Umineko no Naku Koro ni – Episode 14: Positional Play

Episode III-IIII

Positional Play

The battle between witches we were all waiting for took finally place, Battler found a new ally, Beato had a hard time arguing with him and the gold was found by Eva. Wow, what an episode, anyone else feeling confused? I sure do.

Picking up from where we were left, Virgilia (That’s how we’ll be calling ex-Beatrice/Kumasawa) is now giving a lecture to Beatrice who’s been messing around with innocent people. The fight is about to start, and so Renove and the Sisters of Purgatory get out of the way. Get ready for a big fight with awesome graphics and lots of twists. Virgilia proclaims her retrieval of the title of Beatrice/Endless Witch in case she wins. Just so they can warm up, they clash, and their powers cause a huge explosion. Unless they’re willing to tear the island apart, a decisive fight can’t happen. With that in mind, Beatrice summons what seems to be two towers behind her, which start shooting at Virgilia. To counter back, Virgilia summons a huge godlike-spear for her. Beatrice dismisses the two towers behind her and summons a bunch of golems in one turn. Virgilia though doubts those giants can block her spear of gods. As shields appear on the golems’ hands, Virgilia launches her attack, and her spear multiplies. Beatrice seemingly blocks her attack, only for Virgilia to have vanished from sight before Beatrice realised what was going on. The result is a bloody Beatrice lying on the floor, nearly dead. Virgilia is now ready to cast a spell to return Beatrice to her original form, her form from when she was a child. With Beatrice seemingly dying, the only thing that could save her is a miracle. Or perhaps it’s a strategic move? Whatever it is, it happens. The spears which were pierced through her, along with her blood which was pouring out dissapear, leaving everyone but Ronove confused. At the same time, spears appear pierced on Virgillia’s chest and blood is pouring out –It was all Beatrice’s plan from the very beginning. Remember the two towers Beato summoned? Well, they weren’t just two, they were four. Two behind each witch. Virgilia was pierced by spears before the match had even began with no one noticing. But despite that, Beatrice didn’t want it to end like this, so she used her Endless Power to revive Virgillia and keep playing with her, so she could enjoy it better. Virgilia was now lying on the floor, dead.

Back to the game room, Battler is now having major trouble understanding what’s going on. He is on the verge of accepting witches again, and I don’t blame him. After watching a duel like that, it’s only natural to start believing in magic. Beatrice’s evil laugh echoes in the room as she (And Renove) teases him. Changing scenes, we’re now moving to the less interesting part of the story -in my opinion-, the Ushiromiyas. Rosa has finished with her story and it’s now late, nevertheless, they’re still up -all of them. Natsuhi proposes they eat breakfast and head to bed. Everyone agrees. As they get out of the room though, a horrible smell hits their noses. Guess what it is? Yeah, another bloody room with something drawn on it’s door. Rosa is extremely worried about the children and so she, Hideyoshi and Kyrie head to their room. The rest are left behind to look around the mansion.

The children seem to be doing OK. Jessica and Maria are sleeping together and boy, the look hot. Dr. Nanjo, who was walking around and happened to see the group of the adults who were checking on the kids, joins them and asks them what’s going on. Just where exactly was he…? In the meantime, Krauss was returning to where Eva and Rudolf were, after making an attempt to get in touch with his father. According to him, the servants are, too, out of reach. Natsuhi was apparently making out with Dr. Nanjo, seeing she is also late to regroup with the others (Okay, that was a joke, but she was late too). She comes back to tell them the keys which were supposed to be in the servant room aren’t in place.

Rosa’s group was now walking outside, in the rain. Hideyoshi spots Shannon sitting in an armchair in a nearby room. They think she’s asleep and attempt to wake her by knocking the window but to no avail, after all, she’s dead, right? Krauss and Rudolf, who came out running to find the other group, covniniently had a small rock with them, which allowed them to break the window and gain access to the room.

Shannon’s clothes were dyed red by her blood and Mr.Clean’s (Errr, Genji’s) rose tattoo was also nowhere to be seen. That also contradicts what we saw on the last episode. As Nanjo attempts to check her up, time freezes, and we’re moved just a little to the outside where Meta Battler was sitting. He’s all gloomy and helpless, ready to give up hope again, wondering on whether he can actually do anything else than lose. I guess I’ve gotten used to his sudden change of moods after all.

As he’s about to give up, Ex-Beatrice appears before him to provide support. Being dead by now, she explains her existance as merely a piece taken out from a chessboard, and offers to teach Battler about magic. Having nothing else to cling to, he lets her continue. The witch brings up the example of what was called magic in the ancient years in Japan. A rain ceremony which included the users to start a campfire in order to make rain appear. Battler simply explains it scientifically, saying that the rain is caused by an updraft created by the fire. But that’s excactly Ex-Beatrice’s point: that magic is something you don’t know the principles it’s based upon, and so, a rain ceremony is just about the same as magic. She brings up a second example, this time claiming that there are magic fairies called Gremlins inside TV’s which make them work using magic. Of course, that sounds ridiculous to Battler who proceeds into telling her that if they open up a TV, they’ll see there are no fairies for themselves. Again, the Witch asks him why he denies something he’s never seen, leaving him at loss of words. He tells him that untill he opens up a TV to see it for himself, both their scientific and magic explanations can exist at the same time.

Battler says that, even if two truths can exist in this world at the same time it’s impossible to defeat an opponent in an arguement. There, he is proven wrong once more, as Virgilia reminds him of how he surrendered to Beatrice before. The witch finally introduces herself as Virgilia and offers Battler to advice him from time to time; it was the birth of a new alliance and the rebirth of Battler’s will to fight. He returns to the game room and starts countering on Beatrice. He says he refuses to believe a fight took place in the garden, since none of their creations are there anymore. The fact there’s nothing there is a proof that nothing happened.

Renove calls this the Multi-layered Worlds Contraction Technique. The power of a Finite Witch which has an extremely powerful effect when used against Endless Witches like Beatrice. Surprised by his comeback and while wondering who taught him that, Virgilia enters the room to cease her questions. The real game had just begun…

Back to the Ushiromiyas for a second, Rosa, Eva, Krauss and Rudolf were loading their guns while Natsuhi and Nanjo (The notorius new forbidden couple which has only recently blown up its cover) are confronting a crying Jessica and George. Eva points out that they and the person behind the murders are both trapped in the island, untill the typhoon is over at the very least.

And now, heading back to the game room once more. Since Beato has proclaimed in red that there are no more than 18 people on Rokkenjima, Battler finally resorts into suspecting one of them; one of his own. It’s showtime and Battler asks Virgilia to reconstruct the crime scene. As instructed, Former Lady Beatrice gives further explanations about the murders and how the corpses were found. Shannon was found first in the first floor parlor of the mansion. The doors and windows were locked, thus, making another closed room. Battler stops Virgillia for a second and asks Beatrice to confirm the definition of a closed room.

“It means all ways in or out of a particular room are completely sealed. Of course, not only is intrusion from the outside impossible, it’s also impossible to intervene from acrouss that boundary.” Beatrice refers to that as “Beatrice’s closed room definition”. Neat, eh?

Virgillia continues by stating that there was a single master key on Shannon’s body. Battler stops her again to ask Beatrice to confirm the number of the master keys -five, one for each servant. Moving forward, right next to Shannon’s body was an envelope with the family crest. It contained a key to the second floor’s guest room, where Kumasawa was found dead. It was another closed room. On Kumasawa’s corpse they found a master key and another envelope, which contained the key to the third floor’s waiting room. Another closed room, and also the place were Gohda’s corpse was found. Like the other cases, they found a master key and an envelope which contained the key to the second floor’s VIP room. Needless to say, it was yet another closed room. Genji’s corpse was found lying on a bed in that room, with a master key and an envelope which contained the key to the underground boiler room, where Kinzo’s corpse was found. The next key lead to the chapel, where Kanon was found dead (Genji’s tatoo was also missing from his chest). With that, we have 6 corpses, 5 master keys and 6 closed rooms.

As Beatrice says, the six closed rooms form a single massive one together, where all the master and individual room keys were closed up within. And thus, murder from outside these rooms would be impossible. Battler brings up the possibility of the victims locking the door themselves and being killed by a trap, creating a closed room. Beato speaks in red and confirms that none of the six were killed by a trap.

Battler turns the chessboard around. He says the real question isn’t about how to kill people outside of the room, but about how the victims died inside the closed rooms. If only the culprit is one among those six, it’s possible to explain the closed rooms by assuming the last “victim” commited suicide. The basic idea is that the culprit commited the murders, entered the final closed room, locked it and then commited suicide. This way, everything can be easily explained.

Battler asks Beatrice to repeat that all six victims were killed by other people. That brings her to a hard position and refuses to do it, making Battler thinking he won. Beatrice however, decides to do as she was asked in the very ending, saying in red that none of the six commited suicide. That’s a tricky one. Notice how she changed Battler’s words? Well, Battler didn’t but fortunately for him, Virgilia did. For her to change the words like that, he comes into the conclusion that one of them was neither a homicide nor a suicide; it was an accident, something that couldn’t have been forseen. The culprit was planning on escaping or hiding somehow after carrying out the murders but suddenly lost their lives in an accident and creating a closed room they didn’t even want.

Beatrice is sweating as she’s getting cornered every second, but nevertheless she decides to respond in red. “An accidental death among the six d-” were her last words before Renove shut her mouth and asked for a time out. Tough luck Battler… The witch and the furniture move out of the room.

And for our closing scene this week we have something spectacular and new. The Ushiromiyas were now sound sleeping (Well, everyone but Hideyoshi who was snacking). Eva is suddenly woken up by her alter ego’s voice who’s trying to assist her into solving the Twilight Epitaph. What seemed to be a river in the riddle didn’t turn out to be one, as she realises something and runs to the mansion’s lirbrary. She searches for a certain book which gives her the answer to what the sweetfish river meant. With that in mind she finally realises where the gold is hidden.

Fast forward, Eva is now climbing down a staircase someplace. At the end of the stairs there’s a door with the words “On the tenth twilight, the journey will end and you should reach the village of gold” written on it. She opens it and what’s behind ir is nothing more than a room filled with the gold. It had finally be found…

–

My thoughts:

Another decent episode from Umineko. Is it just me or does the show keep getting better each week?

So… I couldn’t be more confused while watching the Beatrice vs Virgilia duel. I mean, Beato got pwned, she was spitting out blood… I really thought she was long for for a second. It didn’t turn out like that though.

Virgillia seems to be a nice asset on Battler’s behalf, maybe now we can actually get to see some real fights between him and Beatrice. And, speaking about her, nothing new about her eyes this week either. I’m pretty sure they play a major role on her character.

I couldn’t care less about Eva finding the gold but I wonder what’s she gonna do now. Perhaps her alter ego I’m-a-witch will take action.

And finally, I really liked the idea about two truths existing. I guess we wont be able to find out until we check it out ourselves.

…Right?

episode III-II : positional play

The battle between witches we were all waiting for took finally place, Battler found a new ally, Beato had a hard time arguing with him and the gold was found by Eva. Wow, what an episode, anyone else feeling confused? I sure do.

Picking up from where we were left, Virgilia (That’s how we’ll be calling ex-Beatrice/Kumasawa) is now giving a lecture to Beatrice who’s been messing around with innocent people. The fight is about to start, and so Renove and the Sisters of Purgatory get out of the way. Get ready for a big fight with awesome graphics and lots of twists. Virgilia proclaims her retrieval of the title of Beatrice/Endless Witch in case she wins. Just so they can warm up, they clash, and their powers cause a huge explosion. Unless they’re willing to tear the island apart, a decisive fight can’t happen. With that in mind, Beatrice summons what seems to be two towers behind her, which start shooting at Virgilia. To counter back, Virgilia summons a huge godlike-spear for her. Beatrice dismisses the two towers behind her and summons a bunch of golems in one turn. Virgilia though doubts those giants can block her spear of gods. As shields appear on the golems’ hands, Virgilia launches her attack, and her spear multiplies. Beatrice seemingly blocks her attack, only for Virgilia to have vanished from sight before Beatrice realised what was going on. The result is a bloody Beatrice lying on the floor, nearly dead. Virgilia is now ready to cast a spell to return Beatrice to her original form, her form from when she was a child. With Beatrice seemingly dying, the only thing that could save her is a miracle. Or perhaps it’s a strategic move? Whatever it is, it happens. The spears which were pierced through her, along with her blood which was pouring out dissapear, leaving everyone but Ronove confused. At the same time, spears appear pierced on Virgillia’s chest and blood is pouring out –It was all Beatrice’s plan from the very beginning. Remember the two towers Beato summoned? Well, they weren’t just two, they were four. Two behind each witch. Virgilia was pierced by spears before the match had even began with no one noticing. But despite that, Beatrice didn’t want it to end like this, so she used her Endless Power to revive Virgillia and keep playing with her, so she could enjoy it better. Virgilia was now lying on the floor, dead.

GG

PLOT TWIST?!

Beatrice is Jesus?

Back to the game room, Battler is now having major trouble understanding what’s going on. He is on the verge of accepting witches again, and I don’t blame him. After watching a duel like that, it’s only natural to start believing in magic. Beatrice’s evil laugh echoes in the room as she (And Renove) teases him. Changing scenes, we’re now moving to the less interesting part of the story -in my opinion-, the Ushiromiyas. Rosa has finished with her story and it’s now late, nevertheless, they’re still up -all of them. Natsuhi proposes they eat breakfast and head to bed. Everyone agrees. As they get out of the room though, a horrible smell hits their noses. Guess what it is? Yeah, another bloody room with something drawn on it’s door. Rosa is extremely worried about the children and so she, Hideyoshi and Kyrie head to their room. The rest are left behind to look around the mansion.

Notice how Krauss isn't holding his nose. I say HE DID IT!

The children seem to be doing OK. Jessica and Maria are sleeping together and boy, the look hot. Dr. Nanjo, who was walking around and happened to see the group of the adults who were checking on the kids, joins them and asks them what’s going on. Just where exactly was he…? In the meantime, Krauss was returning to where Eva and Rudolf were, after making an attempt to get in touch with his father. According to him, the servants are, too, out of reach. Natsuhi was apparently making out with Dr. Nanjo, seeing she is also late to regroup with the others (Okay, that was a joke, but she was late too). She comes back to tell them the keys which were supposed to be in the servant room aren’t in place.

Rosa’s group was now walking outside, in the rain. Hideyoshi spots Shannon sitting in an armchair in a nearby room. They think she’s asleep and attempt to wake her by knocking the window but to no avail, after all, she’s dead, right? Krauss and Rudolf, who came out running to find the other group, covniniently had a small rock with them, which allowed them to break the window and gain access to the room.

Well, duh.

Shannon’s clothes were dyed red by her blood and Mr.Clean’s (Errr, Genji’s) rose tattoo was also nowhere to be seen. That also contradicts what we saw on the last episode. As Nanjo attempts to check her up, time freezes, and we’re moved just a little to the outside where Meta Battler was sitting. He’s all gloomy and helpless, ready to give up hope again, wondering on whether he can actually do anything else than lose. I guess I’ve gotten used to his sudden change of moods after all.

As he’s about to give up, Ex-Beatrice appears before him to provide support. Being dead by now, she explains her existance as merely a piece taken out from a chessboard, and offers to teach Battler about magic. Having nothing else to cling to, he lets her continue. The witch brings up the example of what was called magic in the ancient years in Japan. A rain ceremony which included the users to start a campfire in order to make rain appear. Battler simply explains it scientifically, saying that the rain is caused by an updraft created by the fire. But that’s excactly Ex-Beatrice’s point: that magic is something you don’t know the principles it’s based upon, and so, a rain ceremony is just about the same as magic. She brings up a second example, this time claiming that there are magic fairies called Gremlins inside TV’s which make them work using magic. Of course, that sounds ridiculous to Battler who proceeds into telling her that if they open up a TV, they’ll see there are no fairies for themselves. Again, the Witch asks him why he denies something he’s never seen, leaving him at loss of words. He tells him that untill he opens up a TV to see it for himself, both their scientific and magic explanations can exist at the same time.

Eheheheheh, that guy would make an awesome witch.

And thus, a new alliance was born.

Battler says that, even if two truths can exist in this world at the same time it’s impossible to defeat an opponent in an arguement. There, he is proven wrong once more, as Virgilia reminds him of how he surrendered to Beatrice before. The witch finally introduces herself as Virgilia and offers Battler to advice him from time to time; it was the birth of a new alliance and the rebirth of Battler’s will to fight. He returns to the game room and starts countering on Beatrice. He says he refuses to believe a fight took place in the garden, since none of their creations are there anymore. The fact there’s nothing there is a proof that nothing happened.

Renove calls this the Multi-layered Worlds Contraction Technique. The power of a Finite Witch which has an extremely powerful effect when used against Endless Witches like Beatrice. Surprised by his comeback and while wondering who taught him that, Virgilia enters the room to cease her questions. The real game had just begun…

Back to the Ushiromiyas for a second, Rosa, Eva, Krauss and Rudolf were loading their guns while Natsuhi and Nanjo (The notorius new forbidden couple which has only recently blown up its cover) are confronting a crying Jessica and George. Eva points out that they and the person behind the murders are both trapped in the island, untill the typhoon is over at the very least.

And now, heading back to the game room once more. Since Beato has proclaimed in red that there are no more than 18 people on Rokkenjima, Battler finally resorts into suspecting one of them; one of his own. It’s showtime and Battler asks Virgilia to reconstruct the crime scene. As instructed, Former Lady Beatrice gives further explanations about the murders and how the corpses were found. Shannon was found first in the first floor parlor of the mansion. The doors and windows were locked, thus, making another closed room. Battler stops Virgillia for a second and asks Beatrice to confirm the definition of a closed room.

“It means all ways in or out of a particular room are completely sealed. Of course, not only is intrusion from the outside impossible, it’s also impossible to intervene from acrouss that boundary.” Beatrice refers to that as “Beatrice’s closed room definition”.

Too late, it's copyrighted.

Virgillia continues by stating that there was a single master key on Shannon’s body. Battler stops her again to ask Beatrice to confirm the number of the master keys -five, one for each servant. Moving forward, right next to Shannon’s body was an envelope with the family crest. It contained a key to the second floor’s guest room, where Kumasawa was found dead. It was another closed room. On Kumasawa’s corpse they found a master key and another envelope, which contained the key to the third floor’s waiting room. Another closed room, and also the place were Gohda’s corpse was found. Like the other cases, they found a master key and an envelope which contained the key to the second floor’s VIP room. Needless to say, it was yet another closed room. Genji’s corpse was found lying on a bed in that room, with a master key and an envelope which contained the key to the underground boiler room, where Kinzo’s corpse was found. The next key lead to the chapel, where Kanon was found dead (Genji’s tatoo was also missing from his chest). With that, we have 6 corpses, 5 master keys and 6 closed rooms.

As Beatrice says, the six closed rooms form a single massive one together, where all the master and individual room keys were closed up within. And thus, murder from outside these rooms would be impossible. Battler brings up the possibility of the victims locking the door themselves and being killed by a trap, creating a closed room. Beato speaks in red and confirms that none of the six were killed by a trap.

Battler turns the chessboard around. He says the real question isn’t about how to kill people outside of the room, but about how the victims died inside the closed rooms. If only the culprit is one among those six, it’s possible to explain the closed rooms by assuming the last “victim” commited suicide. The basic idea is that the culprit commited the murders, entered the final closed room, locked it and then commited suicide. This way, everything can be easily explained.

Battler asks Beatrice to repeat that all six victims were killed by other people. That brings her to a hard position and refuses to do it, making Battler thinking he won. Beatrice however, decides to do as she was asked in the very ending, saying in red that none of the six commited suicide. That’s a tricky one. Notice how she changed Battler’s words? Well, Battler didn’t but fortunately for him, Virgilia did. For her to change the words like that, he comes into the conclusion that one of them was neither a homicide nor a suicide; it was an accident, something that couldn’t have been forseen. The culprit was planning on escaping or hiding somehow after carrying out the murders but suddenly lost their lives in an accident and creating a closed room they didn’t even want.

What a letdown...

He already did...

Beatrice is sweating as she’s getting cornered every second, but nevertheless she decides to respond in red. “An accidental death among the six d-” were her last words before Renove shut her mouth and asked for a time out. Tough luck Battler… The witch and the furniture move out of the room.

"Mhhmmhmmmhhh!!!"

And for our closing scene this week we have something spectacular and new. The Ushiromiyas were now sound sleeping (Well, everyone but Hideyoshi who was snacking). Eva is suddenly woken up by her alter ego’s voice who’s trying to assist her into solving the Twilight Epitaph. What seemed to be a river in the riddle didn’t turn out to be one, as she realises something and runs to the mansion’s lirbrary. She searches for a certain book which gives her the answer to what the sweetfish river meant. With that in mind she finally realises where the gold is hidden.

Fast forward, Eva is now climbing down a staircase someplace. At the end of the stairs there’s a door with the words “On the tenth twilight, the journey will end and you should reach the village of gold” written on it. She opens it and what’s behind ir is nothing more than a room filled with the gold. It had finally be found…

The door to the darkness...

Pim-pom! We have a winner! The gold was found!

–

My thoughts:

Another decent episode from Umineko. Is it just me or does the show keep getting better each week?

• So… I couldn’t be more confused while watching the Beatrice vs Virgilia duel. I mean, Beato got pwned, she was spitting out blood… I really thought she was long for for a second.
• Virgillia seems to be a nice asset on Battler’s behalf, maybe now we can see Beatrice getting cornered more often. And, speaking about her, nothing new about her eyes this week either. I’m pretty sure they play a major role on her character.
• I couldn’t care less about Eva finding the gold but I wonder what’s she gonna do now. Perhaps her alter ego I’m-a-witch will take action.

Tha’ts all for now, later.

~Akio