History Headscratchers / UminekoWhenTheyCry

*** [[spoiler: It's both a yes and a no. ''Long answer'': Battler survived the Rokkenjima accident, but he went through multiple accidents before being found by Hachijo. He had amnesia as a result of all the trauma but slowly and surely, he started to remember his life as Ushiromiya Battler except he didn't feel like it was his life or his memories. Every time he tried to remember, they said something along the lines of how "his body would reject it" and at one point he remembered and attempted to commit suicide, which resulted in him permanently forced to use a wheelchair. He wrote the stories, not just to jump start his memories, but also to put his past life as Battler behind him.
'''TL;DR'': Battler does get his family and Beatrice back and live happily ever after in the Golden Land… in the world of the forgeries, written by Hachijo Tooya, who is actually Battler after the accident trying to put the past that is his--but doesn't feel like it is his-- to rest.]]

*** Wait, that would be the original 9th, not Dlanor's version. POV and inner thoughts would fall under Dlanor Knox's 9th, including Natsuhi's. If we presume Battler still aheres to the spirit of the original 9th, then here's another Headscratcher: In ep5, Battler's POV fudges the truth by showing him leaping from the 3rd floor, but he later admits to Erika's accusation that he slowed his fall by sliding down the drainpipe. Does this mean he's exempt from 'TheWatson's full disclosure' clause in this context, or that it never applied to him from the beginning?

*** Take it from This Troper, many books on hermetic and kaballistic sorcery were available in bookstores and libraries in the mid-80's. The occult "celebrities" from 1880's-1920's were highly prolific writers: Samuel Mathers, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune, and of course Alistair Crowley.

** Beatrice suggested the possibility of following Knox as early as episode 2[[hottip:*:"Hmm. No secret passage exists that you all do not know of. Was it Knox, or was it Van Dine? It seems that in mystery novels, there must not be hidden passages, no matter what. I also follow that etiquette."]] -- Not in ''red'', mind you, but it still enough to get people thinking by Knox rules.

** [[{{WMG It's possible that Battler was still mad at Rudolf.]]

Now here's what Bugs Me: Why did the writer think it was a good idea to later invalidate red text in any way? From that point on, it also became an Unreliable Narration, but here's the manifold dilemma introduced: Was the red text always unreliable, or only from the moment of the rulebreaking? Is it still reliable if not countered? If it's invalidated once, then can any of it be trusted, and if not, then what valid clues remain? Is the total of Battler's own eyewitness experience enough to actually solve the mystery without any other outside clues?

* Maria's childish behavior is one of the reasons for Rosa acting the way she acts. She is not sure how to raise a child, but she ''is'' sure she is doing something wrong. For Rosa, yeah, I guess you could call her bipolar. She does obviously care for Maria, in a way, as seem in the 2nd and 3rd arc, but, at same time, she doesn't. This is probably also one of the reasons Maria is childish.

** Simple enough. [[spoiler:You're proceeding from the assumption that this individual is female to begin with.]] This may not necessarily be true.

* Loads and loads of asspulls throughout. Can't even kept the description of magic consistent. You ever get hooked by a story that later lets you down, but you're stuck with it, and watching the rest becomes a chore that DOESN'T PAY OFF AT THE END! The whole goddamn anime just fucking bugs me.
** [[AdaptationDecay Adaptation Decay]] is to blame there; the anime left out quite a few details on plot and character development. If it helps, you can always just visit the Umineko Wiki, which contains TIPS that go into further detail about any plot holes in the anime; they also expand on certain story elements that were established more properly in the Visual Novels, but could not be explained within the story without [[ArcFatigue making it drag on and on.]] Or...you could search for and download the Visual Novels (the first five have been translated into English).
*** All [[strike: six]] seven, now.
** Even though I don't know which {{Ass Pull}}s are you talking about, there is an universal answer to most complaints: [[AdaptationDecay the Anime]] was released at a very bad time. When it was released, only the question novels were written, so nobody knew what the answer, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment because the Anime was released before the novels reached the answers]]. Plus, during the release of the Anime, the fifth novel was written, and it has a couple of lines of text that change the meaning of the other novels. In other words, this story can't pay you off, because it is still being written.
*** My question is, why didn't they wait until the visual novels were finished to write the anime. I mean how do they know they didn't cut out a vital clue to solving the mystery.
**** DEEN was supervised by Ryukishi here.
* Battler's explanations really bug me. He might as well have said [[color:blue: they all died by a freak meteor shower. Yes, even the ones in locked rooms.]]
** In the visual novel it's clear that Battler's explanations bug him as well.

* Not really the type of person to do this. But this troper's getting really sick and tired of people complaining about DEEN's AdaptationDecay of the VisualNovel to the Anime, and yet when she turns around people never complain about ''{{Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni}}'' 's AdaptationDecay.
** Perhaps, they haven't read the Higurashi [[VisualNovel Visual Novels]].
*** It's mostly because Umineko's AdaptationDecay is seen as being much worse than Higurashi's, and on top of that, Higurashi isn't nearly as anally sensitive about every little word and scene in the way Umineko is. The mystery can be solved by anime-only viewers in Higurashi. The same can't be said of Umineko.
*** This troper has heard that as far as adaptations go, Higurashi was butchered WAY worse than Umineko, however the better anime was Hiugrashi. I tried to defend an episode of the anime before it came out cuz everyone already said it would suck....then it came out and it did.

* The WMG Page lately. Recently, people have been using the Colored Truths incorrectly, MAKING UP new Colored Truth, and spamming the place with repetitive or completely off-base, trolling theories. Can we get some cleanup in that page? I'd do it myself, but I don't trust my ability to be completely unbiased.
** It's Wild Mass Guessing, completely off-base theories are completely appropriate. Given the length of the page any repetition is likely accidental and should be removed, but can't reasonably be called trolling. And while I can see why some theories may offend some people, none of them seem intended to do so, and thus cannot be considered trolling.
*** I don't know, it's a bit hard to take "Natsuhi had sex with Jessica because Jessica dressed as Marisa once" seriously.
**** That one is completely cracky, and is intended to be such, it's not suppose to be taken seriously.
*** It would probably be a good idea to sort the page into folders for different kinds of guesses. Does anyone have any ideas for what the folders should be?
**** "Serious theories" and "theories on crack"?

* For God's sake! Why does every female character have huge boobs!? 3 lolis to about 15 Double Ds.
** It's been implied for a long time that all the meta-characters (and confirmed for Beatrice) were created for Battler's sake; Beatrice looks how she does because that's what Battler likes in a woman.
** For the mundane characters, the artist draws ''all'' women who aren't flat-chested like that (see Shmion in ''Higurashi'', for example).
*** Not neccasarilly, [[HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi Rena]] actually has an average bust-size for a girl, not [[ACupAngst Rika-flat]] or Shmion-huge, which was actually [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] once in the manga.
** Because the author likes it. This is actual ''WordOfGod''.

* Battler and Ange's hair color bugs me, no one we've seen has the same hair color. Battler could have conceivably inherited from Non-Asumu Female X, but it wouldn't explain why his half-sister also had red hair.
** Anime hair. But it could also be a recessive gene in Rudolf that got dominant in them. Perhaps their grandmother, or more likely Kinzo when he was Battler's age, had red hair.
*** However, Kinzo has anime hair too.
**** EP7 almost outright states that the appearance of the characters presented to us in the novel isn't necessarily what they actually look like. It seems to be acknowledged that from the point of view of the characters, they're all normal black haired asians and such.
**** What? Nothing of the sort is said. Stop relying on fake spoilers.
***** Actually, it does. [[spoiler: The only conceivable reason Shannon and Kannon can be the same person while looking so different in game is because Yasu, the one who created them, sees them like that. What they REALLY look like is probably someone like Lion (who is Yasu from another world) and even that isn't guaranteed. It's also the reason why Lion gender is ambiguous, because Yasu's split personalities are a boy and a girl, meaning she/he could be either gender. It was never stated that the original personality corresponded with Yasu's original gender. And taking into account that Battler is Kyrie's son, and at the end of EP8 we see him with white hair, it's very possible to piece together that how people look from the in game point of view is not the same as how they look in reality. It's actually a plot point.]]
**** It is heavily implied in later episodes that Kyrie is actually Battler's mother. Since Battler and Ange are therefore full brother and sister, it would make sense for them to have the same hair color.

* Is Umineko more popular than Higurashi? Or are the fans just more open about referencing to it, talking about it, etc due to the trollish fantastical ways of it in comparison to the mostly realistic Higurashi?
** Both, really.
** Not really. Umineko seems to be less popular in the blogsphere and general anime public. In fact, most of it general popularity comes from Higurashi. Furthermore, while the original Higurashi Sound Novel is just as discussion fuel as Umineko, most English fandom met it through the anime, where the hints and resolutions are given in a much more faster pace, leaving less space to discussion. In the flip side, the Umineko Sound Novel were translated to English before the anime come out, so people could start discussing it sooner.

* I love When they Cry, and especially Umineko - as a huge fan of magical realism (possibly) and detective works alike, it's rich characters, intriguing mysteries and convoluted plotlines are a pleasure to read. However - and this is something that bothers me with a lot of Anime/Manga, but especially in Umineko - there's some dialogue that literally makes me grit my teeth when I read it. It's hard not to be incensed at Eva's backstory - and then wonder why every character makes references such as [[ValuesDissonance 'Truly, you can never understand a woman's heart' 'a woman's motivation' 'it was just like a woman' 'ah, women get this way at a certain age']] [[DoubleStandard 'did you know, all men must feel like this?']] [[AllMenArePerverts 'both Rudolf and Hideyoshi, who appreciated women' - all of Battler's wacky boob-grabbing shenanigans.]]
** Now, don't get me wrong - for the sexism at play, I realize it's still 1986. Eva's backstory - hell, the family history of all the siblings - is tragic, but it doesn't explain why then they, and the siblings would almost always be ready to explain any. trivial. thing as being somehow gender-related. For the weird perverted stuff, it's not often it shows up for most people besides Battler and [[spoiler: Rudolf]], and it gets noticeably better for Battler as the series goes on - which is why the series is all the more jarring when it throws an unnecessary line in. I'm used to weird [[{{Moe}} moe]] stuff, even if I despise it, so I can somehow condition myself not to find the Stake Sisters or the Eiserne Jungfrau too silly. It's just... I guess I'm more used to this sort of thing in [[{{Shonen}} shonen]] works?
** It just bothers me that character interaction between Battler and Beatrice, which is so good it reminds me of another [[MuchAdoAboutNothing interesting couple]] - speaking of, anyone think that's more than coincidence? And hey, I understood the weird sexism in that. I guess I even understand why the stuff I don't like is in Umineko, it just... Seems like I expect more, or am let down or something. In sort? The quintessential [[JustBugsMe just bugs me.]]
** I don't think it was ever meant to be condescending or sexist (except for Eva's backstory), just a bunch of older men acting like, well, older men. Additionally, it may be due to the Japanese having different gender roles and sterotypes then most of the Western world. I wouldn't think too hard about it.
** Thanks - I'm sure you're right, it's just my belief that there is no universal standard for 'older men' just as there is no real set behavior for anyone; it's probably ridiculous, but that's what I believe. Combined with that I have this terrible tendency to overthink things and just can't stop it. It sort of suspends my suspension of disbelief, but on a minor scale.
** Keep in mind these aren't Ryukishi's views or words, but those of the characters. And Japan in 1986 with classical Western influences...pretty much gets you exactly this.
** I blame Kinzo. Dude obviously had some serious problems with women, and passed them on to his children and grandchildren. It would be interesting to go through the whole series again and see if the frequency of such phrases increases when the characters are on the island - one more aspect of Kinzo's ghost haunting the place. (Ironically, the happiest marriage any of his children entered into - the one between Eva and Hideyoshi - is the one in which the man and woman are most nearly on equal footing. It's also instructive that, whatever tensions exist between them, George's exceeding all his cousins in non-magical qualifications to be the family head of his generation is due in no small part to his mother's influence. You'd think Kinzo, whose life was so dominated by a single woman, might have appreciated that - [[FridgeBrilliance or maybe it was because his life was so dominated by a single woman that he couldn't appreciate it]]). Finally, much of what we "know" about the Ushiromiya family and their servants comes from the point of view of [[spoiler:Yasu, a servant of undetermined sex who was simultaneously the most favored and the most despised of the family's servants]]. [[UnreliableNarrator It's anyone's guess how many of the family's attitudes toward relations between the sexes were exaggerated in the eyes of such a person]].

* The Requiem of the Golden Witch manga adaptation. The Visual Novel stresses the fact that Lion's, and by extension Yasu's, gender is unknown and perhaps unknowable. This is an extremely important plot point for pretty much the entire subtext of the Episode, and is the coup-de-grace in inspiring Yasu's madness. In the manga? "So are you father and daughter?" "Yup." Fuck you, manga. This is the last straw of fuckups I'm willing to tolerate from you.
** This is not the manga's fault but the translator's. The head translator outright stated that because HE believed Lion looked more female than male, it was okay to ignore this important plot point. Needless to say, fans were not amused, and the translation of the first chapter has since been updated.
*** Oh. Thanks for clearing that up then. What an asshole.
*** Oh play nice dude, maybe he don't know how translate it, I guess something like "so, you two are related" would work better, but oh well, a little mistake cannot be so bad....
**** It wasn't a mistake, or something done in ignorance. The person deliberately put down something he knew was incorrect because of his personal views on the matter, being fully aware the script intends for Lion to be referred to neutrally. He deserves the contempt, because that was severely unprofessional and disrespectful.