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Review of Umineko no Naku Koro ni

SubjectUmineko no Naku Koro ni
ByHelpfulness: 8
Vote: 6.6
dastruller on 2022-05-08
ReviewI tried my hardest to not include any spoilers into this review.

Umineko lies to the reader. It presents itself as a mystery story, with a rather mature setting and a chilling atmosphere, only to devolve into a character-focused drama show riddled with clichés and at times arbitrary rules.

The novel draws a lot of inspiration from Agatha Christie's "And then there were none", with the common setting of people stranded on an island where a series of murders happen, but with a different cast composition - instead of total strangers we have the wealthy Ushiromya family and their servants. Across the episodes the audience gets to intimately know the characters and their deeply rooted flaws. This adds a lot more weight to the story, especially after murders are committed. The voice acting is absolutely brilliant, always in character and filled with pathos. The soundtrack doesn't pop, and is rather simplistic from a melodic standpoint, which is perfect as it does not distract from the story or voice acting, and enhances the current mood be it tension or tranquility. With time you get to love it. One way the author radically enhances the original formula is by adding the notion of a witch, to which the Ushiromyas are indebted. This single detail adds a whole new dimension to the story, making the reader constantly question the existence of this supranatural being, and whether it's responsible for the occurring murders or not. The family head is on his deathbed and the children are greedy for his riches, while at the same time there is a prophecy of the witch wanting to take her loan to the Ushiromyas back - with interest. That is unless someone can solve an epitaph, case in which they keep all the inheritance. The conflicts are numerous, the stakes are high, and the story is a blast to get into.

Having painted the outline of such a magnificent story, you may wonder why am I giving such a rash rating? I have a few reasons, but they all revolve around a central flaw that is its length. "And then there were none" is a 6 hour long audiobook, focusing only on the mystery. Umineko interweaves character-focus into the story, and stretches everything to around 150 hours of reading, give or take. That's enough time to read Agatha's book 25 times, and that's assuming a slow reader!

This however may not be a fair comparison, as Umineko is split into 8 roughly equal episodes, each following a different yet similar subplot. Basically each episode contains a mystery to be solved that hints clues for the solution of the core one. The first 4 episodes, the "question arcs", give clues that lead to even more questions, while the last 4 episodes, the "answer arcs", gives clues that reduce the accumulated backlog of questions.

Even so, 150 hours is way too much time to spend on character dramas and character backstories. And it shows:
- I mentioned at the beginning that this novel lies to the reader. What is in the first episode a pure mystery novel, gradually morphs itself into a drama tale where the core mystery is of tangential importance. Which wouldn't be bad per se if the author didn't overstretch it so much. The ample space is used to tie in various ideas and subjects with some degree of connection to the core theme. One of the main techniques used is the "flashback" trope, except here instead of brief flashbacks we have entire blocks of exposition jammed into the middle of the story.
- The maturity of the dialogue becomes more and more juvenile and "shounen" the further you get into the episodes, mainly due to the newly presented characters, which are quite a few. Episode 4 in particular was exceptionally insufferable as it featured two of the most annoyingly childish characters (one of which is Maria) in lengthy segments. I've noticed a few anime tropes that weren't integral to the story at all but were there anyway. Mind you, skipping sections with the CTRL key is a bit wonky, since you go forward very fast but can't rewind as easily (in contrast with the manga version).
- The length itself sabotages the reader's determination to actually think analytically about the riddle of the epitaph. When you have such a big haystack of words, it's discouraging to find the needle that actually leads you to the solution. Having to take notes isn't fun and powering through becomes a tempting strategy. Which is a complete pity because the voice acting is STELLAR, but one can't help especially when the story is so... sparse at times.
- As I mentioned, each episode contains it's own mystery to be solved. On paper this sounds great, as there's more mystery packed into the novel. In practice, these sub-mysteries serve primarily as scaffolding onto which character conflict and drama can take place. They're repetitive in their formula, and, with respect to the core mystery, feel more and more pointless throughout the episodes.
- The "rollercoaster ride" moments are predictable with regards to their placement within each episode. In the later episodes it almost feels methodic. Sometimes pre-established rules are invalidated in order to create plot twists and surprise... at the great expense of my suspension of disbelief. These times are when this novel feels furthest from a mystery novel, and rather more like a shounen action title.
- The ending is unsatisfactory, at least for a mystery fan.

Lastly, the narrative is open-ended which leaves a lot of room for interpretation/speculation. Some people say some details become clearer on a second read. I say it's ludicrous enough to read all the way through the end once. Within episode 6 I switched to the manga version since I could not stand the pointless drama anymore and simply wished to wrap up the story ASAP. This novel is strongest in its first 2-3 episodes, and then starts to decline sharply with episode 4. I personally think that if all that prose were condensed into a 2-3 volume book, it would be a better product.

Many commenters say that yes, it's a big time investment, but it's totally worth it. I made that investment, and sadly, it wasn't worth it for me. This review is a way for me to cope for the time lost.
8 points
#1 by plisken
2022-05-11 at 05:21
< report >Wasn't worth it for me either. While I kind of liked the question arcs, the answer arcs devolved into such heavy-handed metafiction that I got the impression of the author huffing his own farts and patting himself on the back. By the end, I wanted to punch him in the face for wasting my time.

Higurashi was ... meh, but it didn't outright anger me like this mess. I have no idea why this is so loved.
#2 by dastruller
2022-05-15 at 11:09
< report >I have 2 theories regarding the high rating:

1. Survivorship bias
According to steam stats:
- 72% of players that began episode 1 got to finish the first episode
- 40% of players that finished episode 1 got to finish the entire question arcs.
- ratio of comments QA vs AA is about 2:1, so I presume about half of the players have stopped at QA
- 42% of players that finished episode 5 got to finish the entire answers arc.
So if we put those numbers back to back, and my math doesn't suck, 8.4% of players that finished episode 1 actually got to play through the whole 8 episodes.

The rationale is that if you did not finish the novel, you're less likely to review it. So most of the reviews are from people that "survived" the entire length of these 4/8 episodes, and the reason they did is because they greatly enjoyed it.

2. Wrong demographic
I'm in my mid 20s and working full time, but I think the target demographic is middle schooler, maybe even early high schooler. The time investment is expensive for me, but negligible for someone that has summer breaks. Some of the tropes used are annoying at my age, but neutral or OK for a pupil. Expectations of hard rules and consistency are a requirement for adult audiences, but only optional for younger ones.

It could be that this is the type of novel one can enjoy only at a young age.Last modified on 2022-05-15 at 11:54
#3 by Ninius
2022-05-15 at 15:41
< report >@dastruller, lmao you really think too highly of yourself. I'm in my 30s and this is my fave vn after FataMoru. I think the themes just aren't for you as an individual. For me the story is very thought provoking and heavy with subjects that I enjoy pondering about. Just because you don't enjoy/understand something, doesn't mean it's meant for teens. You just sound very immature with your speculations.
#4 by forever-here
2022-05-15 at 16:25
< report >@3 doesn't disprove anything. that just means you're the minority and there's nothing wrong with that. the majority of normies are doing, well, normie stuff.
#5 by Ninius
2022-05-15 at 18:39
< report >Edit: stupid comment, can't remove so I edit.Last modified on 2022-05-15 at 18:42
#6 by dostedt
2022-05-19 at 06:08
< report >I think this review hit on a lot of the points I would have said. However, many of the problems mentioned here apply more to the answer arcs, which would fall into the Chiru entry, not this one. Regardless, I do agree with much of it. The question arcs were sometimes really engaging and fun. I remember when each chapter was being released individually and the fun theory crafting I did on another website.

I think as someone who spent a lot of time invested in each chapter as it was being released, it was a real insult when the answer chapters just felt rushed and shitty. (I do understand that R07 was dealing with a death IRL that really affected him, so I don't mean to insinuate that he should have pushed out some masterpiece conclusion quickly. I think he should have taken more time and not taken out some of his grief out on his fans). Heck, my favorite fan theory of the time, Rosatrice, was a much better answer than what was given.Last modified on 2022-05-19 at 06:09
#7 by dastruller
2022-07-10 at 12:35
< report >@6 thank you for your input! I wasn't aware of the author's circumstances.

You made me realize that our experiences were in a way fundamentally different by virtue of when we consumed the novel. You had the community side of things where you could socially engage with other fans, and the episodic release schedule helped with making the novel not feel too repetitive. In contrast, I couldn't engage online at all, due to the risk of getting spoilers, and the way I read through the episodes was pretty much back-to-back.

I think I now get why some people loved this novel so much. It's a shame though that I and the rest that got into this novel AFTER it was finished will never have the chance to enjoy it at that level. We're doomed to read it in isolation.

I agree that some aspects of the review apply to Chiru, though I felt it's better to have it written here since, in my opinion, this and Chiru are two halves of a whole. There should be one review section for both of these.