YMMV / Umineko: When They Cry

A - D

• Abandon Shipping: The Ange × Amakusa ship was initially fairly popular... until it was revealed that Amakusa was the one who mercilessly killed Ange in Episode 4. Due to ambiguity of the ending, there are still debates on that point. The relationship is even ambiguously canonized by the characters' final profiles released in 2013.
• Adaptation Displacement: When the visual novels were still considered a niche market, the anime was widely watched. Eventually, the anime became known as a bad adaptation and the original visual novels have since gained more prominence, and the manga adaptation has attracted more fans since it offers a completed story.
• Adorkable: Jessica goes from tomboyish to a sheepish, stuttering mess when her feelings for Kanon surface.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Battler: Is his eventual Laser-Guided Amnesia a result of brain damage, survivor's guilt, the unwillingness to admit his own (albeit limited) responsibility in the Rokkenjima incident, or a combination of all the above?
  • Beatrice: a heartless and sadistic murderer, or the Trickster Mentor savior of the Ushiromiya family's dignity, allowing their memory to be unsullied by the crimes committed in their two days on Rokkenjima by taking them all upon herself? Her going through a Face–Heel Revolving Door splits fans wondering what her ultimate motive was.
  • Bernkastel: a vile, disgusting, monstrous witch who toys with humans for her own amusement, or a tragic Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who had to go through thousands of years of Break the Cutie horror and now can only torment others in order to dull the pain? Episode 8's tea party segment seems to suggest that while Bern is indeed a sociopath with natural inclinations towards sadistic cruelty, she can also dial that cruelty back in her off time and only goes fully completely monstrous when it's her turn to be the Punch-Clock Villain in any of her and Lambda's little games. This is depiction is further demonstrated in Umineko: Golden Fantasia.
  • Ikuko Hachijo/Featherine: It's never explicitly said that Ikuko is Featherine. One non-magical explanation of how the two could be different entities is that Ikuko's story that Ange reads is a description of a fictional Ange reading the story of Battler's sixth game to a fictional Featherine, so that Featherine is Ikuko's Author Avatar. The magical explanation would be that Featherine existed first and is on such a trascendent, god-like level compared to other Witches that she personalized Ikuko in her image (like how Bern had done with Erika) and placed her into the non-magical world in the late 80's and the 90's, making Ikuko the Author Avatar of Featherine rather than the other way around.
  • George: Dogged Nice Guy who has an enlightened view of the world through his years of experience, and who respects Shannon as a person, or a borderline sexist who takes everything far more seriously than he should? He may or may not have Yandere tendencies (possessive subtype) to boot.
  • At the end of EP7, is Kyrie really so ruthless and cold that she would cast off any family for 1 billion, or is she simply keeping a cool facade to the threat from an emotionally distraught Eva? Some fans from Eastern countries theorized that in EP7, Kyrie's claim that she never loved Ange was actually a lie to trick Eva into killing her during their battle, so Eva would be more protective of Ange, or Kyrie was lying to herself so that she may embrace death without any emotional attachments left. And in EP8, there are moments where Kyrie shows she does cares for Ange, with the manga version even showing us when Ange was born and that both her parents did indeed love her very much.
  • The manga takes a harsher interpretation of Kinzo's past, claiming that unlike the story he told, Kinzo himself was responsible for the military base massacre that killed everyone except for him and Beatrice. But even so, did he instigate it because of his obsessive desire to keep Beatrice and the gold for himself, or did he predict how the gold would corrupt the other people on the base regardless?
  • EP8 paints the entire family in a far more flattering light than any of the other games, leading to further speculation when contrasted with EP7. The manga adaptation clears it up more, with Ange coming to acknowledge that no one in her family was ever truly "a total villain or a total saint."
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The pacing of the anime comes to a screeching halt at the start of the fourth arc, with three straight episodes of exposition on the characters of Maria and Ange.
  • In both the VN and manga versions, EP7 feels like the longest to get through, with Willard having to get stories from Rosa, Kinzo, Maria, and Jessica before starting to piece things together, before leading to an extended (and largely embellished) backstory for Sayo Yasuda, and then when it looks like the illusion of the witch has been killed and the story has reached its end, the longest and most detailed Tea Party ever follows and keeps things going even longer, creating Ending Fatigue as well.
• Awesome Music: Has a whole page, of course.
• Base-Breaking Character: Almost everyone in the family splits the fanbase in who finds them sympathetic and who does not.
  • Krauss was absolutely awful to his siblings and even his wife and child to some extent, but he's the only member of the family who never seriously harmed anyone.
  • Natsuhi has serious The Woobie traits, but she also threw an innocent baby and the servant carrying the baby off a cliff during a nervous breakdown.
  • Was Eva-Beatrice a Tulpa based around other people's theories about Eva, or is she the representation of Eva actual inner-most thoughts and feelings? Was Eva a Well-Intentioned Extremist who sacrificed herself to protect Ange, or was she merely taking her rage out on her?
  • Rosa is considered a Memetic Badass Mama Bear based on her actions in EP2, and on many occasions demonstrates that she sincerely loves Maria and is legitimately sorry for her abusive behavior, but is also considered an irredeemable Abusive Parent for the way she treats Maria and gets what she deserves any time she's killed. Then there are debates how much of her Abusive Parent are even factual, considering accounts of her come from unreliable sources.
  • Kinzo is considered a crazy old man capable of amazing feats both in and out of universe, and his backstory until meeting Beatrice Castiglioni paints him as a tragic figure who has grown jaded of the world, but many fans think him raising Beatrice II in secret and raping her is not just a spiral into madness, but is an unforivable delusions that has indirectly results in the rest of Rokkenjima's tragedies.
  • Sayo Yasuda and everything related to them has been subject to much debate by the fandom. Not to mention their main motivations, which on the one hand can seem emotionally deep, understandable and even almost justifiable for most fans (especially by the supporters of the Shkannontrice theory and the couple of Battler and Beatrice), while on the other they are seen as extremely childish, fully condemnable, and the narrative is a very manipulatively aimed at forcing the reader to try at all costs to empathize with and pity the character.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The "fight" between Krauss and Goat-kun in Episode 4 breaks the fourth wall a lot of times and is generally comedic, which let many fans wondering what in the hell they just read.
  • The "magic or trick" battle between Erika and MARIA in Episode 6, where even Dlanor and her subordinates openly state that this is pointless, and only ever bring it up again later just to drive in how petty, childish, and ultimately meaningless it had been.
• Broken Base:
  • Thanks to the release of a PS3 port, many fans are now divided whether the original novel's sprites or the PS3's are better. The Steam release includes a yet different set of sprites (originally made for the 2014 pachinko game), and opinion on their quality is divided as well.
  • With the release of EP8, many people on 4chan are now divided on whether the Multiple Endings with one of them being more canon than the other is a good thing or not.
  • The series ending without giving an answer to some mysteries and generally leaving them up to interpretation caused heated arguments regarding if an appropriate conclusion, or the series doesn't fully commit to being a mystery. There is some debate over whether giving explicit answers in the "Confession of the Golden Witch" manga was a salutary move to lift many ambiguities or an unnecessary one, that more or less defeats the point of the series to let the readers search for the answers themselves.
  • Gaap's Vapor Wear dress with Sideboob. Some say it's so bizarre it makes it hard to take any scene she appears in seriously, while others think it works for a demon with a "gap" theme and gives the fashion brand it's based on some publicity.
  • Most fans treat the anime adaptation so poorly it may have never happened, but some think the animated versions of key scenes are worth giving it a try.
  • Lion/Yasu's gender and pronouns can create heated arguments due to the complicated nature of their backstories.
  • The announcement in 2017 of Chiru adding "Episode 9: Last Note of the Golden Witch" hasn't been taken well by everyone, as Episode 8 being the Grand Finale shouldn't have left room for new mysteries.
• Cargo Ship: Battler using a hat stand as an Improvised Weapon a few times has led to fansjoking he has grown attached to it.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The death of EVA-Beatrice in the third game at the hands of the denial with Beatrice's Red Truth about her existence by blaming Eva is extremely satisfying considering how much of a psychopath she has been the entire time.
  • Many fans who hate Rosa immensely enjoy her Butt-Monkey status, which leads to her being horribly and tortured in all games. Especially in the fourth game at the hands of Beatrice and MARIA after her Abusive Parent and Parental Neglect tendencies apparently take a new level.
  • Kasumi Sumadera's death in Episode 4, after she tortured, mocked and tried to kill her niece Ange, feed very deserved, especially after destroying and insulting Maria's diary and magic.
  • Beatrice and Battler defeating Erika at the climax of the sixth game is as grandiose as it was hoped to be.
  • While still not morally good, Rosa blackmailing Eva in Episode 7 was welcome, especially since Rosa is being the rational one regarding the self-destruct system, and finally standing up to her sister's abuse.
  • The final defeat of Bernkastel at the hands of Ange, Battler, and by extension, the entire Ushiromiya family and their allies, feels grand and appropriate considering how many hells she ahs put them through.
• Crack Pairing:
  • The side story "The Stakes' Valentine's Day" is filled with these. Including Asmodeus/Juuza, Beelzebub/Gohda, Leviathan/Kyrie, Belphegor/Rudolf... and even teasing Beatrice/Battler and Battler/Lucifer!
  • The couples poll on the official site had absolutely every possible pairing.
  • There's Amakusa/Battler fanart around the Japanese fandom. Not only have they never met, it's a time paradox. On the other hand, Yaoi Fangirls in this fandom have to take what they can get. There aren't a lot of bishounen running around.
  • If Game Master Battler's TIP is to be believed, Virgilia is a crack shipper who ships Battler with several other male characters, including his own dad.
  • There's also the TIP "Angel of 17 Years", which is dedicated entirely to crack Ho Yay pairings (with Ange and Virgilia being the Yaoi Fangirls gushing over them, though it's all obviously Played for Laughs).
  • One of Golden Fantasia's endings teases an uncanny WillBern, though a bit fitting when it's Will and Bern.
  • In the TIP "Jessica's Good Luck Charms", Jessica wants to make Kanon dream of her, but she messes up the ritual and makes Gōda dream of her instead.
  • The manga has some downright disturbing cover pages, including putting Maria and Battler together rather sensually.
  • There are even a few fanworks shipping Eva and Natsuhi, sisters-in-law who love their husbands and hate each other.
• Crazy Is Cool: Jumping from the third story of your mansion in order to go for a midnight stroll? "I wouldn't put it past grandfather."
• Crosses the Line Twice: Episode 2's Tea Party in the anime. It starts moving towards the line when Rosa is forced to eat dishes made from the body parts of her abusive siblings. Then it crosses the line the first time when the dessert is Maria's decapitated head with baked apples. It crosses the line a second time when Maria's decapitated head starts talking about how she was a burden to Rosa and deserves her fate. Then it crosses the line a third time when the head jumps into Rosa's mouth while laughing.
• Cry for the Devil: Bernkastel. Bad Samaritan though she is, she was still born (in a sense) from a little girl's death and trauma-filled 100 year "Groundhog Day" Loop, and the only way she knows to dull the pain of it all is to make everyone else more miserable than she is.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Maria's behavior makes many fans interpret her as autistic: she acts much younger than her nine years of age, she never seems to realize when the constant use of her Verbal Tic is irritating other people, and she obsessively studies the occult but has little to no interest in anything else. In EP7, Willard also points out that Maria tends to recognize people by their actions, not their appearances (which is a big hint towards how "Beatrice" can suddenly appear in front of her); this implies that she has some degree of prosopegnosia/face blindness, which is often comorbid with autism.
  • To say that Kinzo has more than a few problems in his brain is like saying that there is no sun on a rainy day. His obsession with Beatrice borders on madness when he cries out her name in tears at the window and, according to descriptions given to us by his children, he is well known for doing things like jumping out of the window. The fact that he willingly became a soldier during World War II just so he could die also implies that he may have suffered from depression when he was younger.
  • Eva is sometimes theorized to be suffering from a mild form of borderline personality disorder, given her impulsiveness and her Hair-Trigger Temper. There's also her habit of idealizing herself, her father, her husband and her son and, at the same time, devaluing her siblings and their families (especially Rosa and Natsuhi), with whom she has a highly dysfunctional and unstable relationship.
  • Rosa does not seem to be mentally stable, given how she constantly switches from being abusive to apologetic in regards to Maria. The multitude of Berserk Buttons she has that quickly make her lose her temper whenever Maria or somebody else makes the mistake of teasing them make her look like she's suffering from bipolar or/and borderline personality disorder. Not to mention the subtle implication that she has suicidal thoughts and desires like Kinzo, given some of her dialogue when she's under particularly harsh stress. There's also the PTSD that she suffered from having seen Beatrice Ushiromiya die as a little girl.
  • Sayo Yasuda, and by extension Shannon, Kanon, and Beatrice, whose issues seem to include pretending to be multiple people to the point of almost becoming them and probable gender dysphoria, in addition to body dysmorphia caused by a horrific injury to their sexual organs that causes them to refer to themselves as "furniture" after finding out the truth about their origins.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Erika's described Cynicism Catalyst backstory in EP6 and expanded motivations have gained her a few sympathizers, especially in Japanese fandom. Ryukishi certainly did intend for her to be a Jerkass Woobie, but she is far away from being anywhere heroic during the Episode.
  • Sayo "Yasu" Yasuda. While they have massive reasons to be the person (persons) they are, and had a terrible life, a lot of fans believe her being a tragic heroine, who is not just blameless, but is perfectly justified in killing everyone on the island.

E - H

• Ending Fatigue: Episode 7's Tea Party instead of being a thematic wrap-up with a final plot twist like the rest of them, is instead an avalanche of reveals that is as long as a couple of the Episode's chapters.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gohda is the character who gets involved in each of the stories the least, due to being Locked Out of the Loop most of the time, and is the only one with no connections to the family's history. However, fans praise him as a Magical Gohda Chef who is more important than he actually is.
  • Black Battler; despite being an illusion created by Bernkastel, he's gotten popular enough to join the roster of the fighting games.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Though a happy ending was denied for Rokkenjima, whether it's a Bittersweet Ending or Downer Ending for Ange is subjective, as she still lost her entire family and has to live with the ugly truth about what befell them on Rokkenjima, and then when she finds that her beloved big brother had actually survived and was still alive (but amnesiac) that whole time, he's implied to die shortly after their reunion. The manga makes it lean more to Bittersweet Ending.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • In the early Episodes, Beatrice appears to be an unrepentant cackling sadist. Even before the full extent of the tragedy is revealed, she remains beloved for how charismatic and entertaining she can be, stealing every scene she's in. Even in Episode 6, Beatrice returning in full force, sporting a characteristic maniacal grin and (seemingly) casting away her demure and friendly persona is one of the coolest and most memorable moment in the entire story.
  • Fans of Erika who do not excuse her actions, love her for how much of an unapologetic bastard she is, as well as her undeniable competence.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Erika's backstory leaves much to interpretation, from her upbringing to her original personality, to how she met with Bern, or the reason she fell from the boat, or why the boat was out in the first place despite a typhoon forecast.
  • The scrapped "Land of the Golden Witch" Episode, as well as the "rival detective" character Virgilius, are popular subjects of fan guessing.
• Fan Nickname: Can be found here.
• Fanon:
  • Yasu's full name is generally assumed to be Sayo Yasuda (since Yasu says their last name is Yasuda and Shannon claims that her real name is Sayo), but it's never told explicitly in the story. Confirmed as of the EP8 manga bonus chapters, labeling Yasu explicitly as "Sayo Yasuda".
  • Some believe that Battler did write a letter to Shannon (despite his admission that he'd completely forgotten about her until returning to Rokkenjima), but George withheld it to sabotage their relationship and make his move.
• Faux Symbolism: Maria's name is written as "真里亞" — notice how the last character looks like a cross? Battler points it out and seems to consider it stylish. Despite Maria using a lot of Biblical motifs, the Japanese spelling of her name isn't shown to be one of them.
• Franchise Original Sin: Studio DEEN's anime adaptation of the series gets a lot of flack, mainly for cutting out crucial scenes and having numerous plot holes. These problems were also present in Higurashi's anime adaptation as the first season alone went through 6 out of the 8 core arcs. What made DEEN's Higurashi adaptation still work was that most of the scenes that were cut or changed weren't as important to the plot, so they could be left out without any issue and didn't affect the suspenseful scenes or have major plot holes. It helps that Ryukishi07 himself advised DEEN for Higurashi Kai, notable with the anime-only arc adding in information from the VN that wasn't in the first season. However, Umineko's structure is different from Higurashi since many scenes are crucially important to solving the mystery. DEEN changing certain scenes from the visual novel ended up causing the mystery to be unsolvable in the anime. This affected DEEN greatly as poor DVD sales has prevented them from making a Chiru adaptation.
• Fridge Brilliance: Enough to warrant its own page.
• Growing the Beard: Most people agree that Banquet of the Golden Witch is where the series really takes off, as most of the cast and the rules have already been established, the Episode has the time to focus on the family's history and mystery-solving.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: The story is massive, features dozens of characters and heavy post-modernism elements. The anime suffered from being a Compressed Adaptation, with key scenes either being heavily abridged or omitted entirely. This led to the mystery being unsolvable due to important clues not appearing. For comparison, the manga had over 40 volumes while the stage-play has stuck to adapting one episode per 3-hour show.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Episode 4's Cliché Storm turns around to bite George and Jessica in the ass, due to a rather brutal Brick Joke involving the danger of a Hope Spot.
  • In Episode 2 Beatrice tells Shannon that she won't feel that same way about George after he "looks at her with lust" and at the time it just sounds like taunting. If you take into account that Shannon and Beatrice are the same person, it's really a representation of the conflicts in Yasu's heart over whether or not George can truly love Shannon and stay with her after discovering Yasu's broken body. Hell, most scenes where Shannon, Kanon, and Beatrice interact are this when you realize that they're all essentially her own struggles with herself!
  • In the end of Episode 2, at Beatrice's banquet, she has her goats eat Battler alive after he loses against her. This ends up getting used against her in the fifth Episode when she loses in proving Natsuhi's innocence, and Lambadelta and Bernkastel sentence her to the same fate because it's how she "punishes the losers in the game".
  • In Episode 2, Beatrice tells Kanon that the three worst ways to hurt a girl are physically, emotionally, and by betraying their hopes. She calls the last the most difficult, the most effective, and the one most often committed by accident. Turns out Battler breaking his promise 6 years ago is the main factor Beatrice the way she is.
  • In Episode 3 Battler jests that it's not like Ange would get struck by lightning if she tells him her name. In the next Episode 4 it turns out to be one of her conditions with Bernkastel, and Ange dies when she reveals to Battler she is her sister.
  • The whole scene where Battler promises to win Beato's game and come back to Ange is really sad after you understand that when Beato's game started, everyone except Eva and Battler was already dead. From the beginning, there was never any chance of the family coming back home alive; and indeed, Beato herself never promised that, it's just what Battler assumed.
  • In the early days of the fandom, Kanon's insistence that he's furniture as the go-to reason for why he's so unhappy with his life was treated as Wangst and often the source of fandom jokes, especially since what exactly being "furniture" meant was very vague. After various reveals in EP7, and especially after "Confession of the Golden Witch", it's made very clear that being "furniture" is an indication of several emotional and physical traumas.
• He Really Can Act: The double performance of Miki Itō in the roles of Eva Ushiromiya and her teenage version EVA-Beatrice is often highly praised by many fans. Especially because of the remarkable vocal versatility with which she manages to pass from the seductive voice of a mature woman to that of a capricious brat in a few moments.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One fan made comic (NSFW), located after EP5 features Battler creating the 6th game, but instead of the typical visual novel he creates a Fighting Game. It even says "Magic fighting game, Battle of the Golden Witch coming soon". Cue Umineko: Golden Fantasia.
  • In Episode 1, after Eva and Hideyoshi's murder, Battler yells and promises that he will grab the culprit by the collar before the end of the night. A few hours earlier he had done just that when he spoke to Kanon, who is also Beatrice.
  • While it's not known if it's an intentional Casting Gag, Marina Inoue and Yuu Kobayashi would play Master and Servant again in Maria†Holic, just with the roles reversed. Helped by the fact that the "mistress" is a blonde, the servant is stoic, and Mariya is a Creepy Crossdresser and Kanon is a facet of the personality of someone biologically male raised female (both voiced by Kobayashi).
• Ho Yay:
  • Lion's gender hasn't been officially confirmed, although the English fandom seems to be sure he/she's a guy. But to those who believe Lion is a guy, there appears to be some affection between Lion and Wright in EP7. Some fans even took to re-naming EP7 "Homolust of the Golden Witch".
  • Ronove seems to generate this with any other male character he interacts with due to No Sense of Personal Space; not only in the visual novel, but also in his ending with Battler◊ in Umineko: Golden Fantasia as well as his ending with George. In Virgilia's endings, she and Ange even ship RonoBato.
  • Played for Laughs with many of the male characters (and Lion) in "Angel of 17 Years".

I - L

• Iron Woobie:
  • Eva. It may have worked only once but she gives Kyrie a hell of a fight after she loses her family.
  • Battler as of Episode 6. Given what he had to go through in all the previous arcs and even in this one, it's nothing sort of awe-inspiring that he makes it out largely mentally and emotionally unscathed.
• It Was His Sled:
  • The first novel keeps it a mystery if there are supernatural elements at all. Battler playing mind chess against multiple time-traveling witches is the main part known about the novels, overshadowing the Mystery Fiction plot due to their hammy personalities, even if there's still ambiguity if that isn't a delusion.
  • No, Bernkastel is not a stoic neutral who sympathizes with the heroes. Good luck not knowing this before you start the series.
  • The existence of "Sayo Yasuda" and the fact that Shannon, Kanon, and Beatrice are alternate personas she created is also pretty known due to being the solution to the main mystery.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Eva may be a dog kicking Big Sister Bully, Female Misogynist, Evil Aunt, Education Mama and Rich Bitch who loves to annoy others constantly by insulting them for no reasons, but when you get down to it, like the life she lives in the future as the only survivor of the tragedy, hated by her niece until her death and continually discredited and offended by the media and society and with the unbearable pain of having lost her family forever, it is difficult not to feel a little compassion for her when you discover that she truly did want to try and love Ange as her daughter and tried to protect her for the rest of her life.
  • You can't help feeling sorry for Rosa after you come to learn of her sad childhood, the trauma she suffered as a young girl, of her Love Martyr tendencies, and being Struggling Single Mother. Her whole life was surrounded by the total lack of healthy love by her entire family, by the inexplicable hatred and negligence of her siblings towards her, by the sense of guilt and abandonment of a man with whom she hoped to build a loving family whom that she never had as a child. You'll feel sorry for infinite tortures and particularly sadistic and brutal deaths for the pure fun of Beatrice and the other witches. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that she treats Maria really bad when she's angry, although it becomes more understandable.
  • Beatrice may qualify as one in a particularly strange way in that the "Jerkass" part is deliberately invoked by her as she plays the part of the supposed Big Bad. The "Woobie" part comes from her true self, Sayo Yasuda, and what they truly seek to accomplish as amends to their family.
  • Erika is probably one straw short of being a mentally insane, Jerkass psychopath, but she earns a least a few Woobie points on account of her being Bern's abused piece and the few details of her backstory we're given that explain why she's the way she is. Though she does come to proudly embrace her more villainous side in EP8.
• Les Yay:
  • Lambdadelta x Bernkastel, which is actually canon. Lambda acts like a supernatural Stalker with a Crush, they like to talk about giving each other candy bath massages, and they've even both said they love each other.
  • One scene, though possibly just imagery, has young Eva smiling, with tears running down her face, as EVA places a hand on her bare chest.
  • Erika and Dlanor in Episode 6. Even if Erika is talking about her ex-boyfriend, the two nonetheless spend 5 minutes saying things like "I would give up my life for you" or "I present you 6 pieces of evidence that I still love you." Taken further by the end of Episode 8 where after Erika crosses a line that a pissed off Dlanor makes clear she will absolutely not forgive, Dlanor...forgives her anyway and is last heard pleading for Erika to come visit her and stir up some trouble again via letter.
  • There is also a bit of it between Ange and Mammon, due to them spending the majority of Episode 4 together taking about insecurities, especially in the manga.
• LGBT Fanbase: Between the obviously gay Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, the implied to be nonbinary Lion, and the transgender Sayo, to say that there's no small amount of LGBT fans in Umineko would be an understatement.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • In EP5 Natsuhi is set up to be incredibly suspicious in every way. Of course, she can't be the culprit.
  • After the series establishes that in the Meta-World Death Is Cheap, any time someone is supposedly Deader than Dead, fairly shortly they get fully revived when someone wills them back into existence..
• Love to Hate:
  • Bernkastel and Lambdadelta have several fans who adore them for being the shameless, sadistic, yet strangely lovable and hilarious Jerkasses that they are.
  • Eva-Beatrice. She does a wonderful job showing that things are going to get ugly when she is on-screen.
  • Yes, Erika is an unrepentant, insufferable bitch, and that's why so many people love her.
  • On one hand, many fans loathe Kinzo for how selfish, possessive, and abusive he is, and how he caused the ruin of his own family. On the other, his madness is widely considered to be entertaining as hell and makes him the source of much Memetic Mutation.

M - P

• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Beatrice the Golden Witch, is the magnificent witch weaving the tale through her magic. True name Sayo Yasuda, Yasu was a live-in maid and secret child of Kinzo and Beatrice II hidden away to protect her Kinzo. Discovering her heritage becoming Kinzo's successor, Yasu plotted a murder suicide plot for her family's sins, believing it'll take them to the Golden Land in death, secretly setting herself to be stopped by Battler. Winning Lambda's favor through her endless mysteries, they were sent to the Meta World upon death, using her domain to guide Battler to recall his sin and understand the truth, playing the charmingly evil witch Beatrice in a game of wit against Battler. Masterfully manipulating him and the Meta World residence, Beatrice had him understand the truth, while keeping her domain, cunningly stopping usurpers like Erika and Bernkastel, valiantly defending the Golden Land till the end, before being resurrected by Ange as planned to defeat Bernkastel, winning Featherine's favor, keeping the Golden Land, reaching her eternal happiness with Battler.
  • Featherine Augustus Aurora the Majestic Witch of Theatregoing, Drama and Spectating is Bernkastel's master, who's had a deep interest in the Cat Box of Rokkenjima. Soughing tales to relieve her boredom, Featherine planned to decipher the tale of the Golden Witch, sending Bernkastel to investigate the many mysteries while in the shadows trying to solve it herself as Ikuku Hachijo by using Ange. Granting the Game Master role to Bernkastel and learning the truth, Featherine plans to share it to the world, steering Ange to unseal the Book of One Truth to reveal it to the world. Intrigue by Ange and Battler overcoming Bernkastel, Featherine decides to concede after they won her respect, restoring the Golden Land and their denizens as she promise before defending their honor them from their offenders in the real world and using her power to protect the Golden Land by making sure no one can interfere their tale again.
  • Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty is the sponsor of Beatrice, responsible for her Game Board. Intrigue by Beatrice's magic system for her massacre, Lambda turned her into a Witch, giving her domain over her Game Board. Secretly using it to lure Bernkastel, Lambda manipulated Battler and Ange to force an eternal draw to trap Bernkastel, only failing due to Beatrice giving up, forcing Lambda and Bernkastel to usurp her, stealing the Game Master role. In charge, Lambda challenge Bernkastel and Battler to solve her game, giving the victory to Battler for his center will and Golden Truth, , leading to Bernkastel's humiliating loss to her delight. Joining Battler and Ange against Bern, Lambda used her powers to save Will and Lion and taking her allies to Featherine's realm, knowing it might cause her life. Even in defeat, Lambda's certain will was the catalyst for Ange and Battler to beat Bernkastel, and save the Golden Land.
  • "Death Sentence" Dlanor A. Knox, head inquisitor of the Eiserne Jungfrau is a feared executioner as the wielder of the "Knox's Ten Commandments". Dispatch to cases she's expected to execute, Dlanor was hired to be Erika's furniture. dilligenty and ruthlessly assisting in Erika's frame up of Natsuhi with the Knox's Commandments. Secretly hating her masters abusing the facts to their whim, she sets Battler to find the Golden Truth, forcing him against Erika. When he finds the Golden Truth as she planned, Dlanor has him to prove use it, ending in her defeat satisfied before returning to Erika's side to protect her as part of her duty. While a merciless inquisitor, Dlanor also shows she's a cunning and just warrior who upholds the honor of the truth no matter what.
  • "Last Note of the Golden Witch" Piece, the Witch of Pieces, is a witch bestowed by Featherine to battle Battler, Beatrice, and Ange in a game of wits to figure out her true identity. Actually Battler's deceased mother Asumu Ushiromiya, Asumu became embitter when she saw Rudolf marrying her rival Kyrie, casting blame upon Ange. Wanting revenge, Piece cruely set a game where the trio would witness Piece removing the existence of certain people and create a world where they all were happy, thanks to Asumu surviving and solving The Witch's Epitaph to bring peace to the family at the cost of Ange and Kyrie's place in it, aware Ange can't solve the mystery without admitting it. Outsmarting them, it's only after Piece emphasize with Ange that she decides to guide them to her true identity, realizing she misplaced her hatred. Her identity solved, Piece used her power to remove any traces of what happened to prevent the burden of knowing a bright future without Ange, giving a tearful goodbye to her son before departing in peace.
  • Tetsurō Okonogi is the guardian of Ange and right-hand of Eva planning to take control of the Ushiromoya Group no matter what. Taking over after Eva's death, Okonogi was to guide her heir, but Ange's unwillingness led discord. Seeing her an obstacles with Kasumi, he plans to have them killed, having Amakusa bodyguard Ange's secretly ordered to kill when the time came. Controlling the group he tricked Ange to Rokkenjima using her obsession of the massacre to bring his targets in isolation killing them in secret. When Ange travels back in time before the events, she either gives her position to him willing or kills Amakusa escaping him, leaving Okonogi in power regardless.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Rosa's moment of Last Stand at the end of EP2 got her many fans. And even an own game!
  • Kinzo, both in-universe and with the fandom, seems to be capable of just anything because he's just that crazy and awesome.
• Memetic Loser: If you looked at only Battler's memes, you'd swear he does nothing but constantly get trolled by Witches every single day of the week and mentioning small bombs on the other days.
• Memetic Mutation: Enough to warrant its own page.
• Memetic Troll:
  • Beatrice is pretty infamous for her trolling, more so than any of the other characters, even though her trolling nature is largely an act and Bernkastel is a far more cruel and merciless troll than she is.
  • Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are believed to be running a mind chess on top of a mind chess with their motives being some facade, as does Eriko Furuudo by extension.
• Mind Game Ship: Beato x Battler due to them playing actual mind games, but the story portrays it increasingly more romantic. Also Battler x Erika in a much darker sense of her trying to making him his as a prize.
• Moe:
  • Beatrice shows flashes of cuteness when she isn't cheerfully orchestrating murders and walking all over Battler. This starts happening more and more frequently from Episode 3 onwards. Also, White Day.
  • Sakutaro is just an adorable stuffed lion toy brought to life. To the point that the 7 Stakes go completely crazy whenever he shows up, wanting to cuddle him.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • When did you realize that Eva-Beatrice was a ugly, horrible and psychotic little monster? The repeated sadistic deaths of Maria and Rosa did it for a lot of people, especially when Beatrice of all people steps in to give them a Mercy Kill.
  • Rosa crossed the line in EP4 when she not only broke one of the ceramic rabbits she gave to Maria as a way to punish her disobedience and threatened to do the same to the other rabbits any time Maria didn't do as she was told, but brutally eviscerated and decapitated Sakutaro, who she'd also given to Maria to begin with, in an unreasonable rage at her daughter, cruelly declaring "Sakutaro is dead!". Keep in mind that she knew full well that Maria thought of these toys as her special friends and would in her mind take this like friends of hers being murdered right in front of her, and she did it anyway as a truly hideous act of child abuse.
  • Maria in turn (or rather MARIA, her witch incarnation), after taking a gruesome revenge on her mother with Beatrice's help, gets drunk on her newfound power and starts to even write down curses meant for harming others such as magic to injure a classmate so severely that they die or magic that would cause a bus full of her school bullies to fall over a cliff. After this point, in all games she has no moral qualms about basking openly in the suffering of her surviving relatives for the simple fact that they do not believe in magic and in Beatrice, so she thinks it justified that Beatrice exact bloody vengeance upon the family for their disbelief.
  • Kasumi Sumedera becomes a dog-kicking machine when she confronts Ange on Rokkenjima in EP4 with the intent of killing her, having her men beat her up and gleefully mocking everything written down in Maria's diary (that she mistakes for Ange's own) as she tears out page after page. But it's when she reaches the page with the Happiness Spell on it and, against tearful pleading from Ange to not defile it, rips the page out and completely destroys the diary that her cruelty becomes unforgivable.
  • Kinzo was always close to this trope because of his treatment of his family and the subverted Pater Familicide, but he still remained something of an Ensemble Dark Horse with some people thanks to his reputation. However, the revelations about Beatrice Ushiromiya, his daughter and the fact that he raped her and got her pregnant was the end of the road for many fans, and his Ensemble Dark Horse status plummeted as a result.
  • In EP6, Erika beheads five people to make sure that they're actually dead (which, it turns out, they weren't). And all in order to get revenge on Battler by trapping him in a Logic Error, and when offered by Bernkastel to marry the mentally imprisoned Battler as a trophy husband, fully intends to make the transition from "intellectual rapist" to actual rapist, proclaiming she'll regularly defile Battler's body and sexually humiliate him for her own pleasure, all while Beatrice will be caged up and unable to stop it. Even in-universe, Erika begins to embrace the label of villain following this.
  • EP7’s Tea Party has Rudolf and Kyrie cross it by revealing that they were the true culprits of the Rokkenjima massacre, callously killing off nearly everyone on the island just to hog the gold. Kyrie in particular brushes off Rudolf’s death and admits to never actually caring about Ange.
  • Bernkastel crossed it in the side story "The Witches' Tanabata", where she deliberately sabotages the steadily improving relationship between little Ange and her aunt Eva so that Ange clings to her resentment and belief that Eva murdered her family, and Eva's frustration would in turn make her more abusive towards Ange, all so that Ange could become a reliable pawn later on in her life.
• Narm: Enough to have its own page here.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Battler's theory about "small bombs" became a Memetic Mutation in the fandom due to how ridiculous it was. What most fans didn't realize is that Battler didn't actually believe this theory; he was just desperately fishing for ways to counter Beatrice's claims that the murders were done by magic so that he could defeat her, end their game and go back home to where he thinks his sister will be waiting for him. That still doesn't stop some fans from bringing up "SMALL BOMBS" as a way to make fun of Battler's reasoning skills.
  • Krauss can be at times sympathetic, genuine and sharp, but fans will never let him forget the moon tourism venture.
  • In-universe, Ange getting literally carved into mincemeat, twice, just keeps getting brought up. It's to the point where even Ange herself starts making snarky quips about it.
• Player Punch:
  • Ange is built up into an incredibly sympathetic character in EP4, due to her life being portrayed as hell, with her considering suicide on several occasions. Prepare to shed many tears.
  • Beatrice waking up from Angst Coma at the end of EP5, only to sacrifice herself ressurecting Battler.

R - U

• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Some fans really disliked Maria until the fourth Episode, when she revealed one hell of a Freudian Excuse and got around to Calling Rosa out for her abuse, though most of it was most likely all in her head.
  • It's also quite common and easy for many fans to despise Rosa in the first four Episodes for her Abusive Parents tendencies towards Maria and her clearly being the killer's accomplice in EP2. The latter four Episodes in Chiru, however, shows her as a more sympathetic and regretful character burdened with ill-fated romance with Maria's father, Beatrice Ushiromiya's death, and how level-headed she tried to be on the night of the Rokkenjima Massacre prior to being shot dead by Kyrie, and how much she loves her daughter and wants to make up for her failures as a mother is made clear in EP8 (in a way that calls back to her famed Mama Bear Last Stand with Maria in EP2). The manga adaptation of said Episode goes a step further by showing a brief background of a child Rosa who, just like Maria, has seen all her toys and dolls being cruelly destroyed and/or throw away by her siblings and remembering this gives Rosa the opportunity to atone for what she did to Sakutaro by using said toys and dolls to finally mend the bond with her daughter.
  • For the fans who weren't Rooting for the Empire, Erika becoming a more developed and pitiable character in EP6 and EP8 won over more than a handful of those who had despised her for her earlier Kick the Dog actions in EP5. Being more of an honest villain than the Parody Sue she started out as also helps, as her Love to Hate status has ironically made her one of the most popular characters in the series.
• Ron the Death Eater: A lot of readers remember Rosa only for her Abusive Mom relationship with Maria, and cheer during the The Many Deaths of You scenes with her. This often disregards that Rosa has been treated similarly in the family when she was young, holds regret for accidental death of Beatrice II, and admits herself being a failing Struggling Single Mother in a time period where neither Rosa nor Maria would get much support. By the end of the story, she's also one of the nicest of adults by comparison, an in Episodes other than 4 Maria herself shows awareness that Rosa is mentally unstable yet treated her well most of the time.
• Rooting for the Empire: Erika may be a Jerkass and a Parody Sue, but it wasn't entirely lost on some people that she spends most of End of the Golden Witch delivering logical Curb Stomps to Beatrice, who, until that point, had been a practically invincible torturer for the series.
• Salvaged Story: The manga adaptation of Episode 8 has some noteworthy ones:
  • Eva acknowledging the damage done to her relationship with Ange was her fault, not Ange's. Even if Ange tried to reject Eva as a parental figure and unknowingly denied Eva of any source of comfort from the accusations she was already getting, it was Eva's responsibility as an adult and Ange's new legal guardian to love and care for Ange instead of giving Ange a scapegoat to blame for the murders by acting horribly abusive to reinforce Ange's warped perception. To put it shortly, even if Eva had her own trauma to deal with, she should've tried harder with Ange.
  • By that same token, the rest of the Ushiromiya family coming to terms with their own sins. The quiz game at the Halloween party is replaced by hide and seek and in that time we see, aside from the above thoughts from Eva, Natsuhi and Beato/Yasu getting closure with each other over what Natsuhi did to baby Yasu in the past, Rosa realizing how she'd perpetuated the cycle of her own abuse onto Maria and starting to forge a stronger mother-daughter relationship with Maria to make amends, and a clearly shown fallout of Rudolf confessing his sin and the truth about Battler's parentage to Kyrie. To take it further, when Ange is reunited with the family in the Golden Land later on, while the visual novel glosses over the truth of the massacre and labels it unimportant, a point is made of how the Ushiromiya Family ultimately tore itself apart due to its members' own vices and sinful acts accumulated over the years finally giving way, and Kinzo openly holds himself accountable for sourcing everything that had gone wrong since the time he lost his mistress.
  • Realizing the implications of what Tohya Hachijo's (potentially accidentally) implied death at the end of EP8 would do to poor Ange, Ryukishi clarified in the final character profiles released in 2013 that he actually survived, which was made explicit by the manga adaptation two years later.
• Signature Series Arc: "Alliance of the Golden Witch" is well remembered, as it'd packed with emotional scenes like Ange's heartbreaking past and journey with the Seven Sisters of Purgatory, the additional backstory for Maria and introduction of Sakutaro, the all-out Red Truth VS Blue Truth battle between Beatrice and Battler at the end, and The Reveal that Bernkastel and Lambdadelta have been in cahoots as the true villains of the story
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first novel takes quite a while to establish everyone's characterization and relations. For a murder mystery, the first murder doesn't happen until way after the half-way point. The Episode itself also acts as a prologue and the very premise of the series is only made clear in the very last scenes.
• So Bad, It's Good: How a lot of people feel about the visual novel's original art due to Ryukishi's had-drawn character sprites, though the expressions are generally agreed to be awesome.
• Squick: Beatrice Ushiromiya, daughter of Beatrice Castiglione is also Kinzo's daughter. And he had a child with her. So this qualifies as Parental Incest.
• Stoic Woobie: Not only does Ange lose her parents and brother, but supplementary materials reveal that a certain witch manipulated her into not only hating the only relative she had left that doesn't want to kill her, but also locking away any form of happiness. She later veers into Not So Stoic after she learns from Bernkastel how her mother (who she loved more than anyone) never truly loved her and how Eva (who she hated more than anyone) wanted to protect her from the truth.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Even disregarding the whole Compressed Adaptation issue, there are many changes in the anime that fans can hardly forgive. In the last 2 minutes alone, Battler hugging Beatrice tenderly is left out, and Bern and Lambda's epic Evil Laugh is turned into a mischievous giggling. That hurts the emotional factor quite a lot.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Beatrice II has a very well written backstory and could easily take Sayo's place in timeline with her equally (if not more) strong motivations, yet she's a Posthumous Character and appears only in Rosa and Kinzo's flashbacks and the rest she is just mentioned a few times. Together with her mother, she does not appear in the finale in the Golden Land even once, despite being one of the 4 deceased characters connected to the past of Ushiromiyas.
  • Kinzo's wife is brought up a few times by most of the cast and could create some interesting family dynamics, yet she does not appear even once and is mentioned even less than Beatrice II, and is the only family member where pretty much nothign is known about her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Maria justifies Rosa's violent reactions to her as the actions of a Great Black Witch who possesses her in her moments of Unstoppable Rage, which is even addressed by fantasy characters, certain TIPS, and Umineko: Golden Fantasia as The Dreaded. Despite similarities with Eva and Yasuda in her personality and childhood, Rosa's Enemy Without witch persona like EVA-Beatrice never actually manifests.
• Toy Ship: Sakutaro's mutually-adoring relationship with Maria makes them a target of pairings.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Given how dysfunctional the family is, several members have their moments when given spotlight on their shadier actions.
  • EP3 as Eva's focus episode portrays her as a Self-Made Woman who tried to grow out of sexism in the family. The same Episode shows Eva being a Big Sister Bully to Rosa for petty reasons, and insulting Natushi and Shannon with even worse misogyny than she has been through. This is also the Episode where EVA-Beatrice is the Arc Villain, who Battler argues doesn't exist and is still Eva. Adding to the explanation in EP7 and EP8 that she is partially responsible for the tragedy, but chose to be a Silent Scapegoat, many found it's not a justification for making Ange's life in EP4 a living hell, yet the narrative expects Ange to be more understanding. The manga version of EP8 tries to fix this by making her remorseful for the abuse.
  • Natushi is positioned as the protagonist of the game in EP5, constantly proclaiming her goal to "uphold the Ushiromiya honor", and has to deal with several deaths (including her daughter and husband) that the newcomer Erika proceeds to falsely pin on her. However, the crux of the game is her hiding Kinzo's death to help Krauss' embezzlement, all the while hypocritically chastising Krauss' siblings as greedy for wanting Kinzo's inheritance to fix their own financial issues, and flying into a self-victimizing outrage whenever they start accurately guessing what she’s hiding. She also later admits to killing a servant and (seemingly) a baby out of frustration that she was tasked with raising the latter after Kinzo shamed her for failing to conceive her own child for years. It can be a bit hard to feel all that sorry for her even when Erika turns almost the entire family against her with false accusations, especially when her own stubborn refusal to admit Kinzo's death helps push her into into a corner.
  • We are asked to feel some level of pity and compassion for Kinzo in EP7 due to his Dark and Troubled Past prior to becoming the Ushiromiya family head, how deeply he loved his late mistress, Beatrice Castigloni and how much he wanted to atone for how he'd treated his deceased daughter. But for many, this is practically impossible not only for how horribly we'd seen Kinzo treat his still living family before now, but because this exact same arc reveals that he'd become so infatuated with the resemblance that his secret teenage daughter had with her dead mother and so overcome with the delusion of her being her reincarnation that he raped her and got her pregnant with a child, which would mean she gave birth to her own sibling since they'd share the same father. This revelation also makes Kinzo's Entitled to Have You attitude about Beatrice all the more disgusting and makes us very hard to feel any form of empathy for him. This is somewhat alleviated in the manga where in the final arc, Kinzo acknowledges that he still had no good excuse for how he'd acted following his gravest sin, combined with all the women (especially Rosa, Eva and Natsuhi) around him that he had neglected and mistreated very badly, ruining his still living relations and allowed his own family to rot from the inside, he'd gone to his grave having not truly atoned for anything after all, for which he is now truly, genuinely remorseful.
  • Many fans may find it hard to be as forgiving of Rudolf as the story seems to be not just for his part in the family massacre along with Kyrie, but how he'd swapped his then-wife Asumu's stillborn baby out for Kyrie's healthy baby boy, Battler, cheating Kyrie out of raising her own biological son and then never confessing this dark secret for years, allowing the family dynamic to be strained. The display of him as Rosa's Big Brother Bully in the manga doesn't win him any points either.
  • The culprit, Sayo Yasuda, and by extensions their characters Beatrice, Shannon and Kanon. Although undeniably not without legitimate problems and reasons to hate Kinzo and his children, they have been planning a family mass murder-suicide, also killing those who are unrelated to their issues or even sympathize with them. Primarily because Battler, back then a teenager with hormones, has made a romantic promise to them and forgot about it. Yasuda is even explicitly told it's not uncommon with boys, and they are aware Battler has been preoccupied by the drama with his dad. Yet, they romance both George and Jessica using different personas, while still waiting for Battler, and have been using Maria's problems with Rosa and her love for magic to slowly shape her into an accomplice for murders under false promises. As Beatrice, she grinds Battler through hell, metaphorically and literally several times, while mocking any regards for human life or decency, yet feels offended when he still doesn't understand what she wants because she wouldn't tell. Yet, the narrative insists that Battler was actually the one torturing her, and he himself believes so and even marries her in the Meta-World. After Bernkastel takes over, her portrayal becomes nothing but heroic and tragic. Many readers have accused Ryukishi07 of emotional manipulation to sympathize, pity and love a serial killer, whose stated problem comes more from their own misunderstanding.
  • Genji's Undying Loyalty towards Kinzo and later Sayo may seem at times very noble were it not that this leads him to assisting Sayo in keeping their fictions afloat through blackmail and threats throughout the various games, even personally committing some of the murders. Not to mention the fact that years ago, after Natsuhi accidentally pushes Lion/Sayo off the cliff, he rescues the baby with Nanjo's help and decides to hide his survival, only raise him as a girl in an orphanage that basically existed as a factory aimed at providing with constant servants for Ushiromiya family, granting her considerable, and undeserved privileges despite her clumsiness and ignorance, over the other maids there, which had the obvious consequence of leading the young Sayo to be bullied for much of her early childhood and adolescence, planning to later to reintroduce her as the true family heir, to the same people who have caused her mother's death and almost her own.
• The Un Twist: In EP6 Battler right from the start says that 1. It's explicitly unknown if victims were dead by the time of discovery. 2. Erika has checked all corpses in person off-screen. 3. Erika doesn't have the Detective's Authority and joins the suspect list. A lot of players were waiting for his master plan, until it turns out that he had a more innocent twist in mind and he gets Out-Gambitted by the reveal everyone have already predicted.

V - Z

• Values Dissonance:
  • In EP1, during the first instance of Rosa's abusive behaviour towards Maria where she slaps Maria for saying her Verbal Tic over and over again, Battler tries to interfere on Maria's behalf, but George stops him, saying that this is a "family problem" and Battler should stay out of it. This reflects the Japanese attitude that child abuse is something that only the family members who are involved should deal with, and it isn't anyone else's business. However, the narrative itself doesn't necessarily condone this view (as evidenced in EP4, when social services tries to get involved but Rosa angrily turns them away).
  • In EP4, it's shown that Rosa often leaves Maria at home by herself, making many western fans wonder why she can't at least hire a babysitter. In Japan it's actually extremely rare for anyone aside from a grandparent to supervise one's children if the parents are unable to watch them (and considering what Kinzo is like and how far away he lives, it's unlikely that Rosa would consider him as an option), and a demand for babysitters has grown since then, especially since the time of Maria's flashback.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: For a male servant, Kanon's appearance can be seen as slightly feminine and not too different from his twin sister Shannon. This is one of the early hints they are not just twins but are the same person.
• The Woobie:
  • In EP5, Natsuhi starts to lose her sanity after Kinzo dies, is forced to confront a less than pleasant aspect of her past (one that she's already repented for), her only daughter (and the only result of numerous failed attempts at conception) Jessica is murdered, her husband Krauss is kidnapped, forcing her to obey the mysterious man claiming to be her missing son. Not only does Krauss die anyway, but she is framed for all the murders, and gets beaten up by a very pissed off Eva and Battler is the only one who even tries to intervene. She gets accused of cheating on her husband and having a sexual relationship with Kinzo. Then Bernkastel brutally tells her in her that everything she knows about Kinzo was all a delusion on her part and he never supported her. They basically make her life hell in that Episode.
  • Sakutarou is one of the few characters who doesn't have any malicious tendencies or a fragile psyche, he was basically Maria's Only Friend and was constantly trying to cheer her up by telling her that her mother loved her very much and was busy working for her. And then Rosa, their mother, goes and rips him apart right in front of Maria, then makes it worse by declaring to Maria "Sakutarou is dead", which made it impossible for Beatrice to revive him. At least until Ange managed to do so in 1998.
  • Clair exists solely as yet another of Bernkastel's pieces, meant solely to shoulder the responsibilities and sins of Beatrice as her stand-in. Despite supposedly lacking a personality, she wishes for her counterpart Lion Ushiromiya, the person that Yasu may have become if Natsuhi accepted the child instead of becoming Beatrice to be happy and live a happy life for her sake and all the Beatrices of every world. She then asks for Will to kill her, now that her task is complete, only for Bernkastel to bring her back solely to gloat that Lion will die anyway, before having her guts torn out of her stomach.
  • Beatrice II's mother died giving birth to her. At a very young age she was shut in Kuwadorian and forbidden to leave. She grows up living a comfortable, but boring and empty life, knowing very little about the outside world and having only Kinzō and a few servants to talk to. While she is still a teenager, she is raped and impregnated by her maddened father, becoming a mother without understanding what's happening to her. And when her pre-teen half-sister finally comes to get her out of her prison, she doesn't get to spend 2 hours in the outside world before slipping off the cliff and dying anonymously, as though she had never existed. Even Rosa represses her memories of their meeting. In other words, she is pitiful from her birth to even after her death.
• Woolseyism: There are several moments that involve Japanese wordplay (like the Epitath and a few riddles in Episode 8). The translation alters them slightly to make sense in English, while keeping the theme of the questions and the solutions the same.

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