unsure if this is the place to post, but is it possible to reach ryukishi himself? i’d like to have a conversation with him.
So would I, but I don’t think he just has conversations with fans under normal circumstances… Not out of cruelty, but just because he would get swamped otherwise.
yeah thats what i pretty much thought… he at least seems to appreciate his fans though
That’s true. I’ve personally never heard about him being mean to a fan.
im reading episode 2 atm, its kind of confusing. how shannon kanon and beatrice all seem to have different views even though they technically are the same person. also how in the end its embellished with kanon and shannon fighting for their love against beatrice, which i interpreted as being a conflict within yasus mind .then in the end, both the lovers dying together made it seem like maybe she wanted to seal their love inside the catbox by this story. is this right?
Some complaints, kinda, about Umineko that I have to get off my chest. They’re not exactly overly dramatic they’re just… things I view as flaws I guess.
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The whole thing about Battler really being Kyrie’s son. That kind of thing is not inherently bad to me, I just feel like it never really leads anywhere. In most stories something like this would’ve been a crucial part of the story and play an important role. In Umineko it’s just “there” and achieved nothing but allowing for a semantic battle in arc4 that probably could’ve occurred nonetheless without it being the truth.
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Kanon and Jessica. I really get the point of Kanon in the Yasu character, that’s not my debate there. I’m not talking about the validity of Kanon, but rather of the relationship of Kanon and Jessica, including the whole Kanon vs Shannon duel. The love triangle thing is already established and functional with George and Battler, more then that is very unnecessary at least normally. Yasu loves Battler, Battler vanishes, heartbroken Yasu eventually gets closer to George instead, and their relationship develops. However Battler comes back and Yasu still haven’t gotten rid of her feelings toward him. That’s enough. There doesn’t need to be a third player that Jessica is. It’s really pointless in that aspect. The one aspect where it does make sense is that it revolves around Yasu’s gender identity issues. In a way it’s almost like “Am I Kanon or Shannon” and If Shannon then would I go with George or Battler. It probably could’ve worked out that way but I feel like it was never really established or handled properly. Ultimately Jessica’s kinda just there and Kanon has a far bigger role as an imaginary friend of Yasu then as a potential “male version of Yasu” in her gender identity crisis. It’s not inherently flawed, but the execution of this was pretty flawed yes. Basically what I’m getting at is that the entire gender identity confusion issue was ultimately pointless as it never really got explored by the story itself. It often feels like it’s one true purpose was to make Yasu a girl who cannot get pregnant and well that is not entirely necessary to come with a huge gender identity thing atop. It really feels to me like Ryuukishi wanted this to lead somewhere but never really got to it.
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Rosa’s backstory with meeting Beatrice in Kuwadorian. The story itself is fine, that’s not where my problem is. We’re at least lead to believe that arc3 has been authored by someone else then Yasu, namely Battler (Tohya) working with Ikuko. I can grasp that Genji would’ve told Yasu about Rosa’s meeting with Beatrice or something along those lines, but the information concerning this has no real reason to land on the lap of Battler. Especially if his memories of october 4-5 are vague supposedly. We’re kinda lead to assume that somehow he learned of that truth in october 4-5, as well as many other things like Yasu being really Natsuhi’s adopted child that fell off a cliff 19 years ago, but we don’t really have any … like confirmation of this. The whole “he somehow knows it so she must’ve told him and she definitively told him the truth” just sound kinda bad to me. I get that Ryuukishi wanted to avoid talking about “prime” but ultimately I’m left thinking that these kind of truths actually suggest Yasu may have authored more then just arc 1-2, but in the end we never will really know. Ultimately if the truth about Rosa and Beatrice (and Lion as well I guess, and even Bice) all comes from … “Someone told Genji, who then told Yasu about it, who then told Battler about it, who had massive memory loss about the days during which he learned it and blurred memories” well allow me to very much doubt the reliability of all of it. Ultimately it comes down to us having information that is presented as being certain, that we do not know where it comes from, and the only trail we can really imagine it would come from is ridiculously hard to seriously trust. I ultimately think this may be a greater weakness then the two former points I bought up. The other two were things about unnecessary elements in the story considering how they were used, but I can at least chalk it up to how in life sometimes things don’t really lead anywhere, but this is just kinda bad writing to me. It sorta almost feels like ryuukishi just didn’t really think about that point in the end.
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That’s essentially how I understand it. Beatrice represented the part of Yasu that wanted to go through with the “Rokkenjima Massacre”. Hence, she has Shannon destroy the mirror, which actually meant to test the bomb on the shrine in preparation.
The sealing of the catbox is key to the whole story. The love exists at the point of Oct 4th/5th, and Yasu feels that eventually upon learning the truth George/Jessica will no longer accept her. By blowing up everyone, the love remains eternal.
Edit: Just want to add that the early portions of episode 2 really provide a large portion of the culprit’s motive. It’s just difficult to understand that with the knowledge you have at that point. This is one of the things I really love about Umineko. Upon first reading, I found these scenes quite boring and redundant, but on a reread I really appreciate them and see their value.
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you know its kinda funny how, if you go rewatch the whole thing, a lot of the answers have actually been already answered by the characters themselves.
“what, you trying to say some servant dressed as beatrice to fool maria”
“all the servants are making up this story and those two are just hiding”
“oh right, if there was someone who jessica would let it, it would be kanon and shannon.”
“clearly all the servants are in this whole locked room prank.”
Goatsreadingseacats blog really points out all the times Ryukishi provides answers really early in the series.
I remember when I was about halfway through everything, I thought it was a shame that such an amazing piece of fiction would be dismissed by so many based on it’s form. I was annoyed that if I got friends to read it, they would probably look down upon early scenes of Battler being obsessed with breasts and wanting to squeeze them. I remember thinking I wish that wasn’t in there as it would be an easier sell without the perversion.
Little did I know, that even that character aspect is important. There is the scene early on where after commenting on squeezing multiple character’s breasts, he comes across Shannon and does the same. Jessica prevents him, which would in turn allows all the events to happen. Battler would have discovered the padding. I could be mistaken but I believe Ryukishi even said in an interview that had Shannon would have allowed Battler to touch them, since she was resounded to fate. The Shannon/Kanon identity would have been revealed. Crazy to think that sexual harassment would have prevented the entire massacre…
one of the core things really is how several of the murder mysteries arent actually fool proof and also rely on chance.
particularly you got the chain locked rooms from ep 3. if the adults had gone into any other room, or if they proceeded to continue after kanon just to double check, then it would have been over.
Yes, definitely. I like how she set it up to minimize that risk though. The first room was less accessible than the 6th room. Thus after discovering the first room, they were unlikely to go back there.
I really enjoy Rokkenjima Prime, because what actually happened seems the most realistic. None of the murder mystery games actually happen and the adults end up in a gun fight over the gold.
not really, remember that it was circular in nature. if they had went backwards first, then they’d get that room that would reach the chapel and found nothing inside as kanon isnt there yet.
it all makes it quite harder to figure out since you would normally expect the culprit made things perfect thus no proper holes to the murder.
btw, isnt there some contradiction to beatrice earlier truth to battler of “because of your sin, the tragedy happened” with ep 7 regarding lion’s timeline? because yasu doesnt exist there, then battler shouldnt have been able to commit that sin. and its explained there that kinzo personally challenged the adults to solve it, which they did and the rokkenjima prime murder repeats.
this either means that bernkastel was bullshitting lion regarding how there was no chance for happiness in their fate and it was just a false scenario, or beatrice red truth is actually wrong about the tragedy always happening due to battler’s fault.
Ok, what i said earlier was incorrect. I reread that portion from the manga. She set it up so the last room was unlocked but difficult to find. While the first room was locked but with a window to easily see a victim in. Thus, they were much more likely to find the first room first.
Of course, the possibility existed that they would find the last room first or recheck the earlier rooms, however she was resounded to whatever fate happened and attempted to minimize it.
Don’t forget she wanted Battler to solve the mysteries 
I don’t remember this scene exactly, but I would guess she was saying that the massacre would have happened regardless of the sin or not. That the adults and Kinzo were the true source. I mean it really reflects what happened in prime. They solve the epitaph and the murder mysteries don’t happen, but the adults still come into conflict over the gold.
Can’t remember the source, but I read a theory that in episode 7, 2 timelimes are actually existing on top of each other. This is why they have memories of the table order being different and Kannon/Shannon being present.
nah, beatrice red truth was “because of your sin, the tragedy/deaths occur” which was said in ep 4, which of course is proven wrong by bern showing that in a scenario where lion exists instead of yasu, the murders still happen.
The truth in question was “Due to your sin, a great many humans of this island die.” Also just because the tragedy still happens for different reasons even without Battler’s sin that doesn’t change the fact that Battler’s sin is a reason for why the tragedy occurs. There’s no contradiction there.
To be a bit more precise, it’s the case where in arc 1-2-3-4-5-6, Kyrie (and Rudolf) are not the criminals and what they actually do in arc 7 TP is essentially meant to be something Yasu didn’t predict or talk about in her own stories.
In the Yasu stories that are arc 1-2-3-4-5-6 (even tho she didn’t author them all) the tragedy that does occur in it is happening at least in part due to Battler’s so called “sin” against Yasu.
Edit to prevent double posting :
A certain thought, would want others to comment on it if possible.
As we all know the red truth cannot exist in the real world.
That would suggest that red truths in Umineko does not necessarily apply to the real prime world. At best they would be golden truth in prime world that would become red truth within the fictional world.
I believe I have a pretty good evidence of this and how this ultimately created errors/discrepencies between what Yasu thought and what is actually the truth of prime.
Sakutarou plush. That ange found another Sakutarou in Kawabata’s storage thing suggests that the entire set of red truths about there being only one Sakutarou that was made by Rosa for Maria is a lie. Maybe it originally was that but somehow stopped being so after. Yasu goes with what she knows, but within the world of her story, she has to be omniscient. Maria thought this was the only Sakutarou, or may have simply chosen to believe as such, Beatrice accept that as “true”, creating a golden truth between them. Within her story, that golden truth became a red truth. However, the world of her tale has no precedence to reality.
Arc8 presents this further with the idea of future truth overwriting past truths, but I guess I’m mostly pointing out how this has existed early on in the story.
For me this actually opens up the door to various discrepencies being possible between Yasu’s fictional world (even the mystery side of it) and the actual prime reality. As I pointed out before, Yasu has no ways of knowing a lot of things with certainty, she often has to rely on second hand information. Kinzo’s entire backstory (including that of the previous two Beatrice), her own status as being originally adopted by Natsuhi (being “Lion”) and weird things she knows about like Battler being actually Kyrie’s child (I’d love to know where the hell she obtained that information while at it), she cannot have known these things first hand.
They may nonetheless be true, but she herself cannot have these information with absolute certainty. What matters is that these information are the truth within her fiction. To a slightly lesser extent, it’s at least likely she believes these informations to be true, but that is not absolutely necessary either (or, at the very least, she may actually have doubts toward it being certain in the prime world).
I guess my point in bringing this up is that I think Ryuukishi bought this up not randomly or for unique cases it was bought up alone. Like most of Umineko we are given some solutions but having them being applied at the wrong place, while still hinting us toward this being a right move if we find out where to apply it.
So my question is essentially, what could Yasu have thought to be true enough to insert in her fictions as absolute certainty, that is actually wrong in prime reality? Ideally due to the Sakutarou context it was bought in, I’m potentially looking for something that she thought to be absolutely true that is actually wrong and that would have a similar effect to Sakutarou, essentially a key to saving the heart of Yasu.
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red truth doesnt apply to the real world
this has already been proven false in ep 8 where ikuko says it.
anyways I believe there’s a red truth that beatrice said something like “if it werent for your sin, no one would die” but I cant remember when that was told.
That was EP4. Just before Battler’s identity crisis.
That red truth does not apply to the real world has been bought forward previously in the story and just simply makes outright plain sense.
If a character appears to be using red to the real world, it simply means that the relationship this character has toward this “world” has the later being a fiction. Considering Ikuko this may be that she’s in a position where the prime world is a fiction to her, but it also could mean that the red she says doesn’t actually apply to real prime world.
Concerning Ange’s hair colour :
Battler is shown with red hair at 18 years old.
Is shown with grey hair in his 30ies, as Tohya.
Same grey hair as young Kinzo in his 30ies.
Kyrie is in her 30ies, has grey hair.
Meaning that using the “pseudo logic of manga hair colour” which doesn’t really exist but still let’s try to make some out of it, it appears that the particular brand of red hair that Battler and Ange has turns into grey hair by the time you are 30 or so. Since Kyrie has grey hair, it’s possible she also had red hair before being 30. Since Kinzo had grey hair in his 30 as well, it’s also possible the red hair ness comes from the Kinzo side of things but is not a particularly dominant gene, and popped back up with children with Kyrie due to her also having that same red-that-turns-white-early genetic thing.
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Hello and sorry to bother, but can someone post the new Epitaph from the Steam version of the game?