Okay, at this point I have no idea what’s going on with this series anymore. This episode was… disturbing to say the least. For the first time in this series, the gore really disturbed me, and this also is the episode that really put my ability to not believe in the witch to the limits. This time, Beatrice really goes all out with her magic.
So at the start of the episode, we’re left with five people still alive: Battler, Maria, Rosa, Genzo and Genji. It would therefore be logical if one of them were the culprit:
– Maria, if she indeed were the culprit, must have had some sort of help. Yeah, I suspected her before to be some sort of reverse red herring, but then again, she could never have killed six people at the same time.
– Battler would of course be the perfect culprit: how often can we suspect the lead character of being the murderer? But yeah, he’s just been accompanied with others too often.
– Genji is one of the more obvious culprits this arc: he distances himself away from the others near the end, he somehow ends up finding Nanjo and Kumasawa’s corpses in the middle of the rain, even though he was supposed to be inside, ready for the orders of Kinzou. And what the heck was he doing as Beatrice’s servant? That could have been an illusion from her just as easily. the question remains though: how did he fake his own death in the first arc?
– Rosa also is an important suspect, because she is one who could have faked her own death in the first arc. But in this arc she has been constantly surrounded by Battler and Maria. If she were indeed the killer, she would have had to ally with the two of them.
– And what about Kinzou? He survived in this arc, as opposed to getting himself burned. What’s the difference? Also, the only reason we have that he didn’t fake his own death is because he has six toes. Did he perhaps have an identical twin brother or something?
Also, I’m intrigued because in this episode Beatrice didn’t seem to realize that Meta-Battler differed from normal Battler, who acted totally different in this arc. My guess would be that in the first arc, he had less reasons to despair because at least George and Jessica, who he seems to like a lot, survived. In this arc, he had nobody and had to be accompanied by the ever-paranoid Rosa. Instead, the one who fought back in this arc was Rosa, in my guess she was motivated by some weird kind of mother instinct, but in the end it seems that she lacked the willpower of Battler in the first arc to fully reject the witch.
I think what made the gore in this episode work better was that for once the creators didn’t try to be as graphic as possible. For once that eliminates the need for censorship, but it also left a lot to the imagination, the psychological side of the gore. Especially during the *ahem*”dinner scene”…
Umineko at the moment is really like Higurashi’s first arc over and over again. At first it seems like an incredibly disturbing murder mystery, but when the truth gets revealed there turns out to be such a deep story behind it. Heck, can we even be sure that everyone got killed here? Knowing Higurashi, there promises to be so much going on, despite that at first sight this just seems like a repetitive killing spree.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 11
The first arc and the 2nd arc are two diff games. kinda like two diff realities with differing circumstances so that the witch can trap meta battler with unsolvable mysteries of sorts. In my opinion she thought metabattler was utterly crushed by her as his gamepiece (battler) gave up and submitted to her because he had no theories to say that the murders were commited via human traits ( too distraught i guess)
..well..they’re gonna start another game next episode.
The third arc will explain the “magic” more or less. And by the way, why do you think that the culprit in every arc is the same person?
Disturbing indeed… Umineko is probably the biggest disappointment of 2009 for me, the only reason I havent dropped it is because I loved Higurashi and I hope somehow they come up with a decent explanation for all the crap thats happening, other than “you were seeing things from a delusional character” like Mirai in tokyo magnitude
Also hate how fake everything is… this would be so much better if it took itself seriously
Im tired of all the generic evil laughs and faces maria and beatrice make.. the fake emotions everyone puts (battler is all determined one second, and the next hes crying and gives up? Give me a break)
Sad, really
Ah the needlessly cruel and gory Banquet. Why did Beatrice show that last scene to Battler? It strenghtend his resolve…
Beatrice doesn´t differ between the two Battlers because the “real” one is dead. In a sense Meta-Battler is now both the Battler from the first game and the one from the 2nd one. (This is also what apparently formed Bernkastel from “all the dead Rikas”)
The events get REALLY hard to believe after Rosa abandons the real Battler and he gets drunk – my excuse not to believe exactly in the events after Genji gets him.
Unentschieden: please NO SPOILERS. I’d like to find that out myself!!!
Don’t worry, what Unentschieden posted was just his personal interpretation, and not a spoiler for future episodes or anything.
Yeah, it was truly a weird and creepy episode.
Critically speaking, sloppy animation quality was all over the place and it was clearly rushing through the different scenes, but other than that…it was admittedly entertaining and a few interesting plot elements were also introduced.
It seemed that Meta-Battler didn’t surrender at all, but being acknowledged by his counterpart within the “game” was still enough for Beatrice to “win” this round. Perhaps she hoped that seeing his own self give up would leave him in a desperate state?
Rosa had a brief moment of bravery and courage, which was nice, but I am still thinking she was at least behind the murders in the chapel even if someone else was responsible for the rest. Bringing up her hatred for her brothers and sister during that gross dinner scene would point to Rosa’s motive.
In the end, I couldn’t help but agree with Bernkastel about this “game” being too one-sided, but I guess that was precisely the point of this second arc. Looking back, it makes a lot of sense.
i’m very happy you like this episode psgels =)
Do you enjoy the rose vs goats scene? all the fans were waiting for that it’s a shame it was so brief in the anime.
The banquet was really disturbing but very well done, also i missed how battler smash beatrice head into the table when he appeared in the tea party but it was ok in the anime 🙂
Do you realize who represents lambda psgels???? =) right now in the visual novel the connection between bernakesntel and lambda in higurashi was pretty clear 🙂
They did not show beatrice changing her clothes in front of battler, as in the vn, boooooo 😛
Where is the point in mentioning one’s own disappointment due to missing details in an adaption on a blog where an anime-only viewer writes down his thoughts about the series??
IMO the atmosphere was perfect and they even managed to show the banquet and the tea party in its full uncensored glory.
Judging from the comments, the visual novel seems way more epic.
The dinner scene was indeed *ahem*.
Frost: If that’s your main problem with Umineko, wait for arcs 3 and 4.
You people have no patience =/
Haha.Nice review. But i just wanna inform you that, the power of Beatrice’s magic is different from Lamdadelta’s (takano from Higurashi).
Bernkastel describes Lamda’s power as a fixed but difficult maze. The thing with Beatrice’s maze, is that it is ever changing. I.e Her games are never fixed, the culprits can change, the motive can change. To bernkastel,whom she describes herself as being able to draw a map to leave the maze, is completely powerless against an everchanging maze.
Just inform you so that you could expand your angles at which you looked at the plot and so its not neccesary for the culprit to remain the same. ^^
All I can see is everything they’re messing up… but I’m glad to know it doesn’t suck from an anime-only perspective.
marebito: well, I think everyone missed that part.
I’ve felt quite bored watching it. Sure, the spoiler from the light novels indicates that something will happen but while in the Light Novel it means waiting a day or two until the real action starts (I guess, that will be the time if you concentrate on reading), in this anime it means waiting over a month for that. It surely needs patience not to get bored while watching that part.
It doesn’t matter whether there are already some clues scattered over the scenes, it’s like presenting some things and asking afterwards what colours they had, meaning only by knowing that the whole thing was about the colours you know it’s even worth noticing the colours. Such a “Aha, so it was about that…”-Revelation is surely interesting but waiting for it while watching a boring, seemingly pointless plot for over a month is something that stresses the meaning of “boring”.
I really hope the third arc will finally reveal some stuff that makes the story more enjoyable.
lamba reminds me of takano from higurashi for some reason I don’t know why though had to do a double take because I really thought it was her (has not read or played the visual) the dinner scene made me lol after what meta battler said to Maria.
Also it seems to me that Beatrice needs everyone to believe thats shes a witch…
Morgoth: Episodes 3 and 4 are the best of the lot, don’t give up on the anime now. By the way, it was a VN, not a light novel.
Oh I just hope you vn people WILL STOP giving us anime-viewers spoilers! It kinda ruins everything. ;A;
@ Juni: Yeah, you’re right, it was a VN. My mistake.
Well, I don’t want to give up because I try to trust all those readers of the VN who say that there’s still something coming that’s worth watching. But still I don’t think it speaks for the series if it needs that to continue with the series.
Erm…. has anyone noticed the fact that a part of a chapel window was smashed in at episode 10?
George, Shanon and Gohda smashed it to get in. Because Rosa locked the door and kept the key.
As an anime watcher, I just feel like throwing in the towel and admitting that everything is because of magic. I think I formed too much expectations from it and disappointed myself. This arc would have been much better without the evil laughter and clenched teeth about.. thrice(?) every episode.
I don’t understand why Rosa accused Battler of being the culprit, since there was no way he could kill Shannon & co or moved Nanjo’s and Kumasawa’s bodies… if they didn’t show them going to toilet the entire time.
Maybe he is not the killer, but he can be an accomplice.
Just like in the end of the first arc, if Maria is an accomplice, she can put the letter so that Natsuhi chase off her and the other three while the true culprit is waiting outside.
Despite having read the VNs and knowing that things have been cut down and altered for the anime, I must say I am enjoying the series. I guess I am just able to accept that there are some things animation can’t portray with such a budget.
Trust me, retaining every major detail would do more harm than good, making the pacing terribly slow and not worth the wait for action. I suppose people just set their expectations too high because the VNs had more time and freedom to show things.
Judging from what we have seen, I’d say that the anime is a summary of the originals as a whole, and it’s doing fine as is. Nothing to do now but wait for the next episode.
Regarding those that start to get impatient… It was the same for me when reading the novel. With Higurashi being my main fandom Umineko sometimes worked against my expectations and while I definitely enjoyed Episode 1-3 it took me until the end of Episode 4 to fully appreciate and love ryukishi07’s new franchise. And Episode 5 continued with the awesomeness. I can imagine it might turn out similar for some of the anime-only viewers, so hang in there.
On the other hand at the same time I can’t really understand how some viewers can’t deal with left out details in the plot… I mean that’s one of the main aspects of every good mystery story, isn’t it? And normally no good writer would betray the faith of his readers and not provide a satisfying answer in the end, so we’ll all just have to wait and trust ryukishi07 in that department. Otherwise anyone can feel free to drop this series, it won’t kill you.