When the Seagulls Cry #19 — Uryuu~

November 4th, 2009

 

These opening episodes always suck.

Impressions:

Well, this fourth opening episode wasn’t really any better than the other three. Most of it was consumed by what is more of an epilogue to the previous arc following Ange growing up under Eva and learning about magic. They also introduced the somewhat useless blue text this week, which I still have yet to really understand the point of. It’s used to state hypotheses, but Battler’s been doing that from the start anyway, and since it’s trumped by the red text anyway… just like everything else he says… it just makes me think that maybe somebody wanted to make their story a little more colorful.

So, aside from Ange running away from an evil business elf. Maria’s evil talking teddy bear, and Eva’s ill-conceived watermelon smuggling operation, about the only particularly interesting thing this week was Battler chasing Beelzebub around for some cookies. After almost accidentally signing his immortal soul away unto a never-ending hell, you would think Battler would have something better to do than steal cookies from incarnations of the Lord of the Flies, the Great Betrayer, harbinger of the Apocalypse, he who is Legion, etc etc. 

Must’ve been good cookies.

Posted in Umineko | 24 Comments »

24 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Phocus says:
    November 4, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Wait, how many episodes is Umineko supposed to have? 26? So does that mean this arc will last 7 more episode before DEEN takes a break to prepare for Umineko Chiru next year or so?

    Nice to see the new characters … especially since Sakutaro’s VA is Minorin! :)

    • Bill says:
      November 4, 2009 at 8:21 pm

      Yeah, 26 episodes.

      With how poorly the show is selling though, I don’t know if continuation is guaranteed.

      • Aroduc says:
        November 4, 2009 at 8:43 pm

        Yeah, so far zero copies have been sold.

        Zero!

        Can you imagine?

        Oh right, the first DVD isn’t even out yet.

      • Bill says:
        November 4, 2009 at 11:18 pm

        First volume was released nearly two weeks ago.
        1170 copies on DVD, 612 copies on Blu-Ray

        http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=128608

      • Aroduc says:
        November 4, 2009 at 11:19 pm

        Bah. That’ll teach me to just use Google saying that Amazon.jp is backordered until whenever. You take this round, but next time, Gadget… Next time!

      • Anon says:
        November 5, 2009 at 2:18 am

        You do know that it was only on sale for one day, right?

      • Bill says:
        November 5, 2009 at 3:10 am

        The number actually covers three days. Nevertheless, Japanese sales are extremely front-loaded (most products that debut in the Top 20 are no longer there the next week), so launch numbers are the primary indicators of success.

      • Anonymous says:
        November 5, 2009 at 8:56 am

        Even with low numbers, I still imagine they’ll make a second season. It’s been done before, plus episode 4’s cliffhanger would not make much sense to end on.

        One thing to note is that this is only the first DVD, which only covered the first two episodes, which were probably the worst two episodes in the entire anime thus far. I would not be surprised if the sales picked up when the more “interesting” episodes are released, or even when the series finishes airing and some of the anime-only fans actually start making sense of things.

        That all said, if there was a second season it probably wouldn’t be out for at least 2 years, maybe even 3 depending on how many episodes the chiru VN series will have. So it’s not really something anyone can predict at this point.

  • karasu says:
    November 4, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    so, it’s GOLDSMITH, finally?

    fucking GOLDSMITHSU

  • Anonymous says:
    November 4, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    I just noticed, but shouldn’t Bernkastel look less adult Rika and more loli Rika? In fact, her face doesn’t even resemble Rika’s animooted version. Weird considering that they’re basically the same person.

  • shugosha says:
    November 4, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    The point with blue text is that forces Beato to counter the blue theory in red, or she loses.

    So, with blue, no more “I don’t want to speak in red for no definite reason”.

    Blue it’s a powerful weapon to the human side.

  • skurai says:
    November 4, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    Hell yeah its a powerful weapon, this part of the series will be epic, cant even be compared with the other ones, “you wont be saying blue is useless when the time comes” LOL

  • Ian says:
    November 5, 2009 at 12:22 am

    Blue text is perfect. They even kept the “BOOM”.

    I wonder if they’ll change the effects to make it sound like a “BANG” when the necessary time comes.

    Now I do have a rhyme for you: expect A LOT of blue for season two.

  • Koll says:
    November 5, 2009 at 1:25 am

    Did you check if the text on Amazon.jp was blue?

  • Cross says:
    November 5, 2009 at 2:02 am

    SAKUTARO!!

  • almazluverdis3 says:
    November 5, 2009 at 3:42 am

    Beelzebub~

  • almazluverdis3 says:
    November 5, 2009 at 3:44 am

    Beelzebub~! I wish I brought cake.

  • Ian says:
    November 5, 2009 at 10:03 am

    Allow me to go into detail about how the Blue Truth gives Battler an even greater advantage than he’s been given before.

    Beatrice no longer wants to use the Red Truth the way she’s been doing it anymore because she’s bored with that rule. Also, to make matters more clear, Battler always asking Beatrice to repeat things in read is essentially him acknowledging Beatrice as a witch.

    So, Beatrice gives him the power to use Blue Truth.

    The Blue Truth is true until disproven by the Red Truth. So now, Battler has to come up with as many Blue Truths as possible to form a sort of wall, and then throw it all at Beatrice’s face. Beatrice will now only use the Red Truth as a trump card to break down this wall, which means Battler will have to be prepared for any counterstatement she may make and reinforce his wall with even more Blue Truths to use just in case. If Battler is able to use his wall to back Beatrice into a corner, Battler wins. If Beatrice is able to completely dismantle his wall with the Red Truth, Beatrice wins.

    You see, the rules have changed so that Battler is no longer running in circles. Now that Battler has a shotgun to counter Beatrice’s sword, he too has his own weapon to fight on even grounds with Beatrice, thus actually giving him a chance to win.

  • Aroduc says:
    November 5, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    The problem with all these explaination of the Blue Text is that it means that there was no way for Battler to win before its introduction and begs the question, “Why did any of those previous arguments matter at all?”

  • Klashikari says:
    November 5, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    No, actually it is quite different.

    To begin with, there was no true goal between Beato and Battler before that point, aside of their respective stance. Due to this, unless someone has the upper hand with solid facts, none can win.
    By this definition, Battler had the burden of proof regarding the mysteries behind the murders occuring in Rokkenjima. Even though he “can’t” do that perfectly, so long he has the will to consider a human culprit, the game goes on. This is the main reason why Episode 2, 3 and 4 could occur even though Battler didn’t explain Episode 1 and so forth.

    Now, due to the blue truth rule, the problem is like this: Battler “has” to adopt a theory that can work without contradicting any red truth. Because of this, it will force a red truth that wouldn’t be called otherwise (as if it was a random theory by Battler, it would be Beato’s disadvantage to take it down with an unecessary red that would simply give more hint, which is basically against Beato’s goal).
    The problem with the blue truth is again the burden of proof, which is even more pressed in this game: the problem is that the anime basically skipped the explanations behind it: Battler has to explain EVERYTHING at the end of the game, with a blue truth that cannot be countered by the red. Should he fail to miss 1 thing, he lose, plain and simple.

    Many of the previous arguments were unanswered by the red, which were basically on the “unknown” status: were they true? were they wrong? Before that point, it wasn’t possible to figure about them (example: what really happened in Episode 3 first twilight)
    Now, there is a direct confrontation, which is totally different prior this point.

    Now the thing is that even though the blue truth is an invaluable weapon for Battler, it is also a double edged sword, because unlike his usual “red request”, Battler has to conform with everything said in red before and those that are susceptible to be said later on. Because of this, a single mistake can just be his own demise.

    Although Beato must counter the blue with the red, if Battler can’t explain everything with his blue, he is pretty much toasted.

    • Aroduc says:
      November 5, 2009 at 4:33 pm

      Nah. Battler can just choose to not use it. The game has always been “Convince Battler to accept magic,” and Beatrice almost accomplished that last episode, completely independant of the blue text. It stands to reason that if Battler has a perfectly reasonable explaination for a scenario, then he’s not going to believe that magic did it. Ergo, Beatrice has to poke holes in any logical conclusion he reaches anyway or she’ll never win (which, of course, may very well be the point of the game). The only real difference now is that Battler doesn’t have to think things out to their logical conclusion anymore, not that he ever even tried to do that in the first place. A lot of the mechanics here really do rely on Battler being a tad overly thick.

      • Klashikari says:
        November 5, 2009 at 7:06 pm

        No, that’s not true. Because of the pressed matter done by Ange, Battler cannot choose to not use it.

        The game terms changed as soon as Ange put her grain of salt in that stalemate that lasted for 3 games already. Because of that, while they managed to force Beatrice to poke on Battler’s theories for this Episode, he is basically forced to elaborate a proper theory this time, instead of putting “what if” without really converging everything to a single direction (so far, he was only trying to remove suspicion regarding a certain character, or “the witch did that!”).

        Before Episode 4, it was basically an endurance contest for Battler, in order to see how long he will last before surrendering. Because of that, the game was rather one sided, which was worsened by the magic show starting from Episode 2. Which is the reason why Ange intervened: Battler wasn’t going all serious (due to being torned that one of the 18 could be the culprit etc): instead of trying to win, Battler was instead trying “not to lose”, which is the reason why he is stuck in the meta world, instead of plain “you win / you lose” result.

        The idea isn’t that Battler needs a scenario against Beatrice. Instead, he is totally convinced it cannot be magic, but because of his lack of information and sturbborn personality, he is going nowhere without a specific scenario. However, now that Beatrice forced him to consider one of the 18, it allows him to finally broad his mind (though because of the Kinzo’s theory, he is back to square 1, ironically).

        But indeed, it wasn’t about the need to have a perfect truth applicable for all episodes. But that is absolutely not the point Ange is looking for: the game has to finish right now, for both’s sake.

      • Aroduc says:
        November 5, 2009 at 8:15 pm

        Well, that’s kind of what I was saying, and I’d argue that it’s still an endurance test for him. Battler being able to win by solving the mystery (assuming it’s solvable) should have been an implicit assumption ever since the game began. By now stating that up until this point, Beatrice could just completely ignore a correct answer and the game would continue, it undercuts Battler’s participation in the last two arcs and we just gain a formalization of a convention already in place.

        Of course, this would again all be academic if Battler had actually spent more time detectiving and piecing everything together instead of whining.

  • Anonymous says:
    November 7, 2009 at 12:45 am

    george is die ??