Esjitu Rereads Umineko
What Is This?
Back in 2013 I began the slow process of rereading the visual novel series Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, which I originally read back in 2009-2010. I had originally posted the liveblog of my reread on Tumblr, but in light of the events of December 2018 I’ve decided to copy my liveblog here for safekeeping.
This liveblog covers Episode 1 through Episode 8, with posts from both the visual novel and manga. The usual format is a couple of screenshots and some commentary, ranging from insights to shitposts, and with the occasional edit or other OC as well as the rare and long-winded Analysis Post. Posts that originally had back-and-forth discussion with other Tumblr users will have that commentary copied over.
The original Tumblr tags will be copied over into the WordPress tag system, but actual organization will be handled through categories, so the tags are mostly just for whatever meta commentary I stuck into the tags instead of the post body back on Tumblr.
THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL OF UMINEKO. Since this is a REREAD liveblog, that means even posts about Episode 1 WILL contain insight into the ending of the story – you have been warned!!
Anyway that’s basically all you need to know if you just wanna jump right in. Everything below this line is just me rambling about my experience with this franchise over the past 9 years, so feel free to skip.
How I Got Into Umineko
I first got into Umineko back in 2009, shortly before the Japanese release of Episode 5. I originally discovered it through the manga when I recognized the name ‘Ryukishi07’ as the author of Higurashi, but at the time there was only Legend of the Golden Witch and it hadn’t even reached the point of the Second Twilight yet.
Still, it was enough to suck me in and drive me to download the free demo of Episode 1…and from there, I went and purchased a copy of the EP4 disc which included all the preceding Episodes as well.
From that point I became obsessed with Umineko, spending a great deal of my time on the Animesuki forums discussing the series and theorizing about the truth with others. I was also on /a/ while the anime was airing, and followed the Umineko exile to /jp/ once it ended. The /jp/ threads during the period between the EP6 English patch and the Japanese release of EP7 were some of the greatest moments of my time in the Umineko fandom, and I remember the memes and shitposting fondly.
Everything changed, however, when Episode 8 was released. It didn’t take long for the influx of spoilers to come in, and the outcry against EP8’s decisions to not reveal the answers to anything directly dominated the threads. This coming along with the English patch release of EP7 caused a lot of fans to become frustrated with the state of the story, feeling that Chiru had gone in too different a direction than the question arcs and ‘ruining’ Umineko. People who had been in denial of ‘Shkanontrice’ (myself included) could no longer argue that this was the truth of the story, and despite the numerous hints in previous Episodes believed that it was a forced solution that came out of nowhere (without love, it can’t be seen). Dissatisfaction with Umineko was at an all-time high.
The final straw for many – myself included – was the interview Answer to the Golden Witch which came out shortly after the release of Episode 8. The attitude of series creator Ryukishi07 felt extremely condescending to most, reflecting the character of Hachijo/Featherine introduced in EP6 in how both viewed their fans and readers. Up until this point I was willing to give EP8 the benefit of the doubt until I could read it myself…but this interview changed that. I had already finished reading EP7 by this point, but I no longer had any desire to wait for the patch of Episode 8. Between the spoilers I’d learned about that Episode, and the attitude expressed in the interview, I felt that there was no way Umineko’s ending could possibly satisfy me…and so I decided I was done.
It’s a little strange to drop a series so close to the end, but that’s what I did. I walked away from Umineko at that point. A year or so later, when I heard Witch-Hunt released the Episode 8 patch, I decided to give it a second chance – after all, my anger of the moment had cooled over the past year, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. 3 chapters in I quit again – the hamfisted attempt to show me a false ‘happy ending’ that clearly didn’t happen just further reminded me of the attitude expressed in Ryukishi’s interview. It’s funny how much I was like Ange back then, refusing to face a truth that didn’t match what I wanted to see.
My Return To Rokkenjima
Many years later, for reasons I can no longer recall, I ended up reading the original (pre-Steam) MangaGamer release of Ryukishi’s first series, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. Having been anime-only prior to that (with a smattering of manga, but at the time I originally was into Higurashi none of the manga scanlations beyond the first arc were actually finished) I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and it gave me a renewed desire to give Umineko another go. I decided to reread the series from the beginning – maybe I’d be able to see the things I never could before, or approach it with a renewed appreciation. If not, I could at least enjoy the earlier arcs for the cool moments and fight scenes, right…?
And thus my reread began. Originally it was a mostly personal experience, like Higurashi, where I enjoyed it quietly by myself while taking notes on various things for my own record keeping. At first I’d only thrown up a handful of shitposts on Tumblr – I couldn’t imagine anyone would actually be interested in the opinions of an old veteran re-experiencing the series after so long, so the idea of a proper liveblog never even occurred to me until much later.
I went in optimistically, but getting back into Umineko turned out to be harder than I’d expected. Every time I’d light upon clues and foreshadowing about the truth as far back as Episode 1 and 2 – clues I’d never noticed before, for a truth I’d called ‘baseless’ after Episode 7 came out – it frustrated me. It showed me over and over again what a fool I’d been, not just because I didn’t see the clues the first time (after all, they’re hidden so well that most people didn’t pick up on them until subsequent readings), but because even after Chiru came out I’d hated on what I thought was a ‘change in direction’ from what Ryukishi had originally intended.
The popular consensus at the time had been that all this love stuff was Ryukishi trying to cope with the death of his friend BT, changing a mystery story where the goal was to seek the truth into a meta-commentary on the nature of truth itself, and the idea that hiding behind fantasy and living in delusions was a good thing. That he was pulling all these new concepts out of his ass to suit a new narrative, even if it meant his story in the process.
Of course, that wasn’t true at all. And that’s what made it hard for me, as someone who couldn’t see that. It made me realize that all of Ryukishi’s attempts to tell readers not to stop thinking, to look for the heart, to not get lost in believing in nothing but the red text had been because the truth had been before our eyes the entire time. Erika’s entire character and her heartless quest for the truth, Featherine’s condescending attitude toward her so-called fans, even Ange’s quest to learn what happened that day…all of these things were Ryukishi trying to point us in the right direction, but we just wouldn’t listen. And while I still think his attitude in Answer to the Golden Witch was highly unprofessional, it’s not too hard to understand what made him feel the way he did, either.
Ever since Episode 1, Ryukishi had laid out the story of a lonely girl who dreamed of a future that seemed impossible to obtain, and the path she took that lead to tragedy. Episode 1 provided plenty of clues to the culprit’s identity and accomplices in the crime, while Episode 2 spilled a wealth of information about that culprit’s motivations and internal struggle with love and self-identity. It was hidden well…far, far too well. But it was there. Those of us who denied it, insisted that Chiru was out of the blue and nothing like the question arcs, couldn’t see it. We were so focused on solving the mysteries, tearing apart the closed rooms, and reading way too much into things that didn’t even matter (the EP2 ordeal over the chapel key is an excellent example, as I remember people going on for pages and pages arguing about how to solve that mystery when in truth it literally didn’t matter at all) that we failed to read between the lines in the places that did.
And that message was there right from the very beginning. Without love, it can’t be seen.
So I was angry. Angry at Ryukishi every time I remembered his words in Answer, and how condescendingly he looked down on us for failing to see such ‘obvious’ clues. But moreso, angry at myself, who refused to see the clues right in front of my eyes simply because I was focused on the wrong things.
Unsurprisingly, this made rereading Episode 2 particularly difficult, given how heavy it goes into Shannon and Kanon’s ordeals. Every time I’d hit a major point of foreshadowing, I’d get angry, and when I got angry enough I’d drop it for several months before returning to give it another try. This happened repeatedly over the course of at least two years…though some timestamps in my old notes have made me wonder if it wasn’t actually closer to three or four (it seems I had attempted to reread Episode 2 sometime before I’d read Higurashi and decided to pick up where I’d left off then rather than start it over after finishing EP1). Regardless, it took me an unreasonably long time just to get through one Episode, and at that point I didn’t think I ever would.
The Liveblog Begins
What finally got me through was my decision to read the EP8 manga’s Confession of the Golden Witch (just those 3 chapters, not the whole of EP8), which finally made me understand Yasu in a way that the VN never had. It gave me the motivation to finally push past my roadblock of Episode 2 once and for all and continue my reread with a fresh perspective.
And so I did. I’d started the EP1 reread in September of 2013 and not finished EP2 until September of 2015, two years later. From there I went onto EP3, which was the point where the liveblog really began. I was taking more screencaps and posting them too, and that started to attract a little bit of attention. People were reblogging my posts with their own comments and theories, or even just leaving positive comments in their tags validating my shitposts. Before long I found myself actually having fun with Umineko again in a way I hadn’t since 2010.
Finally I realized what had been missing back when I started rereading EP1 and taking notes just for myself – the core Umineko experience that was talking with others and experiencing the series through many different viewpoints. And since EP3 was also one of my favorite Episodes, it all came together in a way that made me actually feel excited about Umineko again, for the first time in so long.
The rest is history. Starting with EP3 my reread became a regular part of October. I finished EP3 and 4, then decided I’d take a break and come back for Chiru the following year. In October of 2016 I read EP5 and 6, and while I originally intended to save EP7 for the year after that I ended up wanting to continue after all. EP7 did drag out for a while and my pace slowed down to reading it less often (I find EP7 to be incredibly boring), but I did manage to finish it around January.
Finally, in October 2017, I did what the me of 2011 couldn’t do…and read Episode 8. Granted, I read the manga version, which is the definitive version that clears up almost everything that upset people about the EP8 VN release in the first place…but I still couldn’t believe I’d finally done it. It had been a long, long journey, but by the end of October 2017 I was finally able to say I had finished Umineko.
So that’s it!! For the most part, this blog will be a copy of my Tumblr liveblog posts from 2013-2017. If I’m so inclined I may choose to also host other Umineko-related stuff here in the future as well. So thanks for sticking around long enough to read this far, and I hope you enjoy my Umineko experience!!
–Esjitu
