I have two problems with Umineko: Eva is too much stuck in her Takano-voice, and Maria is trying too hard to sound like Rena. Especially Maria gets on my nerves. I’m not really bothered with how she’s a little girl, but the way the camera keeps giving her close-ups when she’s making Higurashi-faces for no reason. I mean, one thing is that you can almost hang a sign on her with “Yo people, I am evil”, but the stranger thing is that nobody even seems to notice this. I mean, doesn’t anyone find it weird that a nine-year-old can quote and redraw exact passages on the bible?
But yeah, apart from that I’m getting really fond of this series: it’s basically one really big murder mystery so far in which the characters themselves try to find out what the heck is going on. This episode even continued to reduce the body count by killing off Eva and her husband. That killed off just about all of the direct heirs and their partners, aside from Natsuhi. Also, if the killer was just after the money, then why did Gouda and Sharon also die?
Right now, the most suspicious ones are Natsuhi, because she now is the most likely to succeed Kinzou and has shown to be the least emotionally stable of the cast, and Genji, who was alone outside of Eva’s room for a while and therefore could have made the blood drawing. Since the chain wasn’t cut or anything, it was very likely that Eva’s body already lied on the bed when he opened the door, but he skillfully hid it from Kanon.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I’m going to remove these blurbs after this entry, because it’s getting tedious to write them for every single episode. Episode ratings will remain, though.
Does anyone actually *care* about any of the characters? That’s my main problem with the series right now. They had a nice little moment going on at the start of this episode with the obvious shock from finding this many people dead, but when it’s time to play detective everyone makes ridiculous allegations with the most evil over-the-top faces I’ve ever seen. The character interaction at times is just plain awkward and this has lead me to not caring about a single character in the show. Repeating last episode’s cliffhanger didn’t help, either.
Before bashing my comment, take note that I do actually enjoy watching the show (it does quite a few things right), but forgive me for expecting more of the drama/human aspect of the show.
As for why Gouda and Shannon died, it could have been that they heard/found out about the murders happening so whoever killed everyone decided they didn’t want any witnesses.
The anime lact the relationship between characters. I could say ,as a Visual Novel player, this is the biggest flaw so far.
But things will start to get better and better. Be prepared for episodes 5 and 6.
It’s not Natsuhi, that would be just too easy from the sequel to Higurashi. I think it’ll be probably some non-supernatural ‘it’ that possess each of them, maybe pushes them to kill themselves (although, that would be a second time too).
I’m liking this show more and more!
This show is getting creepier and creepier.
please don’t remove those ‘blurbs’
I actually liked them .. 😐
I agree with station 🙁
Turn the chess board around: Maybe the killer wanted it to look like he or she wasn’t after the money, and therefore decided to add Sharon and Gouda to the hit list. Hmmm?
I seriously doubt it’s Natsuhi. In Higurashi, we were lead to believe that Oyashiro-sama’s curse was the cause of death, yet the second season revealed something as outrageous as a disease known only to Hinamizawa. I think Umineko’s leaning toward something we completely aren’t expecting like that.
Oh crap, I meant parasite. -coughcough-
The anime adaption has missed out a LOT of key information. For one: Natsuhi’s placement in the Ushiromiya family is below everyone else (besides Kyrie; Battler’s step-mother) as the rules consider men above women. Women that marry into the family are lower than all blood-related members but I believe that men that marry in (such as Hideyoshi) are at about the same level placement as their spouse.
Beatrice’s Epitaph should have been given to you in full near the beginning but the anime just gave you a couple of lines and skipped it. There’s also a ‘background’ page translated from the official website. They’re worth checking out:
http://witch-hunt.com/epitaph.html
http://witch-hunt.com/hist.html
“I mean, doesn’t anyone find it weird that a nine-year-old can quote and redraw exact passages on the bible?”
Also not yet covered in the anime adaption for some reason: like Kinzo, her Grandfather, she also has a deep interest in Black Magic and researching it. It serves as a sort of escapism hobby for her that helps her avoid the harsh realities of her life (of which aren’t detailed for a long time so you’ll have to wait a few months or read the novel).
Studio DEEN are taking liberties with her character in the adaption. She does exhibit a sort of dual personality in the first Episode (though not often afterwards) of the novel but it’s more like her personality becoming arrogant while displaying knowledge none of the others have. It’s a bit dark due to it’s nature (and her distinct nonchalance towards death) but DEEN are using it as an excuse to bring out the ‘killer-loli’/evil faces unfairly.
Killer loli faces really are scary, especially when they quote Psalms!
@tealovertoma: regarding the characters, so far the anime cut many parts which would’ve otherwise explained many of the character interactions. For example, as Kanao mentioned, Maria’s seemingly split personality is much more toned down in the original, and people do notice, and are surprised by, the sudden changes. If I remember things correctly, Battler and George discuss this, and believe her ‘split personality’, along with the witch stuff, to be a sort of childlike play meant to get people to respect her.
I’m getting a bit of a Phoenix Wright vibe from this episode! This series looks like it will be good.
To be fair, many of the character development doen’t get really fleshed out till the later arcs.
However, I do wish they didn’t rush some parts though. For instance, the anime didn’t show that Eva was an expert in martial arts (imprtant to know since it means Eva can’t be killed that easily) or Jessica’s asthma (not really important in this arc though)
Much of this seems to be staged. I really wonder whether anyone is actually killed and they are just creating a situation. Leaving the kids to cope with the trauma and basically come up with the solution of both the lost gold and the murders.
It all seems to well orchestrated. Just a theory. Looking forward to what happens with the remaining family members.
I mean, doesn’t anyone find it weird that a nine-year-old can quote and redraw exact passages on the bible?
obviously you haven’t met any kids from traditional, tight-assed, christian/catholic families. they have like one hour devotion/bible studying/praying time every day or something. their parents are REALLY hard on them.
oh, and never heard of “breaking the fourth wall”, I am thinking we are supposed to see Maria as evil and twisted to develop paranoia. this is a psychological genre, where the goal is to mindfuck the viewers. common thing to do is to take something that would be normally be innocent and pure like a nine year old girl and suddenly make her evil and twisted. this way, it makes you doubt and think about everything you knew, that maybe not everything is as pure and innocent as you thought…
I also have a problem with the character interactions and development but I’m still not going to judge that aspect yet. If I remember right, this is the same thing that happened with Higurashi. The characters all started out horrifically bland but then after the different arcs, they started to gain a little more depth. I’m hoping that’s what will happen with this anime also.
Right now, the suspense aspect is good enough to keep me engaged. Though it is becoming a bit hard since it doesn’t really feel like the characters are actual characters yet but more of an object to just get the story across.
“For instance, the anime didn’t show that Eva was an expert in martial arts (imprtant to know since it means Eva can’t be killed that easily)”
They can easily bring that up next episode when the rest of the people alive look over the scene.
uhm… Maria is the Witch. That’s so clear!
PS: Maybe it’s just the first arc that’s confusing, but the detective story yet didn’t turn good enough. The explanations given by the guests are pretty lame after IMHO 🙁
There are a lot of information not covered in the animation. It is actually hard to judge the story BASED on the animation because in the original story, they actually pointed out all the questions you may have. The animation is just a quick rundown of the story so I think it’s a little unfair to say the story’s flawed when limited time is given to develop.
However, one should also consider the series’s merits: it may have skipped some parts here and there, leaving us with less depth than the original, but the fast pacing and graphic scenes make for an intensive experience. It only takes a slight lack of attention, to miss the next twist. I think, where the original was thought provoking and more powerful in terms of sheer horror, it lacked the “speed” the animé has, and allowed us lots of time to digest and reconsider everything. This is both a strength and a flaw, because on one hand it is exactly what the author of Umineko was trying to achieve (it is much more of the mystery genre than it is the horror one), and on the other it weakens the horrific experience.
But that is only IF the animé gets better than what it currently is. It completely lacks the powerful atmosphere the games have, which is highly disappointing. Now, I’m aware that it is extremely rare when an adaptation can best the original, but this is no excuse really – the recent Higurashi Rei OVAs have shown that an adaptation that is as good as, if not surpasses the original is definitely possible.
And then, what it does it does okay I guess, and seeing everything animated is pretty cool. So while I don’t like the adaptation very much, it’s still pretty fun to watch.
It’s really unfair how many things got cut out.
I understand that the anime had to shorten the time span, but not so drastically..
All of Battler’s family porblems went out of the window totally unexplained.
You didn’t have time to get to know the characters better before everything went down.
I really recommend you all to play at least the first VN, which can be downloaded completely legally with an English Patch at witch-hunt.com.
In my opinion the anime doesn’t do the game much justice.>>
Of course it’s still good, but they overdid Maria’s creepy faces just to get that killer loli111!! vibe back, which they thought defined
Higurashi.
Who cares about the drama? It’s a mystery/detective story! I’ve been waiting for this kind of story since Death Note!
To cad: I understand how an anime, no matter how good it is, can be a poor or insufficient adaptation of the original. The same happened with Suzumiya Haruhi no yuutsu, which was wonderful – and yet, so poor compared to the original novels.
I’m looking forward to playing the translated visual novel. Thank you so much for the suggestion.
All I can say,that this anime, the grandfather is so cruel in all aspect,He says to the witch “I give you their lives,just for you smile at me again!” who ever murder the victims,I think the grandfather has part of it!
I think the culprit is Jessica!as for me!
I don’t suspect Maria at all!lot of comments here suspected Maria!but she’s just a child who loved fantasy!
Someone must have plan it! and through Maria’s fantasy looks like a reality to them and make it like Beatrice the witch is the culprit!
thats all!
I’m liking it, but something tells me that Umineko would work better as an extended OVA instead of a weekly TV series. Appropriately enough, I had that feeling way back when the first season of Higurashi was airing too.
In this case, I hope everything changes for the better as more things are explained. The third episode was probably the best one so far.
The plot seems to be more engaging than the actual characters, considering how easily they are dropping like flies. I agree Natsuhi would be the obvious killer, but that can’t possibly be so simple. Battler’s theory sounds a bit questionable too, but it’s good to see him start to take the initiative.
Maria obviously isn’t the girl she used to be in the first episode, the family membres could at least see that if she’s not possessed , at least she turned nuts, I mean while seeing your relatives getting atrociously murdered one by one isn’t supposed to bring someone to laugh, the fact that she laughs like this should have given them a hint already and her attitude clearly shows that she acts like a disturbed girl!