Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Alternate Titles: When the Seagulls Cry
Original Japanese Release Date: July 1st, 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 26 Episodes
Summary:
On the island of Rokkenjima, the head of the wealthy Ushiromiya family, Kinzo Ushiromiya, has called his eight family members to the island in order to discuss how the family assets will be divided up once Kinzo dies. For you see, he is very sick. The island is also inhabitated by numerous servants and a doctor as well. As soon as everybody arrives, a typhoon hits and they are all trapped on the island. To make things worse, people are being murdered.
Review:
This anime makes no sense what so ever. You will be confused to no end while you watch this anime so just be prepared. The bad plot presentation isn’t helped by fac that the show sets a very high bar for itself by having largely the same title as Higurashi. This is a bad move. There are positive aspects to the show but mostly its just confusing and frustrating.
The show ends up being about proving the existence of witches. This is done throw a chess match like battle of wits between Battler and Beatrice. Beatrice will recall something that occurred during the course of the show and explain that it simply couldn’t be done without magic and then Battler will retort that it could have been done this and that way. Of course, in this anime, being that it has connections to Higurashi both in title and in director, its very violent and so many of the scenes that we get to relive are of people being slaughtered like cattle.
The animation is good and I really did like the characters but unfortunately they all die within like the first 2 or 3 episodes. That’s one of the problems, the characters don’t get the needed backstory to make you really interested in their fate or safety. In this way, they’re mostly pawns that are used to just create debating points for Battler and Beatrice.
In the end, I’m not really sure if Battler ever proved the existence of witches. I was so puzzled by what was occuring for most of this anime that I really didn’t find myself enjoying it. I did enjoy the insane violence for the most part but what wasn’t enough to make this show live up to the standards set by its title and director.
[starrater]
September 18, 2011 @ 6:11 am
Well, I guess the main problem of the Umineko anime, was that it tried to do too much, in too little time. God awful pacing ruined the story to an absolute degree.
Though, that’s not a mocking of the story itself. The Visual Novel that Umineko is based on (of the same name) is probably one of the best stories I’ve ever read, if not, the best. But when you try to compress one part of the entire story into 4 episodes of anime, it’ll inevitably fail. (I mean, really, the first 4 episodes of the anime were originally about 18 chapters of story— which is exactly where the backstories of the characters are hiding in, never seeing the daylight in the anime.)
It’s a shame, really. If they gave the anime a tad more episodes, and worked on the pacing, it could have become an incredible experience. I mean, really, it’s a mystery story. If there is anything you shouldn’t skim through, it’s a mystery story where details matter.
Though, granted, the Higurashi anime did the exact same thing. But at least they fixed it up by focusing more on the horror, and less on the mystery.
Oh well. -ends rant-