Since I was pretty much given the greenlight from Aspirety himself (and the Infinity topic has died down), here it is, the thread for Umineko No Naku Koro Ni!
So, did many of you read it? What are your thoughts on it?
For spoiler limitations: please tag any references to Episodes 5-8 (Chiru) or outside works with [spoiler] tags, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
Personally, I think it’s best story I’ve ever read on any media, and being an audiovisual student, I always get myself fantasizing about how I would adapt it to anime form (yes, I know. But the actual anime that was produced is not really good if compared to the novels).
I thought it was unbelievebly creative and pretty much all of the themes were handled in a such a wise and sicere way that it reasonated with me deeply. Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure Umineko changed the way I see the world, it changed many of my opinions regarding a lot of things. The very fact that a made-up story is so powerful is what gives me any drive to keep pursuing some sort of career producing fictional media.
Anyways, I’m extending myself too much for the first post. What do you guys think?
I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Umineko. Sure, it was a fun read and all, but I felt that I read it the wrong way, or that I rushed too quickly into the story. Umineko is one of those novels that you can’t just sit and read; you have to stop and think about it. And, well, the way I read it, I never gave myself the opportunity to think about it. Umineko is the novel that doesn’t hand you any of the answers on a silver platter, but leaves enough hints for you to confirm things once you understand it. And it frustrates me to no end that I was only able to figure out most of the revelations by reading a goddamned wiki.
So for anybody who plans to read Umineko, I suggest that after every episode, you take some time off reading (around a week to a month) and think about what actually happened. Try and figure out the mysteries! Try and figure out the nature of each and every character! Re-read the episode even if you have to. But don’t go to the next episode until you have at least a vague idea of some of the mysteries.
Umineko was released by Ryukishi as an episodic VN where, after every episode, the readers (let us refer to them as goats) would discuss (usually on 2ch) about, well, pretty much everything about the episode. And it would continue once a new episode comes out. I’m pretty sure the final episode was made for the sole sake of getting the goats to shut up about it hahaha. That, I believe, is the true Umineko experience, and is probably half of the part of enjoying the novel.
Yeah, to re-iterate what Pepe said, I caught up with Umineko around Episode 6. I was a little late to the party, but that point was the point I enjoyed the most of Umineko. Speculating with everyone on the Animesuki board, trying to separate truth from illusions and reveal what was really going on. All the theories were at full speed at that point, it was great.
Umineko is, probably, my number 1 favourite work of fiction (with Little Busters at close second). Like many others, it changed the way I think, and the way I live. It’s pretty crazy. Even years after it’s over I still think about it and sometimes even re-read parts of it. And of course, I’m always trying to get people to read it, but it’s never easy!
I’ve been a fan of Higurashi for years, but Umineko never really got to me.
In 2011 I spent a decent amount of time with a friend who loved the When They Cry franchise. Naturally I was dragged into reading Umineko, once by myself, and once on a stream.
It’s safe to say that I hated it. Umineko is really not my kind of story, which is saying something considering I love things like Dangan Ronpa and Kara no Shoujo.
I found the actual plot to be pretty boring. I simply didn’t care what happened. I hated all of the characters because they were all pretty much portrayed as bad people at some point in time. They would introduce a new aspect, or shine some light on a character’s background, and I’d be like “Yeah yeah, this doesn’t matter.”
I actually fell asleep at one point… which isn’t a good sign ^^; It did become a lot more interesting after Lion was introduced though~
The “mystery” running throughout Umineko - The struggle to make a clear distinction between illusion and reality- just felt like an utter waste of time.
Despite the focus on sound in this game, which I admit was great for creating atmosphere (it did wow me at one point) I don’t remember a single track from it… aside from the opening of the anime (which was a preeetty bad adaption.) The soundtrack wasn’t my style at all, so I got nothing memorable from it.
I can totally understand why Umineko is popular; you get what it says on the tin… I just don’t think I’d pick up that tin while I’m out shopping
Good thing you were able to go through the process of rambling about theory after theory. I only started after episode 8 was already out for a year or so >_<
I don’t think so. One of the biggest strokes of genius from Ryukishi07, at least to me, were the goats. If I’m not mistaken, he stated in an interview that he actually looked periodically at the fan discussion forums so he could come up with ways to confuse people and/or to implement their theories into the story itself as possible solutions. The “Battler is the murderer” interactive section at episode 8 was actually a clear nod to the “Dark Battler” theory that was going on at the time.
I short, he wanted the “goats” to speculate about the story, and went to the lenghts of actually making the audience’s speculations a part of the plot. This is so meta and awesome that I can’t help to feel only respect for him.
Yes. Discussing theories, having the story tell you time and again “don’t stop thinking” like a challange of sorts is pretty much the best part. The story actually transcendend any sort of meta approach I’ve ever encountered, at least in my opinion.
I’m right there with you. Japanese “otaku” culture in general is very hard to introduce to other people, from my experience. I think this is a shame, as so much of it is just so awesome and different (albeit following some tropes, but hey, what sort fictional writing doesn’t?).
My main gripe is that, while Umineko is not really an easy story (though I don’t think it’s that much difficult to understand either, EP3 was pretty much enough for me to get the handle on how to approach it), it’s just so full of amazing and universal ideas that I believe anyone, and I say ANYONE, should at least give it a shot. I don’t care if you’re a fan of this sort of stuff or if you even like to read, just TRY it.
The story handles so many universal themes and lovable, humane characters so well that you’re bound to at least feel SOMETHING if you stick around long enough.
Wow, I find it amazing how taste can be subjective. I think it’s actually hard for me to find moments during the journey that I didn’t care. Seriously, I thought the characters were amazingly colorful and complex, even as the cast kept exapanding with each episode. I think the only characters I didn’t particularly care were Hideyoshi and the few VERY secondary ones, like Dlanor’s sidekicks, Siesta Sisters, the dude that ran the boat, etc. I think I actually shed a couple tears by the end of EP8. The way love is portrayed here is trully phenomenal.
Also, I love the soundtrack and I keep coming back to it time and again. There’s some many gems like “answer”, “discolor”, “dead end” and so on.
Now I just have to wholeheartedly disagree. What you actually get is not what is on the tin at all, regardless of it’s subjective quality. I don’t think anyone expected the story to be what it is, especially considering Higurashi. Ryukishi07 actually had to rewrite EP3 out of fear the readers wouldn’t understand the whole point. I mean, EP1 is pretty much the only “traditional mystery” story of all the 8. The tin does not say or imply “completely multi-layered and heavily metalinguistic story” at all.
Slightly off-topic; does Higurashi benefit from stopping in between episodes? Or will it work well enough if I just marathon the whole thing?
Waiting for it’s steam release before I start playing it, so I wanna know if I should play it the right way
Maybe it’s because I finally read it after sitting through a couple years of hype, but that’s pretty much what the tin said for me~ However I didn’t know there were groups of people theorizing about it. Was that just a Japanese thing?
Well it’s nice to know people like it, I guess~
I think for Higurashi you could marathon it and be fine. I wouldn’t be able to though ^^;
A good thing about Higurashi is that it constantly revisits certain parts of the story through a different perspective, so even if you take some sit-out time and forget some things along the way, you’ll be reminded not too long after~
Both are pretty valid, but I’d prefer to stop periodically instead of marathon~
Definitely not. Don’t quote me on this, but I think the popular ‘pony theory’ that turned up around EP5 (and turned out to be true) was created by an anon. There’s regular discussion of Umineko on /jp/ even today. Personally, I got my fill on Animesuki, but I’m sure there are countless other places that discussed it to death.
Oh, okay. That’d explain why I’ve never heard of it then~ ._. I’m not to touch that place.
The only real “anime” based websites I’ve been on were Crunchyroll… which I never saw any Umineko discussion on… and a small online VN thingy which was full of people new to the anime/VN scene~
Never heard much about Animesuki before x.x
So okay to start off on some less opinionated discussions…
I know for a fact that Shannon=Kanon but how exactly was that confirmed. I didn’t remember any parts of the VN that had directly pointed to it. If there were indirect signs, I was too absorbed in the plot to notice it. Especially the fact that they would never appear at the same time when other family members were around. That one flew right over my head
Well, Ryukishi didn’t specifically write “Shannon=Kanon”, but he did make it pretty clear in episode 7 (just like, without being explicit, he made it clear as day that Yasu is Beatrice).
Basically, it’s kinda like this: Yasu = Beatrice = Shannon = Kanon. There was Yasu, the illegitimate child between Kinzo and his own daughter (Beatrice 2), which he gave to Natsuhi, which in turn threw him/her off a cliff because of the shame of not being able to have a child herself.
Yasu survived, however, and then was raised by Kumasawa and Genji at the Fukuin house. It is implied (and later confirmed in an interview) that Yasu got hurt during the fall on his/her “sexual parts”, thus making Yasu’s actual gender a complete ambiguity even to him/herself.
Anyways, Yasu was the one that began approaching mystery novels as a “battle” between the reader and the “witch”, and since he/she was completely alone at the time, Yasu imagined not only Gaap, but a mentor servant that was the polar opposite of what he/she was: that is, Shannon.
He/She was pretty much living in their dream world, imagining he/she was also a witch and stuff like that, until Battler came, Yasu fell in love, Battler left never to return or remember him/her again, Yasu got very upset.
It’s then that Yasu, to cope with the grief, separates her persona into two: Shannon (which now becomes more of a klutz like the original Yasu) and Kanon, which is an outlet for his/her’s negative feelings.
In short, Yasu kinda has a multiple personality thing going on, and Kanon is one of them. Yasu can be either male or female in a very believeble way because of the doubts he/she has over his/her own body.
Yeah uh you kinda lost me there. I know that Yasu has multiple personalities, and that Beato is an embodiment of his/her “witch” personality…
But where were the implications? The way Shannon introduced Kanon in ep 7, I genuinely thought that he was a newly hired servant in the household.
Not that I am denying that these points exist, it’s just that this was probably the most subtle plot point in the story and I kinda need help figuring out how it was determined.
Aspirety’s reply is pretty much it. I mean, most of the events in the story are depicted from a “very biased” point of view that’s almost never to be interpreted litterally. That’s pretty much the reason why there’s a guy on the internet that rejects the whole ending as I mentioned: The last portion of the story was not written in red, so technically you can question if that whole section even happened.
Also, I think it had a pretty explicit sequence during EP7 where it was written “you need a younger brother to help you through this” or something like along those lines before Kanon suddenly appeared still in the “meta/magical” point of view.
We must also remember episode 6, where there was that whole thing with the duel between Shannon and Kanon, led by Zepar and Furfur. It pretty much symbolizes the multiple personality theory and the internal fight Yasu has with both Shannon and Kanon wanting to “love”. That’s the reason why one of them had to give up love for the other to be happy. They quite literally can’t both go on living with their partners.
Did he? I didn’t know that. But that theory just fit so well.
Also, Aspirety, what do you think about the whole Yasu thing? I personally thought it was a genius idea for the backstory. I read an interview in Umineko wiki where Ryukishi stated something like "I wanted to write a truth that couldn’t be copy/pasted easily. Something you had to think about before explaining. I think he nailed it.
Hahaha right, red text. I’m okay with not knowing what the ending was anyway; it at least gave people something to hold on to hahaha.
Okay now that’s something that totally flew over my head. I suddenly remember asking myself “Now why the hell can’t they both be happy”
Thanks for the reminder, and that helps answer my question a lot
Just wanted to let you guys know that reading this topic and the linked articles actually improved my opinion of Umineko and I now see it in a different way. Thanks for that. Although now I regret not being around in 2007 to read the Episodes as they came out. Sounds like it would’ve been quite amazing, and very different from how I experienced the visual novel (I read all of it in two weeks).
Urge to reread… rising.
Find a bunch of people who haven’t read it, and livestream it or something. There’s probably some people here who haven’t read it.
I watched it on a livestream with friends, and, while I spent most of the time sleeping (it was a night stream) everyone in the chat was having fun trying to figure everything out, while the streamer laughed at their attempts.
