Umineko When They Cry Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch

Umineko no Naku koro ni - Episode 1 Right. I wasn't expecting much from the beginning. I actually had no idea what Umineko was about, but I knew it had a witch, a family, and a mansion. I went to see the anime, but it was so horrible that I preferred to erase it from my memory and start the saga adapted in manga. I will start with the elements that I thought were cool. Basically episode 1 is a battle of the protagonist, Battler, with himself, in his quest to find the assassin inside the mansion, and, most importantly: to deny the existence of the GoldenWitch, Beatrice. That point, specifically, is cool. Battler seems to have a future as a character. OK, now I come to what I think wasn't cool: - First of all, and probably best known among non-readers of Umineko, are the edgy faces. "Ah, but why are the edgy faces so bad?", someone may want to know, and I understand. Edgy things, like faces that represent insanity, anger, or hatred, are usually very exaggerated facial expressions that are there precisely to express a feeling without necessarily showing it. As if it were very difficult to create a character who can convey his feelings without reducing everything to a contorted grimace and a stick out tongue, as if this were extremely natural. And yeah, Umineko is full of scenes like this, if at any time Maria intends to change her personality, she will simply start contorting her face and laughing hysterically, because it is very difficult to create a more organic character that actually generates fear. Those expressions she makes are more comical than scary, in fact. And her mother beating her up for making those faces, with even more faces kkkk Other example of this is Natsuhi in her clash with Eva, it literally becomes a war of who shouts the loudest, but this in itself is not a defect, who has never been in a family discussion and started shouting out of nowhere? The problem really lies in the faces and death threats, which, because they are uttered by characters we barely know, sound more like unpalatable insanity than a simple family disagreement. - Another problematic point is how the manga doesn't know how to anticipate or prepare. Anticipation in plot twist is considered basic to believe that what was there all along, and a plot twist without anticipation simply sounds like a "the author pulled it out of his ass". And Umineko EP 1 is full of plot twists that have no basis whatsoever. An example of this is the corpse of the head of the family being found in a room, completely charred, and only at that moment is it revealed that the man had 6 toes on each foot, just because otherwise they wouldn't know how to identify the body. Couldn't it have been told before? Couldn't it be a fact somehow mentioned or just referenced? But no, it suddenly existed because the author needed it. There is a scene that one of the characters, Eva, kind of anticipates her father's movements by putting a piece of paper between the door so that he couldn't leave his chambers without leaving a remnant. OK, this served to make Battler doubt the provenance of the case and cogitate the existence of Beatrice, but why did Eva do that? Until that moment there was no suspicion and no crime concerning that part of the mansion, so what she did sounds quite meaningless. And the episode ended and nothing was commented on, she was just super psychic anyway. And another example of this, is when Battler returns the lucky charm to Mary. In one chapter, the climax is in Battler saying that he is without the amulet, so it was not for him that Battler was spared by Beatrice, this to try to prove to Maria that the witch does not exist. A few chapters later, however, Battler says it was a lie and that it was always with him, just to give it back to Maria and protect her from any threat. Something that could be simply grounded quickly, but isn't, creating yet another script convenience. - And now, what disappointed me the most in this manga, the characters. I have three main points that express my displeasure with the cast: Case 1: They conclude things on their own Umineko's characters vary greatly from super geniuses to amoebas during the manga. One thing that is really inexplicable is how sometimes they just come to incredible conclusions out of nothing. A good example of this is Battler's stepmother, this is before any murder happens. Battler is upset about how the family is fighting and falling out, and about the letter that was left between them, apparently written by Beatrice, and Kyrie, the stepmother, suddenly comes to his side and starts overflowing with wild theories, just out of the blue. Not even Battler was talking to her, and suddenly she comes up with endless strands of thought and history. It's not such an unreal thing, she could really be a genius just hiding, but since it wasn't something anticipated, she seemed more like an NPC who needed to leave crucial information for the character. Case 2: They change personality This one is more recurring. The cast of Umineko doesn't seem to have any personality at all. Battler is even minimally characterized, his beef is about whether the witch exists or not, so he denies and asserts this several times, even if very conveniently. What is even more convenient, is how the rest of the cast behaves: in chapter 20 there is the murder of three people in front of a child in a locked room, there being only the 4 of them there. Since Mary is a child and they don't suspect her, Jessica, one of the young women remaining in the mansion, immediately blames Beatrice for the deed. What we think: OK, she believes Beatrice." However in chapter 21, literally a few pages later, she sees her mother with a bullet from the gun she was holding in her head, and her reaction solely and completely is to bawl at her mother's dead body, "Why a suicide?" stating this several times. Knowing that there was a certain Beatrice causing serial murders, stating this a chapter earlier, and knowing her mother, who shortly before was determined to hunt down the culprit and get revenge on him, what was the obvious and singular alternative? Since Jessica herself had already received for herself the truth that Beatrice was real? it makes no sense. Examples of this personality change are not lacking in Umineko. George, another young survivor, feels hatred for the mysterious killer who is taking his entire family, but when it is mentioned that Beatrice was the mistress of the head of the family, and he is trying to revive her with black magic by sacrificing her descendants, he puts himself in the killer's shoes and says he would do the same. ?????????? And another factor: they are always in sharp nuances of "Beatrice exists", "she doesn't exist!" when it suits them, the ones who run away from that the most are Natsuhi and Eva, the rest of the cast keeps contradicting themselves. There is a consensus that the murder in the locked room from the inside was Beatrice's doing, and in the next case they have already forgotten that conclusion and doubt her strongly again. It sounds very forced. Case 3: They are dumb when it suits the author Battler and company see the witch's ritual in chapter 3 or 4, read about the nights of the murders and Beatrice's return. But for some reason, the geniuses who solve murder cases chapters later, were too stupid at the beginning to know what it was all about, and they don't associate any of it with what happens later. Only in chapter 20, after more than half the house is dead, do they come to that conclusion, late, when it is already useless to them. And what about the death of Kanon, the servant? In a fit of rage, he decides to go against the witch, In the most thoughtless way possible. Because of this abrupt change of personality, he is conveniently killed. Plus Umineko's characters are too shallow, reduced to exaggerated facial expressions to show any emotion. An extremely low level manga, with a dirty build up that can't sustain anything, and a lot of things that were left totally open and will probably be covered up in the following episodes. A very bad start.

Like it's spiritual predecessor Higurashi, Umineko no Naku Koro ni is split into eight arcs, with the first four being question ones and the last four answer. This is a review of the first arc, Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch, often refered to simply by the series name, like on here, due to it being the first arc. As a forewarning, I may end up comparing this to Higurashi a lot due to them being very similar, but I'll try to do so as little as possible. Ah, the story. In this we get Ryukishi07's usual style of telling you as little aspossible for the question arcs so you have to try to fit it all together. The plot here is fairly typical of a horror/mystery with a group of people being stranded somewhere as they all start to get killed until there are none left ala Ten Little Indians. What Umineko adds though, is magic, possible insanity and some of the most gruesome murders I'm seen in any media. In fact the main problem the plot seems to have is just how in the dark in leaves it's readers. Of course I can't fault it on this though as it's a mystery series with this being only the first arc. Sadly though, it being the first arc is also probably the main fault the arc has overall as due to that we don't get a lot of the wonderful elements and banter between characters that we do in later arcs. It's still we'll done though and manages to maintain a disturbing tone from the first murder to the last. As I seem to be noticing with a lot of manga I've reviewing as of late, the art is one of the worst things the series has going for it. Thankfully, it does get better as the series progresses. The backgrounds are all fine and dandy, but the way the characters are drawn by this artist looks off a lot of the time, though it's good when it needs to be. Disturbingly, the best drawn things in this arc are the corpses... I'll say this: I remember watching the anime several months ago and complaining about all the censoring that was done on the corpses. I am now GLAD they did that. Honestly, I think if I'd seen some of those pictures with detailed colouring, I may have lost my lunch. Just... Look for yourself, but you have been forewarned all you squeemish people out there! Charcter wise, this series is a little lacking. I don't mean that there's too few of them, oh no, we get nineteen in this arc alone. Where it's lacking is the actual development of the characters and this is a problem that we had back in Higurashi too. The characters are all fun from the adorable ones to the ones you just want to punch in the face at times, but they're all brutally underdeveloped little things, doomed to forever maintain one character trait. They are luckily all memorable thoug, something to be thankful for in a series with so many who often end up dying before we even can remember their names. Despite my griping, I am happy to report that this series is very enjoyable. The beginning is a bit slow and deductions can drag on once in a while, but when the shit hits the fan it gets good. I'm really hoping that this becomes more popular as right now it's only really known by Higurashi fans for the most part, so I'm really hoping it can break away from that and become a story unto itself. I am happy to give this frighteningly gruesome ride a 7 out of 10, leaning on an 8.

There are lot of longer series that are dull and uniteresting at the start, but with a huge fanbase spamming "Bro you gotta keep reading/watching bro I promise it gets better after 200 chapters/episodes bro trust me please don't drop it". Fortunately, Umineko is not one of those. And I don't mean that it starts great only to get weaker later. It starts great and keeps getting even greater. And it goes even beyond that, the later parts are so great they make the already good start even better. But more about that later. Umineko is a detective mystery made to transcend the concept of detectivemysteries. It pits logic, deduction and detective works of mere humans against the magic of great witch. Or does it? It is a fight between mystery genre and fantasy genre. And Episode 1 serves as a great introduction to this conflict. The great saga starts with more or less regular crime scene. Group of people gets trapped on a secluded island and mysterious murder happens. Well, mysterious murders. The protagonist has to catch the culprint so there aren't any more victims. The conclusion, which I won't spoil, sets of a conflict of even greater scale. Now this is where the true genius of this work comes to play. The hints are there from the starts and they alway were there. Hints to conclusion both to this episode and to the whole Umineko story. Hidden in plain sight, carefully chosen to not be given away while still allowed to be spotted. But I would bow to anyone who puts them together, as the mystery is constructed so well it looks unsolvable yet once you get to the solution, you see that it was your fault for not getting it. There is no BBC Sherlock-tier bullshit asspull, the author cleanly won the intellectual battle with the reader without cheating. Admittedly, yes, the grand conclusion comes later after this episode, so it technically isn't part of rating of Episode 1, but Legend of the Golden Witch pulls out such well done set-up to the finale that it deserves some of the credit. Set-up that is enjoyable not only after the finale, but right from the start. The art is great and a perfect fit for the atmosphere of Umineko. It shifts from cute, daily life style to horrifying scenes and terrifying grimaces, creating a great contrast. The violence and gore is well balanced, it's enough to bring out the mordbid curiosity humans tend to have, but at the same time not overdone in a way that would be seen as edgy and pretentious.

A great set up for the rest of the series, it starts off slow but slowly builds up momentum and becomes more and more intriguing, which leads to an amazing and quite terrifying climax. Characters- The characters are set up pretty well too, Battler is an entertaining and endearing protagonist right off the bat and you truly feel for him during certain moments in the story, he's just so fun and likable you can't help but root for him to survive against all odds and be excited to follow this journey with him. Maria is quite creepy yet sad, she can certainly be annoying but it'sobvious after a while everything is just a coping mechanism to deal with the pain she has to go through, she's a very well written character. Jessica is also likable but I can't say she was one of my favorites at all during episode 1, she was alright in this episode. George was instantly suspicious to me, I was pretty much convinced he was the killer and was manipulating and tricking Maria into murder, he just felt too perfect to the point he was shady, and it constantly being mentioned that he was good with kids heightened my suspicions of him. Natsuhi's character was very well expanded upon, not too much, just enough to get us interested in her and leave space for her to be truly fleshed out in the excellent episode 5 - which just so happens to be my favorite episode. As for the rest, some highlights were how Eva was introduced as this total cunt but got a real nice humanizing moment with Hideyoshi which really made her likable and interesting, and just Shannon and Kanon in general and the mystery behind their identities as furniture and why and what furniture meant and why they had to be so? (This is a mystery I'm just starting to figure out actually) Story and Atmosphere- This is probably the weakest episode out of what I've read up to in terms of story, the beginning parts were truly sometimes frustrating to get through, but at the same time, they were effective and important, you really realize the amount of importance and foreshadowing it contains on a reread after you reach a certain level of the truth behind Beatrice. However, I very much enjoyed the latter half of the episode and the way the tension was built up had me biting down on my lip in anticipation, it was incredibly compelling and well done, the ending didn't fail to give me chills and at the moment the ending credits rolled, I was fully invested in Umineko and beyond ready to go on the currently 6 month journey of reading I'm on. Overall, I very much enjoyed this episode despite it being my least favorite, it was a great introduction and was effective at getting me hooked.