There will be spoilers for Legend of the Golden Witch. If there are any spoilers for later parts, I will mark them accordingly. Proceed with caution.
Umineko When They Cry Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch
Premise
The premise of Episode 1 is fairly simple. You see the story through the eyes of our young and spunky protagonist, Battler Ushiromiya (If applicable, I will be using the English order of names for the review). Battler, after 6 years of separation from his family, has finally decided to once again attend the Ushiromiyas' annual gathering at the island of Rokkenjima. After this, we see that Battler's grandfather and the leader of the Ushiromiya family, Kinzo, being told that he doesn't have much time to live, followed by his assertion that there's no way in hell he'll die before seing his beloved "Beatrice" one last time. This is followed up by a short introduction scene of many of our characters on the boat on its way to Rokkenjima and some (not-so-subtle) foreshadowing. This introduction continues for several chapters, and that leads me into one of the most important parts of Umineko:
#Characters
If you read something in bold, it's probably worth paying attention to.
In order of introductions, we have:
Main Family: These characters are part of the Ushiromiya family and most of them are in line for the Ushiromiya throne.
- Kinzo (Current Head): Kinzo is the current leader of the Ushiromiyas. He, for some reason, has an obsession with his beloved Beatrice. This relationship is the crux of the causes for the events at Rokkenjima, and we will see it elaborated upon time and time again. He's going to die soon of old age.
2. Battler (7th in line): The protagonist of Umineko. We see him first as a comic character, affected heavily by motion sickness and with some seriously unsavory tendencies, but as the plot goes on, Battler is the most reliable character, willing and able to reason his way into and out of anything he wishes to.
Battler absolutely refuses to believe in the existence of the supernatural.
3. Jessica (5th in line): Jessica is a tomboyish and (apparently) sharp-tongued young girl who refuses to speak as is proper for her station. She loves to take the piss out of Battler, and that's basically all the character development she has for Ep 1.
4. Maria (9th in line): Maria is a seemingly adorable little angel of a girl who cares a lot about her family. However, whenever the occult is brought up (which happens a lot more than you'd think, apparently) she goes sicko mode and gets this undescribable look on her face. She used to get bullied at her school so she decided to take up the occult as a hobby just like every other well-adjusted young child.
She believes in the existence of Beatrice and the supernatural as as whole wholeheartedly. She pisses me off ngl.
5. George (6th in line): George is the most milque-toast ass dude you'll ever see. He's pretty responsible, an ace at academics, and has a good plan for his future. And, that's about all you get out of him this arc.
6. Krauss (1st in line): Krauss is a bit of an uptight asshole to the rest of the family but he is the oldest sibling and that's kind of what you do.
He's in serious money trouble and would do anything to get the inheritance.
7. Eva (2nd in line): This woman is straight unhinged I swear. She's George's mom and she's crazy about the family fortune.
She's in serious money trouble and would do anything to get the inheritance.
8. Rudolf (3rd in line): Rudolf is Battler's dad. He's a known philanderer, and after Battler's mom, Asumu, died, he immediately married Kyrie, Battler's current stepmom. (This general situation is what caused Battler to leave the Ushiromiyas for 6 whole years)
9. Rosa (4th in line): Rosa is Maria's mom. Her man left her, and she has a tough time taking care of Maria and maintaining her career. She's supposed to be rational and sensible (ok dude).
She's in serious money trouble and would do anything to get the inheritance.
10. Natsuhi (10th in line): Natsuhi is not only Krauss's wife and Jessica's mom, but she's also the main overseer of everything at the Ushiromiya estate. She's basically the housekeeper to end all housekeepers. She's a bit hard to keep a conversation with but will protect the Ushiromiyas by any means necessary.
11. Hideyoshi (11th in line): Hideyoshi is Eva's husband and George's dad. He's a jovial guy who loves to make jokes.
12. Kyrie (12th in line): Kyrie is Battler's stepmom and a certified badass. She's sharp as a nail and when she puts her mind to solving something, you might as well pack your bags that shit is solved. She's the progenitor of the type of logic Battler uses which Umineko calls "chessboard thinking," where in a tough situation, you look at it from the opponent's perspective to make rational decisions based on it.
Servants: These characters work for the Ushiromiya family. They would follow Kinzo, the head of the Ushiromiyas, to death and back unconditionally.
- Chiyo: Bro I deadass can't even think of her role having ANY relevance until episode 3. Chiyo's role is basically putting the fear of god (or rather the fear of witch) into our participants right at the start and making sure they're scared of Beatrice, the "Golden Witch of Rokkenjima."
6. Kanon: Kanon is the uptight one of the servant group. He's like Shannon's brother, and he's all about keeping it professional. He and Shannon refer to themselves as "furniture" which is kind of unsettling the first time but by the 300th time in this arc it gets seriously annoying
7. Shannon: Shannon is the more easy-going of the two. We learn later on that she and George are in love but it takes a whole lot of convincing to get Shannon to even be willing to try to be with him because, as mentioned previously, she views herself as furniture and as far as I'm aware, I don't think a priest will be willing to sign off on a marriage between a human and a table.
8. Genji: We actually first see Genji in Kinzo's introduction sequence where he's simping over Beatrice, but he doesn't get introduced until much later. He's the lead butler of the Ushiromiya estate, and as a result, he's the boss of all of the servants.
9. Nanjo: Nanjo is Kinzo's physician. His presence boils down to "if he's alive, you can guarantee if someone's dead or not. If not, tough luck."
10. Gohda: He's the cook.
What the fuck
- Beatrice: I don't even know where to start. There is a legend on Rokkenjima that there's this witch, Beatrice, who's gonna fuck you up if you don't respect her. Apparently Kinzo used to also be a master sorcerer and like trapped her or something. Feel free to believe however much of this as you wish.
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#
Plot
Contrary to what you might think, the specifics of the murders in episode 1 are actually quite tangential to the point. Episode 1 exists for one purpose and one purpose only:
Set the stage.
The future episodes are all going to be REALLY tough to understand if you don't understand the basic structure of the murders on Rokkenjima.
Basically, there is someone on the island trying to convince everyone on the island that there is a witch, Beatrice, committing murders. To convince them of that, this Beatrice tries her best to create murders that are impossible for humans to do. It is up to Battler to come up with reasons to refute the existence of a witch and provide methods in which these murders could be done by a human.
Very close to the start, there is an inscription accompanying Beatrice's picture that is put up by Kinzo for everyone to see.
This inscription is the bread and butter of setting up our structure. Up until "On the first twilight," everything within is a riddle to show the location of the hidden Ushiromiya fortune. If you find the fortune before the 9th twilight, you will survive. Everything else on the tablet is telling us how and when the murders will occur.
On the first twilight, 6 people will die. Then, two people who have some sort of love for each other will die. After that, until 9 twilights are over, one person at a time will die. If nobody finds the fortune until then, it's game over.
Something that confused me about this was the use of the word "twilight." I thought this would take place over 9 real days, but "twilight" in Umineko is just a figurative phrase. The 4th twilight could occur 10 minutes after the 3rd.
The Good
Let's get into all of the stuff that's great about Umineko. At this point, there's not too much of an appeal established for the plot, but there's still quite a bit to love.
The art: The artwork of the Umineko manga is perfect at getting the reader into the emotional or mental state that it wants you to be in. If Umineko wants you laughing, it'll show you something funny.
If Umineko wants you concerned, it'll show you something that makes you worried.
If Umineko wants you afraid, you're going to see something terrifying.
And let me tell you. If Umineko wants you disturbed, you better be prepared.
The dialogue: Something I only realized on a second time through is that Umineko has a SERIOUSLY LARGE amount of information that it needs to deliver to the reader for the reader to properly understand it. If you were to just have a long-ass exposition sequence, then it would take like 6 chapters to do it and it would be unbelievably boring if you focused on the exposition. However, Umineko instead decides to effectively sacrifice the amount of time it can spend developing an excellent mystery in the first episode in order to provide this exposition, and even when it does provide exposition, it's not super ham-fisted. Instead of showing you something that's seemingly easy to understand and having the characters discuss it to exhaustion to give you a single detail you might not have grasped, Umineko will give you something that makes no fucking sense and have the characters try to reason it out using information that they know but you don't know, effectively also teaching you this information. This can be seen in the scene where the children first try to solve the epitaph. The author is able to tell the reader where Kinzo was born through the mouths of Battler, George, Jessica, and Marie, and as a result, it's less abrupt than it would be otherwise.
The bad:
Characterization and Screentime: Episode 1 only provides us with characterization for Battler, George, Shannon, Eva, Maria, Rosa, Natsuhi, and Kinzo. The unfortunate reality of Umineko is that 6 people die in the first twilight, so you can't see their reactions to that event because they're fuckin dead. This is remedied by giving these characters a lot more time in the sun in later episodes, but I still can't not mark Umineko Episode 1 down heavily for this. I didn't even remember the names of half the characters, and considering that there's 18 characters on the island and that number is important because the island is a bit of a closed room in and of itself, the characterization is obviously insufficient in Episode 1.
The Ending: Episode 1 does NOT lead into episode 2 well at all. This is not to say that the ending of Episode 1 doesn't establish the future structure that the series as a whole is going to take, but it doesn't lead into the starting chapters of Episode 2 at all. I just think that the ending as a whole could've been handled a bit better. A less dedicated reader than me might have just gone "what the fuck it's over?" When the seagulls cry and there are zero survivors.
General Confusion: Now, this might seem unfair, and it is, to some extent. However, by Episode 1, Umineko hasn't established well the fact that not only are you going to have no idea what the hell is going on during the murders, but outside the game board you're also going to not really understand stuff. Basically, the reader doesn't get that you're not SUPPOSED to understand yet. This sort of fragmentation of the narrative that is left up to the reader to piece together can be frustrating. I really didn't like the way it was set up where you as the reader are left to try to figure out what the overall setting is actually going to be like and just what the hell is actually going on. I learned to like it later on, but when I read Episode 1, I definitely did not enjoy that part.
Conclusion
Overall, it's really tough to judge Umineko Chapter 1 just by itself, considering that I've read the whole series, but you can't blame me for not being able to put it down to make a review first. I think that Chapter 1 was a sacrifice made to ensure the success and enjoyability of the rest of the chapters. There was no way you couldn't set up the borderline artistry that is Umineko without having to lay down brass tacks, and that's what Chapter 1 is. Overall, Chapter 1 is, while an enticing murder mystery, only a proof of concept for the true greatness that Umineko could and would be in the future.
