#umineko no naku koro ni manga

[it-came-autumnally]

<Happy Halloween!> take this Umineko panel that I find really funny for some reason

[jichanxo]

Help me, Lord, from these fantasies in my head / They ain't ever been safe ones

[hexjakt]

[scarlettrambles]

The witch of resurrection

[batbeato]

A 'skill' I've ended up honing is a sense of the various art styles of the Umineko manga artists. Generally when I see a panel I can tell what episode it's from based on either context, it being an often-posted panel, or even just... how it's drawn.

Episode 1, 3, and 8 are drawn by Natsumi Kei! Natsumi Kei doesn't draw Battler with his vest. She has a specific way of drawing eyes (for example, drawing Beato's with no/little shading) and Battler's hair is super spiky. She draws Beatrice's dress as entirely black besides the pattern, with some white parts for shading/lighting - a trait which most of the Umineko artists share She also has a tendency towards some fanservice angles/poses (such as that oft-memed panel that shows off Eva's ass while she's raging at her misogynistic brother/family).

She likes to do these 'close-up' shots to show off detailed expressions.

She also draws Beato's eyes with blonde eyelashes! So pretty... A lot of the Umineko manga artists draw Beatrice with blond eyelashes, which always seem so delicate when they do the detailed close ups.

The EP2 mangaka, Jiro Suzuki, contrasts Natsumi Kei a lot. They use heavier shading at times, and their anatomy is also different - I often get the impression that their Beato is more broad-shouldered, while their Battler is more skinny. Like a twig.

From this panel, you can really get the impression of 'glowing' in a way that you can't get from Natsumi Kei's work.

In general, their style has a lot more detail for things like face and hair. Just like Natsumi Kei, they draw Beato with blonde eyelashes, though they interpret Battler's hair differently.

Battler's clothes feel very flowy, which adds to the sense of him being very skinny. Just like Natsumi Kei, Battler is drawn without his vest. I feel as though there's a sharpness to the joints.

EP4 is drawn by Soichiro! A return to spikier Battler hair. I feel like they tend towards narrower, sharper eyes.

Soichiro has a certain way of paneling... It relies a lot on very similar-looking boxes. They're generally all the same shape, and often the same size. Some examples:

As you may have noticed, Battler is still bereft of his vest. It's probably a choice all of these mangakas made in order to simplify his design.

...I would also like to submit for your consideration the travesty that is the paneling in this page. It's... a bit confusing to follow. This is a tendency in their style - sometimes the emphasis, paneling, etc. isn't quite right. They're a great artist, but I get the feeling that they weren't quite accustomed to this medium at the time of drawing.

EP5 is drawn by Akitaka.

Akitaka is one of my favorite Umineko manga artists by the sheer virtue of the fact that Akitaka restores Battler's vest to its proper place: on his body. Battler's hair is still spiky, but it's a different, sometime toned-down interpretation. The way they shade his hair feels really unique to me - a mix of the usual screentones with some black sections (depending on the angle and level of detail). In general I feel like Akitaka works a lot with screentones to add a lot of shading to their panels.

Rather than using pure black for Beatrice' dress, it's a mix of black and screentones. Part of this is for lighting, but it also allows Akitaka to show a lot more details for the dress, which the artists who use primarily black for the dress can't do.

Akitaka also has some really detailed expressions. They manage to bring a lot of character to even the 'dead' Beato.

EP6 is drawn by Hinase Momoyama. Battler's vest, the most important character in Umineko, triumphantly remains. However, Battler's hair is less spiky and more slicked-down. Like Akitaka, there are often black sections of it, but these are more often at the front, rather than the back, of the head.

Beatrice's dress varies from "mostly black" to "mostly screentones" in EP6. Elder Beatrice, however, has these very detailed and eye-catching ruffles to her skirt. She is also drawn with sharper eyes and expressions than Chick Beatrice, who is wide-eyed and has very flowy princess sleeves on her dress.

Battler comes off as super cute when he's angry, rather than something more menacing or serious, as he does in Natsumi Kei's art. For comparison: (EP6, then EP8)

This is probably a result of how Natsumi Kei draws 'sharper', while Momoyama uses rounder shapes.

EP7 is drawn by Eita Mizuno, who is a saint for managing to draw beautifully for all NINE volumes. NINE. A saint.

They draw Beatrice's dress primarily with screentones, and have very bright, wide eyes.

They use a lot of texture with their screentones, which gives their art a unique feel amongst the artists for the manga.

I'd also like to have a special shout out to this page. The way the art style shifts in the final panel to reflect Lion's shock and horror is an incredible use of the medium. This artist really seems to like these horizontal spreads, but they use the space well.

More masculine characters like Will have narrower eyes, though the pupils/light isn't that different. While characters with light hair like Lion have no screentones for their hair, Will receives a healthy mix: primarily black, with some screentone highlights. Of course, light-haired characters will have screentoned hair depending on the lighting, but in bright lighting, Lion has entirely white hair.

...Also, Battler has once more lost his vest. At least his hair is spiky again...?

That covers all the main mangaka, but there's also the mangaka for the side manga, Tsubasa: Fumi Ito. Their art is really cute and suits the often-comedic stories well. The small highlights they put in hair feels characteristic of their style. They often draw characters with wide, round, bright eyes.

Battler's hair spikiness is toned down (so fluffy...) and his vest returns for the final time. A true blessing.

This is just a super brief overview of it all - there's a lot of characters whose varying depictions I didn't mention, I didn't really talk about how they do backgrounds, and plenty of other things. But Umineko has a lot of talented artists who worked on it, and many of them still sometimes post fanart (or new official art) for the series!

I feel like we should appreciate the amazing range of artists who have done their best to interpret Umineko's story. They all did a great job!

[dawn-in-the--adan]

[dailydefunctmangamagazine]

Gangan Powered (ガンガンパワード) / Square Enix (スクウェア・エニックス) / Apr 2009 issue

[ultraericthered]

One Villainous Scene: Her Last Bow

Umineko's sixth episode, "Dawn Of The Golden Witch", is really just as much Erika Furudo's story as it is Battler's and Sayo Yasuda's. It's Erika, as the detective, who's the main protagonist of the Rokkenjima Murder Mystery gameboard at this time just as Battler had been for the first four gameboards, with Battler himself now playing the Witch nemesis role for Erika that Beatrice had played for him. With Dlanor acting as the Watson to Erika's Holmes, we follow Erika and begin to understand her a bit better, even coming to begrudgingly like and respect the little shit in certain moments despite her remaining an evil gremlin in service of Bernkastel. But then the big twist comes that Erika, the great detective, also chose to become the culprit of this particular mystery, having murdered several of the Ushiromiyas who took her into the mansion on the night of the family conference, just to defeat Battler and win both the game and the favor of her master.

Following this, we can only deeply revile Erika as she's set up as Battler's "bride to be", planning to seal her victory over him and bask in his humiliation through a wedding ceremony where she plans to trap him into marriage with a binding ring and essentially rape him by defiling his body while his mind can neither consent nor resist since it's stuck in a Logic Error. Erika is on such a power high that she has embraced acting every bit as despicably cruel, petty and self-serving as Bern. But as it turns out, this loses sight of who Erika, at her core, truly is. Which Beatrice reminds her of when she challenges her to a duel of Blue Truth against her Red Truth. Invoking Erika's status as the detective, Erika remembers: that's right, SHE IS THE PUMPKIN KING DETECTIVE!, and she sheds her bride gown to return to form.

As Beato and Battler do a bit of catching up now that Battler is saved from both the Logic Error and Erika's marriage, Erika and Dlanor also share a tender moment between them that is beyond precious and moves me nearly to tears to see how close the two have grown. Afterwards, Beato and Erika take out their guns and begin the duel.

The duel eventually reaches this point where Erika is going over the case in her head with statements of details that are certifiable Red Truths, piecing together when and how Battler might have been able to slip out of the Guest Room and swap out with Kanon, who Erika believes had to have been hiding in the closet after making doing so.

...until she catches herself and realizes that cannot possibly be the truth of the case and is only what Beato was leading her to believe, and she was about to walk right into Beato's trap by declaring Kanon's hiding place to be the closet. She redirects her attention to under the bed only to then realize that there still remains a possibility that Kanon could've slipped into the closet. Erika begins to realize that both "Kanon hid under the bed" and "Kanon hid in the closet" are equally valid possible solutions, but if she chooses one, the other is likely to be the correct answer and she loses...unless she could somehow concieve of a way to expose the truth of both at once!

This becomes a moment of epiphany for Erika. While the rules of a proper mystery would render Beato's play a cheat, in a Witch's Game, it's a valid, logical move that drives her to opening up her mind to further possibilities for solutions, to potential truths that had gone unseen by her before, things she never would've considered. Taking it all in, beginning to for the first time see things through a Witch's eyes by standing as a human playing the Witch's game of truth and errors, Erika finds herself awestruck and shedding tears.

How rare is it that we get to see this? A largely unsympathetic, deliciously reprehensible villain who is still largely without empathy and remorse gets to undergo such a character arc where she gets as much emotional moments, triumphant moments, lessons learned and personal growth as a heroic protagonist character would. Prior to this moment, Erika had played at being both the Greatest Detective and the “Witch of Truth” as part of a path set before her by her wicked, abusive master, and she'd been driven both by a desire to please said master and to satisfy her sadistic urges to inflict anguish and hurt unto others rather than be on the recieving end of it. This twisted Erika into the worst version of herself, to the point where she lost sight of who she truly was and what she truly wanted to be - a great human detective who dispells the myths and illusions of Witches and uncovers the truth. But she has now gained a fuller, broader perspective of what "the truth" entails and finally sees the value in things she’d never known or understood until now, like what all there is to a Witch's game beyond winning and losing, beyond being right about The One Truth or being wrong in all perceptions of everything. Had Erika known this perspective way back when, maybe she would've been able to hash things out with her boyfriend and maybe could've avoided the heartbreak. She even thanks Beato for giving her this experience, sealing the moment when she and Beato go from being simply opponents to being also dear and valued friends.

But of course, the duel still needs to be won. And Erika plays to win.

With Erika felled to the ground, it seems that the game has been won and Beato gets to win Battler's hand in marriage from Erika. But Erika has one last shot in her gun, one final play to make...and unlike her master Bernkastel, Erika Furudo proves here and now that she is no coward. Still in pain and bleeding out, Erika struggles to her feet, dragging her body across the floor, her field of vision starting to blur as she walks, as she states that she's come to fully see, accept, and embrace her own real truth, the truth about herself. The truth that she is not a mere great human detective, but as the Witch of Truth, she is a villainous detective. She controls her own role independent of her master now, and the role she chooses to play is the one she views as best suiting her - the role of a villain, all the way to the unsightly end.

But much as Erika might want to play this villain role to perfection so as to leave no room for pity, admiration and respect, the fact that she is making this last stand with such courage and is making a request so noble of the two betrothed Gamemaster Witches is not lost on them. Even Battler and Beato have to honor Erika here. Erika, who not too long ago was complicit in Beato's seemingly total and final destruction, and who murdered the Ushiromiyas on Rokkenjima to trick Battler into a Logic Error and planned to subject his body to martial rape, is most definitely an evildoer, but proves to be one with just enough qualities of decent character and inner strength that her adversaries and those she's hurt can't help becoming fond of her.

With the good-natured, semi-respectful rival trash talk out of the way, Erika Furudo stands tall and proud, gun in hand, to give her final parting line, a "self introduction", a greeting and re-establishing of who Erika Furudo was in the lore of the Rokkenjima Mass Murders, and who/what Erika Furudo believes herself to be at game's end.

A Red Truth declared. A single shot fired. Erika Furudo is no more.

You almost regret that she had to get taken down like that given the begrudging respect and admiration she’s managed to evoke….but at the same time, what an EPIC way to go out. And as we'd see in the final chapter, it's far from the last we'd see of Detective Erika Furudo, a nefarious girl of great intellect and great courage to back it up even if she has to run the risk of failure. A bitch so bad, she's <GOOD>.

[goldentruths-pod]

Episode 8: Thank You for Showing Restraint

Like pepper, the difficulty comes in tiny yet spicy grains. Why not participate yourself, now at the very end?

And so it ends. Not with a bang, but with a sequence of extremely loud and kind of off-putting bangs that drown out the subtle storytelling that you've come to expect from this series. Ange needs to make a choice but so do we: do we think this episode is any good? Grab some konpeito and join us as we put the witch to sleep for all time with our coverage of the last entry in the Answer Arcs and the final mainline episode of Umineko no Naku Koro Ni.

  Show Notes

Golden Truths Episode 8 Streams!

HE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT

Higurashi Sotsu YouTube Analysis [Gou/Sotsu Spoilers]

I have finished an episode of umineko no naku koro ni

  Hosted by Jennifer Booher (@kebbbbs)

Featuring Annabelle Barsky, Caelum O'Leary-Coderre (@hivehum), Isabelle Valant (@IzzyTimeStream), and Matthew Winter (@ImYourPaperPal)

Produced by Annabelle Barsky and Jennifer Booher

Cover art by Grace Hobson (@_GwenGrace_)

Fishy Aroma by Luck Ganriki

engage of marionette by dai

Check us out here!

[s-c-a-r-a-m-o-u-c-h]

[postarie]

[howverychaotic]

I love Maria

[ur-fav-is-autistic]

maria ushiromiya from umineko when they cry is autistic >:3

Maria Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro ni is Autistic!

[hexjakt]

--- Please kill me quickly.

[stalbione]

Trying to get used to different types of brushes than my usual ones and to add a bit more texture to my colorings, and Auaurora is just about one of my favourite subjects to experiment upon

[batbeato]

The true tragedy of Umineko is that of the 8 episodes, Sayo only got to write two of them. This is a tragedy not just from that fact alone, but also the fact that Sayo's writing style is distinct from Tohya's and, I'd argue, is in many ways superior.

Tohya prefers these very elaborate metaphors that go over the top - Tohya's writing is very over the top in general - like the "good witch" Beatrice of EP3. Does it mean that Beatrice is learning to value her own life, regretting the massacre/plan, learning to value and respect Battler's opinion, or just learning that she should present as a more benevolent figure for Battler so that he will engage with her mystery more? There are a lot of options, and sometimes it doesn't seem clear. There's also other instances of this, like the Chick Beatrice/Elder Beatrice of EP6 that confuses a lot of readers.

Meanwhile, Sayo's writing feels very dense - she puts a lot more focus into the general family/servant 'mundane' interactions. In Episode 1, her use of Rosa's gift to Natsuhi to bring up a fulfilled promise and her use of the exchange between Battler and Maria (George reassuring Maria, saying that Battler can't be trusted, warning Battler to be more careful with his words) come to mind. Their metaphors are more dense, but also easier to unpack once you know what you're looking for - while Tohya's are more elaborate, and difficult to parse.

There's an elegance to Sayo's writing that is somewhat absent in Tohya's - his feels messier, more emotional, more over the top. He discards the horror-mystery for fantasy-romance-mystery bundled up together. It's beautiful - Chiru has my favorite episodes - but I feel as though we missed out on being able to see Sayo tackle more of the sort of over the top overt 'fantasy' that Tohya so often uses, or to see how Sayo would have expanded the red truth, the blue truth, and so on.

I love that the two are so distinct - whether by Ryukishi's design or even just happenstance - but I regret that we didn't get Land. Not just because I wanted to see Virgilius and Black Battler, but also to read more of Sayo's writing. Honestly, it's an even greater tragedy than how the concept of Black Battler was discarded.