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REVIEW: Umineko WHEN THEY CRY Episode 2: Turn of the Golden Witch GN 2


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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2091
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:18 pm Reply with quote
Amazon reviews indicate that the Red Truth is not in fact printed in red. This saddens me.

Last edited by Shay Guy on Sun Nov 24, 2013 1:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:29 pm Reply with quote
Guess it didn't "wow" you, but I myself continue remaining hooked all the way through. As irritating for some as it may be that it doesn't seem to provide enough answers or is moving too slowly to reach those answers, I'm more than willing to be patient and give the benefit of the doubt. There's no doubt in my mind at all that everything will come together in the closing arcs like in Higurashi. Looking forward to more!
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Mr. Nescio



Joined: 13 Jul 2011
Posts: 165
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 1:55 pm Reply with quote
This might be presumptuous as I haven't read the manga version, it makes me a little bit sad to see someone who seemingly likes Ryukishi's works to experience Umineko without sound. Umineko has a huge OST with several memorable tracks and the sound effects (rain, creaking doors, even ahaha.wav) really enhance the athmosphere.

Funnily, Rebecca's reaction to episode 2 of the story and the reaction of Japanese has at least the common point of feeling trolled. This made Ryukishi to rewrite episode 3 completely to make it "easier" for the readers. (In the visual novel a description of "difficulty" is given at the start of the episodes. For Episode 1, it is "The difficulty is standard. Shall we first take the easy road?", for Ep. 2: "The difficulty is first-rate. The Witch intends to make you surrender with no warning.", and for Ep. 3: "The difficulty is equal. Equal for both you and the Witch. ". Ryukishi called the original episode 3 super hard in an interview.)

As I haven't read the volume I want to ask: Rebecca, could you clarify what you mean by saying that there is too much stuff after the conclusion?
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 1000
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 2:02 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, it may seem at first that the epilogues (or "Tea Parties", as Umineko calls them) aren't very important at this point, but it's not until the end of the 4th arc where they start to serve a purpose, starting with the revelation that spoiler[Bernkastel is kind of a bitch.] Don't even get me started on the massive punch-to-the-gut that is the 7th Tea Party. Shocked



pachy_boy wrote:
Guess it didn't "wow" you, but I myself continue remaining hooked all the way through. As irritating for some as it may be that it doesn't seem to provide enough answers or is moving too slowly to reach those answers, I'm more than willing to be patient and give the benefit of the doubt. There's no doubt in my mind at all that everything will come together in the closing arcs like in Higurashi. Looking forward to more!


Um, sorry to disappoint you, but spoiler[while a lot of questions are answered, Ryukishi07 instead leaves the big questions open to interpretation. Unlike in Higurashi, he leaves it up to the reader to come up with their own answer.]

You can go ahead and read that BTW, I didn't spoil anything major.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 2:15 pm Reply with quote
Quote:

As I haven't read the volume I want to ask: Rebecca, could you clarify what you mean by saying that there is too much stuff after the conclusion?

It was the "post game talks" known as the Secret Tea Party.
spoiler[, and a translation error in the Manga is that Bernkastel does NOT say "*Nipah!*" in the official printed version, that saddens me greatly
]
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2599
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 3:17 pm Reply with quote
FenixFiesta wrote:
Quote:

As I haven't read the volume I want to ask: Rebecca, could you clarify what you mean by saying that there is too much stuff after the conclusion?

It was the "post game talks" known as the Secret Tea Party.


@Mr. Nescio

Pretty much what FenixFiesta said. Smile It may be a personal preference, but I would have preferred to dwell on the conclusion rather than deal with Beatrice and her cronies - as I mentioned, it really felt to me like Ryukishi07 was using Beatrice to troll readers (which apparently I have in common with the Japanese audience) simply because he can. I hope to be proven wrong, because for the most part I admire his work - as I've mentioned before, I'm avoiding spoilers for this like the plague.

I would like someday to play the VN and have all of the sound effects (I understand the anime is not an acceptable substitute) - some semester when I have a lighter course load, I guess.
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ralphmerridew



Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 4:01 pm Reply with quote
Keep in mind that the first four arcs of Umineko are the Question arcs. Solutions aren't supposed to come until the second half.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 4:14 pm Reply with quote
if anything the first 4 books are useful only so that you can come up with a decent theory, but just like higurashi, don't expect to be given actual answers until the very late arcs.

Mr. Nescio wrote:

Funnily, Rebecca's reaction to episode 2 of the story and the reaction of Japanese has at least the common point of feeling trolled. This made Ryukishi to rewrite episode 3 completely to make it "easier" for the readers. (In the visual novel a description of "difficulty" is given at the start of the episodes. For Episode 1, it is "The difficulty is standard. Shall we first take the easy road?", for Ep. 2: "The difficulty is first-rate. The Witch intends to make you surrender with no warning.", and for Ep. 3: "The difficulty is equal. Equal for both you and the Witch. ". Ryukishi called the original episode 3 super hard in an interview.)


yeah, land of the golden witch, thankfully all the material he planned to use there has been finally used in the rest of the suplementary material.
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casualfan



Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 333
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:08 pm Reply with quote
The feeling of being trolled by the author is the biggest letdown of the anime for me. If only the events in red lines are truely happening, then what about 90% of the things shown. It sure draws me away from trying to solve the mystery.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 9:37 pm Reply with quote
before feeling that bad about it, rememner all the cops and detective shows we get in tv/movies that don't even follow knox's 10 rules; now those are unfair and stuff like csi or sherlock holmes easily disregard those rules, as far as famous/popular authors i think agatah christie is the only one who follows those rules, every other author that follows them is only known to mistery fans.

so the point of the last paragraph is that umineko is very fair , it jsut gives you a different feeling because some of the lies are so blatant and in your face it makes you feel bad, which again is kind of the point of it, and I blame it's lack of popularity (compared to higurashi) to that, since it purposefully turn away the readers/watchers.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234



Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3819
Location: Louisville, KY
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 10:09 pm Reply with quote
As one of the few people that has analyzed Umineko inside and out, I want everyone to know something now. I used the spoiler tag so it will not take away any of your pleasure from reading the series, think of it as a schrodinger's cat box.

Again I repeat please read at your own discretion. spoiler[Umineko is about finding out why the person is doing these killings, not solving the mystery of how it's done.]
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 1:54 am Reply with quote
Quote:
so the point of the last paragraph is that umineko is very fair , it jsut gives you a different feeling because some of the lies are so blatant and in your face it makes you feel bad, which again is kind of the point of it, and I blame it's lack of popularity (compared to higurashi) to that, since it purposefully turn away the readers/watchers.

I blame the lack of Umineko popularity because the Anime adaptation (aka the cliff notes version) was an underwhelming experience overall.
Character building is completely essential, and the pace the anime had to stream line the experience cut it down to at best "pieces on the board" except even then you are missing a portion of the pieces being moved.
So you have an overcomplicated source material (assuming you are following it specifically to "play the game") spoiler[Which according to the author means you are missing out on the heart of the story in the first place.]and a bare bones anime adaptation, so yes appealing to a broader audience would be an issue for Umineko.
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Stall_19



Joined: 07 Mar 2013
Posts: 78
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 4:42 am Reply with quote
I didn't watch the Umineko anime, my experience is solely from the visual novel but I would imagine the difficulty level in adapting this story would be quite high.
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Tanteikingdomkey



Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Posts: 2345
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 7:05 am Reply with quote
Cecilthedarkknight_234 wrote:
As one of the few people that has analyzed Umineko inside and out, I want everyone to know something now. I used the spoiler tag so it will not take away any of your pleasure from reading the series, think of it as a schrodinger's cat box.

Again I repeat please read at your own discretion. spoiler[Umineko is about finding out why the person is doing these killings, not solving the mystery of how it's done.]


..............I am sorry for sounding harsh but if you are saying you are one of the few people who studied the series inside and out you should never say anything like you did in that hidden comment. Ryu would be turning over in his grave if he was dead. If you want to surrender to the witch that is fine however then don't claim to have studied the series like no one else.

As someone who has interviewed ryu and understands how he patterned the writing of the series completly . I will say this ryu very intentionally trolled his fan repedtly in umineko. And for that I adore his guts and his writing ability for being able to pull off what he did. If you want to know why then you should look into theatrical history and it will be rather obvious if you know what to look for.
If you trust ryu then you will be rewarded very well, he does know exactly what he is doing in the story.

Major major spoilers bellow only look if you have finished through episode 7 as it talks about who the culprit is.

spoiler[I fully believe in shakannontrice however I believe she did not kill anyone. I believe battler messed up yet again, and assigned her all the blame for what happened while the actual culprit went unnoticed by him the entire time]

Rebecca congratulations on making it through the weakest of the 8 episodes and also congradulations on still being able to see the light despite all the pitfalls you have fallen into(I am not being sarcastic here I promise). Your review is excellent and I can not wait for you to get to later parts in the series and start to realize what has been happen and what your lack of love has failed to see.
Don't worry episode 3 starts to explain things quite early on, ryu starts to correct the few mistakes he made and starts calming people down.
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Mr. Nescio



Joined: 13 Jul 2011
Posts: 165
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:43 am Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:

@Mr. Nescio

Pretty much what FenixFiesta said. Smile It may be a personal preference, but I would have preferred to dwell on the conclusion rather than deal with Beatrice and her cronies - as I mentioned, it really felt to me like Ryukishi07 was using Beatrice to troll readers (which apparently I have in common with the Japanese audience) simply because he can. I hope to be proven wrong, because for the most part I admire his work - as I've mentioned before, I'm avoiding spoilers for this like the plague.
Well, there isn't much I can comment. This time, unlike in the thread of the first volume, I hold back my urge to make spoilerific remarks and just suggest to keep reading.

I wish you good luck with avoiding spoilers, this thread has already gone to the wrong direction.
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