When They Cry is a series that strives with its sincerity and wishes for nothing more than raising happiness and empathy in the world. Umineko Chiru might just be best example of that.
If you can tolerate (or even enjoy) its amateurish sides, you will find yourself in a beautiful and very inspiring dialogue with the author, questioning yourself on why you're even here reading fictional stories, why are you trying so hard to understand the circumstances of these characters? What is it to you and what is it for the author, trying so desperately hard to craft these stories with the little they have.

Umineko as a whole is what I look forward to the most in fiction and it forever complemented me as a person.

So I can only give a big thank you to everyone creating with the intent of making people smile.

Learning to Love Umineko When They Cry

After 5 months and 137 hours, I now have fully experienced the story of Umineko: When They Cry. It’s a rollercoaster of feeling I can’t stop thinking on, but coyness from others suggesting why it’s so special turned me off and made me unnecessarily hostile. I want to reverse that view and try to explain what makes Umineko so special without giving away any major elements beyond what can be easily assumed.

At first, I wasn’t sure how much I’d get into it. I liked the plot of Higurashi, but outside of two characters aren’t super passionate for it nowadays. The 150+ hour length seemed like an insane commitment. And I worried about how the wackier anime quirks would clash with long dramatic storytelling. But I do enjoy stories about grand, gradually unfolding world defining mysteries, so with that and the enthusiasm of many friends in mind, I set to reading Umineko throughout the first half of 2024. And am I glad I did because the further in I got the more I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Umineko presents as a mystery, building and challenging in exciting, intricate ways that'll keep the mind busy with every new Episode finished, but beyond that Umineko is about GETTING people. Comprehending worldviews. Figuring out a line of thinking that inspires every member of its cast to believe what they want to believe. It is a story that asks to engage with storytelling and comprehension. What inspires us, what makes us believe in fiction, what do we see in those who create, what do creators seek to give back to the world, what hurt goes into creation? What weight IS our life experiences?

But themes can mean little without engaging characters to explore and embody these dynamics and Umineko puts remarkable work to answer the call. Not just from the number of characters introduced, but how numerous scattered ideas combine into a defined storytelling whole.

Umineko has one of my favorite ensemble casts I’ve experienced in anything. The more you read, the more it feels like you piece together an extensive headspace for every major character, and Umineko presents these characters’ distinct viewpoints on any circumstance as a means to actively move the plot forward and meaningfully debate the best course of action in increasingly more dire and paranoid situations. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of overly reactive casts, where perspective feels irrelevant to plot events. Umineko is the opposite of this. It’s a cast where it feels like ANYONE can alter the narrative trajectory, exciting me in how strong personalities can twist. So many in the cast, particularly of the Ushiromiya Family, have intriguing shades of gray to their personalities, rich inner lives you can map out much of in your head, incredible voice actors or certain specific life philosophies it’s interesting to see pushed by how the plot clashes these characters together.

In this regard, Umineko is able to have its cake and eat it too with including cackling anime girls. New major introductions on top of the huge starting cast come packed with new intriguing life paths to contrast against our built-up view of the story, the protagonist's view of the story and how we've grown to see the search for the truth, in addition to fun new designs.

On the design front, while some certainly raise eyebrows glaring at Gaap whose design is exceptionally distracting in should be serious scenes, others work to purpose in addition to being fashionable. Looking at the four mother characters (Kyrie, Natsuhi, Eva and Rosa), the design of each adheres to a distinct design sensibility that communicates much in who they are and how they want the world to see them. The addition of adult characters with extensive histories allows for greater opportunity than was possible in Higurashi to have designs able to express more personality from each individual character.

Umineko exists as an eight-episode odyssey, so not knowing who in its titanic cast would get spotlight in any particular episode had me continuously excited to read more. Over 100 hours in I was still given enough to be curious for roles of many supporting cast members to pay off and to a certain extent nearly all of them genuinely do at some point or another. There’s a goal for the series and goals for each Episode; most major characters either undergo substantial arcs or interesting tests of character pushing their strong personalities, emphasizing their ability to impact the narrative and the layers of personality they struggle with. It truly feels like The Unknown Journey once one episode ends and you decide to see what could possibly be in store for the next one. I never had any way of knowing for sure and that was tantalizing; perhaps even moreso if going in fully blind.

With that in mind, a spoiler-free dive into what makes Umineko's most important players so special!

The belle of the ball is of course, Beatrice the Golden Witch; given immeasurable sad love by fans, yet over the top maniacal and macabre, boasting wacky expressions that appeared impossible to take seriously. Before reading, I found that contrast of fans' feelings toward her with that attitude and those goofy expressions too heavy. It didn't seem like those two sides of her would be able to mesh properly.

And then I heard her start talking.

THIS was the moment I knew she, and Umineko as a whole, would stick me to at least some extent. Her voice actress, Sayaka Ohara, doesn’t just read the lines like any other character: she EXPRESSES them playing a gleefully assertive witch to where you can almost hear her smiling. The breathiness to her tone, boisterous sense of pride, panickedness if she slips up, and going all out for name calling and laughs are quirks conveyed beyond the words on page. Once it seemed as if she was quickly inhaling through her nose as if taken aback during a line. She manages that incredible combination of being intoxicating whenever she talks to keep wanting to hear her say more things, and getting on your nerves just enough to want to see her get knocked down several pegs in the future: a delicate combination for a villain in a story to embody.

Backing this is a gorgeously drawn character design. The dress gives her a level of dignity while embodying a bird, a flower and a Disney Princess (particularly Cinderella with the style of dress, hair and choker and Belle with the running Flower motif to her). And having such a bold, bountiful design perfectly fits Beatrice's character. She WANTS to be the first thing that pops in your head when thinking about Umineko, and as you keep reading it you get to see that thought expressed and stretched in numerous heart-turning ways.

As Umineko goes on, Ohara’s voice performance becomes more nuanced as you start seeing more “forms” of this character, including one that made me teary, but you still keep wondering “how did she end like this at the start” and Umineko mostly understands the value of that answer. For what reason she takes on her role to drive the conflict, and the answer the protagonist seeks to prove as the heart of her being kept me engaged, and Ohara truly gave it her all to give her so much expression and personality and become one of my favorite VO performances EVER.

Said protagonist, Battler Ushiromiya, also grew on me a lot. He starts out in a VERY questionable place with awful tone-deaf jokes, but Umineko recognizes just how far he should grow as a person and the story moves accordingly to how well he understands the rules of the overarching game. Daisuke Ono’s performance melds cocky youthful energy and gentle compassion seamlessly. Battler is a snarky, headstrong ego with a lot of grins and swagger and showmanship but with truly genuine care for his family, a strong sense of justice and an increasingly growing ability to understand the gravity of situations, nailing the game face when the chips are down. Jokes notwithstanding that mix of attitude and compassion makes it exciting to see what kind of crazy rabbit hat trick he'll try to decipher and also sad to see when he's back into a corner from horrific circumstances around him. Ono's able to sound genuinely depressed when the time calls for it.

As the story’s lead, Umineko has a lot of fun playing with his comprehension of the story in relation with our own; it examines the dichotomy of a pov character through multiple convergences and divergences from the audience in his journey to learn the truth of Umineko's mysteries. He has bite to him, not just mocking his opponents; but when pushed, looking down on them, belittling them and not standing for anyone’s nonsense. As he and Beatrice are very sassy and headstrong, their numerous debates lead into many fun, characterful and occasionally depressing back and forths. It's one of the main elements people who haven't played Umineko are probably aware of it. You could watch the two do something exceptionally mundane and their incredible chemistry and voice actors would make it feel both important and entertaining.

What is exactly is Ushiromiya Battler’s purpose FOR this narrative becomes increasingly dissected the further in you get. By the final episode, his role and comprehension of expression feels wholly different from the start, and we appreciably get to SEE all of it play out onscreen. No dumb timeskip bullshit.

The last character I want to specifically point at is Ange.
Rocking a design blending cool and cute, she is a young girl who struggles to get close to anyone, because of her powers, status, and cripplingly low self-esteem that makes her feel everything is her responsibility. Given the circumstances Ange starts in, it’s understandable she’d be closed off and emotionally guarded but it nonetheless makes it satisfying when you persevere with her and believe she can build morale to smile again. And that doesn’t stop her spitting some killer snark! Ange is Umineko’s fulcrum. To believe in Umineko is to believe in Ange. Ryukishi has many inspiring, heartfelt messages to convey with her malleable psyche in a deeply personal plot, leading to a uniquely compelling coming-of-age drama. Ange’s heart is her guiding key: will you help her find it?

I won’t go any further into specific characters, but I will say: how Umineko depicts parenthood across its wide cast substantially provided for what makes Umineko resonant for me. That was an element I had zero expectations for its handling going on, but I was shocked how thorough issues regarding being a parent and the tumultuous, messy outcomes of marriage in Japanese society at this time are so thoroughly depicted. It can be conflicting and gut-wrenching at times, but it never fails to believe empathy can exist.

Umineko tries its hardest to avoid selling the familial conflicts as strictly black and white. There’s layers of complicated feelings at play regarding how and why faults are created that I believe can very easily inspired continued conversations and let Umi resonant well after concluding. This story shows the worst of ourselves but also, the best of ourselves, and the belief there is always a reason to keep going. Always a thought to our actions. A reason to consider walking in someone else’s shoes for what drives them to extremes. It broadens our perspective on US. The "flip the chessboard" mentality coined by Kyrie doesn't just pertain to logic games. It speaks to our understanding of everyone around us and in the context of Umineko, the unique methods and lengths every character has for achieving their own goals.

But beyond character and themes, another way a story can stick with me (and a huge part as to why I've chattered about Sonic so much, lol) is a distinct, memorable soundtrack. And Umineko also has TUNES! It originally existed as a “sound novel” where music had to do much of the work in light of crude but soulful sprites and simple backgrounds, so Ryukishi brought a suite of composers for just that and later Umineko ports brought even more. The composer list feels as vast as a pre-Smash Bros 4 Smash game, many bringing their own style and zts being told to lock the F in every song. Many of the best songs play during some of the most powerful moments in the plot so I’ll share just one to embody Umi’s musical tone:
https://youtu.be/mcG0nYC89tQ?si=Y0UZOIn6zQ2hpcBL

Umineko has an onslaught of great songs that really make a splash when you first hear them. Goldenslaughterer, far, Toten Blume, the executioner, Monochrome Clock, Birth of a New Witch, Golden Nocturne and many more give scenes distinct, lasting expression beyond the limitations of VN sprites. And even beyond those, the credits themes for every chapter manage to close off each's mood in a particularly special way.

Also on the audio front is voice acting. A star-studded cast of exceptionally talented voice actors were added into later versions of the VN as enough reason for the maligned anime to justify existing. Even as someone who isn't usually enamored with voice acting for languages I don't understand, the performances are exceptional and a huge reason I kept at it. At worst, a performance perfectly embodies a character's archetype and at best it's some of the strongest acting I've heard in anything ever. As I've gone through extensively, Sayaka Ohara’s Beato was the sell for Umineko as a whole for me in how incredibly versatile her performance as Beatrice was, but these Daisuke Ono as Battler, Miki Ito as Eva, Mugihito as Kinzo and Yukari Tamura as Bern I believe were also some of the most consistently great performers to where I always let their lines play out. Yukari Tamura has a TON of great work in Umi's back half as you see the investment of that character evolve.

With everything I adore about Umineko though, I’m not going to pretend there aren’t notable flaws that could easily turn people off from the story/invoke side-eyes. So here’s a brief section discussing some of those:

For one: THE LENGTH. This 130+ hour story is several hundred thousand words longer than the Bible and at times you FEEL it. Episodes 1, 2 and 6 I believe have very slow starts on the first read before action takes off. In hindsight the choices made in these parts do pay off properly by either the end of the Episode or with twists in a future one but in the moment, they can feel like they drag their heels without the entertainment of debates. The only way to reach the end of this story having absorbed it all is to commit your LIFE to Umineko WtC, for at least a little while.

And even beyond length, sometimes it can feel too overindulgent for its own good. The end of Episode 2 comes to mind where I feel like shock value went a bit too far even for a story like this. While its jokes aren’t AS bad as Higurashi’s (hell there's even some good pure dialogue jokes at sporadic points in the run) many more devoted jokes fall flat in the early Episode sections, particularly from Battler in ways that could’ve been written smarter. Thankfully, these kind largely dissipate as the story continues.

Conversations between major characters can be exceptionally dense and revealing of intriguing interpersonal relationship drama throughout, but there are some side characters introduced that exist as tools, bereft of depth and relying on “anime quirky” personality traits easy to find grating. To its credit, Umineko IS better than most stories at suggesting which characters are clearly unimportant to the story’s grand scheme and it has more than enough to get around this, but it does make it less engaging whenever they appear.

Lastly, the middle third of the final episode, Episode 8 can feel very rushed, which may sound crazy from a story so long, but there are certain dialogue sections regarding its lingering mysteries that can and HAVE rubbed people very badly because of what it suggests of its readers. Personally, speaking I can understand what this section was trying to communicate but anyone who felt ripped by this point, I get it.

This is the one Episode where the adaptation manga is an essential, adding substantiality to many points including HUGE turning point question. Ignoring the awful first cover which gave me a horrendous impression of Umi before reading, the manga is sublime. Kei Natsumi understood exactly what dramatic beats to elevate. Action scenes that could feel gratuitous when merely written out have defined framing that's superbly drawn. Natsumi has impressive talent for detail, shading and spreads for how many characters exist at that point. And the chosen compositions had me crying my eyes out multiple times more than Episode 8 did in the visual novel.

Needing supplemental material in a different medium to fill holes is usually not a great thing, which is why I note it in the Flaws section, but when it’s THIS excellently made, it’s hard to be mad. The payoffs from the Ep8 manga are exceptional and it’s easy to find the manga for free if you know where to look.

Ultimately what I listed I consider to be slight blemishes to a distinct, immaculate tapestry.

From Ryukishi07's pen, the world was given many heartfelt sincere messages, absolutely wild plot twists, incredible voice performances, really fun and distinctly spread character dynamics, a soundtrack full of insane EDM trance headbangers alongside somber tracks that still stand out, characters that thanks to the story structure are allowed to feel incredibly multifaceted and/or morally gray with interesting inner lives and/or life philosophies to track while reading, mysteries with layered tricks that stick around in your head long after being raised and new avenues for conversation regarding stories and storytelling by using the Visual Novel point-of-view. In short, the Umineko brainrot is real.


I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS STORY

VNs simply don't get better

If I had to describe what Umineko means to me concisely, it's the story that conveyed to me no matter how hard being happy or finding happiness is, it should always begin with acknowledging the things and people that surround you who could make you happy. From where you can actually feel hopeful about trying to look for happiness.

I've come across many stories that want the world and the people in it to be better people but none that do it as sincerely as Umineko. And in turn it truly does inspire me to try to be better, it all begins with the perspective...without love it cannot be seen I suppose.

Reading this as a lost, depressed and helpless teen made me appreciate how it tackles the struggles of transitioning from a teen to adult that much more. It is certainly my favourite coming of age story in that aspect.

You'd think a story that wants to be so personal would have a laid back narrative but nope, Umineko is as meticulous and full of effort in laying out its story as a story could aspire to be.

---This applies to the overall package and not just Chiru---

It was an experience that can probably never be replicated. I don't consider it flawless. In fact, there are quite a few problems I can think of. But, what it manages to do despite those flaws - is creating a story so cathartic and so brilliant with an insanely good cast that nothing else can compare. The emotional highs, the philosophical and meta-commentary, the themes of truths, lies and their significance, the open-ended finish to so many elements which ends up leaving room for so much interpretation, the way everything comes together in the penultimate arc, and the way the finale gives a perfect, albeit controversial, ending.

Umineko made me a better, wiser, and happier person. It's an 11/10 and I will forever be grateful to it for all the things it has taught me.

Been well over a year at this point since I read, countless of times have I thought about it.

I still feel the same way I did which is insane to me because my appreciation only grows with seeing how ryukishi got inspired by certain series, how he even started out thanks to higurashi and a whole heep of other information I start to learn about him.

Yeah, he's my favourite writer and even though it's been memed to death at this point I'm glad I got experiance when they cry because I can't lie when I say I wouldn't be who I am today without this franchise. In fact I wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for umineko, so thanks ryukishi and also thanks to the people I met due to this weird visual novel. Forever grateful

Umineko is a very ambitious work, it has received endless amounts of praise from people I know and understandably so. It’s very thematically rich, takes advantage of it’s genre and even the medium at a few specific points to deliver a very profound message that can probably change someone’s life.

Umineko is a celebration of fictional works. The relationship a reader/player forms with a work of fiction and in turn with the work’s author, should be fun, enjoyable like one typically has playing their favorite game, the reader should discover infinite joy in thinking and interpreting the work in any way they want to, and discover even more joy in sharing those interpretations with other readers and learning from their interpretations. This is what I believe Ryukishi07’s philosophy is in Umineko.

I have met readers who are so obsessed with a single interpretation of a work to the point they shut off any other interpretation of the work, sometimes they are even hostile about it.

This is reminiscent of the fans of the “Honkaku” mystery genre, the orthodox kind of mystery stories where you will typically not find any kind of characterization nor do they aim to teach the readers a lesson. All they care about is for the reader to solve the mystery. Readers are obsessed with a single answer, without anything to learn or empathize with.

Umineko is Ryukishi’s jab at them, it flips this over by utilizing this genre’s tropes to it’s fullest. Umineko looks like an orthodox mystery at first, but by the time you are done, you will realize that the “answer” to the mystery wasn’t all that important. The most important thing is the “heart”, what you learn from it and how you apply it to yourself. The Sound Novel ends in an open way with no definitive answer. Which is pretty much Ryukishi telling you to discover your own interpretation of the story and he wants you to enjoy doing so after being attached to these characters on your journey, he wants you enjoy sharing your interpretation with others and learn from others' interpretations, connect with other people and also find joy in empathizing with them.

As a meta interpretation though a certain character in the VN that parallels the reader, the message can be applied to your own life as well. Maybe you can’t distinguish between the lies and truth in your life. But obsessing over them will not do anything. Being hell bent on a finding a single string of truth will not necessarily guarantee your happiness. In this ocean of truth and lies, find and create your own meaning. That is the ultimate key to happiness.

Edit: My feelings on how the manga content affects Umineko as a story have changed significantly. I think this is Ryukishi’s answer to every bit of backlash the story got. The is made apparent by the mystery being made much more obvious here in it's presentation, you can easily point out the culprit, essentially taking away the “fun” of solving it. Ryukishi is done being humble here. “Fine, it’s the mystery you love so much right? I will destroy it.” Further evidenced by the story throwing away any semblance of subtlety in it’s message. Beato’s truth is revealed directly. Ange specifically STATES why the trick ending is bad. You are not allowed to make a choice in the medium of manga either. Magic is the default outcome. “There is only one answer to this story, and I will make you understand it.” He is much more individualistic here, Ryukishi is sick of people who ignore the heart, and only relish in exposing truths. This does not contradict the VN, instead amplifies it tenfold here, more firm and confident in itself than ever.

My issues with the theming and Ange's handling in the VN version of Episode 8 remain, but now I understand why Ryukishi believes manga is the better version, I get it now.

It's said that the reason the Mona Lisa is such an impactful painting is because of the miracle Leonardo Da Vinci accomplished with her. You can spend hours and hours discussing what the Mona Lisa is and what she means, hyper-analyze the technique and flaws that make her as she is. I don't meant to devalue that critical process in any fashion. But if you look upon her - really, truly look upon her, and let yourself be open to idea, you might just experience what centuries of people have seen in her, what few people throughout history have been able to replicate in their own artistic endeavors: the essence of the human soul.

What on earth does this have to do with a metafictional murder mystery visual novel concerning the fate of a wealthy Japanese family? ...we'll come to that.

Umineko: When They Cry (to use the localized title) consists colectively of the third and fourth entries of 07th Expansion's "When They Cry" anthology series, something that has given me no end of trouble when it comes to thinking through how to present this review. As with Higurashi: When They Cry before it, Umineko is an episodic visual novel series, broken up into two collections of four episodes each, with each episode broadly retelling or rearranging the events of a two-day serial killing. While the mechanics behind how this works eventually become clear to the reader, it's sort of a hard effect to wrap your head around before reading. I would assume it's more natural if you start with Higurashi (which is the normal pipeline for readers anyway), only I went into Umineko first. Actually, at the time of this writing, I've read the first one-and-a-third episodes of Higurashi's Steam release and experienced nothing else, so I can't be sure.

No, instead, I was introduced to Umineko completely out of context by a friend. See, we were involved in a couple different forum games on this message board, and he would introduce random Umineko characters and music to them for variety's sake. So long before I ever read a thing, I knew about a couple fan-favorite songs such as "miragecoordinator" as well as memorable characters like Lambdadelta, Bernkastel, Ronove, and Rosa Ushiromiya. Also Nanjo Terumasa, for some reason. I have to say, world of difference between how relevant Nanjo was to me before and after reading Umineko.

But the most important context I had going in was familiarity with Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", specifically through René Clair's excellent 1945 film adaptation. My mother's childhood was spent watching television broadcasts of movies from her parents' youths in the 30s/40s/50s, something she was able to pay forward for her children with the widespread availability of DVD rereleases and Turner Classic Movies. "And Then There Were None" was not my very favorite movie she introduced to me like this - "The Thin Man" and "The Court Jester" are stronger contenders, and I've always been fond of "The Penguin Pool Murder". But it must certainly belong in the conversation! The private island setting, the revelation that each of the major players are baddies in their own way, each character being memorable despite their introduction as an ensemble ("Beastly bad luck" has managed to work its way into my daily vocabulary), the creative way they're each picked off in accordance with the titular song/nursery rhyme, the mounting tension as the number of possible killers dwindles down... Fantastic setup, great direction, captivating movie. The only thing it's missing is the original story's chilling confession-in-a-bottle ending, though I can accept the altered ending as necessary under the Hays Code (and also not being a bummer to film audiences of the time).

This is only loosely related, but since I'm on the subject - one way I used to connect with media as a kid was imagining what video game adaptations would have looked like for it. Keep in mind this would've been before I ever had regular access to non-computer games, yet this often took the form of imagining GameBoy or N64 tie-ins, since there was still allure in what intrigue those consoles held. I remember doing this while watching "And Then There Were None", and I specifically remember imagining a TV spot for it ending with, "And Then There Were None, only on GameBoy Color". It didn't occur to me until later how this was a pretty strange gaming platform to exclusively assign a black-and-white movie!

Anyway! Having "And Then There Were None" as reference, I was eager to read through what was to me a transparent attempt to invoke that book, only with magic and electronic dance music somehow incorporated. It took some time, but I was able to read it, first through an under-the-counter copy translated on the sly by fan effort The Witch Hunt (at the time, the only viable way to get it in English), then through buying the somewhat-more-official MangaGamer release (only "somewhat" because my payment to MangaGamer was listed in my bank transactions as a phantom charge to a random London ATM. Is this still people's experience with MangaGamer? That was a hard one to explain to my father, who at the time still had access to my bank account). All things told, I think it took me the better part of three/four years reading it on/off to get through all of it, around high school/college.

Let the record show that that loooong reading time was not a consequence of disinterest, just intimidation. Hard to find 80-120 hours to read a book! But I was pulled in immediately, even in spite of Umineko's notoriously slow opening leading into the First Twilight, when things really kick off.

Before that, you have the soundtrack. I say this with no hyperbole: Umineko has my favorite soundtrack of anything ever. There's a decent amount more instrument-driven atmospheric pieces than melody-driven, and thus less likely picks if you're specifically looking up music from the game - but even then, tracks like "Witch in gold", "Apathy", "Stupefication", and "Voiceless" are all great. But then you get into some of the main leitmotifs, some of the main melodic set pieces, and holy crap, the musical team drives the story in ways that words alone could not do. It's just a song that plays over a crawl of character names, but "Ride On" gave me chills the first time I heard it, that buildup slowly giving way to triumphant strings. "Towering Cloud in Summer" comes shortly thereafter, a less-bombastic progression of the melody that receeds into the backdrop of a bright day on the coastline. The melody finally comes into its own after these hints once the family reaches the island and wanders through the rose garden. As the cast experiences this serene beauty - "Hope" plays.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to call "Hope" the song of Umineko. It's a quiet, understated, beautiful composition, constantly finding its footing and receeding into the background in sequence, its simple musical phrases swirling in turn as more instruments are added, until it finally lets itself fade away to the call of seagulls. Because that's what Umineko's title refers to: the crying of the black-tailed gulls, the Japanese "sea-cats", sure to be heard once the storms clear at the end of the story.

There are a lot of emotions tied to "Hope", largely contingent on the context of the scene during which it's played. Most of the moments to use the main composition are introspective and melancholic character beats, sometimes used to punctuate conversations about the future or the past. One of the lyrical versions (not used in-game) places it as a sad piece, regretting the curse of the singer's existence and how much better everyone's life would be if the singer did not exist - a desperate misery that wishes for a hope that does not exist in this world. Another places it as a triumphant piece, bemoaning the circumstances that have come to pass but becoming a rallying cry to burn it all to cinders and fly onward. I think, ultimately, the song is less about having "hope" and more about finding "hope", particularly in such a dire situation.

Because, you see, the main family - the Ushiromiyas - are cut off from the world during a tropical storm that ravages their island for two full days. Once the storm passed, when the seagulls cried, none were left alive.

I don't want to cover too many specifics, because so much of Umineko comes from experiencing its story beats and songs in the moment. But I will mention the First Twilight. By this point, you've been reading for about four hours. Not a whole lot of exciting stuff has happened - you had an out-of-context scene of a dying old man playing chess with his doctor, then the family arriving at the island, then discussions around inheritence, the storm, and a strange riddle placed next to the beautiful portrait of the family's mythical benefactor. There is some intrigue as one of the characters reveals a letter, supposedly from their benefactor, the Endless Golden Witch Beatrice, announcing that she will take back everything she had given the family lest they solve the riddle. The family sets to it, but they're not able to make headway before turning in for the night.

Then we follow one of the characters, who wakes up the following morning. There's a subdued atmosphere as they start to prepare for the day. They start to search for the others, who should be here. They reache for a doorknob...

...and find blood. The terrifically filthy, oppressive "Golden slaughterer" kicks in as a frantic search begins, more of the family waking and scouring the grounds until finally, six horribly mutilated bodies turn up. In accordance with the riddle's "First Twilight", six were offered as sacrifices.

If you haven't read it, you might think this is giving a lot away. But this is only describing the first chunk of the first episode. You've been reading for about four hours to this point; that's at best one-twentieth of what the book has to offer. And it will be full of this sort of thing, constantly inventing and reinventing itself, becoming somehow bigger and better the whole way through. This? This is nothing in the grand scheme of things. And yet when I read through this first part with my (politely patient) sister, I got four hours' worth of conversation out of it with her.

Ryukishi07 is a master of tonality in writing (though, due credit goes to The Witch Hunt as well for capturing his writing essence in English). Umineko tackles a lot of extremely complex emotions and themes throughout its entire runtime, as we come to know the family and the myriad other characters who crop up here and there. This might sound weird, but a lot of how it's able to capture this wildly divergent tonality is through how sloppy the writing comes across. We know that Ryukishi07 is capable of formal prose - that prologue scene with Kinzo and Nanjo playing chess is played largely straight with a stiff third-person narrator, only devolving towards the end as Kinzo falls into a passion and begins to scream (but this is contained in dialogue tags, and anything goes in character speech). But for much of the narrative, there's little effort to keep a consistent tone with how the story is presented. Sometimes the narration is in first person, following the stupidly-named Battler Ushiromiya as he directly addresses the reader. Sometimes the narration is in third-person limited, only following a single character around. Sometimes it's third-person omniscient, flitting from character to character or describing things that characters present could not know about. Sometimes, in moments of heightened emotion, dialogue bleeds into the narration, and a third-person narrator briefly becomes the character. Sometimes the narration just devolves into repetetive onomatopoeia or stage directions, and you get digital pages worth of metaphorical noise.

If we're strictly focused on proper form, then yeah, this is rough. But pay attention to what the music is doing, or what the visuals are doing, or what the words are trying to communicate, as this goes on. This is always in service of emphasizing a certain mood. Some of my favorite books do this sort of thing, too: "Everything is Illuminated" makes excellent use of run-on sentences, forgetting punctuation to communicate both the POV character's rough grasp of English as a second language and his heightened emotions during particular sequences. The "How to Train Your Dragon" books use different typefaces to communicate different spoken languages. "The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear" plays with font size to communicate volume, uses garbage characters to communicate incomprehensible dialogue, and - in one of my favorite scenes - creates "dialogue" between the in-universe encyclopedia entries and the narrator. I love it when fiction plays with its specific medium to articulate itself, and Umineko is a masterclass example of that. Honestly, something I think anyone who wants to be a writer should study...

...with the caveat being that if you're squeamish about... oh, just about anything... then this probably isn't for you. There was a point in my life where, as soon as this came out on Steam, I started buying copies for all my friends who I thought could learn something from it. But one friend gleefully spoiled one of the more explicit, mean-spirited murders to another friend. Dude was so offended that he proclaimed he was disappointed in me as a person and loudly uninstalled the game from his hard-drive, just so his computer wasn't tainted by this filth. So, um, just to avoid another heartbreak and wasted twenty-five bucks: if you're someone who has a weak constitution for any heavy subject matter besides racism or animal abuse (two of the few subjects Umineko doesn't cover), I'd understand it if you steered clear.

At the same time, that willingness to tackle just about anything means Umineko has the ability to connect to the reader through extremely specific, unexpected moments. There are ultimately a LOT of characters that do a LOT of things, and while some are mostly there to serve some narrative purpose (I don't imagine Sabakichi is a character a lot of people think about), a ton express very specific ideas. This is largely a consequence of the game's narrative and central theming... becoming unmoored, let's say. This is never a work to abandon its given themes, but each episode represents a separate cycle of the same events, which suggests counter-narratives running alongside everything that has been established. In particular, the visual novel is metafiction, a story that becomes a commentary on murder mysteries as much as an example of the murder mystery genre; even this gets unmoored, and the commentary becomes about storytelling and commentary on storytelling.

You'd think this would devolve into gibbering madness, but there's always some sort of emotional core and throughline for the reader to hold onto. Sure, at a given point we might be three layers deep in the Witch's Game (how the metafiction manifests - a game of wits between characters, where the murder mystery is the gameboard), but the narrative still devotes time to the character dramas of the Ushiromiya family because that remains the heart of this experience. Like, Natsuhi is a character who was pretty important in the first episode but got largely abandoned by the narrative, only to become a central character again in Episode 5, at a time when the narrative has flown off the rails into deep metafiction territory; I'd argue we get even better insight into the character in Episode 5 because the game's now set up the tools for the reader to read between the lines of its own narrative.

We're getting into abstract territory, so I'll give a specific personal example to highlight why I think this is so effective. This is a line from Episode 6, paraphrased a bit to avoid spoilers (why am I still trying to present this unspoilered, mumble grumble). This is a point where the Witch's Game is a central part of the narrative, so we're spending more time with the characters in the metafiction rather than in the initial Ushiromiya murder mystery. Still, we're viewing a gameboard presented by a novice Game Master (who I'll refer to as 「Guy」), so the Ushiromiya murder mystery is at the forefront of the text. At this point in time, within the murder mystery, Rudolph Ushiromiya has just asked Krauss Ushiromiya about the whereabouts of another character (who I'll refer to as 「Character」). As readers, we know exactly what 「Character」's whole deal is. We learned all about that over the last five episodes. There's a perfectly valid explanation for their whereabouts, and it has nothing to do with the murder mystery. So, the narration explains:

"Flustered, Krauss tried to explain away 「Character」's silence. 「Guy」, the Game Master, hadn't made '[「Character's」 absence]' a major theme for this game, so the conversation didn't progress any further at this point. They stopped talking about 「Character」 without Rudolf thinking anything was particularly suspicious."

This is a complete throwaway line. And yet, this is one of the lines I think about most from this visual novel. As mentioned, to this point, we've spent a LOT of time thinking about '[「Character's」 absence]'. It was a major theme of the previous episodes, because the metafictional author of those murder mysteries chose to emphasize it as a major theme. This time around, 「Guy」 didn't want to express that theme, because 「Guy」 has different narrative goals in mind. So the characters in 「Guy」's drama don't fixate on it, even though they would have if someone else was writing the story. It makes me think a TON about the essence of what storytelling is. Like it's so easy for someone just learning to write or engaging in literary criticism to fixate on the monomyth or the Seven Basic Plots, and fear that anything they say has already been done by someone else. Yet every author chooses to express different themes, both as conscious goals and unconscious expressions of the author's lived experiences and worldviews; it's from this divergent understanding of reality that we get our stories. We read stories and look for authors because of the way they express ideas, not because the ideas being expressed are wholly new.

Or, another way to look at it: as a writer, characters are your tools to express certain themes. Because 「Guy」 didn't want to roll with '[「Character's」 absence]' as a theme, 「Guy」 made the characters not worry about it. Now, presented with this quote out of context, you might suggest that this is a clumsy way of diffusing this question, since the reader will just want to know more about what's going on with 「Character」. I would agree! Within the text of Episode 6, 「Guy」 is not a good Game Master. There are much better ways of diffusing the question of given themes. But this clumsy example still proves the point: you don't have to make every potential consequence of your characters and your setting an element of your work's text. You can naturally diffuse situations if you don't wanna tackle them. Same reason why we don't see a lot of toilets in fiction, or we don't always ask how fantasy characters can wear their hair or clothes like that. The work doesn't have to be about that.

Like I said, complete throwaway line, but from that I've found those two extremely fundamental things to hold onto as I work to be a novelist. Because of how dense Umineko is with its narrative goals, there are so many things like that throughout. And it's not just the metafictional angle! The story has a lot to say on faith and belief, on self-identity and actualization, on logic and magic, on love and hate, on kinship and family, on fantasy and reality. The literary stuff just happens to be the main thing I really held onto over the last ten years, on top of the music.

...that, and Beatrice.

I cannot say much about Beatrice without giving things away, because Beatrice is the essence of Umineko. Nevertheless: I have never seen a more fully-realized character in any fictional work than Beatrice. So much of it is her role as the assumed killer, and the extent to which the narrative examines the possibilities of its central murder mystery. But so much of it as well is how often she surprises you. You'll think you have her pegged, only for a single line to completely change everything. Even by the end, you don't completely understand her; I don't, not even after having ten years to think about her. But you understand what you need to, and you accept that that's all you need.

And, I'll be honest - I see within Beatrice the essence of the human soul. I struggle to articulate what it is, specifically; perhaps it is that struggle that forms that essence? But the act of going through the visual novel and making sure I understood the themes and lessons at play made me want to believe in her reality, even if just for a moment. Beatrice is my Mona Lisa.

I have no interest in pretending that Umineko is a flawless masterpiece that everyone will love. It's really long, there's very limited interactivity even for a visual novel, it's frequently crass and vulgar, syntactical errors can be distracting, it's easy to read a bad message out of the thematic conclusion, there are pros and cons to each art style (though using anything besides Ryukishi07's original art is weird to me), etc etc etc. A lot of people aren't gonna resonate with it. And that's perfectly fine (as long as you don't take me to task for it)! But for me, it was an extremely formative piece of fiction. Some of my favorite fictional characters, one of my biggest writing influences, an incredible soundtrack, and one of my favorite things to think about. I don't expect I'll be rereading it any time soon, but I guarantee it'll remain a part of my life for a long time yet, even if it's just me centering my thoughts again by listening to "Hope".