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Let's Play Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episode 1 Chapter 5
Episode 1 Chapter 5 – Riveting Economics
Lunch time! Battler ponders his Uncle Krauss.
Guess there's not much tension between members of the Ushiromiya family! Everybody seems to be getting along and having a great time, whatever past conflicts they've had put to bed. This is really a great family. Still, Battler's thoughts turn to old granddad.
...Yeah, I. I have to agree, it'd be awesome if Kinzo were called Goldsmith for some reason. Oh, well. Battler recalls a bit of the history of the Ushiromiya family, and why Kinzo's such a big deal. The Ushiromiya family had been extremely wealthy for a long, long time, well before the turn of the century. Kinzo, far from being an obvious choice for the next Head, had actually been born a member of a distant branch family. But that came to an end in the 1920s.
A young Kinzo was unsuspectingly promoted several hundred ranks within the family, which would have been nice if it hadn't coincided with the family's bankruptcy. He was burdened with the impossible task of restoring the Ushiromiya family to its former wealth, power, and glory from scratch. And after a while, World War II came and went...
By juggling loans and taking business gambles left and right, seeming like a lunatic at the time, Kinzo managed against all odds to make just the right deals at just the right times, getting in good with those in power and raking in a fortune from them as business partners. Within 20 years of becoming the Head, he managed to rebuild the ruined family from nothing to being even richer and more powerful than they'd been before the earthquake. It was a full-fledged miracle; he has a well-earned reputation as an unstoppable economic genius to this day, and perhaps the most important Head in the family's history. But despite the fact that Battler himself is the one telling this story, he has an important observation about it:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIING
Because this is 07th Expansion and not Type-Moon, there's a semi-reasonable amount of gushing about the food, but I'm still gonna mostly skip it. Bottom line: holy FUCK Gohda is the best chef in the universe. Everyone falls madly in love with every dish. Oh, and Kumasawa tells the kids that the dessert is made of mackerel when it clearly isn't, WHAT A CARD
After lunch, the adults shuttle the kids outside so they can have tea and a bit of a talk. The kids want to play outside, anyway, since they won't get another chance with the storm coming. So off they go, and the adults...
Dispense with the pleasantries.
The family conference is a financial meeting, so it's high time they got started on that.
Natsuhi is extremely offended on Kinzo's behalf, and will basically remain so indefinitely, but there's no avoiding it. They're here, primarily, to discuss the inheritance. Since Nanjo is still around, Eva asks him for his current estimate as to how long Kinzo has. Natsuhi flares back up.
The truth is, while the in-laws generally try to be the voice of reason, most of Kinzo's actual offspring can't wait for him to keel over. Eva makes the least effort to hide it.
Krauss claims he thinks Kinzo seems to be in the peak of health, actually, but Rudolf shoots him down.
Maybe he was right to scream about his children being vultures. Natsuhi yet again tries to shut this whole conversation down to preserve a modicum of her father-in-law's dignity...
But Eva's opinion is that, since Natsuhi isn't a blood relative, maybe she should shut the fuck up. It's at this point that Nanjo wisely excuses himself. Now it's all in the family.
Krauss is vaguely on his wife's side, but he's a lot more indirect about avoiding the conversation.
The suspicion is raised that maybe he's hiding something. Natsuhi predictably gets mad again.
For complicated economic reasons, tourism is apparently a big growth industry in Japan at the moment. That's why Krauss is trying to open a resort on Rokkenjima.
Delsney Land. That's... pretty lawyer-friendly.
Also, that's bullshit. Krauss is just investing massively in dubious, hyperoptimistic predictions. The truth is, he's shoveling money into the furnace.
His main problem is that everyone he tries to make a deal with, ever, winds up ripping him off. Krauss's policy when it comes to business is to believe basically everything he hears. But there's a bigger problem. The rest of the siblings got together and planned in advance of this meeting, and that meant researching Krauss. His claims about how he's funded all this don't add up. It's not just that he's lost a lot of money. It's not even just that he's lost more money than he actually had, himself.
He's lost more money than anyone would ever feasibly lend him, given his track record of fuckups.
It's on. This was their plan of attack from the beginning.
Natsuhi has fucking had it. She tries to full-on kick Eva out of the mansion.
Not necessarily a wise move, though, Natsuhi. If you thought Eva was a snake before, good job pissing off the king cobra.
Natsuhi is literally speechless. She's always been extremely dedicated to the Ushiromiya family, proud to have entered into it; the old “borrowed womb” ideology, the idea that she's a worthless outsider, has been the cornerstone of all her insecurities since before Jessica was born. Eva sniffed out that psychological weakness and attacked it without a shred of restraint.
Yes, they're actually writing her crying down as “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.” At any rate, Natsuhi runs out of the room in tears. Krauss doesn't go after her. On the way to locking herself in her bedroom, she runs into Kumasawa, who, like with Shannon and Kanon, finds herself musing about Natsuhi's troubles.
This is why Hideyoshi was allowed to join the Ushiromiya family instead of Eva joining his. Eva had intended her firstborn—George, of course—to be the successor, snatching head family status away from Krauss, who had always lorded his power over her. Natsuhi may as well have been dirt for marrying in and not immediately producing a child (given the chauvinist traditions Kinzo enforced, no one stopped to consider that maybe Krauss was the one with fertility problems). But eventually, Jessica was born after all, and little George was no longer the second successor. Eva's dreams for her beloved son vanished, and she blamed Natsuhi. To understate it magnificently, bitter contention over the inheritance didn't first get its start here in Kinzo's twilight years. The Ushiromiya family has been at war with itself for a long time...
Lunch time! Battler ponders his Uncle Krauss.
Guess there's not much tension between members of the Ushiromiya family! Everybody seems to be getting along and having a great time, whatever past conflicts they've had put to bed. This is really a great family. Still, Battler's thoughts turn to old granddad.
...Yeah, I. I have to agree, it'd be awesome if Kinzo were called Goldsmith for some reason. Oh, well. Battler recalls a bit of the history of the Ushiromiya family, and why Kinzo's such a big deal. The Ushiromiya family had been extremely wealthy for a long, long time, well before the turn of the century. Kinzo, far from being an obvious choice for the next Head, had actually been born a member of a distant branch family. But that came to an end in the 1920s.
A young Kinzo was unsuspectingly promoted several hundred ranks within the family, which would have been nice if it hadn't coincided with the family's bankruptcy. He was burdened with the impossible task of restoring the Ushiromiya family to its former wealth, power, and glory from scratch. And after a while, World War II came and went...
By juggling loans and taking business gambles left and right, seeming like a lunatic at the time, Kinzo managed against all odds to make just the right deals at just the right times, getting in good with those in power and raking in a fortune from them as business partners. Within 20 years of becoming the Head, he managed to rebuild the ruined family from nothing to being even richer and more powerful than they'd been before the earthquake. It was a full-fledged miracle; he has a well-earned reputation as an unstoppable economic genius to this day, and perhaps the most important Head in the family's history. But despite the fact that Battler himself is the one telling this story, he has an important observation about it:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIING
Because this is 07th Expansion and not Type-Moon, there's a semi-reasonable amount of gushing about the food, but I'm still gonna mostly skip it. Bottom line: holy FUCK Gohda is the best chef in the universe. Everyone falls madly in love with every dish. Oh, and Kumasawa tells the kids that the dessert is made of mackerel when it clearly isn't, WHAT A CARD
After lunch, the adults shuttle the kids outside so they can have tea and a bit of a talk. The kids want to play outside, anyway, since they won't get another chance with the storm coming. So off they go, and the adults...
Dispense with the pleasantries.
The family conference is a financial meeting, so it's high time they got started on that.
Natsuhi is extremely offended on Kinzo's behalf, and will basically remain so indefinitely, but there's no avoiding it. They're here, primarily, to discuss the inheritance. Since Nanjo is still around, Eva asks him for his current estimate as to how long Kinzo has. Natsuhi flares back up.
The truth is, while the in-laws generally try to be the voice of reason, most of Kinzo's actual offspring can't wait for him to keel over. Eva makes the least effort to hide it.
Krauss claims he thinks Kinzo seems to be in the peak of health, actually, but Rudolf shoots him down.
Maybe he was right to scream about his children being vultures. Natsuhi yet again tries to shut this whole conversation down to preserve a modicum of her father-in-law's dignity...
But Eva's opinion is that, since Natsuhi isn't a blood relative, maybe she should shut the fuck up. It's at this point that Nanjo wisely excuses himself. Now it's all in the family.
Krauss is vaguely on his wife's side, but he's a lot more indirect about avoiding the conversation.
The suspicion is raised that maybe he's hiding something. Natsuhi predictably gets mad again.
For complicated economic reasons, tourism is apparently a big growth industry in Japan at the moment. That's why Krauss is trying to open a resort on Rokkenjima.
Delsney Land. That's... pretty lawyer-friendly.
Also, that's bullshit. Krauss is just investing massively in dubious, hyperoptimistic predictions. The truth is, he's shoveling money into the furnace.
His main problem is that everyone he tries to make a deal with, ever, winds up ripping him off. Krauss's policy when it comes to business is to believe basically everything he hears. But there's a bigger problem. The rest of the siblings got together and planned in advance of this meeting, and that meant researching Krauss. His claims about how he's funded all this don't add up. It's not just that he's lost a lot of money. It's not even just that he's lost more money than he actually had, himself.
He's lost more money than anyone would ever feasibly lend him, given his track record of fuckups.
It's on. This was their plan of attack from the beginning.
Natsuhi has fucking had it. She tries to full-on kick Eva out of the mansion.
Not necessarily a wise move, though, Natsuhi. If you thought Eva was a snake before, good job pissing off the king cobra.
Natsuhi is literally speechless. She's always been extremely dedicated to the Ushiromiya family, proud to have entered into it; the old “borrowed womb” ideology, the idea that she's a worthless outsider, has been the cornerstone of all her insecurities since before Jessica was born. Eva sniffed out that psychological weakness and attacked it without a shred of restraint.
Yes, they're actually writing her crying down as “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.” At any rate, Natsuhi runs out of the room in tears. Krauss doesn't go after her. On the way to locking herself in her bedroom, she runs into Kumasawa, who, like with Shannon and Kanon, finds herself musing about Natsuhi's troubles.
This is why Hideyoshi was allowed to join the Ushiromiya family instead of Eva joining his. Eva had intended her firstborn—George, of course—to be the successor, snatching head family status away from Krauss, who had always lorded his power over her. Natsuhi may as well have been dirt for marrying in and not immediately producing a child (given the chauvinist traditions Kinzo enforced, no one stopped to consider that maybe Krauss was the one with fertility problems). But eventually, Jessica was born after all, and little George was no longer the second successor. Eva's dreams for her beloved son vanished, and she blamed Natsuhi. To understate it magnificently, bitter contention over the inheritance didn't first get its start here in Kinzo's twilight years. The Ushiromiya family has been at war with itself for a long time...
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OH BOY
MURDERS