Umineko Requiem 41 – This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

The return of the cynical and whimsical detective.

Just when we thought we couldn’t get any more morbid. It’s Witch day, theatergoers and it’s Requiem – the invitation to the grandstands of theatergoing. Y’know, it’s kinda hard to argue with a guy whose name has the word “Wright” in it.  Don’t y’ know? 

And so it begins Umineko Requiem blogging the most indulging type of blogging to date in where we see R07 be R07 and we have tea while we reap puzzl-. My mistake, I meant look for the Heart. DON’T FORGET THE HEART.

S.S. Van Dine #11: “A servant cannot be the culprit.” YES YES YES followed by a huge No NO midway through EP7. Oh what a teasing little bit of information Seacats fans are given. We thought we got it for a moment there. Oh so closed but so far away. Damn the heretics. Damn those pads. Damn Skannontrice time.

“The ‘Why-dunnit’ it’s irrelevant!” – Way too kick things off with SSVD Inquistion’s logic clashing with personification of the great Philo Vance. Don’t abandon the motive, don’t abandon the HEART. If we do we’re no more than intellectual rapists Van Dine claims. Whatever would that make me.

Harrumph. Rhetorical question. I like how Will enters and the chapel and the pieces only wonders if he knows Beatrice or not. A funeral in a remote island yet so little questions asked. Gotta love being Game master.

On the topic of ambiguity Lion is plain ambiguous, as ambiguous looking as bishounens in shoujo manga.  Definitely, definitely not as ambiguous as this magic vs. mystery battle but close enough. So here’s to the person who for a lack of certainty I’ll be referring as she. Hope that’s fine with you, successor-sama.

“Reasoning and mysteries aren’t my business anymore” – but they sure are mine, Wizard Hunting Wright. Signed, your Friendly cynical Game master acting detective Keikakudoori

So Bern is still playing this game, huh. She’s a player that has been part of this game from the very beginning. She used to be the quiet spectator, now a full GM. Sure, Bern is terrible but can you image being there waiting to be entertained in a witch game only to have Battler struggle over every small thing? Some things were mildly difficult while others were extremely confusing but plenty of them were also of things that were given even before the Rules came along.  That’s probably as much fun as presenting the wrong evidence in a glitched Phoenix Wright game ending in an endless loop of objections being overruled each time. And no save feature.

Umineko moments. You know it’s going to be A-mazing once in the first few minutes there’s RED then there’s MORE Red vs Blue quick fire battles. That’s one of the things that make this type of game so addicting, or just plain addicting, actually just plain addicting. You say this, I say that.  Personally, I would love to be invited to a witch game. For that matter I’d love to be invited to any witch game that is this good. One where parallel world collide, where insane illogical things happen so that I can put the logic back in the illogical, have tea parties, and be a total theatergoer. I have a most puzzling feeling I’d fit right in. Then again I’m rather particular.

Pieces should know better when it comes to refusing the Witches. Initially, Will shies away from taking on the riddle Bernkastel puts before him but accepts anyhow. That’s like me shying away from trying my hand at an amusing puzzle. That’s like me shying away from a great mystery, psychological, horror anime. That’s like me not writing Umineko VN posts. Was that remotely doubted?

Natsuhi.. Natsuhi.. Natsuhi has been one of the fav characters from Legend of the Golden Witch. Of course, I also miss the days when I thought Natsuhi was one of the top main characters instead of a supporting one like the one she’s become. Instead of more Natsuhi goodness we get a backstory from man/woman god-really-knows person from 19 years ago for a final twist. Great concept for End.. not so much as a final revelation for Requiem, but that’s just an opinion.

Back to Bern. Of course, we always go back to the GM, like the story always goes back to the theme of broken promises and The HEART. Good old neko-Bern is still the big baddie of Umineko because among so much heart there’s gotta be a heartless one to keep the order. Now Miko of the Great Witch of Theatergoing AUAURora Bern is the Big Boss of Umineko, the top dog among dogs, that is, cats. The big bitch of When they Cry series and we love her and hate her in every  second of story. She can be either a polite tea drinking or a rude popcorn-thrower theatergoer at times. You can’t ask for a better villain for this story.

Get your own Milf, Will. And off we go to human side to get some statements. At some point I doubted Rosa’s story because she “just” remembered it in EP3 in the middle of the family conference – awfully convenient thing to do like many things she does, like how awfully often she meets Beatrice in the rose garden, like how awfully she resembles Beatrice in those Graphic Vols (re-a-lly). Rosa’s got it bad, for instance her douchy siblings. Amidst everything what stands out is that Rosa feels responsible for killing her (half) sister. Yes, way. The fact that there’s related is what disturbs me but not as much as what else Goldsmith had done to his kids. Inb4 DESIRE snarky remarks.

I had some expectations for Requiem since Alliance of the Golden Witch that Rosa’s character would pull through making her a bit more of redeemable character. Thanks R07 I knew you’d do something about that. Oh wait – Greedy siblings time.

Btw, there’s more than 60% chance Rosa is the culprit of EP 2 who died of an accident a la Shion, y’know except with a bomb.

Beatrice was preparing to become her future career as a moeblob Battler loving self when she clumsily fell off that cliff. Oh, how much Dawn teased everyone with these analogies of a father loving chick Beatrice, a present Beatrice and a future multiple, Beato multiple personalities was messier than Rudolf’s sex life. The answer was in front of everyone, like it always is, like it always should be. Why didn’t I call it? I just didn’t want wincest to be what drove the plot. Think it’s bad now? Wait for the storm when the anime airs.

“Battler annoyed me over and over with his incompetence.” (Bern)

Will admits that Furudo Erika’s reasoning was probably correct.  Intellectual raping or.. well, intellectual raping Erika got it right in EP6  meaning Beatrice started out as a legend of the evil spirits on Rokkenjima then everybody started to pitch in over the year like it was an urban legend.

And here’s high five for greater theartergoing.  This game’s been repeated enough times to figure out how it works. To guess who and how they’re going to get killed and who’s going to be the punching bag, by that I mean who’s going to be selected as most suspicious character, each EP. I had always asked for better leads in this game. Umineko needed more competent detectives therefore  Chiru was a great addition. But the Theatergoing ability feels like a cheat code to me. Theater this, theater that and get truthful statements [according] to the person being asked. I’d like to see how Will would handle himself without any type of abilities to back him up – old school Umineko. Bah, who are we kidding? He’ll probably solve it before a 245 pages novel would end.

“You cannot…NEGOTIATE. It iS the ONE who orDERS US.”

– Ok, guys I’m done here.

I knew it was coming because a great number of Umineko fans were already buying into Skannontrice theory since the dawn of time even more after DAWN. I expected Requiem to pull something like this but not so early in the game. For a split-second I felt like hitting the F key and uninstalling Requiem. That’s how much I like this theory being right. That’s the shock of Skannontrice hitting me with brutish strength of the goat servants’ right in the face. Dawn was all over this matter Requiem.. Requiem just made it official. On the other hand I like how Will just plays it cool. “Ok, guys have it your way.” Let’s pretend we didn’t see Shannon’s creepy dEaD eYeS and move on to the juicer parts of the mystery.

We don’t need detectives, we need ghost-busters and an exorcist to handle Shannon.

See? You can tell Will means business when you hear the lines of “You have sparkled GOLDSMITH’s interest” in your lifetime.

While Ronove is made of A-wesome, Genji is full of it. Having a poker face to match Madoka’s Kyubei Genji lies on levels of politicians. Genji is THE man when planning is required, to hide the dirty family secrets, create fake alibis, buy into hocus-pocus tales, not snitch,  and keep safe the many skeletons in the closet of any family – the last part almost too literally. Genji, old boy, I can’t tell you have too much morals or lack them.

And while Genji ceases to be a detective’s nightmare, Kinzo is an open book when he makes it to October 4th, 1986 just to see how things go to hell from that day onwards.  Say, it’s good Kinzo is here. Really. He’s been such a bad host as of late. He has set the events in motion yet misses all the fun. So wrong I day so Goldsmith take a seat in front. Next to the bunny girls. To the left of the set Winchesters.

“You think you can understand my love.?” (Kinzo of DESIRE)

Kinzo spitting out his heart out  is as unreal as a Salvador Dali painting. Theatergoing ability or not I can’t see Kinzo telling the story of his life to a total stranger.. Wrong, because I can since his only meaningful relations have been with total strangers. Bonus points would’ve been added if the siblings were present when Umineko goes Axis Powers. Extra bonus points if Ryukishi07 would’ve really tried something else other than not-so-win cest route. That aside, I wanted to file a logic error on both young Kinzo and Beatrice’s sprite when I saw this. My eyes.

“One day I woke up I was old, had kids, and developed a powerful drinking habit. ” – My question is the following. Does Kinzo write for FML?

I might start to buy into this Kinzo is albino theory I dunno I just do. Kinzo is supposed to be a lot older than his superior but he looks like he’s in his early twenties, then again this is the world of Umineko where plus 40+ ladies look in their early 30 and those in their 30s like in their 20’s. Isn’t that something, everyone? Beat that imaginary Fountain of Youth. The secret to looking forever young is to be 2-d.

Justified or not (actually it was justified) R07 was being lazy with the character designs here. He basically copied Battler’s sprite for young Kinzo and added some grey. It took a while for me to get used to characters because they look so damn similar. I know Crazy. Almost like father-and-son relationship or  something.

So this is where the PAAKFECTO comes from. It accounts for Beato’s random moments of delicious Engrish lines, the Happy Maria writing, and the whole lot of West meets the East theme. Also it explains why Nanjo’s knowledge of the English language was so many times mentioned in past games.

Kinzo’s Journey to the war. Quick. Time for analogies. Basically the events that happened years ago repeated once again years later.  The moment the gold is introduced in this story it was bound to end in tragedy. Come to think of it, everybody was better off without that gold, right? Remove the gold and no one has to get killed. Get rid of the monetary motive and we only have to deal with the MPD furniture running amock due to broken phony promises. Another nice analogy is how nicely R07 had already introduced something like this (below) in EP5 after Kinzo’s study battle. Remember? How much more flashy Kinzo was compared to Battler. Lord love a duck – this is getting creepy and we haven’t even reached half of the EP or Tea Party yet.

Daww. Kinzo Beatrice Castigliono. Kinzo x Beatrice (the 1st) would’ve been more daww without Kinzo’s confession of what he did years later. That’s the type of feeling that can’t be shaken easily. Also I presume (and this is my pet theory) that Daww secretly stands for Dawn.

Steady Nanjo! Everybody passes the bucket when it comes to  revealing the truth. And for final revelation of Requiem. Everybody close to Kinzo older than 50 yrs old have been in on it. Much like Mariage Sorciere Nanjo/Genji/Kumasawa are part  golden alliance of Kinzo the Goldsmith. Even before any of the other servants got the gist of it, Nanjo was already an accomplice in crime. The composed and proper medico downright positively had put the rope to the neck on him under the charge of giving fake autopsies. Time to re-check those twilights again. And again. And again.

Shenanigans of Witch playing and impersonating, Ghost stories in the VIP room, Sisters of Purgatory as A-tier maids and more on androgynous furniture golden days edition – Don’t overthink it – you’ll only get a headache.

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Here’s to that. It’s nice when we try.