When the Seagulls Cry #04 — Face Plants

July 22nd, 2009

 

Deen, you’re one of a kind.

Impressions:

Not as decent as last week’s episode, although the art and animation was at least a bit more consistent, although Natsuhi’s hair has certainly seen beter days. Deen did make absolute tits of themselves with their idea of an appropriate image for the sponsor message. We’re just kind of coasting at the moment with the killer(s) out there and picking off the rest of the Scooby squad. Today’s group was the servants, who honestly kind of deserved it for continuing to push the "a wizard did it" theory to the pissed off woman with a gun. It’s probably a good thing that Natsuhi didn’t shoot one of them anyway, since the recoil would have probably taken out her eye.

For the most part though, this was just a buildup for Beatrice’s debut next week without anything particularly new or interesting. Yes, yes, spoilers the witch in the OP and that they spent all this episode talking about is real, and a bit of an interdimensional bitch. What a shock. Kanon went to go ‘confront’ Beatrice and got stabbed for it, and after rediscovering her riddle, the appearance of a new letter pissed Natsuhi off enough to force the servants to give up their keys (like all of them don’t have spares) and send them away, just for them to get killed soon afterwards while Maria stands in a corner singing like a crazy person. I’m just glad Battler started beating Maria for continuing to also be quite the little bitch, even if it did come off as closer to the Two Stooges than any of them actually considering that the crazy girl constantly indirectly threatening them all with death could be a suspect. Good work, Jess. It only took you about 10 deaths to come to that conclusion.

 

Posted in Umineko | 19 Comments »

19 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Kode-Dekka says:
    July 22, 2009 at 10:08 pm

    LOL@ Rena’s weapon making a cameo.

  • Anonymous says:
    July 22, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    The bonk noise felt a bit out of place, but I guess they wanted to keep the child abuse with a lighthearted tone.

  • kadian1364 says:
    July 22, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    LOL sponsors! Who needs them anyway?

  • Phocus says:
    July 23, 2009 at 12:42 am

    Agghh, finally I can’t wait for Beatrice’s appearance. <3

    Btw, here's something funny I made up:
    http://blog.seiha.org/images2/umineko4/umineko4_2.jpg
    George: Mmmm Mama's breasts are fineeee~

    http://blog.seiha.org/images2/umineko4/umineko4_1.jpg
    Everyone: Omg George wtf are you doing?!

    http://blog.seiha.org/images2/umineko4/umineko4_3.jpg
    George: –SHIT IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!!

    Oh Deen, you've just made my day.

  • TJ says:
    July 23, 2009 at 12:57 am

    hmmm I thought they would never suspect Maria given what happened last episode… i guess we can call it an improvement.

  • Ipsod says:
    July 23, 2009 at 2:08 am

    That mackerel can is awesome.

  • SOSAnimeBoy says:
    July 23, 2009 at 2:21 am

    THIS SEQUENCE just made my day. I can’t stop laughing. It’s gotten worse after I realized he was om-nom-nomming a corpse.

  • Digdri says:
    July 23, 2009 at 6:27 am

    I have to say I was surprised they kept the woodpecker-style soundeffect and the evil digi-laughter from the game for the Kanon scene. For the novel fans this might even count as fan-dis-service considering how overused and annoying they became ofter the course of all the action sequences.
    They were ok for a doujin production but I thought DEEN had a little more money to spare for proper soundfx. :(
    At least the music remixes keep the mood of the orginal.

    @Kode-Dekka: The cleaver girl cliché grows old, so why not a cleaver boy for once. Genderswapping is all the hype… ;-)

    @Anonymous: The cartoonish sounds were once again DEEN idea it seems. -_- In the novel Battler hitting her sounded much more fierce, but his reactions are quite unterstandable even with not quite so crazy Maria in the novels. But I fully expected it, cause without all this thoughts about the situation some viewers might have taken it the wrong way after seeing evil mother slapping her. The protagonist cannot be evil, right? ;P

    @TJ: DEEN really does a bad job interpreting Marias character IMO. In the anime you have to get the idea that everybody is really really stupid not noticing how see constantly threatens everybody. With so much emphasis on overdone crazy faces and all the reasoning of all the others why she might thinks so fanatically left out this was almost inevitable. Well: Emo-Faces = $$$ it seems.

    @SOSAnimeBoy: When I saw the short preview for this episode I already thought how inconsiderate you can get with those shots… but looping it for the sponsor… WTF

    Also don’t get why they use this almost spoilering scenes in this sequences in the first place. Most other animes without so much emphasis on suspence don’t do this way, either.

    • Anonymous says:
      July 23, 2009 at 3:02 pm

      I was happy they kept the laughter from the original game (ahaha.wav). That sound effect is awesome.

  • Kaisos says:
    July 23, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    That laughter is only going to work if Beatrice’s voice actress can pull off something that sounds very similar.

    Anyway, I enjoyed this episode. Next week should be the Tea Party, so I’m looking forward to that.

    • Digdri says:
      July 24, 2009 at 4:55 pm

      Well yes, their version of the tea parties will be interessing… especially how meta and 4th wall breaking they will be presented. But given how much opportunities they already wasted with there bad directing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they left out essential details once again or make it suck otherwise…. well there is always hope and Bern-chan’s anime-design looks quite nice ^^

      Don’t get me wrong: I really liked the game-laughter when I started playing. Brought back memories of the cool laughter from Kefka in FF6. But you have to be quite a patient guy to not get annoyed by it after hearing it sometimes more then 10 times in one dialog in all of the games. Just my opinion…
      Also my point was: If the can remix the awesome music to me make it more fitting for an anime, why not spice up the adapted sound-effects to.

      • shugosha says:
        July 24, 2009 at 6:57 pm

        I don’t think that they will screw up it. I think that they precisely ended this week with the twilights at the parlor because of this.

        Now, they have a whole episode to five minutes of EP1, End Roll and Tea Parties, after all.

  • Solaris says:
    July 23, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    Lol somebody noticed Maria was a bit weird :P

    • Digdri says:
      July 24, 2009 at 5:01 pm

      … but they didn’t care anyway… too busy solving murder mystery riddles XD

      A guess telling any of the anime-only watchers how the original had a gripping and half-decently realistic presentation of the whole setting could get you a lot of ROFLs :P

      • shugosha says:
        July 24, 2009 at 6:52 pm

        Well, the original lost that “half-decently realistic presentation of the whole setting” in EP2, so it’s not really a big loss, anyway.

  • Digdri says:
    July 25, 2009 at 9:51 am

    “Now, they have a whole episode to five minutes of EP1, End Roll and Tea Parties, after all.”

    Well to summarize opinions a read in another blog and I also share: Now there is much time for the start of the meta-stuff but will this result in good pacing? Perhaps 5 min for the “grand final” of the story and then almost only expo-talk with some blood and drama mixed in. Doesn’t sound balanced.
    Read any of the Bakemonogatari comments in the blogsphere? Many complained about the “talking heads” problem. To much talk without actions are difficult to pull of in anime. Thats why I’m quite pessimistic.

    But what made me sad about it was that they sacrificed so much of the impact of the “in Kinzos study”-scene to get the next twilight done, too. This left me really unimpressed. So much explanations cut up and all the chaos, paranoia, emotions and character development skipped. And once again small details chanced to give to the “wrong” impressions.

    The story later on is so much about the fate / background story of the people on this island that toning down all the character presentation and interactions will also make it much more difficult to identify with their struggle. The trade-of gave them more time for the shock-effects and craziness but this also don’t seem to convince many viewers because it’s so overdone….Well the damage is done anyway.

    “Well, the original lost that “half-decently realistic presentation of the whole setting” in EP2, so it’s not really a big loss, anyway.”

    I think you are confusing two things here: Drifting from realistic murder story to supernatural powered plot it not the type of “unrealistic” I was talking about and Solaris wasn’t, either. EP1 adaption just suffers from unrealistic behavior of the characters. So you laugh how stupid or wonder how heartless they are display where the novels gave you many bits and piece that gave you characters you could identify with.
    So after all there is no contradiction here: magic vs. reality is no excuse to display some characters like robot actors :P

    Besides: EP2 wasn’t intended to be realistic, but that don’t mean EP1 wasn’t mean, either. If you read EP3 you should know this was explicitly mean to be two sides of the same coin. EP1 kept magic to the absolute minimum in the novels. The “game board introductions” (when starting a game) even give the hints about a easy (EP1), difficult (EP2) and balanced game (EP3) to play for the protagonist (representing the involvement of the witch/magic and how good Battlers chance’s are to deduce the right stuff ^^).
    But once again the effect of showing this difference is diminish with all the magical stuff added in the anime for the first story already.

    • shugosha says:
      July 25, 2009 at 5:20 pm

      Well, they cutted introductions, but Umineko turns out to be very very good in EP3. And we will get lots of in-character in the following EPs, so sacrifice a bit EP1 to this is not that bad. It’s regrettable but not that bad. EP1 is introduction after all, and I don’t understand what you say about magical stuff added here, because there wasn’t shown anything that wasn’t in the novel.

      Right now it’s indeed a good anime and people are really liking it. They have a lot of room for improvement, and the “awesome” stuff of the series is yet to be adapted. They did a pretty decent I-III and this I-IV was not that good but good indeed. I think that they can pull it perfectly.

      And about I-V… Kaiji have entire episodes of “talking heads” and is a good series indeed. Higurashi Kai have entire episodes of exposition and is good too. There was a lot of talk in I-III and it’s the best one. And this isn’t about the “talking heads”, it’s about if this stuff it’s enjoyable or not. “Talking heads” can be really enjoyable if there’s something interesting to say, and this is the case. Umineko talks are really engaging.

      Generalizations, no please.

      • Digdri says:
        July 25, 2009 at 7:19 pm

        About the magic: Beatrice showing up in the garden while Maria is searching wasn’t in the novel because the whole scene wasn’t shown this way. There were also a lot less scenes with the iconic butterflies flying around. That’s why it said more magical. (Which don’t mean they could be explained same way as in the games.)

        Perhaps the content they cut really wasn’t so important in the larger picture of the mystery but I still think bad introduction has consequences and it’s not only 1-4… There were quite a few missteps in executing in the previous episodes as well (some seeming quite amateurish to me). For me many scenes are simple missing the emotions the novel would invoke and the changes in locations make some dialogs confusing if you know the original idea or even contradictory. Well could of cause be all red herrings, so the changes get irrelevant, but nobody knows til now.

        On the bright side I just read about an interview with the author of the game where they again confirmed that he had much advisory influence on the production, so at least it’s unlikely that they screw up the solution of the whole story :P
        But he also mentioned there was a lot of foreshadowing and many hidden hints in EP1 which most people didn’t notice til now. Also seems he didn’t see anyone who had found THE precise answer to the mystery just yet, even if some are really close. ^^

        Also I agree with you: there are many possibilities for improvement… just a little bit disappointed or concerned with EP1 so far.
        Higurashi Kei compared to 1st season suggested they had learned much about proper execution so perhaps a had to high hopes for them. XD

        Regarding the talking heads:
        Well… yeah… Kaiji really mastered this aspect just like Akagi but gambling and mystery-solving are really difficult to compare and the also used quite a different set of stylistic devices to pull it of this way.
        On the other hand there was Renas paranoid telephone call to the police in the first season which got critizised for showing several minute of only telephone booth footage etc…. So my train of thought was expo-talk may not be there strong point.
        Well enough speculations about that.. let’s wait for a few days an see who was right… :)

        Also: I don’t consider the anime really as bad if you got that impression. Otherwise I wouldn’t stick to it anymore… just worse then expected in some aspects ^^
        Seems “Book vs Film”-complainitis got me this time ;P

  • almazluverdis3 says:
    October 12, 2009 at 4:00 am

    Cleaver boy Kanon is~. Hi.