Umineko no Naku Koro ni or
Agatha Christie's And Then There Were Boobs: Episodes 1-8
Eighteen characters introduced in the first episode?
Eighteen? How am I meant to remember... Oh, that's made things easier, thanks. From the artwork for this show I thought it would take place in the Edwardian era or something, imagine my surprise when it actually takes place in 1986 and the Ushiromiyas just happen to dress like a family of half-assed Code Geass cosplayers twenty years too early. As it stands, there are two major obstacles to me enjoying Umineko as much as I enjoyed Higurashi.
Firstly, the setting. The village of Hinamizawa was almost a character in itself, something Umineko's island (the name of which entirely escapes me) is not currently living up to. A story like this, set almost entirely within the confines of a murder mystery mansion, should feel dark and oppressive and claustrophobic but instead everywhere feels quite open and bright and frankly, a bit bland. I feel like I want to turn the brightness down and the contrast up on my monitor to actually give the show some atmosphere. The near constant brightly lit rooms of Umineko are certainly a long way from Hinamizawa's shadowy golden evenings, moonlit nights and dingy interiors.
Secondly, most of the characters are not (yet) particularly interesting or likeable. The horror in Higurashi felt impactful because I cared about the characters who were being made to suffer. And not only them, but often even the ones who were inflicting the suffering as well. So far, the only character in Umineko I really don't like seeing come to harm is Maria, but
as Beatrice's chosen messenger it seems like she's mostly safe from that. Her mother can absolutely have her face ripped off in the murder shed as many times as necessary though for how viciously she beats her seemingly autistic daughter (and that's not a term I throw around, it really does feel like Maria was intentionally written that way through both her own behaviour and other characters' remarks). The thing about Christie's
And Then There Were None, from which Umineko clearly takes no small amount of inspiration, is that
all the victims did actually deserve it. Unlike Higurashi, where I found myself wanting the characters to get their happy ending because I liked them, I'm not particularly bothered if a bunch of avaricious aristos, their dull as dishwater kids and doormat servants get offed. And given that most of the female characters' "personalities" so far appear to be
BIG TITS I'm not hugely hopeful of improvement.
So all things considered, if I'm supposed to dislike Beatrice or hope for her defeat the show is really not doing a very good job on that front. She seems to like Maria, the only character really worth saving, and Battler just seems like an idiot.
"Sure, time might be repeating itself, I might be stood outside of frozen time observing another version of myself who exists in a parallel universe while talking to the person with the power to make all this possible (who I have also seen teleport and disintegrate people with a snap of her fingers) but you're definitely not a witch and I refuse to believe in magic!" Given that the audience knows witches and magic definitely
do exist in this world,
and at this point have even been privy to Beatrice committing some of the murders using actual magic, it seems like it's going to require an incredible ass-pull to prove Battler right. Yet that appears to be the direction things are heading. But go on then show, surprise me, I'm willing to eat my words.
