the red truth of umineko
Categories: general review, umineko
Tagged: umineko
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I’m not a fan of this continuous reboot storytelling method. I find it hard to come up with a coherent story with that path. But… the best continuous reboot story I’ve ever seen, I saw in 2009. Too bad it wasn’t Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
The problems with Umineko are all self-inflicted. My major complaint about Higurashi is that it wasn’t a mystery. Hell, it wasn’t even a thriller. I called it sci-fi and compared it to Star Trek. Longtime Higurashi fans hated me for doing it, but I stick by my assessment: once you introduce deus ex machina by the truckload and rewrite rules in-flight, all bets are off. You’re no better than Rick Berman.
My favorite reader complaint back in 2006 was “You don’t understand Higurashi because you haven’t played the game or read the TIPS!” If you need to bury yourself in another medium to figure out the anime, you failed. Did I need to play Clannad x86 to appreciate Clannad? Do I need to listen to Shaq-Fu or Shaq Diesel to appreciate Shaq’s free throw shooting? Do I need to visit the vineyard where my chardonnay is grown to appreciate its taste?
Anyway, Umineko falls into the same traps of Higurashi, for better for worse.
Umineko is billed as as a giant logic vs. magic smackdown between Battler and Beatrice, but I never saw this. What I saw was a series of closed room murders that Battler had to explain (and, really, could we get some variety here?)… but surely Bee-to had better ways to prove witches than closed room murders? Couldn’t she think of some other way to prove magic without a closed door mystery? Hell, the cat mystery in Haruhi Suzumiya was more elaborate of a setup. Why couldn’t Battler ask something like, “If you are a witch, why can’t you create two copies of Shannon? One for George; one for me.”
(They could have named this series “The LA Closed Door Murders” and set it in the Death Note universe with no adverse effect. At least the rules for the Death Note are spelled out. OH SHI-)
They also went off in a lot of tangents, like Beatrice accusing Battler of being unworthy to play because he’s not his mom’s kid. What does that have to do with anything? And if that’s your big card, why wait to play it? You think Keiba would wait on summoning his blue-eyes white dragon? Anyway, it’s all moot. His dad is his connection to the Ushiromiya family, not his mom. It doesn’t matter who he knocked up: Octomom, Bristol Palin, etc., as long as his dad was his dad. Sure, it’s a kick to the kidneys to find out you have a different mom, but it doesn’t mean removal from the game. That was just silly.
(Also, how the hell do you get dark red out of Battler’s dad and his real mom? Genetics, as usual, have no place in anime. Furthermore, I enjoyed how Battler couldn’t recognize Ange… who has the same hair and facial features as him… must be Studio Deen’s bad animation. I just hope he wasn’t thinking, “Mmm… this isn’t my genderswapped self, is it?”)
(I’m almost positive that Battler and Beatrice are or were lovers. I can’t pinpoint it, but the hostility yet gentleness they show each other can only be described as ex-lovers.)
Phoenix Wright would have wiped the floor with Beatrice. Battler is just a homeless man’s Phoenix Wright. He’s not even Miles Edgeworth.
Chess is the wrong motif. It should have been Yu-Gi-Oh!. The difference between chess and what Beatrice and Battler were doing in their smackdown is that chess isn’t about traps, countertraps, and trap escapes– chess is about gaining position on your opponent. You can do this a myriad of ways, including walking them into a trap… but nothing like what Beatrice and Battler were trying to do. Instead, I propose that Yu-Gi-Oh! is a superior motif. For example, when Witch Rika sacrificed Ange to “power up” Battler, there’s no equivalent chess move. You cannot give up a queen to make your king stronger, i.e. be able to move more than one space. However, you can in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Makes more sense to think of Witch Rika (I’ll refer to them as Witch Rika and Witch Takano, just because) taking a lot of pain to summon Dark Magician Girl Ange onto the field, and then she sacrifices her to power up Dark Magician Battler. Makes a lot more sense. At least to me.
(Honestly, if it weren’t for all the killing, butchering, defecation of corpses, and censored skull parts, I would say let’s get 4kids to remake Umineko, complete with Yugi joining the proceedings during the seventh game.)
Screwing up the tsundere plan is as embarrassing as botching a slam dunk. I facepalmed at seeing Bee-to and Inoue Kikuko fail at their tsundere plan. The problem was that they didn’t have the right personnel. I didn’t buy Beatrice as a tsundere for a sec, and I thought something was fishy right away. They needed to get a Taiga or a Kyou-type for this formation. Would you run the wildcat offense without Ronnie Brown if you were Miami? Hell no, hence why Henne has been chucking the ball from the pro set so much with Brown out. It’s all about the personnel. Beatrice needs to put the “wicked” into “witch.”
Aunt Rosa is just Kate Gosslin in anime form. Ryukishi07 must have been abused as a child. “Ryukishi07… please show the court where on this Sakutaro doll where your uncle touched you.” Any other explanation as to why there’s painful to watch child abuse scenes in both Higurashi and Umineko? None I can say in red. Yes, I understand how Maria got to become the batshit crazy child she is, but Aunt Rosa broke like fifty child abuse laws if this took place in the US. Just horrible. It did make me root against Aunt Rosa the whole time. And, really, Rosa should blame her whoring for her mess.
(Makes me wonder about Dan Brown too. All his protagonists underwent some sort of childhood trauma that make them afraid of something. Note to Dan Brown: you don’t need a childhood trauma to be afraid of something. Yet, I still read his books. There’s a lesson to be learned here, I just wish I knew what.)
All the adults are portrayed as bumbling, flawed idiots with the kids as rising above them. Too bad Maria never quotes… “The wolf will live with the lamb / the leopard will lie down with the goat / the calf and the lion and the yearling together /
and a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah 11:6.
Ryukishi07 knows one thing that would blow apart his stories. iPhones. Or, really, any cellphone, hence why Higurashi and Umineko both occur pre-widespread cellphone adaptation. (I’m confused as to why Ange doesn’t have one… I had a StarTAC back in 1998 myself.) All one character needed to do is keep their cellphone on call or on record, and presto! For example, both Jessica and George could coordinate over their Bluetooth headsets during the fourth arc… “Hey, is it fishy that they’re trying to get me to use stronger and stronger attacks?” Also, I’d to think that a mansion back in 1986 would have some rudimentary monitoring equipment.
(Though I liked the rotatory phone… if you showed someone under 21 one of those phones today, they’d probably try to press the buttons instead of turning the dial.)
2009 was the year of the lolicon. I totally apologize. When I made my list earlier of Ararararagi, Hei, Tomoki, and Chizuru, I completely forgot about Battler. Remember, he made a pass at Maria when they first got on the island and then had the most inappropriate line ever. He also admitted to liking Shannon when she was younger, not so much now. Excuse me?! My rage at George is only surpassed by my hatred towards Aunt Rosa, Fuko-chan, and Verizon. (Also, can’t forget about Kinzo… the whole premise of Umineko is some old guy trying to resurrect his loli love.)
(I liked the ending to Aunt Rosa’s arc the most, if only because it was the most over-the-top, but not as much as batshit crazy Shion removing fingernails. Gotta love how Beatrice forces Rosa to go cannibal on her family, with Battler popping up in the end telling Maria, “Maria, it’s 10 years too soon for you to tell someone to eat you. But make sure you tell me that 10 years from now.” with a smirk. I can’t decide if Battler’s awesome or stupid or stupidly awesome. Also enjoyed how he wanted a cow tit sandwich. Stay classy Battler, stay classy.)
(When Rosa brings up the wolf and sheep puzzle, I kept thinking of Horo~n. Should have been wolf and apple puzzle.)
Okay, okay, batshit crazy Aunt Eva was fun too.
Pants aren’t necessary. Please explain to me why out of all the summoned furniture, the assassins don’t wear pants? If you’re going to go the joke route, might as well go full blast with K1 wearing his swan outfit as the summoned furniture assassin (I swear, this sentence makes sense…). If you’re going to go the moe route, might as well go with full meido or full bunny girls. Honestly, I think I would have gone with the K1 swan route… because if it went meido, I would have cracked more “They need to replace Battler with Tomoki” jokes.
(I want my own Seven Stakes of Purgatory. Seven homicidal demons/schoolgirls who wear dress tops but no pants? Sign me up. And, yeah, they borrowed human Sakutaro from Negima… but not as blatant as Avatar and Dances with Wolves.)
Studio Deen misfires, badly. If you’re a publisher of some great Japanese doujinshi game, do not let Studio Deen animate your product. It’s like giving it herpes. Talk with any other studio. Their animation production values are abysmally low, and, now with Gonzo out of the industry, Deen inherits the worst production studio tag. Animation is an uninspired mess, backgrounds are hazy, boring, and lazy, and something tells me the game was chopped up into pieces that make it make even less sense. (If this was 07th Expansion’s ploy to get more people to buy the game just to step out of the doo-doo that is the anime, I think it worked.) Also, I’m not sure what cramming the resolution into the final episode that felt like a really bad Fox News debate was trying to accomplish. Besides begging for a Chiru sequel much like how Gonzo begged for a Sky Girls sequel. (Oh wait, that didn’t turn out well for Gonzo.)
Worse yet, they had a potential extra-bases triple OP in Katayoku no Tori that they turned into a weak bunt single with a piss poor animation effort. If they only put a fraction of the effort and production that Shaft put in Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari or even what Madhouse did with Aggressive Zone. Sigh.
07th Expansion got beat. By a 2D fighter. I’m sorry. BlazBlue’s story out Higurashi‘ed Umineko. It has the more sensible reboot system. It has the better characters, including the batshit insane, Orlandu-class gamebreaking loli nu-13. (Let’s just say her race against Ky Jin to penetrate Ragna made me giddy.) Plus, BlazBlue’s story makes sense within that timeline. For instance, Beatrice Ange is only created via the suffering Ange took at the hands of Aunt Eva when she returns from the island. However, that is only true of the third game– the first two games, everyone was slaughtered! It’s too convenient (*cough* lazy writing *cough*) to say Witch Rika made it possible that a queen from game three could carryover to game four. At least in BlazBlue, it’s explained how one reboot might effect the next. Rules being made up as shit comes up… well… that’s a Sunrise hallmark.
(Also, I hate how each arc introduces new characters… I feel like 07th Expansion is Japanese for “DC Comics”.)
(I’m rooting for Bee-to and Battler to go for 15,513 rounds, with eventually Witch Rika, Witch Takano, and Maria re-enacting Aggressive Zone to pass the time. Yes, I did miss all the slice-of-life harem moments of Higurashi.)
Smiles are free. The best thing about Higurashi were the batshit crazy killer lolis and the maniacal laughter. We only get one loli now, and she’s not as batshit crazy as Rena was at her pinnacle. I’m highly disappointed. At least the creepy laughs are back. Between Maria and Bee-to, I can almost make an Umineko ringtone. One thing that doesn’t work: Horie Yui as Maria. She has like one and a half voice, and she’s using her Tsubasa Cat voice for Maria. Ugh. (Compare to Marina Inoue whom at least is trying a distinct voice for Jessica… who doesn’t sound like Kana or Chiri or Matsurika… but a tad like Alicia. But I can live with that. Why hasn’t Marina won a Best of 20XX seiyuu award? I’m an idiot. That’s why.)
Umineko no Naku Koro ni is enjoyable. It has faults, it’s not perfect, it’s lazy, it’s not well-written, it’s repetitive, but does an anime need to be any of those things to be enjoyable? Hell, no! I’m satisfied with red-haired Phoenix Wright and endless maniacal laughter.
(Also, I find Beatrice more attractive when she’s doing her crazy laugh. Is this par for the course?)
39 Responses to “the red truth of umineko”
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Ryuukishi made a mistake with Higurashi by introducing virus/parasites and JSDF. Now he made another mistake with Umineko by making lies, red herrings, and colorful texts.
Now that blue and golden text has already shows up, I think maybe he is trying to make a rainbow set.
Am I the only one who is seeing Angel Mort bottoms on the seven Stakes?
http://aceattorney.sparklin.or.....roces=9665
YOUR REQUEST IS GRANTED.
…Funny that right after this, the rest of this post pretty much sums up the fans’ criticisms of DEEN’s adaption.
Also, from episode 6 (the latest installment of the games), I’ve come to the conclusion that Ryuukishi is a time traveler, or perceives time differently. It’s like he read every complaint enumerated in here, and addressed them in Dawn of the Golden Witch. I won’t spoil, but then again, so is this post. Trust me on this.
I actually held off playing (using that term very losely) the fourth visual novel because I was thinking I could watch the anime instead. LOL. About five episodes in I realised how stupid that plan was.
You left out the fact that the casting is incredibly hit & miss. Beato especially – it’s hard to take her seriously as a sininster, evil witch when she’s putting on overly theatrical overtones as if she was channeling Lelouch, but is not nearly fabulous enough to pull it off.
If Battler is the homeless man’s Phoenix Wright, then Beatrice is the homeless man’s Lelouch Genderswap.
@Haesslich
holy shi
I gave up on umineko at around episode 12. The plot had just entirely lost me. I don’t know if it was the idiocy of the characters or if it was plain old pathetic writing, but I couldn’t understand why anyone was doing what they were doing. Everthing else seemed like a masterpiece in comparison. I rewatched some sunrise shows and even they made a little more sense.
No thanks, Deen. I’ll watch something else.
@Jason: yea cell phones and caller id would take the piss out of a lot of old school mysteries.
feRfe: There’s also fanart, but I felt this deserved the full PW/GS treatment, which someone already supplied. Complete with commentary.
As an avid Umineko fan, I can agree that Deen’s adaptation was pretty terrible. The VN is much ‘better,’ though I know this doesn’t carry much weight for someone not interested in picking them up. Also, keep in mind that the anime only really covers the first half of the story. For all we know, the entire premise could be thrown out the window in the future arcs. If Chiru ever gets animated (which is a big if), give it a chance. Like Skribulous noted, Ryukishi is actually starting to provide some answers now.
To Jason
>>Please explain to me why out of all the summoned furniture, the assassins don’t wear pants?
Duh… because they are ASS-ASS-sins assassins. Lack of pants is their symbol!
From
waterfall
I’ve always defined the When They Cry stories as so bad they are good. And I’m pretty sure SD helps with this.
Also disappointed that Jason never mentioned Jessica’s Live! a Live!! in Touhou garb.
The ending had me going WTF the whole time. Now I have go to play the game to understand what Beato mean when Battler sin? If it wasn’t for Seitokai no Ichizon, I would have totally gave up on DEEN already ……….. sigh………..
To Jason: Well as you seem to like lumping all the problems of the anime and story as a whole together, I thought it would make sense commenting on this from a VN fans perspective. Sorry in advance for the quite lengthly answers. ^^
I think you are mixing up some complains here. After all there is a VN with its story which may be good or flawed and then we have an anime trying to adapt this story. But complaining how Ryu07 messed up in the story if you only saw the adaption of this story doesn’t make any sense. Don’t get me wrong: i don’t want to defend this anime. It really is a mess in direction & animation.
Perhaps you assume that the anime tried to be as faithful as possible so the fault were already in the original but thats really not the case in both When They Cry series. Higurashi S1 may have become famous for its horror / faces / slaughter / fanservice but from an adaption standpoint it was an even greater failure then Umineko. Still Umineko is by far the worse anime. In the end this anime betrayed most of the fans expectations (OST usage, awesomeness of certain scenes, gimmik insider jokes etc.) because it put to much emphasis on insignificant aspects and cut out many essential plot details AND it also didn’t make sense as a stand alone anime because characterization and the logical behind the whole setup was condenses so heavily that it almost came of as a diffrent story. But the reasons for this both problems are not even always the same. IMO thats why there is so much drama between the VN fans and the anime-only watchers. They simply talk at cross-purposes without noticing. Most evident in the debates about pacing. The VN readers say some episodes are to fastward because many important details were cut which may lessen the impact of later stuff while the anime watchers think the scenes stretch like bubblegum because the don’t see how the scenes have some significance at all.
That also leads to your favorite reader comment… that actually the typical discussion: “You don’t get it, so your argument is invalid” -> “But this story sucks, so I don’t see that’s there to get”
After all the guy is right: You don’t get what he understood about “his value” of the story. But thats only logical because the story was never presented in a way that you could “get this”. But when you argue that his argument is invalid he will defend himself as you are seem to criticize the VN story he liked.
In the end it’s just the anime messing things up and warping the perspection of the story in strange ways.
“My major complaint about Higurashi is that it wasn’t a mystery. Hell, it wasn’t even a thriller. I called it sci-fi and compared it to Star Trek.”
I guess thats the biggest failure of the animes as they don’t get this clear. Ryu07 really seems to like building stories around one big misfitting thematic contrast. In Higurashi this was curse/gods/multiverses vs. human crimes/corruption/conspiracies and in Umineko is more like serious and logical detective plot vs. magical/occult/meta-story event. But he draws a subtle line between those ideas and to confuse you even more he blurs this line even more with the subjective PoV of his characters. But to say because there is fantasy/sci-fi in Higurashi this fails as a mystery story makes no sense in the end. There are supernatuaral element in the story but when everything is told after Kai they don’t contradict the solution to the mystery about what happened in this town (which btw has NO direct supernatural influence). Umineko will likely be the same but its even harder to see where he draws that line… even in the VNs. But thats what mind fuck is about, right? :D
“Umineko is billed as as a giant logic vs. magic smackdown between Battler and Beatrice, but I never saw this.”
Short version: Because DEEN cut them out.
Long version: Many, many red text discussions were left out or were even stated but not in red and undistinguishable from normal talk (especially true the grand final in the last episode; one wiki has almost 4 screenpages of red text from the 4th VN game, not even counting the blue stuff… and more then half of this is from the final). Even this part alone makes the mystery unsolvable in the anime IMO. You just don’t get the whole thought process presented in the games. DEEN even build in logic errors by referencing “red proofs” later on only put in the VN but not present in the anime.
Seems DEEN got lazy and didn’t want to waste the short time of their episodes on long conversation (as their scripting would have made it sleep-inducing anyway) instead of the action scenes / fanservice / scareservice and gore. Or they didn’t have budget / creativity to animate it at every occurrence. The 2nd arc was shortened but halfway acceptable from the logic standpoint. After that it went downhill.
“Couldn’t she think of some other way to prove magic without a closed door mystery?”
Well ok, you are right. Ryu07 seem really sold on this idea but think about it: thats just a very classic and easily understandable concept for a perfect (because impossible) murder setup. It fits the story very well as you have to suspect tricks or the murder contradicting common sense. That’s what this logical vs. magic idea is about. The ingame explanation is that Beato thinks its a good tool to break Battler as he is a fan of mystery novels (seems Kyrie made him like them) so he will understand the concept easily. Besides there WERE other types of murders. The very first twilight in the whole story was more about how to put 6 people in a shed without anyone noticing and the big riddle at the end of the 3rd arc was the question if anyone was even ABLE to kill Nanjo (he wasn’t even in a room ^^). But the talk about those murders was also shortened so you could say the anime was really about the closed rooms. :P
“They also went off in a lot of tangents, like Beatrice accusing Battler of being unworthy to play because he’s not his mom’s kid. What does that have to do with anything? …”
Actually thats one of the points this story is up to. The talk about the sin that Battler commited shows that their is a personal involvement in this tragedy which he may not even realize. He may not be the detective of the story but the (indirect) cause of this whole story. Thats why his past and identity may be really important to the story. But this mystery is still unsolved even with later games out.
“…And if that’s your big card, why wait to play it?”
Well thats the big question the player has to find answers for. Thats why this is not really a classic detective story. The interpretation of Beatos action and intentions may be more important to understand the story then solving every last murder setup in the games (as absurd as it sounds). And that story gives you big contradictions about her behavior and many conflicting personality traits. Thats why the “turning the chessboard over” is there to begin with. Battler was bound to fail with it in the first arcs because he made some major wrong assumptions regarding this. The VN even addressed this problem.
“Chess is the wrong motif. It should have been Yu-Gi-Oh!.”
“For example, when Witch Rika sacrificed Ange to “power up†Battler, there’s no equivalent chess move.”
Well you should check if you understood the analogy if you try to rant over it.
Even in the butchered version of this scene its still applyable because you said it yourself: its a Sacrifice perhaps even of a pawn like its usually used for in metaphoric (the games never state which roles the persons represent). Ange chooses (incited by Bern) to be the sacrifice to give Battler a tactical advantage, because Battler is not a piece but the player in this game (Piece-Battler is the one on the island who doesn’t even know of the meta world). You see thats exactly what this chess move is about.
And you were to slow with this idea about TGCs ;P Ryu07 has already mocking himself with this idea in the 5th game by making a small shout-out to TGC-terminology after the concept of the game was INTENTIONALLY ridiculed and driven against the wall in this iteration.
“However, that is only true of the third game– the first two games, everyone was slaughtered! It’s too convenient (*cough* lazy writing *cough*) to say Witch Rika made it possible that a queen from game three could carryover to game four.”
Thats similar in misunderstanding. There is no carrying over as Ange is never part of the gameboard story 12 years before. The meta world simply has no concept of fixed time. Battler and Ange coexist even if they should be separated be 12 years of timeline. Beato makes comments what is in “this days” in anime and Bern and Lambda even make insider-jokes about the Higurashi games series. Well ok DEEN broke this again by putting in this Higurashi TV scenes but well….. -_-
After all everyone resets in every game and Bern just choose the Ange of this specific setting and invited her to the meta world because she though this would make the game more interesting and easier for Battler.
“Battler is just a homeless man’s Phoenix Wright. He’s not even Miles Edgeworth.”
And thats want made him a likable character in the VNs. He’s not some intellectual philosopher with mega IQ who may be Itsuki for someone else (after all we have Kyon BROnove playing that part here ^^). He’s just some Joe Average wannabe detective who is as easily confused or betrayed the same way as the reader he represents in this mind game. He also is a softy and still has to learn how this game he is playing with the witches works and to define what really is important to him. Not every protagonist in such stories has to be a magnificant bastard to earn his position. But i guess you are already wondering if I’m really talk about the same story you did. ;P (Clue: characters are heavily downplayed)
“If you’re a publisher of some great Japanese doujinshi game, do not let Studio Deen animate your product. It’s like giving it herpes.”
“…and something tells me the game was chopped up into pieces that make it make even less sense. ”
What can I say: BULLSEYE.
“If this was 07th Expansion’s ploy to get more people to buy the game just to step out of the doo-doo that is the anime, I think it worked.”
I don’t think this kind of logic works… if you never read that the VN may be much better would you even bother thinking about how to get the game?
The Higurashi anime didn’t get famous as a game series because the anime failed and everybody wanted to see if the game does not but it was good in a different way and the VNs was famous for its own accomplishment. I guess nobody wants to see his opus grande butchered by an adaption to boost his sales.
“Besides begging for a Chiru sequel…”
That doesn’t seem likely either IMO. DVDs seem to sell really bad so the publishers may not even bother because of an impending financial loss. On the other side the VN experts over at animesuki even said Chiru is not really adaptable in the way DEEN mess around with content of the first games. Some twists and developments will not be understandable at all because the cut and “changed” so much. And another filler arc like Higurashi is also problematic because the 5th game starts right where the 4th ended. Their is no room for another loop like in Higurashi without big rewriting because Umineko has a much tighter storyline in the meta world.
“The best thing about Higurashi were the batshit crazy killer lolis and the maniacal laughter.”
And this may be may last comment. If this was what made Higurashi great to you perhaps this genre what Ryu07 is up to just isn’t your thing and you wouldn’t like the VN that much either. Logically everybody sees and likes other aspects of this multilayered stories so this is just my opinion but you seem to be more of a fanservice / action / whatever focused person and thats stories usually are not really about this elements as their ultimate goal but just use them as tools to trick you or achieve other intended effects.
Especially in the Umineko games the puzzle of the plot you have to think about, the likable(?) and more dimensional personalities of the characters and the hidden layer of meaning behind everything (in a moralic or philosophical way) seem to be the big selling point but thats not everybodies cup of tea.
Umineko+ YuGiOh ?
Here you go:
http://i.imagehost.org/0746/Knew_it.jpg
They should have waited for the Novel to finish before animating it. Like Higurashi they were initially going for a “WTF is going on” initialisation. But unlike Higurashi there is a overaching story that connects the Episodes which just stopped in half with the Animes Ending. Higurashis Episodes were somewhat selfcontained.
Uminekos Reboots are a different Storyelement than they were in Higurashi but that isn´t clear in the Anime. That it´s always Closed-Room isn´t a result from lack of imagination, it´s a Storyelement in itself but Anime only watchers wouldn´t know.
It works for the VN because we know the Episodes are each Time a Setup for the next. Unlike Higurashi it is selfproclaimed “solvable” but that is completely lost in the Anime.
Yeah quite abit of the Umineko story was lost in the conversion from VN to anime. Heck most of the umineko fanbase is pulling a tsukihime and saying what umineko anime? I really fault DEEN for failing so badly at taking a VN and making it into anime. I agree with what you said it shouldn’t be required to read the VN to understand the anime however DEEN choices in cutting certain vital scenes that were from the VN make it pratically a requirement to have read the VN if you want a chance at actually understanding the anime.
Say didn’t it write a comment here some hours ago? Did you just delete it because it was longer then the usual 5-6 sentence or what or was there an error on my side? O_o
Ok sorry for the noob question (now it showed up after another post with this nick). Just delete it if you like. I’m just not versed with the system how blogs handle comment moderation it seem… my fault. :D
@Haess: I asked for Phoenix instead of Battler, not Battler instead of Phoenix.
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@Digdri: Let me turn the Yu-Gi-Oh! mat around on you. If you never played the VN and just watched the anime, would you think it was a total mess? Is the natural reaction, “Well, maybe the game is better, so I’ll take a chance on it” or “I’ll go watch something else, like Sora Oto” or “I’ll go play Clannad instead”? Also, the “But it cut a lot of stuff out!” excuse is lame. Every source material gets cut for anime… except maybe Haruhi Suzumiya.
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@Glarius: We took down Gonzo already. We can take down Deen.
“If you never played the VN and just watched the anime, would you think it was a total mess? Is the natural reaction, ‘Well, maybe the game is better, so I’ll take a chance on it’ ”
Well I think I sort of answered this already as I said this could never be a working strategy to boost the game sales because no one would react this way (thats was meant to including me as well ^^). Well the question how I would have reacted is really hypothetical but I guess I wouldn’t have understood the story either and would have considered it as a train wreck. After all the horror sure wouldn’t have clicked because they were not really much of it and this setup wasn’t build for them to begin with. I would have liked the idea of logical battles but the were not suuuuch a big part of the anime either, so they may have felt inappropriate in their big setup at the beginning…. but actually I don’t know. My expectations for DEENs adaptions were changing the same way episodes quality in storytelling were a rollercoaster. (Some episodes really nailed the idea while other were more like “Who every gave this idiot of an director his job? How can you fail so hard?” ^^). My fact that I loved the concept of the whole setup of Higurashis mystery may also have become a reason to have some more tolerance for absurdity then the every watcher. :D
” ‘But it cut a lot of stuff out!’ excuse is lame.”
Actually I don’t see how this is an excuse. IMO a clearly stated how this destroys the anime adaption.
An excuse would be talking about how the anime has to work this way because 26 episodes are a fix format which DEEN just cannot ignore or how the global financial crisis justifies this low-budget-style approach. But I would say that because they have a fundamental conceptional problem with this adaption. Elsewhere I already wrote how they themself may no have understood what made this games a success or they put reaching their assumed mainstream core audience over the actual intent of an adaption (e.g. by putting in massive amounts of unfitting fanservice while also leaving out much better opportunities) or the didn’t like the story and just didn’t care.
If you meant that I just tried to justify how the VN must be better because the anime was cut. Thats why a made such a long answer out of this…. to give you an idea how there really is much more sense and substance in the VNs. It just doesn’t make sense to go into even greater details because this try to summarize it already got quite big. The VNs are really massive…. the first five games are over 80k lines of text (fan translator stats)… thats something like a 1000 pages novel as an rough estimate.
And also if you would wanted to know more you would likely read the novels anyway so the point is moot anyway.
But to get back to your point. Obviously every anime adaption has to cut out stuff. Thats why we call this adaption…. because it has to be adapted to a diffrent medium (doh ^^). Only a fool would rant / whine / rage … over it. (Still enough hardcore fans of ever fictional work like play this fool :P ) But that wasn’t my point.
The problem revolves how cuts effect genres diffrently. To take you example: to merge multiple stories into one or to exchange one scene with emotional impact by another would mean anything to the success of the anime. If there is enough sceentime for Kyous thighhighs and the end of a story makes you want to cry its good regardless of changes to the orginal :D
But When They Cry are very complex puzzle plots and well…. to put holes into a puzzle with a sledgehammer may not be a wise idea :P
Well to be fair: DEEN hasn’t got a clue how this will end either because this series isn’t completed the same way as Higurashi was but their was much talk about how Ryu07 had some supervising role in the production so many fans had high hopes…. sadly misplaced.
But even if they knew more then the VN readers. Would you have every considers the Higurashi girls putting some Xs and Os an K1s face part of a big hint towards the nature of the mystery? Or would you have guessed that K1 giving away some random dolls would trigger some massive gorn party later on? Thats just the way this author ticks (and people joke about worshipping him ^^) and thats why cutting “unimportant” details can get very tricky with this stuff.
BTW: Even Haruhi has cut… I often read how Kyon character got toned down in some minor aspects…But perhaps I shouldn’t take every joke you make serious ;)
@KannaRei : I’m pretty sure that was the intention.
Heck, even Apollo Justice could do a better job than Battler.
Been waiting for this post : D
Jason: You got Phoenix, albeit as a mentor for Battler. You can get fanart which replaces Battler with Phoenix, but I find this more entertaining than the series.
It’s a shame how many people will never take a look at the great writing in Umineko after watching the garbage that is this anime.
The anime fails.
The novels are top tier. Most of the questions and concerns you have are answered in the novels. I have no justification for the not noticing Ange thing though.
One of the things that struck me most about this series, though, was the censorship. I don’t understand how they can leave in Eva blowing her face off with a shotgun misfire but not the rest of the stuff less than two episodes later.
Mmmm, delicious stakes…..
Wait there are words in this post?
If you need to bury yourself in another medium to figure out the anime, you failed
Yep, thank you for saying this. “The source material is better!!!!1!” is not an excuse for an adaptation being crap. While I enjoyed this show, I felt myself losing braincells episode by episode.
>My major complaint about Higurashi is that it wasn’t a mystery. Hell, it wasn’t even a thriller. I called it sci-fi and compared it to Star Trek. Longtime Higurashi fans hated me for doing it, but I stick by my assessment: once you introduce deus ex machina by the truckload and rewrite rules in-flight, all bets are off. You’re no better than Rick Berman.
^
This. THIIIISS!
Battler’s not much of a lolicon if he’s telling Maria it’s ten years too early. She’ll be street legal by then!
And he’s not even a homeless man’s Phoenix Wright. Watching Battler vs Beato, the battle of intelligence seems less Phoenix vs Franziska and more Gumshoe vs Payne.
If Studio Deen was just going to chop up the story so much anyway, they could have at least ended the season on a note other than the same sort of cliffhanger they used in every other episode. Not fabricate a final ending but at least put a breaking point in the plot to make use of the momentum that’ll just be lost anyway by the time a second season rolls around.
Speaking of second seasons, KyoAni needs to make Sawa-chan-sensei force Mio to wear Gaap’s sideboob exposing gothic lolita outfit for one of their concerts.
Quoth Bernkastel:
“Screw the rules! I have blue hair!”
Waitaminute, you still read Dan Brown books?
@Blog Writer :
ehm… so basicaly… are you glad, or you dissapointed about this Umineko? and for which one? the anime or for VN?
OK lets try to anwer al your complain one by one
[I’m not a fan of this continuous reboot storytelling method. I find it hard to come up with a coherent story with that path. But… the best continuous reboot story I’ve ever seen, I saw in 2009. Too bad it wasn’t Umineko no Naku Koro ni.]
thats the Umineko sale point, the incoherentness of the story, and make your head explode with question “tte what the meaning of all this?” if you didnt like this type genre, go read / watch other story, Doraemon maybe? there are no incoherentness there
[My favorite reader complaint back in 2006 was “You don’t understand Higurashi because you haven’t played the game or read the TIPS!†If you need to bury yourself in another medium to figure out the anime, you failed. Did I need to play Clannad x86 to appreciate Clannad? Do I need to listen to Shaq-Fu or Shaq Diesel to appreciate Shaq’s free throw shooting? Do I need to visit the vineyard where my chardonnay is grown to appreciate its taste?
Anyway, Umineko falls into the same traps of Higurashi, for better for worse.]
yes you have, dont blurt your one point opinion without confirming it…
[The problems with Umineko are all self-inflicted. My major complaint about Higurashi is that it wasn’t a mystery. Hell, it wasn’t even a thriller. I called it sci-fi and compared it to Star Trek. Longtime Higurashi fans hated me for doing it, but I stick by my assessment: once you introduce deus ex machina by the truckload and rewrite rules in-flight, all bets are off. You’re no better than Rick Berman.]
man… i hat to say this, Umineko not a mytery until 5th Game, its anty fantasy lolz
[Umineko is billed as as a giant logic vs. magic smackdown between Battler and Beatrice, but I never saw this. What I saw was a series of closed room murders that Battler had to explain (and, really, could we get some variety here?)… but surely Bee-to had better ways to prove witches than closed room murders? Couldn’t she think of some other way to prove magic without a closed door mystery? Hell, the cat mystery in Haruhi Suzumiya was more elaborate of a setup. Why couldn’t Battler ask something like, “If you are a witch, why can’t you create two copies of Shannon? One for George; one for me.â€]
Ahoka? The murder is happen, and Beato claimed it as witchcraft, Beatrice wont be in headache if battler just take it that way and say “Wow your magic is great”,… anyway my point is, even beatrice make 100 Shanon and give Battler harem, battler wont belive it as magic (he is the fool)
[They also went off in a lot of tangents, like Beatrice accusing Battler of being unworthy to play because he’s not his mom’s kid. What does that have to do with anything? And if that’s your big card, why wait to play it? You think Keiba would wait on summoning his blue-eyes white dragon? Anyway, it’s all moot. His dad is his connection to the Ushiromiya family, not his mom. It doesn’t matter who he knocked up: Octomom, Bristol Palin, etc., as long as his dad was his dad. Sure, it’s a kick to the kidneys to find out you have a different mom, but it doesn’t mean removal from the game. That was just silly.]
Beatrice just make an excuse to halt the game, she realize the loli witch pair evil scheme and make use battler blood line condition for excuse
[(Also, how the hell do you get dark red out of Battler’s dad and his real mom? Genetics, as usual, have no place in anime. Furthermore, I enjoyed how Battler couldn’t recognize Ange… who has the same hair and facial features as him… must be Studio Deen’s bad animation. I just hope he wasn’t thinking, “Mmm… this isn’t my genderswapped self, is it?â€)]
will you say other unknown people your brother just because he have same hair?
betarice confirmng battler condition with some question, please wath again the anime
[(I’m almost positive that Battler and Beatrice are or were lovers. I can’t pinpoint it, but the hostility yet gentleness they show each other can only be described as ex-lovers.)]
Lover? of course, furthermore we hope they are more than that ^^
[iPhones. Or, really, any cellphone, hence why Higurashi and Umineko both occur pre-widespread cellphone adaptation.]
do you ever heard any mistery novel where the character said “Hey my phone is work, use mine instead?”. are you idiot?
and… umineko time setting is in year 1988 – 12, not damn future
to be continued….>>
[Not Good with English, sorry]
Well I mostly agree what is being written here, except for you bashing Ryuu07. Sorry, but the vn was way better (yes I’m sure you have heard this 1,000 times. But you can’t bash it when you haven’t even read it. Umineko has got to be one of the best stories I have ever read.
Btw, I only watched Higurashi and I didn’t think it was that bad. I like the music and the horror stuff :P
So many absurdities, about the vn AND the anime, that I don’t even know what I should begin with ~~
Anyway, you got trolled by Beato twice, not once. Enjoy.
I have yet to play the visual novels. I’ve heard that the anime adaptions of 07th Expansion’s works all needed to be googled or something to get the facts the anime never touched on, like Shion and Mion’s being marked or the semi-obvious pairing between Beato and Battler.
I think I may cringe if Yugi joined in, but I’ve compared Umineko to Yu-Gi-Oh far too many times. Heck, I think even the parody video makers have done it at least five.
So, according to your writing, Bern is Yugi? I would have thought Battler was, but then, that’s just shonen-hero connection. I’d connect the villains to the other villains (Virgilia as Pegasus, that is for sure), but who has time for what I think?
All in all, your review on it shall prosper for all the anti-anime Umineko fans. Which I believe is proper propaganda for them.
Deen ruined Higurashi and turned it into something it wasn’t.
Read the original, everyone. Forget that shitty anime about killer lolis and full of plotholes.
I hope you guys realize what this basically is…
Ryukishi baked a cake. He had a specific recipe for it and it was wonderful and all his fans appreciated its succulent flavor and long lasting memories of love and beauty.
Studio Deen borrowed the recipe and tried to replicate it… And failed MISERABLY…
What you’re basically doing is tasting Studio Deen’s cake and using that to judge Ryukishi’s baking… Which frankly is ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC.
Just by the existence of this piss poor review, this level of reasoning is possible for KarasuInoue. What do you think everyone?
Ryukishi was a social worker at one point. He knew damn well what he was doing when he put in the child abuse plotlines.