Umineko Episode 1 - Full Series Spoilers General

[Aspirety]

Spoilers discussion topic for Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch of Umineko When They Cry. Episode 1 refers to volumes 1 and 2 of the manga, and episodes 1-5 of the anime series.

This topic is intended for people who have finished the entirety of Umineko and wish to discuss this Episode in light of future events. For those who have yet to finish Umineko in its entirety, please tread carefully, because there will be untagged spoilers! Please tag references to outside works with the [spoiler] tag, with adequate context provided in parenthesis.

For those who have yet to finish the series and wish to discuss the story up to this point, please visit our Spoiler-Free General Discussion Topic.

While this topic will serve as a general hub for discussion of the Episode, if a conversation ends up flowing in a certain direction, don’t be afraid to continue it in your own topic! Keep the “reply as linked topic” button beside each post in mind.

[MrDent]

Alright, so Ryuukishi’s original plan for Natsuhi and Gohda was for them to be having an affair, and, according to the manga, it’s possible that still may be the case. I’d like to think it’s not, considering Aunt Natsuhi is Pure and Chaste, but rereading Episode 1… Ryukishi’s original intention is fairly clear.

[LadyRevan]

EP1 really is indeed an EP radically different from all the others. The magic hasn’t been truly introduced yet, which both makes it the most straight-forward of the EPs, and the one standing out from the others as a true gameboard as it would be witnessed from ‘inside’.

It gives us the proper time to get to know the cast of (already considerable) characters; it starts off, as others have mentioned, slice-of-life-y, but you quickly start realizing things won’t stay all suns and daisies for long when the argument over the inheritance comes up in full.

And that is before letters arrive and bodies start dropping.

But god yes, as Karifean said, once you know The Truth, it becomes so incredibly obvious as to what is really going on–but to me, that only makes rereading it more fascinating.

So, I finally started my reread in earnest with a light bit of two-hour reading. Annnnnd, herewego! /Mario

Kinzo and BEATORIIIIIIIIIIICHEEEEEE! And awesome OP. Man, I forgot that Battler straight-up talks about his dad’s masturbation habits to Kyrie and her keeping that shit in line. WHAT EVEN, BATTLER.

Speaking of, somehow I never realized until just now how incredibly convenient it is for Kyrie that Ange stayed behind this conference. After all, as far as she knows, it’s only Ange that’s her biological child, so it’s only her she’d bother to protect from the killings to come. Though iirc she did once say she never loved Ange and only saw her as a way to bind Rudolf to her (but I guess that’d still mean she’d have an interest in keeping her alive), and it does imply it being fully premeditated even before even arriving on the island, unlike the clusterfuck we saw in EP7, for example. Could she have somehow found the gold the previous year, and then started making her plans for the next conference? Hmm…

I’m occasionally switching to the new sprites to check them, and holy crap, Maria’s eyes are absolutely ENORMOUS when she’s first introduced. I do kind of like her new sprite overall, though.

Oh, I forgot that hope played at the beginning. Always loved that song since I heard all the variations of it from Higurashi, to the point I actually learned to play it on the piano <3

Did that last line tug at anyone else’s heartstrings as well, considering, y’know… Maria? ;;

When Rudolf, Kyrie and Battler talk about Battler not wanting to be like his parents, and Rudolf saying he’s already pissed Battler’s nose looks like his… I was looking at the new sprites, and holy shit, but Battler’s nose looks almost identical to Kyrie’s. It’s actually reasonably apparent in the original sprites too; I’d never noticed it before.

“Uu-. Battler, all weak.”
“Yeah, Battler, all weak… I wanna die on land, not in the ocean or the sky…”

Aha. Ahaha. Ahahahahahaha. Yeah. ;____;

Loved the scene with Maria and misfortune, and, of course, “Uu-.”

And when they’ve finally arrived on Rokkenjima, I can’t help but appreciate the slow introduction of the island, how we’re led through it, almost as if it’s a character in its own right. The whole bit with the rose garden, Maria’s sadness for that one wilting rose, and hope playing throughout. I find it a really sweet scene.

Cue Kanon arriving, and him being introduced to Battler. Christ, all the little things in this scene, Kanon’s extreme silence even for him, his not wanting to give his age, his having trouble lifting the heavy fertilizer… And after Battler picks up the fertilizer in his stead, is Kanon’s stuttering a bit of Shannon shining through?

What must Sayo have felt during, and especially after this scene, after her thousand-year torture? “Quick, I must go change, he must remember Shannon, he must remember me, he must remember her, of course he’d remember her–”

The cousins all joking around and everyone being kind to each other in the guest house for once is so bittersweet, knowing what’s to come. I love all the little foreshadowing that’s being thrown around, though. If you know The Truth, all of it really smacks you in the face.

Battler, you are a dick and I hate you. ;;

We meet Shannon for the first time, and basically the first thing that’s (non-verbally, but nevertheless) said to her is ‘you’ve fucked up’. Poor girl. That entire scene is so damn tense, with basically everything that’s said darkening the atmosphere. Thank god for Rudolf and Hideyoshi having mercy on Shannon, tbh. And Kanon, for restoring some of her courage afterwards.

just kidding lol that scene is fucking heartbreaking as I suspect all scenes that involve some combo of shannon/kanon/beato will be from now on. And oh, that foreshadowing. ‘…Truly, the Master is a man with many sins on his conscience… Why didn’t he realize that such a trifling whim of his would give the Madam such an inferiority complex?’

Rereading Battler then meeting Shannon again broke my heart a little. I have so much love for Sayo, and to think of what she must be going through in this scene, especially when he’s jokingly going for her breasts… (speaking of which, jesus christ her boobs are enormous with the new sprites. You’re overdoing the stuffing, Sayo. But otoh HOLY SHIT IT WAS WORTH READING THAT PART THROUGH WITH THE NEW SPRITES FOR BATTLER’S FACE THERE OH MY GOD) The fact that he just doesn’t remember their time together at all makes me want to smack him.

Dammit, Battler.

DAMMIT, BATTLER.

And that’s where I’m gonna leave it for tonight, because I’d really underestimated the feels certain parts of this were going to give me…

[Aspirety]

To keep the Episode 1 topic as spoiler-free as possible, I’ve opted to add this topic for veterans to the series to express their thoughts freely.

I’d love to see attempts made here to solve every single mystery.

[LadyRevan]

Man, thank you for creating this topic. Terribly sorry about all the spoilers in my post, I just couldn’t manage to contain my Sayo feels. Guess now I can easily splurge those over here and keep everything else nice and tidy in the other topic

[Aspirety]

Feel free to untag your spoilers here

[LadyRevan]

Oh yes, I guess I’ll go and change my post from the massive blur it is now

[sii_kei]

Rereading Ep 1 isn’t actually that fun anymore when you know the answer, as you lose that desire to pay attention to every little detail. Plus, it does feel like the beginning drags on for too long - I can only imagine that if Umineko was a printed book and not a visual novel, some scenes that set the mood and introduce the characters would have been shortened or omitted entirely by the editor (which is kind of what happened in the manga). Higurashi had the same pacing problems, but I do remember Ryu improving in RGD.

However, there are some amazing hidden gems in Ep 1… such as Battler saying he’d love to grab Beatrice by the collar only hours after grabbing Kanon by the collar. Or Shannon not protesting against her boobs being touched by Battler. Or Kanon refusing to say his age. Or Kanon crying when they found the First Twilight victims because George was crying for his lost love. Or Eva trying to spoon-feed Battler with the answer to the mystery. (Damn you, Ryukishi! Way to troll your readers!)

And the stench from Kinzo’s room! Never really paid attention to it on the first read, but now that I know that’s where they kept Kinzo’s corpse… brrr!
(Speaking of which, was Jessica aware of him being dead? Some scenes - such as her being very reluctant to enter the study - might suggest so.)

It’s so curious to me how my feelings from the first read differ so much from my feelings now. It’s not just the fact that it’s been years since reading Ep1, but Umineko itself is a series designed with this purpose.

[Aspirety]

Or Kanon refusing to say his age

I’m still confused why he did that. Could you explain for me?

[sii_kei]

Well, Sayo is actually 19, right? But as Kanon, she is posing as a 16 year-old boy - exposing the body she feels so vulnerable in, the body that was supposed to grow healthily, but didn’t. Contrast that with Battler, who’s 18 (thus younger), but quite tall and imposing. Besides, Battler seems to consider Kanon a very frail 16 y/o anyway and while he doesn’t mean any harm by helping him with his work, he does make Kanon feel very helpless.
So it’s not just Sayo meeting Battler for the first time in 6 years and getting flustered… but realizing just how much of a shadow she is compared to Battler and feeling conflicted by how Battler automatically assumes Kanon is a young, inexperienced boy, judging by the physical aspect.

[Aspirety]

I’m gonna pose here, the same question I posed to the spoiler-free chat. Answer the mysteries.

Only, these questions are specifically directed at people who haven’t yet read the Manga, which provides answers to all of these mysteries. If you read the VN and haven’t reached that point in the manga yet, then you’re fit to answer these questions.

First Twilight: How were the six in the storehouse killed?

Second Twilight: How were Eva and Hideyoshi killed?

Fifth Twilight: How was Kanon killed?

Who placed the letter on the table in the study?

Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Twilights: How were Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo killed in the parlor?

Ninth Twilight: How did Natsuhi die?

To supplement these, I’ll be providing the relevant red. These are from the original translation, so if anyone can provide the updated scirpt, I’ll gladly take them.

[color=red]Kinzo is already dead at the starting time for all games!

No more than 17 humans exist on this island!!
That excludes any 18th person.
In short, this 18th person X does not exist!!
This applies to all games!!![/color]

Regarding the second twilight:
Both were killed by another person!
It is not the case that, after the construction of the closed room, one of them committed suicide after committing murder!
Furthermore, the murder was carried out with both the victim and the perpetrator in the same room!
No method exists for the perpetrator to commit murder from outside the room!

Regarding the fifth twilight:
All of the survivors have alibis! Let us include the dead as well!! In short, no kind of human or dead person on the island could have killed Kanon!
Kanon did not commit suicide
Kanon did not die in an accident!

Regarding the sixth, seventh and eighth twilights:
Maria, who was in the same room, did not kill them!
And of course, the three were killed by other people!
Regarding the unidentified corpses, all of their identities are guaranteed. Therefore, no body double tricks exist!

Regarding Natsuhi’s death:
[color=red]Natsuhi was killed by another person!
There are no unidentified corpses, and all of the survivors have alibis!
The bullet buried into Natsuhi’s forehead was not fired from Natsuhi’s gun!

The thing that shot Natsuhi wasn’t a trap, it was a real shooting murder with a gun raised and trigger pulled!
[/color]

And regarding Episode 1 in general:
The identities of all unidentified corpses are guaranteed
Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo are not killers.

And I believe this should include Episode 1 too:
The only one who can claim Kanon’s name is the person himself!
A different person cannot claim his name!

[Renall]

Let me propose an alternative that might be harder to dislodge than you think:

Illusion to illusion: Nobody died in Legend until the very end. Everybody but Battler was in on it. The red’s not much of an obstacle since it can demonstrably refer to things that are only in the “script,” so to speak; besides which, I don’t see any red in the text of Legend. I think it actually hurts the official explanation more to attempt to use the red than not, even.

Before you dismiss the matter out of hand, consider:

• Battler’s defense of Kinzo is absurd, isn’t it? Eva says as much repeatedly, and she never actually accepts his argument. Everybody agrees to dismiss things after Jessica’s convenient “asthma attack,” and Eva tells Battler to think about it again.
• Did Hideyoshi know George was going to ask about the ring? In fact, how could Hideyoshi be sure of anything that George might say or do even if we assume Shannon told him about meeting with George? Is George’s proposal the only explanation for why he and Shannon might have left the guesthouse? Was George being ordered not to come in more for George’s sake or for Battler’s?
• Would Eva and Hideyoshi be willingly complicit in what they believed to be actual murders? And if they were, why in the world would they isolate themselves knowing there’s a murderer about and that the Second Twilight had yet to happen? It’s like a dumb decision out of the second act of a murder mystery or slasher film and not the rational decision of free-thinking people. So is Natsuhi just allowing them to leave. So is Eva making it explicit to everyone in the room that they’re going to be using a chain lock on their door.
• Does the official explanation actually explain the logistics of the Second Twilight? Is explaining the chain lock the difficult part of this sequence? This is one area where the red causes more trouble than it solves.
• What exactly is the deal with Jessica? If she’s not in on it, why does she keep acting like someone with information that would only be known by someone who was totally in on it? Why did she have an attack at the exact point where Battler had turned the Kinzo thing around on Eva and Hideyoshi? If she’s in on it, and Maria’s in on it, is it not more likely that George is in on it? And if all the cousins are in on it… well, why?
• The sound of gunfire sure was noticeable there at the end, huh? Hey speaking of which: How were all these supposed murders committed again? Don’t explain the puzzle, explain the physical act.
• Does Beatrice really take risks? Is she actually as fickle as she claims to be? Is the Devil’s Roulette, dare I say it, rigged?
• Think about End and Dawn. Just… just think about them.

[Karifean]

I made a screenshot-centered writeup of my impressions, reactions and understanding of this episode, for anyone interested: Google Doc.

[Aspirety]

EDIT: Just finished reading the entire thing. An hour or two slipped me by, this must’ve taken a long time to make, but it was well worth the wait. One of the best summaries of Episode 1 I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading! Certainly the best on this forum.

All Umineko veterans should take the time to look this over. I believe Karifean has latched on to many of these ‘treasure chests’ @UsagiTenpura promised us earlier. Fantastic stuff.

The only thing I’m having difficulty justifying is the use of a gun to commit the murders from the 2nd twilight onwards. Is it really that easy to hide the sound of gunfire from one of those Winchesters in a mansion?

[WitchOfGames]

You would actually be fairly surprised how dim the sound of a shotgun going off can sound if you’re a good distance away from the area where it goes off. I regularly go with my family to a gun club out in the backwoods that I would assume to be smaller than the Ushiromiya mansion, and even if you sit in one area with no ear protection, it’s very hard to hear the larger guns going off. Granted, there aren’t many things constituting walls out there, but the sound of the gun going off would have to travel upstairs for the group to hear it (and most likely, they were too wrapped up in discussing the epitaph to pay attention, since the party should have also heard Eva and Hideyoshi getting killed as well but the main party didn’t hear it.)

[Renall]

The only thing I’m having difficulty justifying is the use of a gun to commit the murders from the 2nd twilight onwards. Is it really that easy to hide the sound of gunfire from one of those Winchesters in a mansion?

No, it’s almost unthinkable. The one time a gun actually does go off in Legend it’s fairly unmistakable, and if we assume there would be multiple gunshots (as there would have to be for there to be two victims), it becomes increasingly unlikely.

“They weren’t paying attention” isn’t a good enough explanation for me to swallow. I’d want more textual support as to why they wouldn’t pay attention, or why it wouldn’t be reasonable for them to have heard anything considering they later do hear something just fine (admittedly from a closer point, but they’re still many rooms away with at least one obstruction between them and the source of the sound).

More likely is there were no gunshots.

EDIT: Also just to dovetail Karifean’s stuff and not to rip him or indeed basically anyone who likes doing this, but what makes people so sure that “Yasu” exists as a character in Yasu’s own stories? I find it particularly unfair when people say things like “Dammit, Battler, you’re so dense” when discussing a fake, fictional Battler written by the very person you’re supposed to sympathize with who is also the avatar of the author of the story. Like no shit Battler is dense if Yasu’s sole expectation was that he didn’t remember, but that isn’t real; it’s Character-Battler interacting with Character-Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice, and I don’t think we can say there is a 1:1 correspondence between the two (moreso with Battler obviously, since one presumes the author knows more about her own creations than another real person).

People have a distressing tendency to ignore that this is in-universe fiction (double super-secret mega emphasis on fiction) and I worry it allows them to be manipulated to certain conclusions that alter perception of the story as a whole. Like wow Yasu’s personal characters are sympathetic in a story she herself wrote, no really, fascinating.

Again not trying to rip people on it, it’s not an invalid reading, but I feel as though it is incomplete unless we understand the greater emotional tragedy here, that Yasu’s expectations for Battler were so low pre-incident that she had essentially no faith in his ability to figure out what was really going on; expectations, I would note, that were more likely than not confounded by whatever “true” Battler actually did show up (to such extent as we know him from Tohya and the boat scene in EP8).

[Aspirety]

Then how does one go about putting holes in Eva and Hideyoshi’s skulls?

[Renall]

Then how does one go about putting holes in Eva and Hideyoshi’s skulls?

There weren’t any.