***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
The year is 1986. On the island of Rokkenjima, the wealthy Ushiromiya family gather for their yearly conference. However, the family’s head, Kinzo Ushiromiya (voiced by Mugihito), is on the verge of death. With his end imminent, Kinzo decides the time is right to begin a horrific ceremony.
Among those joining the conference is Battler Ushiromiya (voiced by Daisuke Ono). Happy to see his beloved cousins again, he doesn't care for the family politics. Little did he or anyone know, this would be the last night they would see each other alive.
Within the Ushiromiya mansion is a large portrait of a beautiful woman. To the family, she's known as the Golden Witch. Legend has it, this witch gave Kinzo the funds to build his wealth. Below her painting is a strange epitaph containing a riddle. A riddle said to show the location of that wealth. Should anyone solve it, they would gain the rights to the great Ushiromiya inheritance.
And tonight is the last chance to solve the riddle.
Kinzo’s true motives for bringing his family to the island is so he can resurrect the Golden Witch. To do so, though, requires sacrifices. The members of the Ushiromiya family have walked into their doom.
One by one, people start dying gruesome deaths. With no one able to solve the riddle, no one makes it off the island. These events force everyone to acknowledge the existence of magic and witches. Except for one.
One by one, people start dying gruesome deaths. With no one able to solve the riddle, no one makes it off the island. These events force everyone to acknowledge the existence of magic and witches. Except for one. |
| Battler |
Series Positives
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| Beatrice |
There could've been plenty of reasons why a series didn’t sit well. Those reasons may have had nothing to do with the show itself. A re-look might be warranted. We can’t know unless we try.
That brings us to Umineko no Naku Koro ni. If that name sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. This is part of the When They Cry series. Though it may be a separate story, Umineko shares the same title as Higurashi. There’s a benchmark if I’ve ever heard one. It was what got me interested in this show in the first place.
And after my first viewing, I didn't like it. At all. Wow, Higurashi this was not.
That was a few years ago. Could it have been that bad? I mean, this is still a When They Cry anime. Horror, mystery, violence, suspense. Those all come to mind when thinking about this franchise. Did I miss something? I was compelled to give this show another go.
And after my second viewing, I again didn't like it. If anything, it was even worse this round. Before, Umineko was something to pass the time. Now it felt more like was a waste of time.
Did this show contain anything resembling Higurashi? Yes. Three things to be exact.
One, the violence. I went out of my way to find an uncensored version. I needed to get a kick out of something. I’m sick like that. That aside, this was a plus of the series. The deaths were graphic as well as creative. They were the only things maintaining my interest. They were the only things worth waiting. To Uminkeo’s credit, it delivered often.
Two, character derangement. I’m not at all talking about the characters themselves. We’ll go into why later. A hallmark of the When They Cry series is its ability to make people look threatening. You always know when s@#$ has hit the fan. These moments are creepy. Even this show managed to do this well. Or at least enough times to make it worth mentioning.
Three, the show had multiple stories tying into the big picture. Yet this isn't so much a praise as much as it is pointing out a similarity. Like Higurashi, Umineko’s plot isn’t straight forward. There was a lot going on. You might feel the urge to pay close attention. As I’ll mention, it’s not worth your effort.
Also, both series had a kick-ass opening song.
As part of the When They Cry series, this show fails to uphold the mantel. But did Umineko do anything positive as a stand-alone series? Yes. The voice acting was alright.
That said, there’s something I don’t how to classify. The character Maria (voiced by Yui Horie) had a horrible habit of making this God-awful noise. Ear piercing it was. I would say this was bad, but the series was aware this noise was annoying. Thus, A-pluses for nailing that. But God damn it, please stop.
This isn’t starting off well and it’s not going to get much better. But before we delve into that cesspool, there was a part of this show I enjoyed from both viewings.
The First Arc
This series is a f@#$ing mess. But you wouldn’t know that after watching the first five episodes. I imagine you’d think I was crazy. Because the first arc of Umineko was fantastic.
Talk about starting off with a bang. These first few episodes embodied the When They Cry spirit. They were creepy. They were frightening. They were unnerving. There were so many questions. Nothing felt right. Yet that was okay. Here was the beginning of a mystery. What was going on?
And in true When They Cry fashion, it was gruesome. This was the type of violence that added to the dread of the situation. Plus, we only saw the aftermath of what was sure to have been an even more brutal scene. Adding to the helplessness of it all.
As the arc progressed, things only became direr. Leading to a resolution that did not end well for our characters. If this was a sign of what the rest of the show was going to be, how could you not get excited? But at the end of this arc, it revealed the true point of the series. The logic battle between Beatrice and Battler.
By itself that wasn’t a bad idea. It was promising actually. Umineko, at this point, had set itself up to be great. So, what the hell happened?
Series Negatives
Where to start? 
I mentioned the aspects Umineko had similar to Higurashi. Thus, here are the things it didn’t have. An engaging story. A story that made sense. Characters worth caring about. Horror and suspense. A satisfying ending. Being worth your f@#$ing time.
As the series went on, as more and more arcs came, everything got dumber. While at the same time, a mystery story was trying to poke its head through. But it had to overcome so much bull s@#$. Often it never saw the light of day.
I remember this happening the first time and sure enough it happened again. I checked out about halfway through due to pure boredom. Higurashi never came close to that. Umineko was neck deep in it.
When you come down to it, this show had three major flaws. Each one enough to cripple this series. Having them all happen at the same time made for a long sit.
The Story
I’m not going to sit here and say Higurashi was the easiest thing to follow. It was confusing. But when Higurashi did this, it added to the atmosphere. Plus, the answers were always coming. If you took a minute, all the piece fell into place. Allowing an actual narrative to come forward. It felt like there were rules.
The Story
I’m not going to sit here and say Higurashi was the easiest thing to follow. It was confusing. But when Higurashi did this, it added to the atmosphere. Plus, the answers were always coming. If you took a minute, all the piece fell into place. Allowing an actual narrative to come forward. It felt like there were rules.
That wasn't the case with Umineko.
Things kept happening. If anything ever did get explained, which was rare, it was then followed by something new. And not new in the sense that it was refreshing. New as in, “Here, now f@#$ing deal with this too.” Why? These additions never helped. They never added anything.
Instead of trying to expose a mystery, Umineko kept making things more convoluted. The only explanation left was magic. If you’re thinking that makes sense since that was the point of Beatrice and Battler’s game, let me remind you. Beatrice was fighting Battler. She was trying to defeat him. There was no need to convince us.
In Higurashi, you always felt part of the solving process. In theory, you could figure out what was going before the show revealed it. That’s the major fun point of a mystery story, piecing together the solution. That wasn’t a thing in Umineko.
Here, not only are you not part of the solution, you're never given the chance to find the answer. A lot of that has to do with there not being an answer. Don’t get me wrong, the show did give something. But if this series thinks its version of the truth was worth a damn, it can go f@#$ right off.The Characters
Problem number one, there were eighteen of them. No, piss off. That was way too many. I should also add, that was eighteen to start. That number got bigger.
Going back to Higurashi, that show built a big cast. But it only focused on six. Each Higurashi arc had a single focus. This gave us backstory. We got to know our leads. And in turn, we grew to care about them. These people were worth rooting for.
The same isn’t true for Umineko. I’ve now seen this show twice and I still don’t know much about these characters. And the ones I do know a bit about, I don’t care all that much for.
This show indicated, I would argue throughout, that the major players would come from the grandchildren group. That wasn’t what happened. So what the hell? Even if the show did do this, it wouldn’t have mattered. From arc to arc, these weren’t the same characters. Reactions, personalities, they were always different. At times, someone would be willing to make stand. Other times the same character would cower in a corner. There wasn’t enough consistency to get any idea who these people were.
But the two worst culprits were our leads; Beatrice and Battler.
Beatrice was not an all-powerful witch who was a person to be feared. No, she was a f@#$ing brat. With the temperament of a six-year-old, she would throw a huge hissy fit whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. Strange since she was the one who was always winning. If you want to argue that was the point of her character, I call BS. This show tried to do both. Umineko wanted to be silly and serious at the same. And it wasn’t working. Beatrice was the sole cause of this. But she could have been worse. She could have been Battler.
F@#$ this guy. This was our hero? This was the person we had to cheer for? Why? What possible reason gives him the right to such recognition? He kept getting his ass handed to him. There was never a point where he was winning. It would have been one thing if he put in a good fight. Except he almost never did. Battler was quick to give up. At points, I’m convinced he wasn’t even trying. Do you want to know how long it took him to take a stand? Episode twenty-six. Thanks for that show.
The Premise
What were we fighting for? What was the point of this grand logical battle between our leads? Battler had to prove that a human could have committed these crimes. By doing so, he would be able to deny the existence of magic and witches. That would make for an interesting fight.
Except Battler ruined the whole point of it by relying on both magic and witches. Never mind the fact that he saw Beatrice use magic to commit these crimes. Okay, so a human could have done it. But it doesn’t change Beatrice from being the one who did all this.
Plus, why did Beatrice give Battler a chance to fight back at all? This show had so whenever a character spoke the truth, their words would appear in red. Why didn’t Beatrice say this, “Magic killed these people”? It would have been the truth and Battler would've got screwed.
Now the show did hint that Beatrice might have had some ulterior motives. Preventing her from doing that. Here’s the problem, I don’t f@#$ing care.
Umineko’s biggest failure was failing to ground its entire premise. It got introduced at random. It almost never came into actual play. And without some last minute what-ifs, it could've been beaten without much effort.
Final Thoughts
I was hoping I was wrong about this one. But I wasn’t. Umineko no Naku Koro ni wasn’t good once and it wasn’t good now.
After a promising start, this entire series fell deeper and deeper into nonsense. The story was all over the place. The characters weren't at all interesting. The two leads were obnoxious at worst and laughable at best. And the whole point of everything wasn’t grounded enough to support it all. It’s no wonder why everything came crashing down.
If you’re thinking there’s something here with the When They Cry title, you’ll only meet disappointment. I should know. I’ve already done it twice.
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