Umineko Thoughts: Episode 1, Complete

Ep 1 DONE !!!! and i have Thoughts and Theories and I am rotating Battler around inside my head. That felt like a full complete visual novel except I still have no idea what’s going on :)

The game seems to be taunting me for trying to use standard murder mystery tropes here. This is great!

I’m waiting for someone to be killed using a bladed weapon so I can make a below the cut joke.

• What could possibly be a motive for this?
  • If we assume all the bodies are real, and everyone truly did die, then the existence of a 19th person is all but confirmed. But it would be cheap for there to just be ‘another unrelated person really hates the Ushiromiya family to the point of starting some elaborate game to really them out… but no, this is far too elaborate for that.
  • It’s very difficult to construct a motive for anyone other than Kinzo, at least based on what I know so far. I suppose it could be one or more of the servants, but all their deaths have been fairly convincing, at least to my knowledge, whereas Kinzo’s has… not, exactly.

• Why did Eva’s body have her shoes on?? My reading of the scene is that she and Hideyoshi were having sex, but then Hideyoshi went to have a shower. It seems at least somewhat strange that Eva would put her shoes on directly then, yet still be lying in the bed. Was Eva’s body a double?

• But then spinning the chessboard around (heh): surely if any of the definite bodies are faked, the police would figure that out? (aside from maybe Kinzo, sure). In the final chapter we see that the police investigate the bodies, and can’t ID the ones ‘torn apart by demons’ but there’s no mention of the others.

• How reliable even is the final chapter’s message? If it’s written by Maria, that… isn’t the most trustworthy source, but… who knows at this point.

• I find it very interesting that the Beatrice seen in the Tea Party / ???? also shares that Kihihihihihihihihihihi laugh with Maria. I had been assuming that some of the post-death descriptions were written by Maria but it makes sense for them to be written by Beatrice but
  • but Beatrice isn’t real.
  • AAAAH
• Where do I even start with the Tea Party / ??????? scenes. I appreciate the help, Bernkastel, but you’ll forgive me for not fully trusting you or thinking you even exist but
  • how do I even interpret this. This isn’t … ‘really’ happening so can I draw anything from this? Is the author just pointing and laughing at me? What is going on????
  • Because there appears to be some sort of actual plot going on here and aaaaaa.

• It’s possible, I suppose, that Kinzo built this entire mansion around this deathtrap, with traps and secret doors etc etc to do all of the miracles. But WHY. And how do we explain the behavior of Maria? Or the smoking gun?

• Another question on my mind: where did this epitaph even come from. Did Kinzo write it? It’s not looking great for Kinzo, but… why…. I know he disliked his children but not that much to essentially eliminate the Ushiromiya family…

• The GOLD?»» I think at this point it has to be real, at least knowing Beatrice’s backstory… but is it possible to be found? Would that really have stopped the murders? I don’t see how we can ever know…

• My brain is soup.

• On to episode 2.