Post your unpopular opinions about 07th works!

07th Discussion
#22

Hmm…

I do not like Natsuhi, but not for the usual reasons that the people who’ve stated that they dislike her for have listed. Many Umineko fans seem to sympathise with her after her ordeal in Episode 5, but for me, I couldn’t care less. I don’t like Natsuhi mainly because she is one of the least intelligent characters in Umineko, something which most people would let slip by, but intelligence is a big deal to me and also she’s very, very boring. I mean, a lot of what happens to Natsuhi in Episode 5 is entirely her fault. She is very gullible about the things the man from 19 years ago says/the other members of the family (depending on which theory you go with) and gives in to him immediately. Were she a little more clever she could have fought back against the man from 19 years ago and wouldn’t allow him/the family toy so easily with her and she even enabled the crimes at times and made herself look very suspicious to the rest of the family and Erika. Same thing with what happened in Episode 1 with the gun when she went to confront Beatrice. Whilst she had no experience with guns and such, she should’ve checked the bullets. And she’s also very boring too, like I said earlier, she does nothing else but think about upholding the honour of the family and she takes care of the house and such. I’m not saying that I enjoyed what she went through in Episode 5 though, but on the other hand, I’m pretty indifferent towards that. In the end, Natsuhi’s just a boring housewife to me.

On that note, I don’t like Jessica either. Too impulsive, too hot-blooded, not very smart either, basically a more youthful and free version of her mother.

I don’t like Chick Beatrice, she basically represents the most negative aspects a woman can have, mostly women in the past, though. She kowtows to Battler, is willing to do anything for him and has no other wishes for herself, just wants to serve to ‘her father’ and is naive, innocent and very gullible. Honestly, I could very much relate to Battler’s frustration with her in the earlier parts of Episode 6, I would be very annoyed by such a person too. Even when she supposedly reverts back to the original Beatrice’s persona, she has a slight moment during her wedding with Battler in which she reverts back to her original personality and says she will be a wife to him and such, which really disappointed me after what I thought was her regaining her previous incarnation’s personality for good.

I don’t like how immature almost all Umineko characters are, especially the adults, though I’m not willing to overlook the younger ones either. I mean, when the adults talk about the inheritance, they literally bicker with one another like very immature children. There’s nothing intelligent, mature or adult-like in their conversations, they don’t use much reason in dealing with one another and when somebody tries to be logical, say, Kyrie, they imbue the logic with blackmail and such, without caring for any of the other family members’ feelings. I mean, mature to me means somebody who uses both intellect and feelings and balances them, well, I’d like intellect to preside but anyways. I mean, it’s ridiculous how little the family cares about one another, one of you could argue that that portrayal of them is showed so that the reader can understand how screwed up their family is and how love was always missing in their family, mostly due to Kinzo’s negative influence and such, and how it makes them human and flawed. Well, I disagree with that, what’s human about such indifference towards your family members? They’re not even some lowly family to think of one another only in terms of profit, they are the affluent Ushiromiya family. Even Eva, who is stated and obviously shown to be the most intelligent of the siblings, is guided by her emotions at times, which is pretty unpleasant to read. Well, I’ll be nice and stop there, I guess.

I actually really like Rosa and I think it is a bit unfair for most readers to disregard her cause of her relationship with Maria. I’m not saying that I agree with her mistreatment, but I find her character pretty complex and so vulnerable and strong at the same time. Well, this is not something that concerns me too much, though…

Kyrie is one of the most… unlikable characters I’ve seen, well, for me at least. Since the beginning I didn’t like her, for no reason really, even though I’d be usually drawn to a character with her personality, but I just didn’t for some reason. Then after Episode 7, after what she did, she seemed very, very disgusting to me, like Eva said, truly monstruous. I couldn’t come to like her as a villain, she was very, very disgusting to me. Though I do like Rudolf, he has more redeeming qualities for me, well, as redeemable as you can get after doing what he did.

I also agree with everybody about George, I like him too, maybe in an equal footing with Battler, he is one of the most clever and mature characters.

Well, long story short, Sapphire most likely doesn’t have anything better to do than comment on what she dislikes about Umineko and she’s probably getting a lot of backlash for it, which I’ll most likely give no or very short answers to, I don’t care enough about Umineko to debate about it, not that I would want to debate about anything in general.

Also, shouldn’t this thread allow spoilers? I mean, what most people have said here is spoiler tagged and most opinions involve spoilers, so I think it’d be better that way.

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#23

Interesting musings. When it comes to character traits, I guess there is no arguing about taste. Everyone feels drawn to certain characters and feels bored by others that might be more compelling to an other part of the fandom. Though… I couldn’t help but frown at some of the traits you applied to characters, so please bear with my own thoughts on the matter.

Regarding Natsuhi… well, I find it difficult to argue about the intelligence of characters, especially because I do hold it against Ryukishi that the only way he could come up with to frame Natsuhi as more clever than her husband was by making Krauss hilariously gullible and easily manipulated both by his business partners and by Eva when she draws the sexism card to bar Natsuhi from the conversation. It does them both a disservice that easily leads to conclusions such as yours. Though I just have to counter that Natsuhi is totally in over her head, what with all the pressure from the siblings, from the whole Kinzo sharade, her severe migraine that make it hard to think straight and then even her slipping sanity. That’s why she’s unable to think outside the box and is unable to not fall into the traps of the killer. Also… you made me think that this also falls in line with her overall character. You say she is all about the honor of the family, I call that just an excuse. Natsuhi is a woman who was sold like cattle by her family and desperately tries to scrounge together every little bit of dignity she can get in a situation like this. That’s why emphasizes the honor, that’s why she has become a petty tyrant towards the servants and that’s why she goes down the deep end whenever someone denies her even those little bits and pieces of respect. It doesn’t change that she’s a fucking murderer who was fine with covering it up, but understanding why she is the way she is makes her work as a character to me, even though of course in real life a person like her would irritate the hell out of me.

Then I do have to disagree strongly about Jessica. Jessica is obviously created as a foil to Natsuhi. While Natsuhi rolls with every situation, accepts it and tries to make the best out of her shitty life, Jessica just constantly fights to remain true to herself. Everything she does is an attempt to not get dragged into this overwhelming pressure of being the heir but instead escape into a normal life. She might look impulsive and hot-blooded to you (though I do wonder about that, she nowhere near a usual tomboy), but I guess having a front row seat to the self-destruction of your mother kinda does that to you. So saying that she’s the same Natsuhi does her a huge disservice, because she’s anything but.

Have to agree with Chick Beatrice. Screw her. I know that she just symbolizes the process of writing a new Beato after the death of the original author, but for that matter it is a tad to much dragged out and I was just like you quite irrititated about how little the final product had to do with the actual Beatrice. Only in the Episode 8 Manga when they added that conversation with Ange about not repeating her mistakes I had a feeling that the original Beato resurfaced in Tohya’s streamlined ‘waifu’ version of her. Far too late in my opinion.

Regarding the family… Well, switch money and inheritance with alcohol and obligatory Christmas gatherings and you get essentially my family. So I am in a position from which I find it hard to argue that people are not that petty and childish and end up at each others throats for the flimsiest excuses. You can’t choose your family after all. To oppose that: I do like rational people just like you do. That’s why I actually find the conflicts within Yasu and cousins when it comes to the question whether love exists or whether it just imagination extremely interesting. Especially when it comes to Jessica and Kanon, with Jessica being driven of envy to her classmates’ first romantic dabblings and Kanon being envious of her healthy way of escaping pressure. Both have real feelings for each other, but both constantly question whether this actually can be love. Aspects like these are the ones were I’m just thrilled that Umineko doesn’t portray emotions as something that is just magically there, but something that results from very mundane things and can be questioned by rational people. In a way, that is all what Umineko is about? That’s why I find it difficult to criticize characters for acting emotionally when most of them are also portrayed as very self-aware about those emotions.

Can’t say much about Rosa, just fully agree with you here. And then there’s Kyrie… where I also find it very difficult to understand why some people find her so awesome. Sure, superfically she comes across as clever and cool, but that’s about it. Her chessboard thinking is only being used as something Battler inherited from her and in actual logical discussions she is soon sidelined (not that Battler fares any better with it, given that he could only make use of it after Yasu’s motives were all but spelled out to him). And then come her continuous rants about envy from Episode 3 onwards. Yay! No faster way to ruin a ‘strong’ female character than by making her absurdly obsessed with a bad boy as generic as Rudolf! At best, she’s just a narcissistic sociopath who is eerily good at pretending to be a normal person, but at worst she’s just a more collected yandere stereotype. That’s why I couldn’t care less about her and that’s why I just shrugged when I learned that she’s the fucking real world killer.

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#24

(Full series spoilers?) I enjoy Umineko more as fantasy than mystery. It’s much more fun to me to imagine endless fragments, magic, and games than it is for me to work out the murders. Sorry, Beatrice. :sweating:

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#25

Hmm yeah in hindsight I should have, but I just wanted to put spoiler tags just in case people wanted to discuss other R07 works.

#26

I tend to waver around whether I prefer mystery or fantasy. Umineko is just a perfect mesh of the two.

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#27

Okay time for some unpopular Umineko opinions!

Full series spoilers

I hate Shannon. I have lots of mixed emotions about Yasu in general and I think people forgive her too fast considering she planned to murder innocent people with her just because she was miserable. Shannon is the ideal, extremed picture of woman Yasu has and can somehow be really irritating, and really not interesting as a seperate character and not a “persona who’s part of Yasu”.

Kinzo:

I love Kinzo. He’s a FANTASTIC character. He’s a piece of shit, and did awful unforgivable stuff, but he’s SO well built and explained and I think Ryukishi did fantastic work with his character development and building despite the awful things.

Battler:

Battler did nothing wrong. Yasu blaming him for not remembering her is selfish and just shoving the fault over Battler’s shoulders, who was only 12 years old kid who wanted to feel cool and didn’t know who was the person in front of him.
He has his own problems and life and went through a lot of shit and the way he deals with everything despite the emotional trauma and burden he goes through is reasonable. I love Battler and he deserves much more credit than he recieves.

EP8

I have a lot of problems with EP8. I think it was rushed and in a different “feeling” than the rest the episodes. I have a whole thread about it.

I have more opinions but I will have to remember which of them are considered unpopular lmao

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#28

I’m pretty confident that the third and the fourth ones are not unpopular opinions, heh.

#29

I was actually pretty surprised to see a lot of people Jusifying Yasu over Battler, so I wrote it here anyway.

As for EP8, I saw mixed opinions about it too so welp

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#30

Probably should have put ‘divisive’ instead of unpopular xD

#31

I would have to say that if those are your criticisms isn’t it better to reconstruct a valid theory where your problems are resolved then accept those conflicting points as truth?

#32

Huh…

Well, what you said about Natsuhi, you know, enduring the pressure from the siblings, Kinzo’s death and such, just make her seem more of a weaker person to me. I mean, sure, most would probably say that, like you, because it was shown to the audience why Natsuhi acts the way she does she works as a character and is justifiable and whatnot. Well, I don’t really care about that, I’m not drawn to a character who is unlikable to me after they lay a concrete groundwork concerning their psychological state, however well done it may be, I wouldn’t call it ‘good writing’ or whatever, I don’t define good writing with making a flawed character work and such, I’m not even that interested in characters to begin with. If I don’t like something, I don’t, no matter how well done it may be. Anyways, I just find Natsuhi even weaker now, which makes me dislike her more. But by saying that, I don’t mean to say that what I am saying about her should be embraced by everybody, I’m just voicing my thoughts. Same goes for what I said in this paragraph, concerning what I like in characters and what I define as good storytelling and such. Long story short, this is just my opinion on the matter and just another perspective on Natsuhi. So yeah, I won’t really counter back, cause like I said, I have my opinions and you have yours.

Eh, however much Jessica might be different in that department compared to Natsuhi (which I acknowledged by saying that she is a more free version of her mother), it still doesn’t disprove her being impulsive and hot-blooded to me. Maybe I didn’t phrase it right, what I mean by saying she’s the same as her mother is that whilst Jessica was at times shown to be smart, she is led too much by her emotions, which make her act in not a very smart way, same as her mother.

Well, family is very important to me and I am very close with mine, so some might say that I’m biased cause of that, but I think not. Yes, you can’t choose your family and I am very much against trying to act like you like some family member because you’re related, but still, you should be mature in your dealings with them. Like I said in my previous post, I think maturity is a combination of both intelligence and emotions and a mature person knows how to use and balance both, so yes, I think that the Ushiromiya family could be better written in that regard. And don’t mind me too much about still, uh, criticising the family members cause they’re lead by their heart, I just favour intelligence a lot and am also not willing to like something because it is explained properly or done well, I just go with my gut.

On another note, yes, I don’t like Shannon too much either, she’s very akin to Chick Beatrice personality-wise, being the ‘ideal’ woman and Sayo giving her traits of what an ‘ideal’ woman should be like, well, what would be considered ideal in past times anyways. Even George sees her that way, with him wanting her to be by his side and be his wife and care for their home and children and such, which is the only reason I’d disagree with George’s personality a bit. But, George is a very smart and mature person and wouldn’t treat a woman that way if she herself wanted to be like that, so it is partially Sayo’s fault.

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#33

If Sapphire no want debate, she get no debate. However if you look at it this way and maybe its not so bad. The “personalities” of the characters are constructs of the in-world authors to work their stories/games, other parts of Umineko explicitly state that the characters were probably more then what was presented.

#34

Yeah, maybe it’s because I agree with them, but I don’t feel like they are unpopular opinions, ahah.

About Shannon I don’t think that taken alone she’s a particularity good character. Her character and her romance with George are, to speak plainly, boring. (I could also say the same thing about Jessica/Kanon, by the way) She really became a much better character once the nature of the story became obvious and you realize she’s not a person, but rather a single aspect of a person, and her furniture complex represent a bunch of issues piled together.

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#35

(Kanon and Jessica) I don’t think the two of them could realistically be together. There are several points in the story that sort of hint to Jessica liking Kanon simply because he’s available/around her age and on Rokkenjima. I don’t think Jessica is capable of taking things seriously enough to ever really progress in a relationship with him.

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#36

I’m not sure how many of these are unpopular or not, but I am sure they are all at least controversial. I would say the uniting theme is that I don’t consider some of the things at the end of Umineko ep 7 as certain as other people, and I think Ryukishi at least wanted to leave certain possibilities that others have dismissed as either ruled out by the manga (which, to be fair, I have not yet read the relevant sections, only the original witch hunt translation of Chiru) or going against the spirit.

For example, in the ep 7 tea party, what we are being shown is the truth of Eva’s diary, colored by Eva’s interpretation and memories. She did not witness Kyrie and Rudolph conversations while she was not around, and she could not know what Kyrie was thinking. So in my interpretation of events, when Kyrie talks about ‘a woman’s freedom’ and is goading Eva with how little she cares about Angie now that Rudolph is dead, what looks to most readers like an amazingly over the top villain rant is, to me, the most selfless act of love in the series. Kyrie turned the chess board around, realized that Eva was going to gun her down, and decided to wear the ‘villain’ mask and ensure that Eva would adopt Angie and try to be a good mother to her by playing on her emotions as a grieving mother. It is brilliant, masterful, and utterly beautiful. A worthy death for one of the best characters.

Also, in Ep 8, I hold to the belief that Hachijo / Featherine are actually another personality of Yasu and Battler successfully stopped her from killing herself. Just randomly finding an eccentric, brilliant writer woman when Battler washed ashore, and the whole amnesia thing, seems just way to convenient and unlikely to me. I know others strongly disagree because of what it implies about Battler not really returning Ange’s love or coming to her rescue in her time of need, but then again being oblivious to some really ugly and terrible crap that isn’t thrust in his face is in my opinion one of Battler’s defining traits.

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#37

I came to a similar conclusion for EP7, though to me it does sound like wishful thinking because I really like Kyrie. Still, considering her reaction to Battler being her blood relative in the manga, it’s hard to see how Kyrie just plain doesn’t care about her kin. It makes more sense when we consider that perhaps she realized her gun was filled with blanks and she had no chance now that Eva had the drop on her (however it is clear in the manga that at least one of the victims, Genji, was killed with a gunshot to the head, so perhaps this isn’t likely). Additionally she seemed pleased when Eva told her she would lie to Ange about all this and the story made a point of withholding her last words. I think there are merits to this theory. I don’t think this is anywhere near a selfless act of love though (that would have been, you know, not committing mass murder). It simply makes her slightly less of a monster. A ruthless plan ensuring that even if the worst comes to pass, she would still have successfully manipulated Eva into sacrificing herself for Kyrie’s daughter.

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#38

Yeah, selfless was probably too strong a word on my part. It’s definitely a sacrifice, though. As for the couple’s guilt, well… Even by Eva’s account, they only opened fire well after things had gone to hell in the gold room. With siblings gunning each-other down right in front of them, the two deciding to go full ‘system zero’ is, well, I can forgive the things that they did in the gold room as necessary to survive. Especially since I don’t believe they murdered Shannon/Beato/Yasu after Eva lost consciousness. What happened with the kids afterwards I have no idea. Clearly something happened between Rudolph and George. That could be anything from the murder Eva’s diary suggested, to a paranoid George jumping the gun, to a friendly fire incident when the seven stakes of purgatory attacked. But Jessica and Maria, who knows what happened there.

Since you have read the manga, given that Yasu was in full first-twilight-setup mode when things went bad, do you think it’s possible Genji was simply playing dead when Eva saw him, or is it more explicit than that?

#39

The shot I’m talking about is shown while Battler and Yasu was escaping. Before the bomb goes off, we see every victim as the clock strikes 12. It’s possible that Genji was playing dead if we were to judge the scene purely visually, though I don’t think that’s plausible. Either Kyrie and Rudolf would have come to the conclusion that there is another killer on the island (or make sure he died for real, Erika style) or Genji would have realized what was going on, got up and try to stop them or something (or maybe he’s enough of a furniture that he will just follow the last order given and lay dead until told otherwise). Either way, I don’t think he was faking it, if only because there was no hint indicating that was the case that I could see.

Personally, I believe Episode 7’s version of what happened for the most part. Since the truth we got was written by Eva, literally anything could have happened if one does not trust Eva’s version (and perhaps there is an argument to be made that Eva could not have possibly seen everything since she was unconscious through most of it). Certainly it was possible, but without hints or clues to the contrary that I can see, I choose to take the book of the one truth at face value.

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#40

Should bring up your theories in detail in a thread to discuss

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#41

The Umineko and Higurashi mangas are more readable works than the original visual novels.

Umineko Episode 4 is the most heartbreaking part of the series.

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