#jokrono

[jichanxo]

squishing my blorbos together into one entity [from july/2023]

[27thfirefly]

also how long did it take you to read that thang

WELL i did watch a playthrough that had like detailed discussion and analysis of the whole thing throughout so its been a good like. 4-5 months??? on and off. its jokronos on youtube... i think if id done it myself id have missed a lot of the Mystery stuff cos im not used to engaging with stories on that level so having someone who IS used to trying to figure out the puzzles was very nice. also its a 2 person playthrough with one new and one rereader so thats also very nice

[obfuscobble]

800 people have told you to read Umineko with no context and they're all correct. Peak Storytelling awaits you.

Yes the main character tries to cop a feel on boobs in chapter one but this is what we call a character flaw to be overcome by character development. Also I assure you that Maria's uwu speech tic is at first ignorable, and explained with tragedy later. There are very good translations available, and if you'd rather watch a playthrough: I convinced one friend to listen to the fully English voiced Jokrono playlist at work, and another is slowly watching the Japanese dialog with English subs plus commentary Rose Matter version.

Umineko is worth it. It comprises mystery, philosophy, extremely over the top anime battles, logic puzzles, human pathos, bunny girls and, most of all, love. All kinds of love: including straight, gay, parental, and platonic, and each one presented as kick-ass. Read Umineko.

[hidden-tea-party]

not sure if you’ve abandoned this blog yet, but i’ve just finished listening to your podcast! i had a lot of fun listening along to all the haterism (both the warranted and unwarranted) and i think it was very kind to read something so long just for your friend :-) in any case, i was surprised when courtney said that the epitaph was unsolvable in english, since quite a few people have figured it out as early as the answer arcs (i think of newt3012 and jokrono on youtube) in particular, if for any reason any of you would like to go back to umineko in like 10 years time, i’d recommend jokrono’s playthrough just to see the perspective of someone who found umineko to be exceedingly solvable in every regard. i shared some of the feelings of confusion you had at the end originally, and it was by going back and understanding that everything was purposeful (though whether i agree with the messages being sent is a bit of a different story) that umineko became one of my favorite works to date. in any case, i know it’s been a few months and you’ve all moved on, and i hope you’re all doing well in whatever you’re doing now! i plan to go through umineko with a friend of mine soon, hopefully she sees it with a bit more love than you did ❤️ (again, not shade, genuinely heartwarming that you stuck with it till the end)

the blog is only sporadically abandoned (oops) but thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed our feeble solving attempts and the big hater energy - I'm intrigued by an English solve but the sheer competence of those people might be too much for my poor brain to handle. definitely worth a look though if we ever return to scene of the crime. I hope your friend sees with love 💕

[nerves-nebula]

Umineko anon here, funny seeing another person recommend you umineko, but yeah, you are the type of person who would really enjoy it. Kinda regret spoiling as much as I did back then, however I have to say that I only spoiled about 10% of the story, a really important 10% but there is still a bunch of weird family dynamics to dig into, umineko is really good at getting you to be interested in all of the cast's lives.

I might have said this before, so forgive me if I did, but I really recommend Jokrono's playhtough, they read and voice act everything, and my first read was just me listening to jokrono's playhtrough like an audio book

its fine i don't remember much 'bout it anyway. tbh tho theres not much outside forces can do to make me interested in media. i'm either gonna watch it or not. but thanks for the playthrough suggestion

[evilautist]

What got you into Umineko?

interest in really long media mainly plus a passing familiarity with the higurashi anime lol

i first found it through red bards how long is umineko vid and then i got into it proper when i found jokrono's playthrough on youtube - i didnt finish that playthrough though and instead i managed to find umi with the voice acting and ps3 sprites uploaded on a hungarian anime forum site my mom told me about years ago and played it properly after a while

[noisytenant]

one thing about the jokrono playthru that's annoying is their general animanga illiteracy but it's really fucking funny that Ben thinks they're called "loli fang" and not "moe fang". Nobody tell him

[stackslip]

Umineko: fun to discuss, not so much to read. I listened to jokrono play it kind of became a reoccurring joke how much ryukishi needed an editor

Highly recommend jokrono if you want to listen to umineko instead of it read it, the voice they gave Beatrice is forever stuck in my head (the guy who did it even did some method acting, getting a smoke pipe to hold when doing her voice, even though the viewers would not see it since there was no webcam)

tbh i'm too enamored with beato's japanese voice acting to do so, this + the manga's tendency to cut or shorten really important dialogue is why i chose to return to the vn and basically bear through it. idk if i'll be able to hold on until the very end of the vn but i will do so as long as i can...... for beato.........

and yeah gd i'm repeating myself (nice ryukishi reference) but i'm utterly baffled how little editing of the work there seems to have been when it *desperately* needed it. i know umineko was released in episodes and that some of its plot was reworked or scrapped with audience feedback, but surely there must have been SOMEONE who read the guy's first draft and thought "we need to apply a scalpel to this". did nobody dare say so??? wild

[lizardrosen]

it's so interesting that my experience with umineko is the jokrono playthrough + my friend who got me into it playing the witch, and then seeing other people's liveblogs where their mental image of Jessica's voice is probably NOT an old russian man. so strange.

[fostersffff]

Not to rain on your parade, but a solely English speaker (one of the two guys at jokrono) in the fandom has managed to solve the epitaph on his own via Wikipedia and searching the Japanese names of places

So it's not impossible for English readers to solve, it just adds an extra layer of challenge (which might be impenetrable to some readers, I certainly didn't bother solving it)

That's super impressive, but the impenetrable part for me is the wordplay surrounding Japanese/Chinese characters. Like, even having the whole thing explained out to me, my eyes still kinda glazed over when they were talking about how the kanji for village was in another name and then there were two locations where the kanji had mouths.

Were they able to solve it before or after the part where Genji gave the initial clue about Taiwan?

[sunlitmcgee]

And if you don't wanna play the game yourself (which fair and understandable) there's many cool playthroughs of it! It's umineko no naku koro ni/when the seagulls cry, my fav playlist has to be the jokrono one, it's a guy who's played through it all and a newbie who's not even into anime

will put this in drafts for whenever i get around to it :)

[jichanxo]

been a while since i've drawn flex ❤

[insanityizgood]

I FINALLY finished the Joker!Satoko I did for Jokrono's playthrough of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

I just HAD to draw it because that bit was too fucking funny.

[nbmahoushoujo]

i’ve officially found the best original higurashi sprite

akasaka combat pose

[nerves-nebula]

Final thoughts

You may note that I didn't reveal Clair's "true" identity/ the identity the servant gave her once they faked her death as a baby, nor have I told you the truth of the massacre.

This is because I wanted to leave some things secret if you ever become interested in checking it out, also keep in mind that this story is stupid long with many characters so I honestly only scratched the surface.

Jokrono has a wonderful playthrough available on YouTube if you're interested

(also if you check play it instead of watching a playthrough, play using the old Original sprites, cause in the OG sprites all the human characters (except 1st/italian beatrice) have black eyes while the magic characters have blue eyes, and Battler has more tan skin to resemble his father. But in the new "improved" sprites Battler is pasty and blue-eyed. They ruined my boy.)

yEAH i was curious about the massacre. its always a sad day when a character is given blue eyes.

[metaview]

anonymous  asked:    How and where exactly do you start with Umineko? I've only really watched the anime but I heard there's a lot of ways to go about it to get more of the lore and story.

oh  my  dear  anon  i  am  so  sorry  the  anime  is  all  you’ve  seen  because  it  is  honestly  the  most  hot  garbage  excuse  for  an  anime  adaptation  i  have  ever  seen. (not to mention they only adapted half the story).

i���m  very  passionate  about  this  so  this  post  is  gonna  get  very  long  and  very  informative  i  hope  you’re  ready.

the  ABSOLUTE  BEST  PLACE  TO  START  is  the  visual  novel  itself. 

it’s  available  for  purchase  on  steam---  

if  you  get  the  steam  version  i’d  recommend  sticking  to  the  og  sprites  rather  than  the  steam-specific  ones.

if  you  want  a  slightly  more  visually  appealing/easier  to  read  version  of  the  steam  version  with  voice  acting  you  should  install  the  07th  mod!

you  can  also  check  out  the  unofficial  ps3  port,  which  is  the  version  i  use:  the  umineko  project.  but  it  can  be  a  little  confusing  to  download.  it  has  updated  animations,  lip  sync  for  the  sprites,  and  a  lot  of  added  features  for  convenience.  truly  the  BEST  version  of  umineko  in  my  honest  opinion.

if  you  can’t  afford  umineko  or  don’t  want  to  go  through  the  hassle  of  installing  anything  there  are  several  lets  plays  on  youtube!

no  commentary  ps3  port  with  voice  acting. (this channel has all the eps, just check their playlists when you finish ep1).

aaand  if  you  want  commentary  here  are  some  of  my  personal  favorite  ones:  

jokronos (FINISHED. they do all the voices themselves and read the narration aloud, this is the best one to listen to in the background while doing other things). 

80% relatable (INCOMPLETE. they’re on ep6 right now, they also read everything out loud so it’s another good one to listen to in the bg. you just might catch up to the let’s play).  

noby grand (INCOMPLETE. very funny and charming. he uses the ps3 sprites and voice acting, so he only reads the narration aloud. considering the voice acting is in japanese, you’ll need to read this. but the voice actors are STELLAR so i 100% recommend it).

the  visual  novel  is  the  original  version  of  umineko  and  what  i  believe  to  be  the  best  version  of  the  story  to  exist.  it’s  a  sound  novel,  so  it’s  soundtrack  is  incredibly  important  to  the  tone/feel  of  the  story  and  something  i  don’t  think  anyone  should  miss  out  on.  not  to  mention  if  you  get  a  voice  acting  patch,  the  actors  are  INCREDIBLE.

the  downside  is  that  umineko  averages  around 120-160  hours  depending  on  your  reading  speed.  this  thing  is  LONGER  THAN  THE  BIBLE.  it  is  worth  it,  but  it  is  a  time  sink.  each  episode  is  around  20  hours  and  there  are  8  episodes  in  total.

IF  YOU  CANNOT  PUT  THE  TIME  IN  FOR  THE  VISUAL  NOVEL:

that’s  fine!  there  is  a  manga  version  you  can  easily  find.  for  the  most  part  it’s  a  pretty  faithful  adaption,  however:  umineko  is  a  mystery.  and  there  are  some  fatal  flaws  in  the  way  the  manga  is  rendered  that  make  this  mystery  near  IMPOSSIBLE  to  solve.

solving  umineko  is  100%  part  of  the  enjoyment,  so  it’s  something  to  keep  in  mind.  you’re  also  missing  out  on  the  stellar  soundtrack,  but  i  do  know  there’s  some  kind  of  app  in  development  that  syncs  up  the  manga  with  the  soundtrack.  i  don’t  know  much  about  it  though.

overall,  the  manga  is  a  solid  substitute  if  you’re  just  looking  to  casually  enjoy  umineko.  in  fact,  it’s  the  superior  version  TO  casually  enjoy,  as  unlike  the  VN  the  manga  is  a  lot  more  straight  forward  with  it’s  answers  and  leaves  nothing  up  to  debate  (though i disagree with some of it’s “solutions,” personally). 

it  has  extra  content  in  the  final  episodes  about  the  culprit  and  some  added  conversations  to  ep8  which  is  nice,  though  it  does  cut  out  some  of  my  favorite  scenes  from  ep4...  so  give  and  take  i  suppose.

if  the  VN  is  a  10/10,  the  manga  is  an  8/10.  and  the  anime  is  a  -5/10.

aside  from  those,  there  aren’t  really  any  alternate  ways  to  view  it.  recently  there  was  a  very  good  stageplay  adaption  of  ep1,  but  there  aren’t  any  subtitles  and  that’s  only  1/8th  of  umineko  so...  yeah.

TL;DR ---  the  VN  is  the  best  way  to  go  about  it,  the  manga  is  also  pretty  good  if  you  can’t  afford  to  sink  200  hours  into  a  VN.