#Umineko episode 7 prologue

[goldenbutterf-lyta]

HI WHY ARE WE BURYING BEATO

[goldentruths-pod]

UMINEKO EXTRA MATERIALS CHRONOLOGICAL READING ORDER

this is a repost from jenn's old blog, which got nuked for reasons that are too stupid to get into. it has been re-patched with new info regarding symphony. please enjoy!

ok hi again. along with the eight main arcs of umineko, theres been a bunch of side content released in the form of booklets and short stories. though (most) of these extant materials have been rounded up in the form of the compilation discs umineko tsubaba, hane, and saku, almost all of them were released during the ongoing release of the main series! this is a list of all known, translated extra materials, in as chronological a release order as i could put together. know that none of this is required reading. you can just read straight through the main arcs and get everything you need to enjoy the story. but if you’re a nitpicky completionist, like me, this stuff can enhance your enjoyment of the series, and maybe give a few extra hints to those that might want them.

a few notes up front: 1) as much as umineko is for a niche otaku audience, this extra stuff is even more so. stories marked with a * have a cw for jokes (big or small) about incest and/or pedophilia. i was pretty liberal with what i thought counts, but better safe than sorry imo. 2) i recommend the vn adaptations of the short stories, when available. those found in tsubasa will be blue, those in hane will be yellow, those in saku will be red, those in symphony will be purple. those without vn adaptations will be uncolored.

*PATCH NOTE: since the original publication of this list, the final console adaptation of umineko, symphony of catbox and dreams, has been released. this new release includes vn version of four previously non-vn stories, as well as including ALL STORIES WITH VN VERSIONS EVER. this comes at the cost of only using the ps3 sprites. maybe this is better for you, maybe its worse. the choice is yours, reader, and yours alone.

EPISODE 1: LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

EPISODE 2: TURN OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

Important Facts Concerning Magic

EPISODE 3: BANQUET OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

Bern’s Letter

Anti-Fantasy vs. Anti-Mystery

Letter from a Summoner

Memoirs of the ΛΔ

Why Are Closed Room Murders So Beautiful?

Notes from a Certain Chef

EPISODE 4 :ALLIANCE OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

A Certain Witch Hunter’s Interview Tape

*The Seven Sisters’ Valentine

*Beatrice’s White Day

The Witches’ Tanabata Isn’t Sweet

EPISODE 5: END OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

Arigato For 556

Cornelia the New Priest

Labor Thanksgiving Day Gifts

EPISODE 6: DAWN OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

*Game Master Battler!

*Valentine’s Day Letters

Whose Tea Party?

Jessica’s Mother’s Day Present

To Mount Purgatory, Sakutaro

*Jessica and the Love Charm

EPISODE 7: REQUIEM OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

EPISODE 8: TWILIGHT OF THE GOLDEN WITCH

Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan

Forgery no.XXX

*Our Confession

*Angel of 17 Years

The First and the Last Gift -technically a sort of prologue to another ryukishi07 work, but since it includes bern and lambda ive included it here. maybe the least relevant thing on this list.

*Last note of the Golden Witch - saku/symphony exclusive.

[construingseacats]

Ahoy! Just going to make a quick housekeeping post before we get cracking in a few days.

I'll be keeping the reread thoughts organised per chapter, and posting at a pace of around once per day. Note that this won't be uniform, so it might be closer to posting about 2-3 chapters twice per week. I'm aiming to read about 5-6 chapters a week, so that's the pace we're looking at. Needless to say, we're gonna be here for a good few months.

While Umineko has stuck with me for all these years, my memory isn't perfect, so there'll probably be a fair few points I've forgotten about until I'm refreshed on them. Obviously I know the "culprit", but I don't remember the finer details of the cases off the top of my head. I might refresh myself with Will's solution from Episode 7, but that'll be the extent of it.

That being said, very importantly for this reread, Death of the Author is in full effect. I know things were further clarified in the manga, and Ryukishi has gone on record saying that those were the canon answers. I know of Our Confession et al. I'm not taking those into account for this - we're going full purist, so if it's not in the original Episodes 1 through 8, it's fair game. I feel part of the magic of Umineko is that the catbox is never opened (I mean, isn't that the whole point of Episode 8?), so I'm not going to taint that with media that was released after the fact.

That also means this commentary is going to be for Episodes 1-8, and that's it (I say "that's it" as if going through the 1.1 million or so total words are a trivial affair, ha). If there's enough interest I might push into Last Note of the Golden Witch as an addendum, and I wouldn't be opposed to going through Purgatory of the Golden Witch as an afterword. Friendly reminder that Uminetta is a shining star in the community and one of the kindest, most wonderful souls out there.

Also, some quick information about me! Umineko is a very personal story, so what you get from it is drastically effected by the kind of person you are. The first time I read Umineko, I was a 17 year old kid from England getting ready to study Mathematics at University, who'd watched the anime at way too young of an age and wanted to read the proper story behind it. I was really interested in the mystery, but fell way too deep into the fantasy elements (even missing the obvious hints in Episode 3), and still didn't really get the truth of it even after Will's section in Episode 7 (even though I'd encountered the true identity of the culprit). I also fully knew I was asexual, and I'd kind of heard about transgenderism, but didn't really understand it. 10 years on, I'm still very much a writer at heart (and much better equipped to actually write well), a cog in the machine of capitalism desperately trying to escape and pursue more creative endeavours, and not quite sure what's going on under the hood but definitely not cis. I think pretty much all the gender themes went over my head on my first read of Umineko - it'll be interesting to see how much stuff hits close to home this time.

Anyway - starting on Wednesday. Will be going through the Prologue up to the end of Epitaph on the Portrait, then around 6 chapters a week from there, only stopping once we've gone through all 8 Episodes. I'm estimating we'll run for about 24 or 25 weeks, although that's assuming we don't stop for any breaks. Itll be a long journey to the Golden Land - so to anyone who ends up joining me on this, be it as it happens, or some time in the far future, I hope you enjoy it with me.

[auratw]

The Umineko Guide Post (Manga)

Prologue:  This is for my friend @yugiohrox who was curious about Umineko, though I got kind of carried away and made a scarier looking post than was probably needed (Sorry about that!).  It is detailed though so anyone is free to use this!  I didn’t add a description on what Umineko is because this is already long enough, but if you want a story summary hit me up and I’ll do what I can without too many spoilers.

Would you like to finally dive into the wonderful series known as Umineko When They Cry / Umineko no Naku Koro ni but don’t know where to start?  What do you mean you’ve never heard of i-  Of course you do!

The manga series is based off a Visual Novel of the same name (and I know what you’re thinking but no, it’s not that kind of VN believe it or not).  It’s story takes place over the course of 8 episodes.

The question arcs: 1)   Legend of the Golden Witch 2)   Turn of the Golden Witch 3)   Banquet of the Golden Witch 4)   Alliance of the Golden Witch

and the answer arcs (ak.a “Chiru”): 5)   End of the Golden Witch 6)   Dawn of the Golden Witch 7)   Requiem of the Golden Witch 8)   Twilight of the Golden Witch

These are not stand alone stories, but rather each entry flows into the next, so I highly recommend starting with Legend to see if you enjoy it than move your way up.

Next up I’m going to mention is how to read the order because, quite frankly, the publisher didn’t make it very intuitive.  Here’s the first book’s cover

You see that big circled number?  That’s it’s order within the episode the book is in.  Followed by the actual episode number below.

So this:

would come next.  And THIS:

Is the first cover of episode 2.

Edit: Okay one last thing. There are some dark themes in this series later on so as a heads up here are some of what it contains:  murder (like LOTS of murder), torture, gore, child abuse, rape mention, incest mention

TL;DR Look for the below cover and start there.  Worry about the rest if you like it: