Board 8 > Umineko playthrough topic 4

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm on to something here. Got to check some videos before I talk more about it.

Up

After checking (no I didn't spend a week doing it), I am fairly certain that Shannon = Kanon.
Or more accurately, Kanon is a part of Shannon. Some evidence I dug up:

1. 'I am one yet many'. One means Shannon. Many means Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice.
2. In episode 6, the couples must take part in a test, and only one pair can succeed. This is because one member of each pairing are actually the same person, you can't have Shannon loving 3 people at once. There is also that duel between Shannon and Kanon and how they are in the way of the other.
3. Will told Shannon to fetch Kanon in the chapel, but Shannon acted weird and implied Will should stop asking. Presumably this is to not give away that they are the same. In fact, I don't think they ever appeared together in the chapel part of episode 7.
4. The timing of Kanon's arrival to Rokkenjima, as mentioned a few posts ago.
5. When Genji was talking about the portrait, both Shannon and Kanon were shown, but he said 'you should try it too Shannon' as if Kanon wasn't here. Iirc it is the only time Kanon showed up in Clair's story.

I'm sure there are more hints but this is enough for now.

Few other stuff worth mentioning

-Eva never told Ange what happened on the island because it would be about her parents being killers and her mother talking all sorts of shit. For all her abuses that's at least a decent thing she did.
-Battler wasn't shown to be killed on Rokkenjima after walking away. The assumption is that he died in the blast, but maybe there's a catch?
-Shannon being 3 people at the same time makes things super weird. Like, did she love Jessica, George and Battler at the same time? Is she bisexual? And this is all incestuous? What is even wrong with her?

handsomeboy2012 posted...

I went back at checked.

So at first I thought there were 17 humans (Kinzo is dead after all) on Rokkenjima, and adding Erika makes 18, and since they killed Erika it is back to 17.

But I appear to have misunderstood because they said 'Even if you join us all that's only 17' meaning there are 16 without Erika...

Oh yeah, this line, there are in fact 16 people on Rokkenjima, which makes sense if you consider Shannon and Kanon being one single person. It also opens up a whole lot of possibilities for solving the murders in games 1-6, like pinning the crimes on some person X.

I have always referred her as 'Shannon', but upon further thought is that really accurate? Sure people call her Shannon but it wasn't very clear what Yasu looked like. Maybe 'Shannon' is yet another part of Yasu just like Kanon and Beatrice, and Yasu's true appearance is just like Lion.

It's going to be very difficult to rank Yasu without knowing the full picture. For this episode I'll continue to take Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice as separate characters. Everything about Kinzo's illegitimate child will be attributed to Shannon for now. So the only additions are Lion and Will (Clair is just Beatrice)

Character Rankings after episode 7
(and comparison with last time)

37. Bernkatsel (-2)
36. Evatrice (-2)
35. Kinzo (-3)
34. Chiester Sisters (-1)
33. Gohda (-4)
32. Amakusa (-7)
31. Cornelia and Gertrude (-7)
30. Erika (-3)
29. Maria (-3)
28. Featherine/Hachijo (-7)
27. Seven sisters of purgatory (+1)
26. Genji (+4)
25. Zepar and Furfur (-2)
24. Sakutarou (-2)
23. Nanjo (+8)
22. Gaap (-6)
21. Kumasawa (-1)
20. Kanon (-1)
19. Lambadadelta (-5)
18. Krauss (0)
17. Kyrie (-10)
16. Hideyoshi (-1)
15. Shannon (+2)
14. Jessica (-1)
13. George (-1)
12. Virgilia (-1)
11. Ronove (-6)
10. Lion (new)
9. Rosa (0)
8. Battler (-2)
7. Rudolf (+3)
6. Dlanor (-4)
5. Eva (+3)
4. Will (new)
3. Beatrice (0)
2. Ange (+2)
1. Natsuhi (0)

Will and Lion were a lot of fun.

This Yasu + Kanon + Shannon + Beatrice business is still a bit opaque for me, I think I got most of it right, only problem is where 'Shannon' stands in this. My take is that Yasu looks that same as Lion, is called Shannon as a servant, and Kanon/Beatrice are her other personas... something like that. It's hard to describe.

So 'one' should mean Yasu and 'many' should mean the others in 'I am one yet many'

A short review before moving on

The majority Episode 7 is a slow burn. There's the whole WW2 Kinzo story, some interviews with the family members, and then 9 whole chapters about Clair/Yasu, and I thought I'm getting another situation like parts of episode 4 that make me sleep.

I enjoyed this a lot though - to start with, Will and Lion are much more bearable than Maria, they play off each other well and had some great banter. Also as Clair told her story, I could 'follow' it and better understand what is going on. It's like I have been wallowing in the mud for a long time and suddenly there's a real sense of progression and purpose, and it was pretty satisfying even if not much has been explicitly confirmed yet. I never felt I'm wasting my time or that the backstory is too long. For me episode 7 is where I start to connect the dots, and that makes me biased towards it. I suspect that quite a lot of people don't like the long exposition though.

Of course every episodes needs some action and the Tea Party delivered on that; I'm been waiting for the family to murder each other since the very beginning. Not a big fan on how Kyrie turned out however, I never liked overly evil and heartless characters.

(Whew It's kind of hard to put what I think about this episode into words)

Episode ranking: 3>4>>>7>>6>5>1>>>>>2

A big issue I had about episode 6 is showing the wedding scene at the very beginning, so Im just waiting for Battler to fail as I go through the episode and its difficult to get very invested when you know how it will go.

Thankfully episode 7 shook it up. Lions world is a interesting way to tell the story, and the Tea Party truth + reveal that Lion will also get killed was something I didnt see coming at all. Overall an enjoyable and intriguing episode.

I still have difficulty with the motive. Yasu likes all 3 cousins, so she starts a roulette murder to see who is left and she doesn't have to decide for herself? That's crazy, even for someone like Yasu.

Anyway that's all I want to talk about episode 7. Should be starting the last episode in a day or two.
At one point I contemplated going back and try solving the murders of games 1-4. Regretfully I won't be doing that after all. I'm going to be very busy again in a few weeks time and I'd rather finish Umineko by then; otherwise it's going to become another 3 months wait.

fuck
My computer motherboard got fried
Have to get a new PC now, dont know how long its going to take but I intend it to be quick

handsomeboy2012 posted...

I still have difficulty with the motive. Yasu likes all 3 cousins, so she starts a roulette murder to see who is left and she doesn't have to decide for herself? That's crazy, even for someone like Yasu.

That sounds like Kinzo, doesn't it?

handsomeboy2012 posted...

fuck
My computer motherboard got fried
Have to get a new PC now, dont know how long its going to take but I intend it to be quick

Oh darn. Sorry to hear that.

---

Got a new computer up and running, should be able to start tomorrow

Here we go, the last episode.
Hope to get a satisfying conclusion.

Right in the beginning there's that screen about the story being fictional and there's a sound of a door and it shook a bit. Haven't paid much attention but I don't think this ever happened the last 7 times

It's a direct continuation from the last scene in episode 7.
I've got a good idea on how 'magic' works on Rokkenjima. That doesn't tell me anything about Purgatory, or wgere Bern, Lambda, Dlanor, Will etc. came from though. Just how did Battler get there in the first place, why is Ange a kid, what kind of state are they in?

I was about to complain 'why isn't a sprite for child Ange' and the game immediately delivered.
Such a cute and well-behaved girl, unlike a certain someone

She got stuck as a 6 year old? Is this the same Ange as before? If so it's more like age regression.
Inviting a kid to witness her relatives seems like a bad idea. So is Ange wanting to stay on the island forever, which will be filled with dead bodies or even explode...
No idea where all of this is going.

I've lost count of how many times they say it is the last game. But it's episode 8, so it is indeed the last game

Thought that Bernkatsel is the game master like last episode, now it goes back to Battler?

Kinzo is alive and acts like a dork. If only he were like that from the beginning.
They celebrate Halloween - around 2 weeks too early - and do Japanese even celebrate Halloween?
Everyone is getting along so well. This feels too good to be true.

I remember that Kanon said in episode 6 that Kinzo would crack jokes and do pranks. Maybe this is closer to what he really is?
Must say that Kinzo got a superb voice actor to make those... scratchy sounds

My gacha games have Halloween events so they do celebrate it at least somewhat. No idea if they did in 1986, though.
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Think it's very uncommon back then and Kinzo did it because of his interest in the West.
I get the feeling that game master Battler doesn't want Ange to stay on Rokkenjima. But then he makes a game where everything is perfect. Not sure what he is trying to achieve here, wouldn't showing the family getting killed traumatize her?

Ange's thought of Kinzo as somewhat insane, and the family was fighting over the inheritance. This is exactly how Beatrice portrayed them in her games. But Battler now says that isn't true. It doesn't look like Beatrice would lie about that? Might be it was how Yasu/Shannon perceived Kinzo.

Never mind, Ange is acting like a real brat now and not talking in a kiddy voice. It's your own ONII-CHAN, surely he's more believable than the other witches!
Apparently, the players of a game are free to 'possess' or 'leave' their own piece. That happened a lot in the older episodes but never worded so explicitly and got me all confused.

Beatrice is presented as the grandchild of the Golden Witch. Shannon Kanon and Beatrice are always separate on the game board so I guess this Beatrice is an 'individual' here too. And I think she's simply Battler's piece because she knows what Battler is doing, and that the non-piece is already dead.

With how many times the family has died I can't help but think they aren't going to suddenly come back to life after all.
Obviously nothing is set in stone yet but sometimes I'm more interested in what happened to Will and Lion because that part was more uncertain.

In this world

-Kinzo is a nice gramps
-The family is already settling the inheritance and handing back the gold
-Krauss is the Sucessor
-Beatrice is a granddaughter of the original, don't know if she's blood related to Kinzo

Hard to imagine murder ever happening here.

Beatrice and Battler is getting sentimental about the it being last game. Like I get where they are coming from, but those games involved a lot of deaths and torture and shit - seriously did Beatrice have to cut up Battler into pieces and revive him over and over? If it were me I would be glad it's ending soon.

Is Beatrice saying she wrote a bunch of stories in message bottles for fun and because those found years later are about serial murders, people of the outside world start to perceive her as a murderer, and in truth she didn't murder anyone?

This doesn't seem right, I was under the impression that Beatrice was responsible, did I miss something big or the game has somehow tricked me again

Like Ange I am very interested in learning to truth of what happened on Rokkenjima. It would be extremely shitty if the answer is something like 'no one will ever know' or 'make your own interpretations' or 'it doesn't matter at all' or 'there are many possibilities'. Everyone has their own preferences but personally I hate these kinds of open endings.

The more Ange says Eva did it the more I'm convinced Eva didn't do it.
Maybe the purpose of Battler's game is to stop Ange from making assumptions, or stop her revenge because it's self-destructive and bad, etc. etc.

The narrative is jumping all over the place again. It's always strange that Ange's journey ended on Rokkenjima in episode 4 and then it's back to the car.
And Amakusa is talking a lot about Ange's mental state even though it was implied he is planning to kill her
Why is Ange in the car and thinking about being on Rokkenjima in Battler's game? Don't tell me it's some sort of dream.

Yeah that part confused me as well.

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In episode 4 we see Ange reaching an understanding of magic, and stop hating on Eva. She made a big speech about that and now she has gone back to taking revenge? What?

Sure you can say this is before she reached Rokkenjima, before she came to that conclusion, but do we need to see angsty Ange again? I already read about her character development, this feels like retreading old ground and a waste of time.

Looks like Battler's game is retroactively shown to Ange when she's heading to Rokkenjima? And then she goes there, kills some people, and appears in game 4. This is some time travel shennigans and would make it even more confusing, let's hope not

'Ange would have to use her own power... to accept the truth as truth'
Stop getting all philosophical with me dammit and reveal it already

Child Ange is really adorable (my complaints on Ange this episode was the 18 year ago version). Every time I see these nice kids in anime I would have a sudden urge to have one myself. Then I remind myself that raising children are a lot of trouble in real life and I am single anyway.

That's... a really good image of a cake. Great, I'm getting hungry now.

I have to choose a piece.
Oh shit, there is actually Gameplay in Umineko.

Ange got an almond. I don't know if I got lucky and there is an alternative outcome if the wrong piece is chosen, or that it's all scripted. Mostly likely scripted I think.

A quiz for kids is the last thing I expected from Umineko. Let's see how I do and you can all laugh at me if I fail.

Q1: A: 'It's possible'. A day starts at night and ends at night so of course it is still Christmas when night comes. -> Correct
Q2: A: 'A grapefruit'. The objects begin with the letter A, then B, and so on. It's a completely different question in Japanese though. -> Correct
Q3: B: 'A very cold place'. You can do that near the south pole -> Correct

(These are certainly for 6 years olds. Hope I don't embarrass myself because I should be able to get all correct)

This is very touching and all but are we seriously going to do this for every family member and servant? Because this episode so far is solely about this happy family gathering and healing Ange, if it goes on there won't be enough time for everything else

I must have stumbled into the wrong game. This is one of those educational CD-roms in the early 2000s that I played back when I was a kid. It had loads of quizzes and simple games, and an absolute scam for parents now that I think about it.

Q4: D: 'The ice cream'. It would have melted if the witch got home late I guess?
Q5: C: 'b'. This took me a long time, I was thinking very hard about dessert names until I saw it was asking for a desert, not dessert. You can be sahara from sabara by changing b.
Q6: D: 20. This is actually easier if you know a bit Japanese.
Q7: E: 10mm. Thank fuck I went and read Eva's hint because I would have answered 6mm otherwise.

Kinzo being all dramatic while talking to Ange is pretty funny.

Q8: A: White. It's a piano.
Q9: D: '4'. Who the hell calls a 7-story building a skyscraper? Anyway it's 4 because only 4 goes with 'th'.
Q10: C: 78 coins. Fuck you Kanon, do you think Ange would even know the periodic table?
Q11: D: 'I'. The second letter of the taste.

It's harder than I thought, I used hints for most of them and managed to get them right. It's kind of fun and we get more info on the characters, but they aren't that important in the grand scheme of things.

The characters are speaking as if they're all dead.
And I'm really not a fan of this 'cat box' interpretation they're going for.

Yeah, the quizzes are actually pretty challenging, especially without hints.

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Q12: Way to make the question as vague as possible so that I would answer 7 ingots. Nope, I refuse to accept that I'm wrong, just going to reload and pick 8.
Q13: Ok, this is getting ridiculous. For example, if a person is on a boat and doesn't leave it, and there's another person on the bank of the river, does it count as being 'together'? Best I could do is 11 steps, but I'm sure it's going to be less, so I picked less than 10 steps. Luckily that's the solution, though the line is thinking is completely wrong.

Ange does understand magic, but not really? So does she understand or not?
'We'll always be your side' Yes well this isn't the same as coming back which was what Ange wanted as first, small comfort.