the deal that much sweeter.
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Also, something else I forgot to add, does anybody think that the release of a new Umineko game might prolong the wait for When They Cry 5? I mean, I think the contingency of them being released at the same time, in the same year even, is pretty likely. There are a lot of aspects that contribute to the unlikeliness of that, for example, Ryukishi might stop working on When They Cry 5 for a while to finish the new Umineko episode, though that’s not so likely after all, since it has a release date and all he must have finished it for the most part, but he may stop working on it for a short time to add the finishing touches to the new game. It should also be taken in consideration that if the two games were to be released in the same year, one or the other might overshadow the other in sales, popularity and such. So, maybe we can assume that When They Cry 5 won’t be released for at least, a year? What does everybody think, will the new Umineko game make the wait for When They Cry 5 longer?
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While the blog said 8000 characters in, that is in pictographs, so its probably close to 10 pages of english writing single space A4 (lets assume he adds … and repeated AAAAs later). If the drama CD was written off material edited out, its unlikely that 8000 refers to the rough draft. Seeing as the music to the game is probably based off the artists’ impression of a scene, I would venture that the rough skeleton drafts (EP1-8) with select key scenes have been read and the fine draft of EP1 is now being fleshed out and finalized. I’d say that just the existence of the WTC5 image songs suggests that WTC5 EP1 is in the final stages of development.
He’s probably looking to be done writing around new years and I think we can expect a summer comiket release.
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@Aspirety Maybe “full-fledged” wasn’t the best word choice; I just meant that it would be an actual Episode rather than a short story or collection of TIPs. At least, that’s what I think umezawa_report implies in the tweet.
(spoiler for my interpretation of the tweet’s JP text, click if interested) 新作エピソード (lit. new work + episode) seems like a strong term, stronger than just エピソード by itself. I also feel like 加えて出す has more of a connotation of “append” compared to a word like 付ける. And I looked around a few Japanese sites earlier but didn’t see the word エピソード used to refer to the content in Tsubasa or Hane. That’s the basis of my judgment.
Of course, it’s totally possible I’ve misunderstood. (Anyone else knowledgeable on the subject want to offer their thoughts?) Regardless of what words we use to describe it, we still don’t know how long it will be, or how important it will be; I’m also someone who felt that Umineko was complete after I read Episode 8. But the world of Umineko is deep and I’ve also learned to never underestimate it. 
@Sapphire Good question. I personally have no clue, but the way I see it, after a ~5 year break, Ryuukishi is only starting WTC5 now because he feels like it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes an extra Comiket longer because he feels like doing something else. The tweets are loaded with small phrases like “maybe” or “planning to” so I’m sure nothing is set in stone at this point. Maybe it’ll be summer Comiket, or maybe just Umineko “Hou” will come out then and it’ll be winter Comiket just 4 months later.
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Yeah, I agree with that, I suppose. When They Cry 5 definitely feels like it is in its early development stages, and I feel like the whole announcement about it was not so that fans would expect to get the new game soon, but it was more meant to say that Ryukishi has finally come up with a concept for When They Cry 5 and is starting to work on it.
Also, about what Baelzeron said, about how the songwriters have to have read the material in full and such to make songs about it, I disagree. Well, somewhat. Supporting my theory that Ryukishi has just begun working on it, I think he’s just written down the ideas and key aspects of his story. What I mean by that is, he’s just written the ideas about what the story will be like and elaborated on them rather than writing the story itself, especially if it is a mystery like the previous When They Cry installments, he’d have to have all the story figured out, then he can obscure details of it and make it a mystery.
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Its precisely because of this necessity that I say he is far along. One does not prune trees that until it has too many leaves, and that means the tree was pretty big already.
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You’re missing the point: what I mean to say is that Ryukishi has already finished planning the story, has it all figured out by now and has written down the key plot points and aspects of it. So, it’s just like a blueprint of the game for now, meaning he has all the story and aspects figured out but only know has he begun putting it into words. He wasn’t just making it up as he went along, planning has to take place first. And this may mean that the writing process may take some time, but we’ll see.
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OHHHH BOY.
Well, that cements that I’ll wait to reread Umineko until that episode releases.
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I’m kinda excited for more Umineko. I love the story’s cast and setting, so anything else to flesh that out more is very welcome in my book (Ep7 Spoilers - I’d love to see some more exploration of Lion’s kakera in particular, and how it differs from the rest - things like how different characters developed, what happened to the island’s ghost stories of the witch, etc. Alternatively, more exploration of Kyrie’s character, because I’d love to get more insight into her thinking).
As for WTC5… Well, I’ve been wanting to learn Japanese for several years now. This sounds like as good a motivation as any in my book!
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No contradictions between our progress estimates, just our interpretations of how far along that means. Just remember that R7 was consistent in outputting both Higurashi and Umineko at half year intervals, thus his planned materials prior to writing the final draft was sufficient to do it in that time frame.