Yes, a very fun thread indeed. (Definitely not posting just for the sake of trying get it the witch rank.)
Eh, I don’t even know where to find that video and considering it’s old, it may even be tougher to find and besides, I can’t be bothered to watch a lengthy video just to learn of the theory. But, if you don’t feel like explaining it to me, it’s totally fine and if anybody else cares to explain it to me, they’d be welcome to.
@ColdKakeraDrifter Post around as much as you want, but please don’t make my posts the basis of such random posts.
@sii_kei Um, I don’t think it’s necessary to spoiler tag that image, unless I’m missing something here…
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To be completely honest, is not that I don’t wanna explain it, it’s just that it’s a theory so big I would need to watch those 8 hours all over again to properly point out its stuff.
If you want a short version, it’s pretty much that Rosa is a problematic person who wants the gold, hates the family and solved the epitaph by herself, and with the help of George, who wanted to marry Shannon, started some kind of conspiracy to take down the whole family.
I’ve watched it some years ago, so I don’t quite remember all of the things, but I did made a document with many arguments against the things composing most of the logic and reasonment behind the whole thing (at some point he even ignores any metafictional plot points related to the storytelling and narrative traps as well, EP6 is a complete nitpicking mess in a sense too).
In any case, I wouldn’t be able to detail every single thing without a rewatch, that’s the thing. The videos were very, very well made besides their sometimes blatant mistakes.
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Gosh reading this thread brings back all the memories of animesuki and /jp/~
Rosatrice, Moon, Pony… just gosh.
Anyone remember the Moon MAD?
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To be honest I haven’t bothered to watch the whole theory myself. Too much time.
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It’s really exactly as @sii_kei and @danpmss said …also that’s strange to think we were all probably on the same boards talking about Umineko so long ago.
The memes back then were really fun and wild too, though nowadays I wouldn’t find all of them in good taste as a 15-16 year old me might, haha. (The Oh Desire! vid is still perfect. Yami wo Kirisaku load this dryer)
ahem
The only thing I can remember really strongly in regard to theories was Shkanontrice being really popular and at odds with Rosatrice. As danpmss said, by EP6 Shkanontrice was pretty much strongly implied canon and then EP7 confirmed it, and left a lot of people with either team Rosatrice or other theories with a bitter taste in their mouth; but that being said as the story progressed it was really more clear who was right - I think they just didn’t want to accept that.
Also alot of people hated Erika and there was probably “Erika is a Mary Sue” thread everyday or was continuing everyday, until EP6 came out. Also, Bernkastel actually expressing a range of emotions was like a huge hype and reveal, and everyone was having fun looking at her new expressive sprites. 
The usage of Ryukishi’s original sprites for reaction faces and memes was what made it super popular I think. Because Beatrice’s original “troll smile” was so similar to the troll face meme at the time, it just took off. Battler crying was the perfect seasoning to go along with Beatrice’s troll smile. And also it was a meme that his hand never left his pocket despite sobbing and screaming, haha.
I can’t remember but using red and blue, and eventually gold text was a thing for a while on /jp/ I believe, but I might honestly be imagining that - but I could have sworn something like that was implemented for a short while.
Mostly it was the same as how it is when we get new readers here, but a lot more wild and no one around to know how it ends or know there is even a set ending, giving an air of a lot more freedom/wildness to explore. Some people definitely had the skills to solve the epitaph and the story before EP4 looking back, but they had no way to confirm if it was true or not.
I agree that they really were the most fun times I’ve ever had with a fandom and even it’s extending to now on Rokkenjima! I also hope this happens with WTC5, at least the good parts overall as it was with Umineko. The fire never really came back with Higanbana or Rose Guns Days, or even Trianthology.
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Eh, thanks for finding it, but like I said, I can’t be bothered to watch such a lengthy video.
Same here.
whistles Past me doesn’t admit a thing… nu-uh.
I know what you mean. Some of them still hold the test of time, though.
There was marten on Deviantart (I think back then she was called Shroedinger) who had an entire Umineko gallery full of funny fanarts and memes such as this one:
Then there was the uminekolol livejournal which made fun of trashy anime, the USO DA! 4-panel comic, and the following classic:
Back on MyAnimeList we also had quite the community (only the novel readers, I am afraid; the anime-only viewers had quite the hatred against the series) and we created a club called Umineko Popularity Contests (I was one of the admins). The group used to hold all sorts of contests (Best character, best BGM, best episode etc.), but we gave up sometime before Chiru was released.
Edit: I forgot, but way before Rosatrice, Rosa used to be called BEST MOM EVER.
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YES OMG. I remember marten/Schroedinger so much, like all her art was shared like wildfire!! I’m pretty sure I have like a file folder from 2010 just full of her Umineko meme art. I literally always think about the personality meme whenever someone talks about Sayo, lol
Also I watch How Battler Stole Witchmas every …Christmas Witchmas with my friends, lol it’s like a time honored tradition from back in the days.
I didn’t go on myanimelist so much sadly, but BEST MOM EVER and Mom of the Year was definitely Rosa’s titles for a long time.
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God, this video still is such a great gem even after so long, what an absolute classic hahaha <3
For the anime we also had the DameDame subs mocking everything they could from the whole fandom with fake subs for the anime (too bad they stopped at Episode 10).
Not sure if I can link a download folder of it in here (don’t quite remember if there are any rules against this), but here it is:
DameDame Umineko
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My experience with any community interaction was with a few Steam groups back around 2011-2012. I knew that it was pretty big on 4chan back then too. What was most curious back then was that the English version of the manga had 1-3 published I think, and by some odd miracle (heh), my high school was stocked with every volume and I had gotten to get more enthralled with it. The PS3 patch came out by then but it was really cool to first get to see the amazing manga illustrations of some of the Question arcs before getting the voice acting and music. Rosatrice was a hot topic back then but I was much too focused on becoming a living Super Saiyan instead of trying to debate an 8-hour video like that guy back then made lmao. Nowadays, not too sure how much theorizing there is, but I don’t think it’s as fervent as it was back even five years ago; Umineko was even considered pretty old by that point too. Hopefully people still debate whether Lion has a dong or not till the end of time.
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Eh, the 2010-2012 period was crazy, though it kinda got bad toward the end, especially when it came to theorizing stuff, it started to become a contest on how much you could twist the red to make it fit your theory. The period immediately after Ep. 6’s release was also awful, for what I remember, I think the fandom peaked with Ep.5 overall.
I always wonder if a new WTC would be able to recreate it, or Umineko was lighting in a bottle.
Yeah, Rosatrice was created because some people couldn’t accept/disliked the solution so yeah, it only took the current form after EP8. Before that it was just one of the many theories, like Moon-chan or Kanzo.
These days it’s basically Umineko’s equivalent of “Squall was dead” or the “Indoctrination Theory”.
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I remember hearing that a certain red truth concerning either Nanjo or Gohda (I forget) completely destroyed the Rosatrice theory, and the KnowNoMore dude refused to acknowledge it. I could be remembering completely incorrectly but does anyone remember what it was? If it was a thing that is.
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Oh and lets not forget the Batman!Eva fanart right after EP7 released. Oh man.
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How did I miss this thread omg!
Aside for @danpmss kind of summerizing the big parts of how it was, I will try to think of some more stuff that were spicy and interesting!
I joined this fandom around the time EP5’s translation came out. The little time before every episode was released was precious, because we always recieved the portrait of that episode, the title, and eventually fake screenshots started flowing in and you had to guess whether it’s real or not. It was part of the fun, until the part where you had to wait 5-6 months for translation, escaping the spoilers as much as you can.
Few things I remember really well from that time:
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When Erika’s portrait was out, people started guessing maybe it’s Asumu, Asumu’s Battler, or anything else. Bonus point: people once started theorizing Erika is Maria’s rose I shit you not.
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When recieving screenshots of Zepar and Furfur, and later on Clair, Bice and young Kinzo, people were SURE it’s fake, we were shocked when it wasn’t LOL
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When EP7 portrait came out the art-tags of Will and Lion on Pixiv were “Cliff-san” and “Itomimizu” (some kind of a red worm because of the red streak he has). People got it pretty fast.
One of the best parts though, were reading and taking part in theories. By the time of the end of EP6 I was still SOOOO anti Shkanon. I actually worked really hard to explain how it can be possible without it by then.
Aside for Moon-chan and Shkanontrice danpmss mentioned, I remember a theory I liked called “Fusiontrice” (where Shannon and Kanon are seperate but both play Beatrice’s role, it was brilliant, I can search it!), or crack theories like “Gohda poisoned everyone” and “Teatrice” or “Kawabata did it, he murders them, and then goes back to the boat so he’s not counted on the island”, or “Asumu is alive and killed Kyrie”. Honestly, sometimes the line between crack theories and real theories was so thin because people put so much effort in it.
The “Pony theory, I want to believe” and the amount of memes running all the time were amazing. I actually still have exclusive Schroedinger comics and art he posted on theards in 4chan and never posted on his Deviantart.
In general, while reading passively on Animesuki, I think the best threads I enjoyed taking part in were in /jp/ on 4chan. I still can’t believe to this day that people solved the Epitaph after EP5 (they realized Kinzo’s hometown is Taiwan because someone mentioned a food he likes from Taiwan for like ONE TIME). It was crazy, when I read the solution in EP7 I was like “HOLY SHIT they were right!!!” (Also nick named “Taiwan theory”)
I also had tons of theories myself, revised theories I could argue about, and meeting people through this fandom was my favorite thing. Some of my best friends to this day are people I met through this fandom. There WAS a lot of toxic, sure, but Umineko isn’t something anyone can read. It’s long and requires something from you, so there WAS some kind of a filter on people. The good side of the fandom was totally worth it.
By the time EP8 came out I already had solid theories and pretty much every time someone was exposed it was me yelling “I FUCKING CALLED IT” out loud. I think I was most proud about the fact there were blank bullets in Prime Yasu mixed up and played “Russian roullette”. I can still find somewhere on Tumblr I wrote it back in 2011 and I never read it anywhere else, so I was super proud I reached it myself.
There was a lot of hate too. Hating on Shkanontrice confirmed, hating on the gender issue, a lot of Yasutrice VS Rosatrice at some point (mainly 2013~ I think), and a lot a lot more. But even with all the shit going around, I was just so happy the fandom is still alive. One of the reasons this forum makes me so happy is because it gives me a feeling of a bit of the “simulator” it was back then. Sure, the fandom is less lively than it was before, but people “keep” Umineko with them. Not long ago I opened a thread in 4chan about Umineko and it was like watching everyone reviving back to comment, it was charming.
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I remember people thought Erika was another ally for Battler! All those fanart showing her a moe girl being all soft and then we finally see her and everything just broke.
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When I said above that it was knowledged that Shkannon was the canon, I didn’t quite entered in detail describing the pure chaos and denial 4chan became from EP6 and above (even if everything only exploded for good just after the release of EP8).
Say that everybody was like “ok, that’s the solution, the end” it’s a bit too naive of a description haha
After all, there was an actual war in there and nobody let anyone confirm anything until the manga came by and explicitly pointed the shit out of Shkannon (even though everything was in the VN, but welp).
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I assume that Ryukishi not explaining the ‘howdunnits’ in as much detail as people expected wasn’t very well received.
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Eh, this sounds very similar to my experience, down to reading Animesuki and taking part of /jp/ (and /a/, Umineko was everywhere) threads and being anti-Shkanontrice when Ep. 6 came out lol.
I actually have some /jp/ Umineko threads from 2010 bookmarked, Episode 7 reactions to Yasu were… quite something.
Yeah, though Episode 8 got most of the hate rather than Episode 7, because people were expecting it to clear the issue people had with 7’s answers.
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