It’s episodes like this that really remind me why I’m still such a fan of anime. This episode was just… beyond awesome. Major spoilers coming up, do not read this entry if you haven’t seen the episode, and for the rest I can say little else than:
What the Fuck!?
I sort-of suspected that this episode would end with a bang, but this kind of a bang… I never saw coming: freakin’ Beatrice set everything up. The reason why her acting felt so forced was that it was SUPPOSED to be acting: there’s no way Battler was going to notice, and instead Beatrice started playing the innocent victim, while creating a new villain in Evatrice. Holy crap, talk about an awesome plot twist!
I’m now starting to see why Beatrice was supposed to be such an awesome character. The sheer cruelty in which she continuously keeps thinking of scenarios to fool Battler, and does it every time, and at the same time you can see that she isn’t perfect. My guess is that she originally didn’t plan to include the Evatrice plot in this arc, and instead just tried to use her Teacher to confuse Battler, but when he cornered her (when Ronove interrupted her when she was about to give away an important clue) and they went into that emergency meeting of theirs, they decided to go for such an elaborate illusion.
On top of that, Beatrice seems to have two intentions that contradict each other: her first goal is to “win” from Battler: make him acknowledge that she’s a witch. However, on top of that it’s also her “job” to “win” the game endlessly, and she seems to be under the orders of Lambdadelta. While seemingly contradicting each other, could it be that the first goal of hers is also just a red herring? That she simply already is a mage, but needs to keep the Ushinomiya-family in that endless loop of theirs for some reason? That could explain why Battler’s sister suddenly popped up as a major player.
Anyway, back to the murders: the survivors this time are Battler, Eva, Jessica, Krauss and Rosa. It’s interesting how Evatrice confirmed that Jessica isn’t one of the murderers, and neither Eva nor Battler killed Nanjo. However, that doesn’t go for Krauss and Rosa. In fact, while I don’t think that Krauss was the murderer in the first two arcs (perhaps he got killed off before he could get started), but he actually seems like a pretty likely suspect this arc: remember how he said that surprisingly nice comment about how he regrets having been so mean to his family members? After Beatrice’s act and all, I don’t believe one word from that anymore.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)
And remember, I reserve the right to delete posts that talk about what happens in the novel after this episode
Wow, just updated the page and there’s 18, right after watching it.
I just have to say that I felt just as trolled as Battler did, jesus christ.
And Ange is olev.
This episode was just amazing. Before it started I was thinking about how I’ve never changed my opinion of a character from bad to good so quickly. That heel face turn face turn heel, was pulled off so superbly. I can’t wait to see what happens next. “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, was making people think he didn’t exist”
Actually Pgels the only survivor is Eva. In this episode Eva shot Battler. and Krauss and Rosa are still dead. The reason there seen to be alive (along with all of the family in the second to last scene) was thanks to Beatrice. The only person to survive this time was Eva.
Eva was the only survivor, the rest was an illusion to make Battler sign. In fact, we see that ’12 years later’? Eva is on her deathbed and hands over the ring to Angie-Betrice. Not sure why Eva aged soo much in 12 years, nor why Angie-Betrice does not look 12 years older than when Battler ‘thought of her’ an episode ago; but whatever.
There was quite a bit of emphasis put on the Angie-‘Betrice’ part, specifically stating that only another ‘Betrice’ could defeat her.
I take all this to mean that at the end of this arc, Eva wins all, she killed at a minimum Battler and 3 others, so we now know 1 killer, and the new player is brought in from 12 years in the future down one potential timeline. *brain starts to hurt again*
Witches don’t refo~rm☆
!!I’m avoiding any game-content here and restrict myself purely to anime-content!!
Just a little something (it’s not that horrible to get a bit lost in Umineko at times), as Rika already pointed it out Eva is the only one to survive this gameboard.
Krauss was found last episode, dead, next to his wife Natsuhi in the rose garden, after they were strangled by the Siestas in the guesthouse.
Rosa was impaled through the back of her head with a part of the fence in the rose garden in episode 15 after Beato decided to step into Eva-Beatrices endless killing.
Battler got killed by Eva, or at least that’s what we see after Beato destroyed Eva Beatrice this Episode. Right before the Eyecatcher he accuses her of being the culprit and she pities him saying he was a bit too slow, raises her gun and BANG.
What happened to Jessica, that is right, we don’t know…we just know that Beato was allowed to stop guarding the room where she hid her…so if Eva really is the culprit, I think it’s safe to assume she did not only shoot Battler.
But the question remains, who killed Nanjo.
@psgels: Just a question at the side…do you normaly avoid previews or do you watch them? It’s of course a bit more difficult to guess in Umineko’s case, because they only do web-previews…even though I like that because it saves a good minute if not more in every episode!!
And yeah, I’m asking because I’m really looking forward to seeing your opinion of the next arc.
Krauss has already been killed along with his wife, unless either of them are faking their deaths but there’s no real clue to support that right now. On the other hand, we never saw anyone kill Jessica either, but the glimpse of the 1998 world implies that everyone other than Eva did in fact die.
Still, I thought this was a great episode. The deception was almost perfect, although it did become blatantly obvious moments before its final confirmation and the interruption by Ange.
Speaking of which, as a new character she seems to be in an interesting position as the last member of her doomed family but does come off as something of a plot device at the moment. I hope we learn more about her.
I knew from the instant Battler slapped Beatrice and she had such a severe reaction that she was going to pull off a self sacrifice maneuver, it just made sense. It’s pretty awesome that she was just faking all of that.
The fact that they then showed Eva as the real killer and then had a 12 years later segment where Eva on hear deathbed is all screwed up, that’s damned cool.
In sort, this episode validated the rest of the series up until now, it’s fun.
Yeah, this episode was just the best! I’m pretty sure that there’s really a bigger overeaching gameboard, being played by Bernkastel and Lambadelta, with Beato, Evatrice, and Virgilia included among the game pieces (maybe all the furniture too).
I don’t know where I’m at with the anti-mystery/anti-fantasy thing but I read that Ryukishi07 said that we shouldn’t discount the fantasy too much…so I generally still try to consider that both may exist.
Man at the start of the episode I was so pissed off…I was like “I’m only going to finish the show because I’m curious to what happens in the end” But thank god that twist saved it all, I thought it was stupid how they ruined Beatrice her character but instead they made her just a million times more awesome. Can’t wait for kungfu girl with skirt that magically conceals panties and what her role in all of this will be.
@psgels: You should read this short story written by the writer of Umineko about Ange before the next episode as it sets up alot of things
@psgels: I would advise against reading the story linked in post 11, actually… It spoils some characters from Episode 4, not to mention there are a bunch of other short stories on that page that are pretty spoilery too.
@11
tanabata should be read after episode 4, imo.
why the hell would you spoil the troll?
Realy? Am I the only one who didn’t by that “har har look at me I’m soooo evil” act at the end? That quick-pained-expression-to-over-exaggerated-evil-laugh could have come straight from the master of pretending to be evil,Lelouch Lamperouge, himself.
It just doesn’t add up. Sure the stuff she said could have been an act, but what about her internal dialog? Surly there was no need to act in her own thoughts was there?
I mean it definitely looked like she set him up, but then again I spent the first half of Higurashi thinking that a curse from someone who would be hard pressed to antagonize a fly was responsible.
I’m not taking anything in this show at face value for a second. There’s more going on with this than we can see.
Eva was the only survivor of the third game. It’s actually the first time someone manages to get out of the island alive.
Surely*
@12 and 13: Tanabata was released with Episode 3
Well I said it last week and I’ll say it again, Umineko is the best thing on right now. Sure, Aoi Bungaku is more literary, Armed Librarians more layered, and Darker than Black has better characters, but Umineko devours them all when it comes to sheer keep me on the edge of my seat, eyes glued to the screen, damn its over already and I have to wait a whole ‘nother week storytelling awesomeness. Psgels has talked in the past about shows with an X-factor. Umineko has X-Y-Z factor. Is it an instant classic, no, it isn’t. But its a clear reminder of why anime is my favorite story-telling medium, because only in anime can you put something like this together. And yes, I realize its based on a visual novel, but a visual novel just cant take a story like this to its fullest potential the way the anime adaptation has. Mayhaps a day will come when VN technology can accomplish and even surpass the limitations imposed on a passive medium like anime, but until they can make an active medium that is completely animated, and reasonably linear enough to truly tell a story, without making concessions to game-play/animation, anime reigns supreme.
Awesome episode. I was totally blown away. Without doubt it is the best episode yet! I’m really looking forward to the ending of this series.
Shoot, I was fooled too. I thought Beato might have turned good, but she still seems as insane and cruel as ever. =/
@17 no it wasn’t, it was released just this past June, well after Episode 4. Which is reasonable, because it doesn’t make sense before Episode 4.
It’s a cool story, but you can recommend it later, ok?
That was worth the past 6 weeks of build-up. Ever since episode 11, Umineko has been a great successor to Higurashi.
Beatrice denying the witches in red, Battler crying, and out of nowhere, Battler being in front of Eva, with the shotgun, admitting she was the murderer (with the creepy look in her face) was such a perfect Halloween moment. That scene gave me chills.
The title “Swindles” could have spoiled the second act of the episode, but I was so engrossed with the episode, I paid no attention to it.
Seeing “Evatrice” dominate Beatrice at the beginning (leaving nothing but Beatrice’s heart) finally made me believe that Beatrice actually had good intentions and really just wanted Battler to acknowledge her.
My disbelief that she was good was because where could the series go from Beatrice being nice after the way she acted in the first 2 arcs?
Sure enough, 10 minutes later, I was right to begin with, but the creators finally hooked me. It was more fun being fooled anyway.
MagicianMan(14) might have a point though. Why animate the fact that she seemed like she was in pain/disappointed in telling the truth to Battler and then switch to evil at the end? Hopefully, there is something to that for the final 7 episodes.
“And yes, I realize its based on a visual novel, but a visual novel just cant take a story like this to its fullest potential the way the anime adaptation has.”
You have no idea how compelling and moving the VN version of these events were. I rate this episode a 9/10, 4.5/5 etc and if it had 5 scenes with an extra minute it would get a perfect score.. but even than.. it’s nothing compared to the VN events.
The VN has far more emotional investment in it due to the length of scenes. You’re moved by the way Eva Beatrice treats Beato during the siesta attacks and while Beato tries to find a clue. Imo Eva Beatrice’s red web is still by far the most impressive use of red in the VNs and the anime version was nowhere near it.
It seems to be that Eva was working with the true culprit before things went wrong and her family got murdered.
After that Eva had a falling out with the true culprit. Eva somehow managed to kill the true culprit but she herself was at that point of questionable sanity.
As for the true culprit of this arc? I’m guessing it was Kyrie. This is also the prime reason why Eva killed Battler. It was out of revenge.
The thing I don’t understand is – what are the implications of Beatrice’s denying the existence of witches with red text? Sure, it may have been said to fool Battler, but there’s no way the statement was fake, right?
As for the episode – yeah, it was definitely the best in the series so far. I had a problem with the current arc because I just couldn’t believe Beatrice’s sudden change of heart. I was waiting for a discovery like this to put everything back in place.
Westlo, but the thing is, as VN’s are now with the current state of technology, they cannot pull me in to suspend my disbelief because they aren’t fully animated, and too text based. And if my disbelief isn’t suspended, everything else is moot.
Grhasha, she made Battler cover his ears, so he never heard the existence of witches denied in red, therefore, within the confines of the game of wits between her and Battler, it is like it never happened.
@25 (Grhasha): Can you prove she even said that witches don’t exist? I didn’t see any red text.
I don’t believe that Eva is the true culprit. That’s just one of the conclusions Battler came up with before his death (we are given no reasoning). Only thing that is certain is that Eva did kill Battler. But as Eva-Beatrice pointed out, Eva wasn’t directly involved in the murder of Nanjo.
I believe the true culprit(s?) is the one responsible for the sending of the letters and the murders of the initial six. After that everyone else feels like killing their family because they can only suspect the others if they believe that they are only 18 people on the island.
I hope the next episodes bring similar mindtwists.
Only one thing
“Anyway, back to the murders: the survivors this time are Battler, Eva, Jessica, Krauss and Rosa”
Why do you think rosa and krauss were alive? they were show and specify in red THEY ARE DEAD. And battler and jessica are missing THE ONLY COMFIRMED SURVIVOR FROM ALL THE ARCS IS EVA.
@Battler
Actually Battler is most certainly dead. Eva shot him in the episode. Jessica on the other hand is ‘missing’ although the most likely senario is that she’s also dead.
I was really looking forward to seeing anime-only fans’ faces after this episodes 🙂 When I first saw the look on Beatrice’s face at that moment, I was completely creeped out. When playing I completely fell for it; but I realized the scheme when the contract was shown, and I was literally screaming at Battler not to sign it!
@Kamikazesim: “@MagicianMan(14) might have a point though. Why animate the fact that she seemed like she was in pain/disappointed in telling the truth to Battler and then switch to evil at the end? Hopefully, there is something to that for the final 7 episodes”: I was wondering about that too. There is something that might suffice as an explanation later on but I won’t say more than that…
@Kamikazesim, MagicianMan, Cad: my boyfriend and I agree that Beato’s evil switch seemed questionable. Maybe it’s that she intended to pretend to be “good” for a while, but after she started, she did genuinely develop some feelings of regret and caring, but her evilness just won out in the end. She also couldn’t switch sides because she’s playing in the service of Lambadelta, as we saw later. In fact, I wondered about the purpose of that conversation: was Lambadelta questioning Beato about her eternal service because she was worried that Beato’s softer feelings might be somewhat genuine?
Beatrice probably said something along the lines of.. “Hey Eva-B… you’re just a pawn I made, lolololol, dissipate”
“Westlo, but the thing is, as VN’s are now with the current state of technology, they cannot pull me in to suspend my disbelief because they aren’t fully animated, and too text based. And if my disbelief isn’t suspended, everything else is moot.”
Ridiculous, you’re saying a book can’t pull you in? A good author can draw you into his world….
@Jenny: I think you’re probably right, both about Beatrice and about Lambdadelta.
Without spoiling anything, I’ll say that Beatrice is a superb actor, and this isn’t the only time she acted opposite to what she thought (or “felt”, if you could say that about her…). For this reason it is very hard to get an idea of what’s going on in her mind, and only rarely do we get a glimpse of it. But I think that, if there’s one thing that we do know about her, is that she is cruel in a childish way; for reasons mentioned in these last few episodes. This makes it even hard to judge, if she’s truly evil or just childish (the next arc, in many ways, deals with this).
About Lambdadelta, she has reasons to want Beatrice to keep up the cruel and heartless appearance, and probably wanted to “motivate” her to continue being as such, to prevent her from becoming softer even by a little. But as mentioned before, Beatrice is such a superb actress she might’ve even trolled Lambdadelta to believe she’s becoming softer. For all we know she could be playing us all. So I don’t really know if Lambdadelta’s “encouragement” was necessary, or if encouraging Beatrice was even her purpose – as with Higurashi, another piece by the same author, things make sense in a completely different way after you understand what’s going on behind the scenes… (to see what I mean, you can rewatch the first and second arcs).
I can’t force myself to like this anime. They continue to throw in characters but the real focus of this anime should be the murders and how and why they were committed.
This board of murders has yet no meaning. It’s just a blood feast of sacrifices to announce Beatrice’s might in an endless fanservice. So it doesn’t matter who dies and why, there’s no meaning in the closed rooms.
(Meta)Battler is also yet useless as everything he dare say is destroyed by red speech.
It’s all so useless. I just want to see what they put out of the cilynder at the end of this circus.
And, by the way, Higurashi was 100 times better.
Westlo, yes a book can, but there is a reason that lots of people dont like comic books, manga, and graphic novels as well as VN’s, even avid readers, and its because the combination of text and imagery along with our modern tv and film trained minds, creates discord in our suspension of disbelief as we switch back and forth from one to the other. My degrees are in Literature and Philosophy, so I love a good book, but when I’m reading say an Umberto Eco novel, I quickly forget that I’m reading at all and simply have a story playing out in my mind. With a comic or even the visual novels I’ve tried, I cant do that because my eyes keep getting drawn back and forth between text and image and I’m unable to completely sink into what I’m watching. And that is why anime is perfectly poised to create worlds that can be as fully imagined as a book, with as many speculative and fantastic elements as it wants, and yet like film, there are no disparate elements.
I forgot to say a couple of things:
1) Jessica is closed in a “closed room” complete with magic circle and numbers last time we saw her.
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/6856/uminekononakukoroni181.png
Just another unexplained closed room murder.
2) Beatrice let Battler cover his ears before saying something that apparently dissolved everybody in the room. We don’t know what, and we saw no red text. Another acting/lie?
3) Eva (real one) shoots Battler (not meta), revealing she’s the culprit. Wow that’s a real deus ex machina!
It were nice If the arcs were resolved something that way. Something like in the first arc Kinzo wants to revive her mistress and sets up a game of sacrifices. In the second it was all the servitor’s fault who wanted to revive an ancient cult and in the third Eva wants the headship of the family but ends destroying all. Every arc should have been explained in some way to keep the events sustained by some logic, eventually implying the existence of some sort of exotic element called magic. But the blatant use of magic, demons and witches appearing here and there just ruinde the mystey atmosphere, reducing the events in a showroom of gore.
Well just said far mor than just a couple of things, i return in the shadows, as i’m the one who seem to dislike (or not to undestand) this show.
Solaris, what we are seeing is the story as told by Beatrice who wants Battler to believe that is how it is happening. Remember, very very little made sense in the first season of Higurashi either. It was season 2 that finally started answering questions. I will grant that each arc in Higurashi had more internal logic than each individual arc in Umineko, but that logic got completely overturned so that by the last arc we come to realize we’ve had everything completely wrong. In this show, each arc really only makes sense in light of the entire series. But as someone mentioned above, each arc also makes more sense of the previous arc so that re-watching them causes us to understand the events differently. Battler is going to continue to lose round by round until he unravels everything. Because as LambdaDelta made extra clear, if Beatrice loses a round she loses for good. Whereas, Battler can keep denying magic until he finally wins. Also, Beatrice made all that stuff about saving Jessica and everything up to trick Battler into giving up, so that door probably wasnt sealed and Eva could just walk in and blow Jessica away after dealing with Battler. And why was Eva shooting Battler in this arc a Deus ex machina? If none of the magic happened in that last arc, as it would be if Beatrice had really denied the existence of witches, then Eva is the only one who has been properly foreshadowed as the villain. She had a horrible childhood at the hands of Kinzo and her siblings who she hated, she’s both ambitious and greedy, and she’s psychologically unstable. So it made absolute sense that when Beatrice wanted to create the illusion that she had destroyed herself and Eva-trice, and removed all magic from the game, that she would present it as if Eva killed Battler. Also, Nanjo’s death is finally a puzzle that isnt a closed room puzzle. Instead, it’s that Jessica is incapacitated, Nanjo is murdered at point-blank range, and Battler and Eva are together and everyone else is supposed to be dead, so who killed him?
In any case I can’t understand what really goes on with the murders in this third arc. First the incomplete resolution of the six closed rooms, Nanjo surely has some kind of relation with it cause he wasnt in the room when Bea’s story. Kinzo’s death by fire also. Maria’s death is strange(strangled from behind by the prints on her neck). Rosa is dead with the head impaled but she didnt shoot to resist. Krauss and his wife die being strangled with ropes apparently, but they were together in that moment so how did manage the assassin to kill one without the intervention of the other? Why George is with Shannon’s body. The numbers of the door. Nanjo’s killed but not by Eva so the unknown killer should have a reason to target him. Most probably it is Jessica who kills him, it is stated in red “she didn’t commit murder” and Nanjo died by homicide at point blank so, she killed him by accident? And finally the ring(looks like a clue item in this series), I dont know why Eva has it in the end if Kinzo throws it to the raining (or keeps it maybe).
Just wondering but I hope everything becomes clear.
sadly, there are no answers yet T_T
The beauty of the VN genre is that it allows one or a small group of talented person(s) to create a middle ground between a book and an anime.
To get a book published, you need to satisfy the publisher first before it’s released out to the world. There might be a good story behind it, but if you can’t appease the publisher, it’ll never see daylight. Same goes true for manga and light novels.
OTOH, in order to make an anime, you need a huge budget and a group of staff, and even a sponsor to air it. Well these days one could make a brilliant anime like Makoto Shinkai all on his own, but not every has such talented animation skills.
But a VN like Umineko, all you need is one genius named Ryukishi07 and one programmer named BT (and may he RIP) to be released directly to the public. No middleman, no connections, no need for a huge budget.
So if you like Higurashi and Umineko, think first why this was animated in the first place. It all came from a doujin (amateur) visual novel game.
Ken, Thanks, that does make sense, and I’m not dissing VN’s, I’m just saying that with the current state of technology, anime, for me, is the medium with the most potential for bringing a story to its fullest expression.
I don’t think Beato was fully trolling Battler.
When Battler asked her if she was truly lying, there was a shot of Beato pausing, and gritting her teeth before she smiled and outright admitted that Battler got trolled. She may have conjured up a brilliant plan, but I also believe she meant some of the things she said to Battler during the entire time.