When the Seagulls Cry #03 — Funny Face

July 15th, 2009

 

I bet none of you even know who Donna Fargo is.

Maaaan. I wake up at 5:30am and after spending 2 hours wrist finger deep in sheep brains, I don’t even have any decent quality raws to watch? I hate you, internets.

Impressions:

This was easily the best episode of Umineko to date, but then again, that’s really not saying much. They’re finally getting to the meat of the series, which is a lot of classical closed box mysteries in the vein of Poirot or Sherlock Holmes proposed versus the alternative explaination of "a wizard witch did it." Battler and Eva were the star players of this episode, both with a few theories about how the killing could have gone down. Granted, the possibilities here were kind of lame, but we’re getting there. Of course, the coda to this episode was Eva and ol’ whose-his-unimportant-face’s murders. I am curious as to why even the servants, who are all gung-ho about Beatrice, never get it into their mind to check out the apparently possessed little girl that constantly rants, cackles, and delivers death threats. There might be something there worth looking into.

There were still plenty of issues with the episode though. I have this picture of Deen’s animators, with different people assigned to draw different people. The one in charge of Maria is drunk. Extremely drunk. Battler’s not doing so well either. Eva and Battler were also standing on some kind of magical landing in the middle of the stairs where they were simultaneously at least five or six feet above the ground floor, but also at an even level with the front door. Damn witches. I’m not sure why they decided to make the wire cutting to get into Eva’s room so dynamic either. Even assuming they were just quiet because of post-coital bliss or something, you just left them alone with the butler, Kanon. The butler. That’s the leading cause of death in British novels.

Preview text goes here

Posted in Umineko | 30 Comments »

30 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anonymous says:
    July 15, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    Why did you have your fingers in sheep brains?

    I don’t think fingers belong there!

  • sage says:
    July 15, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    NATSUHI!
    IN THE PARLOR!
    WITH THE CANDLELABRUM!

  • chad001 says:
    July 15, 2009 at 8:28 pm

    Notice… that pretty much ever adult, except maybe Rosa, is now dead…. wow… that’s kinda pathetic… leave the children with a billion dollars worth of gold… smart….

    • Anonymous says:
      July 15, 2009 at 9:24 pm

      Well the adults are more threatening, so logically the killer would go for them first.

  • Phocus says:
    July 15, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    http://blog.seiha.org/images2/umineko3/umineko3_79.jpg
    http://blog.seiha.org/images2/umineko3/umineko3_80.jpg

    Well, they’re DEFINITELY going to feel that headache in the morning.

  • MuzikalNotes says:
    July 15, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    Wait, wasn’t the box where the keys were placed full of keys that it was almost impossible (except for the servants) to pick the right key unless you knew one key from the other?
    And is it just me, or do the weapons that they were stabbed with look odd? I actually imagined them differently. They even look different from the manga.

  • HJK says:
    July 15, 2009 at 9:51 pm

    The premise of this story really reminds me of Agatha Christie’s And Then There were None.
    I’m so glad that this is being blogged here.

  • Celestial says:
    July 15, 2009 at 10:50 pm

    uuuuuuuu

  • hiroy_raind says:
    July 15, 2009 at 11:27 pm

    seeing how Maria also watched Higurashi in this episode, I find it a bit natural on how she’s going psycho one time or the other…

  • Tyler says:
    July 16, 2009 at 3:53 am

    uuuu
    uUUUUU

    Someone needs to kill that little girl.

  • shugosha says:
    July 16, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    EP I-IV preview here.

    http://anime.biglobe.ne.jp/view/index?id=2590&story=804

    • shugosha says:
      July 16, 2009 at 5:23 pm

      Arrogant? He was trying to look for a logical explanation to the murders when he was arguing with the servants in the kitchen, and in the Eva-Natsuhi scene he was trying to show that stupid accusations lead to nothing.

      He is not arrogant, right now, he calmed is head and is acting fearless, collected and decided to looking for logical answers. He’s the main character after all.

  • Aerojohn says:
    July 16, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    When did Battler start being so arrogant? He is starting to piss me off.

  • lulu-tan says:
    July 16, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    I can’t take Hideyoshi’s death seriously simply because of the moobs.

    • Travis says:
      July 16, 2009 at 7:04 pm

      Seconded, so hard. I mean… Woah. Those’ve gotta at least be a b-cup.

      Also, society’s got them where it wants them. Their awareness of nothing won’t save them now. Battler just needs a little something to hang onto, but he won’t find it; if he did, it would’ve just been perfect.

  • MADAO says:
    July 17, 2009 at 1:19 am

    DAMMIT!!! Still no one got ’nuff balls to bitch slapped that annoying LOLI once more !? Speaking of which, I wonder where is the WONDERFUL woman who bitch slapped Maria, she isnt dead yet, is she? Other than that, I seriously facepamed for all the adults’ stupidity, especially Battler, with all his BULL SHIT of turning table this, turning table that, yet failed to notice the f’king strange behavior of that hoe of LOLI. That make me f’king hope some table gonna smack his smart ass face soon. The only thing that made me satisfied in this ep is that 4 eyes dude still suffering HARD, LOL, but this soon pisses me off when he still can buried his shitty face into his OWN COUSIN breasts! LUCKY BASTARD, as lucky as all the the dang old ugly geezers in this show being able to score HOT MILFS and I still its a f’king waste for these lovely ladies to be in this lameass show that honestly doesnt reach even close to Higurashi’s awsomeness IMO, and begin to turn into some cheap ass comedy where I enjoy seeing characters suffer for the LULZ

  • Digdri says:
    July 17, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    @MuzikalNotes: The problem about the weapons is that they were never described in detail in the games. You only get to know they are something pointy and sharp like a stake or an icepick… so its all about interpretation. In the manga they looked much more occult but on the other side the manga exaggerates many things.

    @hiroy_raind: Nice try with Marias TV watching but that was also invented in the anime (die manga chose a similar gag). IMO in the games you never get to know what seen on TV. But later it’s revealed she likes shows like Card Master Sakura … whoever that might be? ;P (At least appropiate for her age ^^)

    @MADAO: They don’t suspect Maria because she (once again) wasn’t THAT evil in the orginal story in the games. Especially her demonic faces and the threatening were much overdone in the anime. And no: Her mother cannot slap her anymore. She was one of the 6 victims. The doctor even told Maria in one scene.
    The family know beforehand that Maria is a bit strange but they think her interest in witches etc. is just her age. On the other hand she really scared the shit out of Battler in the kitchen in the original but not because the sounded like she want to see him dead.

    But what can you say… people seemingly love freaky faces, so they put in more and more then nessessary.

    Also LOL at the not so subtile Death Note homage or whatever they intended with this.

    • MADAO says:
      July 17, 2009 at 7:29 pm

      Thank you for the explanation, seems like its the producers’ fault for messing things up…Also, anybody here remembers Maria’s mom’s name? She shall be F-O-R-E-V-E-R engraved in my heart as one of my favorite 2D females of all time, poor hot MILF…Arrggghh, still got fed up with Battler’s smartassness, there are two types of cool: the natural coolness & the try-too-hard-to-be-cool-and-end-up-being-sucked & this guy just happen to belong to the latter along with certain overrated dude named Kamina IMO…

      • Digdri says:
        July 18, 2009 at 5:13 am

        Be careful with jugding characters in this type of series… Mion in Higurashi was a demon-possesed maniac or wasn’t she? ;P

        Perhaps in the end you’ll like Maria and hate her mother… might really happen :)
        In the games Maria is definitely one of the more interessing characters (because she seems really contradictorily and mysterious)

        In another note: Battler isn’t like Kamina at all…. he likes to do that flashy finger-pointing like in the OP (perhaps because he likes mystery novels etc. and saw it there… just my guess), but he is more a thinker and hobby detective…. that wasn’t Kaminas strong point.
        Cutting ecchi-scenes short to chasing the melonpans you also don’t get to see that he isn’t quite THAT pervert in the games. In the end he actually more of softy. XD
        You can thing of him as a grown up version of K1. Strong determination but sometimes a little silly when like to tease others.
        And if you don’t like him in the end: Enjoy how there is so much mental torture waiting for him… the game hasn’t right begun yet… :)

  • Irie says:
    July 18, 2009 at 11:06 am

    Is it only me or do all these deaths seem too neat? It’s almost as if chess board pieces are being moved and the bodies staged for theaterical effect. Could the adults be acting while testing the children under trauma.

    • Digdri says:
      July 18, 2009 at 2:01 pm

      Interesting idea but no… those are real murders. You later get confirmation that people died on the island.

      And I wouldn’t call them neat at all… the scenes are toned down a bit in the anime as always but you might want to look at the manga-version (http://www.onemanga.com/Umineko_no_Naku_Koro_ni/7/50-51/) and thing about it again… the novel details how there faces where half or totally smashed… quite unrealistic to fake that wounds.

      Naturally there alway were discussions where or not someone could fake HIS/HER death… but thats just standard ideas in this closed circle settings. ^^ (… and for the half-smash faces its also really impossible)

      On the other hand: the comparison of the people to chess-pieces isn’t to far of later :)

  • MADAO says:
    July 18, 2009 at 11:10 am

    @ Didgri
    Uh… I think I just found why I thought Battler was ridiculous: Its because I watched him as a viewer knowing that his logic is gonna be bullshit in a mystery show where logic of “turning table” doesnt apply to the killer. That being said, if you look at him as a character inside the show, he was not actually that bad…Well at least better than Kamina I guess. Still cannot appreciate Maria with her UUUUUU, anime version made me hate her so bad before I have any chance to like her, I guess. BTW, just wanna say Mion’s HOTNESS is OVER 9000!!!

    • shugosha says:
      July 18, 2009 at 1:42 pm

      And why you know that the “turning table” is bullshit here? Umineko is mystery vs. fantasy. If you take a mystery view, is clearly obvious that the killer is trying to show that a witch did the killings. So chessboard thinking works here.

      Cmon, Battler is a good a sympathetic main character, he’s the most popular character in Umineko because is the only character who don’t fall in the easy solution of “a witch did it”, trying to look for answers to all of this. And he will have a good number of good scenes around the story.

    • Digdri says:
      July 18, 2009 at 2:23 pm

      Actually you just have to wait… how good of a method his favorite chessboard-thinking is was discussed later this arc in the games.

      And shugosha is right. Later on he has his cool moments too.
      DEEN seems to like making there characteres a little bit edgier, so he don’t come of quite right.
      The way the anime presents it you could really get the idea he wants to sound smart and wants to be some awesome wannabe-detective but in the games its display more fitting: the just have to kill time and start thinking because they might get killed too. Battler even mentions that they as amateurs cannot do a thing but until the police arrives after the storm they have to defend themselfs. And when the parents turn paranoid he just notices their flowed logics and intervenes.

      Like shugosha says: He’s almost the only one who sticks to logical explanations and refuses all the superstition and magic thrown at him which makes him a good choice for the main character.
      Thats also why the author throws more and more magic stuff at the reader later on … its not only his game to deny all of this but also YOUS when you try to solve the mysterys :)

      • MADAO says:
        July 19, 2009 at 3:20 pm

        Nah, what I meant when I said his “turning table” is BS because we, as spectators already knew the culprit is not human, having magical abilities that defy logical thinking, doesnt have a physical form, like the God in Higurashi. Whereas Battler, refusing to believe superstitions, still convinced that the culprit should be human & trying to apply his “turning table” thinking onto something that isnt even human & doesnt think the way a culprit should think. As for a mystery view, he is a good detective but as for a supernatural view, which this show is about, his logical is just BS, see what I mean?

  • shugosha says:
    July 19, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    @MADAO
    … Umineko is mystery vs. fantasy. The culprit can be a witch, but can be a human as well. Is a symbolic journey of logic vs. superstition.

    This is not fantasy. This is not mystery. This is anti-mystery vs. anti-fantasy. Umineko is about destroying the illusion of fantasy and uncover the whole truth. Is about if you will surrender to the witch, or stand up and face her.

    Later is explained why mystery and fantasy coexist each other, but it’s a spoiler about EP3.

    Basically, you’re pretty wrong if you believe that all of this is that simple as “a witch did it”.

    • MADAO says:
      July 19, 2009 at 6:49 pm

      Okay, its clear now, thanks for the explanation, man. Just when I was about to drop this serie too… Guess I gotta stick with for a while then.

    • Digdri says:
      July 19, 2009 at 6:54 pm

      Quite nice summary of the idea of this story…

      Might as well add another line from the authors promotion text for the games:
      “I want to find out just how many people can deny the witch until the very end and maintain a ‘human
      culprit theory’.”

      But I’m quite amused how many people in the blogs and forums don’t even try reasoning the way Battler did and try to analyse how the magic works etc. Well those people really WILL have fun with the 2nd arc… ;-)
      I always thought myself: When magic can really kill the people, why setting it up as detective story anyway. :D

      Besides the 1st arc never shows magic at work til now so its really to early to think this way. ^^
      (Well ok the umbrella-lady in the garden the anime added in and more butterflies flying around then in the games make it look more supernatural but nothing really magical til now)

      BTW I really liked the explanation in EP3 which you mentioned. Was also quite confused after the mess EP2 was leaving behind and started thinking the the author is jumping the shark the scene before but suddenly all make sense. :)
      Well in Higurashi they also declared him insane after the first arcs so it seems to be part of the experience. :P