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Let's Play Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episode 1 Chapter 7
Episode 1 Chapter 7 – Mother of the Year
Been trying to puzzle the epitaph out? Don't worry, so have the cousins. Also unless you're fluent in Japanese and want to look up the original, untranslated text you're literally never going to solve it. Did I forget to mention that? WHOOPS. Guess that's the trouble with taking a riddle from one language and converting it to another. Wordplay, man. Of course, even if you were perfectly bilingual, there's other knowledge you couldn't possibly have yet that factors into your ability to solve the epitaph. When Kinzo said he made it as hard as he could, he wasn't fucking around; this thing is the Battletoads of riddles. It's not even fair.
George and Jessica have made their effort to solve it plenty of times and are mostly resolved to having no goddamn idea. Battler, though, is both new to this game and possessed of an inquisitive mind, so he's going at the thing like it's a pair of boobs. The others participate mainly as a sounding board to listen to his theories.
This train of thought is wrong, because it was the main family that lived in Odawara and Kinzo was nowhere near them as a kid. None of the cousins (nor you, the audience!) have any idea what Kinzo's actual hometown is, so they chase this wild goose and have a lot of irrelevant discussion of Odawara's geography with regards to rivers, shores, and villages.
Shannon pops in with some (not really) helpful insight. She denies having done any research trying to solve the epitaph herself, though.
Ah, there's the ticket. Battler's just retracing the obvious steps everybody else has already taken, and this is as far as they've gotten. The fifth line, about the “key,” tells them nothing at this point. There's nothing obviously keylike about the region their reasoning has taken them to, nor does the Ushiromiya family have any known history there. But again, they were on the wrong track from the start here, as they finally realize.
And on top of that, they're doing a terrible job of entertaining the small child present. It's time to move o--
NOPE. Battler tends to get good and engaged when he wants to figure out a puzzle. His theory is that since the riddle is so clearly separated into stages, if they're stumped on the first, it should be possible to at least get an idea of what the second one is about and see what this “key” is supposed to do.
But man, it's time to acknowledge that this thing gets pretty fucking macabre. Nothing but ritual sacrifices and black magicks after that beginning bit.
Maria seems unnervingly okay with this.
Kinzo sure does have a creepy imagination, right! Am I right? I'm right. Haha, everybody dying in some demonic ritual... ha.
But it sounds like after the sacrifices are complete, all the damage will be undone at the conclusion of the ritual, including laying the witch back to rest. And in exchange you get all kinds of gold to keep! It sounds like a good deal for someone who believes in magic and is a delusional sociopath.
Let's just quietly pretend I didn't just describe Kinzo.
But seriously, WITCHES, RIGHT? That magic isn't real is so patently obvious only the socially stunted and insane would ever even entertain the notion that there could ever conceivably be any manner of witch on Rokkenjima.
Maria will uu-uu a bitch if Battler and Jessica don't stop talkin' shit about Beatrice.
Despite seeing what Beatrice supposedly looks like in the portrait, Battler still hears the word “witch” and pictures the Wicked Witch of the West or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. Maria's idea of a witch is more like a cross between Sailor Moon and Mary Poppins and Jesus. Her fixation on them is a lot less weird, taking that into consideration.
The Witch's Epitaph is added to the list of things not to make fun of around Maria.
Shannon displays a better aptitude than Battler and Jessica for getting along with Maria. She and George must have that in common.
As with any big, old, drafty house, the Ushiromiya mansion has a lot of the people who visit it finding themselves convinced it's haunted. The realistic upshot of Shannon's story is pretty obvious—none of this is supernatural phenomena in and of itself, but slightly nervous servants who find the night shift spooky will blame anything on the witch.
Still, Battler and Jessica have learned their lesson and everybody acts like it's the most legit ghost story they've ever heard.
Butterflies, huh? That's pretty weird for a ghost story, at least.
Ah, now there's a classic. One unfortunate coincidence, and word gets out that the boogeyman has a short temper.
Battler and Jessica are getting newted SO HARD. George helps cheer Maria up by suggesting she can save the day by giving Battler and Jessica good-luck charms to protect them, so Maria consults her magic notebook very seriously.
Battler and Jessica each get a +1 Unbelievably Shitty Protective Talisman!
Battler, stop questioning her logic. She's nine.
If Maria is to be believed the charms are actually very powerful, despite looking like they were manufactured in a sweatshop for the cost of half an apple core.
For hours, the cousins have fun together...
But Mother Nature is getting tired of their shit, so it's time for these hooligans to take the party inside before it gets all Noah's Ark up ins.
Shannon has work, anyway. Picnic concluded.
Ha, the 80's! Back when people watched TV.
Almost to the guesthouse! Against a storm like the one brewing, the garden is fucked.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Maria can't find her pet project from earlier. She starts to raise a fuss about it just as Rosa happens to step out of the mansion.
Maria tries to recruit her mama's help in finding the rose while still progressively throwing a bit of a fit. Rosa spoils Maria less than the rest of the family, but hey, that kind of situation happens a lot. Relatives are usually a lot more reticent to discipline children than parents. But soon, Rosa realizes like the older cousins that it's too late to do anything about the rose.
God, Maria really can be a little brat. Sometimes you just wanna--
Jesus Christ, Rosa!
Okay, clearly parenting is very stressful on top of your financial troubles and you lost yourself for a split second and we all just need to calm down and make things ri--
Rosa you are slapping your elementary-aged daughter in the face repeatedly. Cut it the fuck out.
Battler nervously intervenes.
But Rosa basically tells them to mind their own business.
Japanese culture conditions one to think of being rude as being about as bad as... well, slapping a kid in the face, but Battler fights that instinct. This has to stop.
Rosa is... severely missing the point, but what she says is true. It's not just the noise, really. The cousins avoid thinking about it, but Maria is a nine-year-old who acts like she's four or five. Rosa has serious concerns that she's becoming emotionally stunted, while the rest of the family casually enables it because she's cute in small doses... but that's nothing even resembling cause to hit the kid.
Rosa goes in for yet another Batman onomatopeia, and George pulls Battler aside.
What we have here is a severe conflict of values. And short of physically dogpiling their aunt, there's not much they can do about it, anyway... like it or not, the older cousins—very uncomfortably, at least—step out of it and walk away.
To the novel's credit, this actually seems more like social commentary than an endorsement of George's point of view.
Soon Rosa leaves too, leaving Maria alone in the fading light and brewing storm, sobbing and searching the rose bushes in vain.
Rosa isn't exactly the lovechild of Satan and Hitler here. She honestly cares about Maria, she's just... sick.
Soon, the rain begins in earnest. Elsewhere...
Kinzo's not planning on performing this ritual himself. He leaves the choice and execution of the sacrifices to the master of Rokkenjima's night. To the witch's ghost.
To Beatrice.
That's the Head's Ring, signifying his role as master of the family and the island. In fulfillment of his debt, it now rightfully belongs to Beatrice.
The game begins.
Been trying to puzzle the epitaph out? Don't worry, so have the cousins. Also unless you're fluent in Japanese and want to look up the original, untranslated text you're literally never going to solve it. Did I forget to mention that? WHOOPS. Guess that's the trouble with taking a riddle from one language and converting it to another. Wordplay, man. Of course, even if you were perfectly bilingual, there's other knowledge you couldn't possibly have yet that factors into your ability to solve the epitaph. When Kinzo said he made it as hard as he could, he wasn't fucking around; this thing is the Battletoads of riddles. It's not even fair.
George and Jessica have made their effort to solve it plenty of times and are mostly resolved to having no goddamn idea. Battler, though, is both new to this game and possessed of an inquisitive mind, so he's going at the thing like it's a pair of boobs. The others participate mainly as a sounding board to listen to his theories.
This train of thought is wrong, because it was the main family that lived in Odawara and Kinzo was nowhere near them as a kid. None of the cousins (nor you, the audience!) have any idea what Kinzo's actual hometown is, so they chase this wild goose and have a lot of irrelevant discussion of Odawara's geography with regards to rivers, shores, and villages.
Shannon pops in with some (not really) helpful insight. She denies having done any research trying to solve the epitaph herself, though.
Ah, there's the ticket. Battler's just retracing the obvious steps everybody else has already taken, and this is as far as they've gotten. The fifth line, about the “key,” tells them nothing at this point. There's nothing obviously keylike about the region their reasoning has taken them to, nor does the Ushiromiya family have any known history there. But again, they were on the wrong track from the start here, as they finally realize.
And on top of that, they're doing a terrible job of entertaining the small child present. It's time to move o--
NOPE. Battler tends to get good and engaged when he wants to figure out a puzzle. His theory is that since the riddle is so clearly separated into stages, if they're stumped on the first, it should be possible to at least get an idea of what the second one is about and see what this “key” is supposed to do.
But man, it's time to acknowledge that this thing gets pretty fucking macabre. Nothing but ritual sacrifices and black magicks after that beginning bit.
Maria seems unnervingly okay with this.
Kinzo sure does have a creepy imagination, right! Am I right? I'm right. Haha, everybody dying in some demonic ritual... ha.
But it sounds like after the sacrifices are complete, all the damage will be undone at the conclusion of the ritual, including laying the witch back to rest. And in exchange you get all kinds of gold to keep! It sounds like a good deal for someone who believes in magic and is a delusional sociopath.
Let's just quietly pretend I didn't just describe Kinzo.
But seriously, WITCHES, RIGHT? That magic isn't real is so patently obvious only the socially stunted and insane would ever even entertain the notion that there could ever conceivably be any manner of witch on Rokkenjima.
Maria will uu-uu a bitch if Battler and Jessica don't stop talkin' shit about Beatrice.
Despite seeing what Beatrice supposedly looks like in the portrait, Battler still hears the word “witch” and pictures the Wicked Witch of the West or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. Maria's idea of a witch is more like a cross between Sailor Moon and Mary Poppins and Jesus. Her fixation on them is a lot less weird, taking that into consideration.
The Witch's Epitaph is added to the list of things not to make fun of around Maria.
Shannon displays a better aptitude than Battler and Jessica for getting along with Maria. She and George must have that in common.
As with any big, old, drafty house, the Ushiromiya mansion has a lot of the people who visit it finding themselves convinced it's haunted. The realistic upshot of Shannon's story is pretty obvious—none of this is supernatural phenomena in and of itself, but slightly nervous servants who find the night shift spooky will blame anything on the witch.
Still, Battler and Jessica have learned their lesson and everybody acts like it's the most legit ghost story they've ever heard.
Butterflies, huh? That's pretty weird for a ghost story, at least.
Ah, now there's a classic. One unfortunate coincidence, and word gets out that the boogeyman has a short temper.
Battler and Jessica are getting newted SO HARD. George helps cheer Maria up by suggesting she can save the day by giving Battler and Jessica good-luck charms to protect them, so Maria consults her magic notebook very seriously.
Battler and Jessica each get a +1 Unbelievably Shitty Protective Talisman!
Battler, stop questioning her logic. She's nine.
If Maria is to be believed the charms are actually very powerful, despite looking like they were manufactured in a sweatshop for the cost of half an apple core.
For hours, the cousins have fun together...
But Mother Nature is getting tired of their shit, so it's time for these hooligans to take the party inside before it gets all Noah's Ark up ins.
Shannon has work, anyway. Picnic concluded.
Ha, the 80's! Back when people watched TV.
Almost to the guesthouse! Against a storm like the one brewing, the garden is fucked.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Maria can't find her pet project from earlier. She starts to raise a fuss about it just as Rosa happens to step out of the mansion.
Maria tries to recruit her mama's help in finding the rose while still progressively throwing a bit of a fit. Rosa spoils Maria less than the rest of the family, but hey, that kind of situation happens a lot. Relatives are usually a lot more reticent to discipline children than parents. But soon, Rosa realizes like the older cousins that it's too late to do anything about the rose.
God, Maria really can be a little brat. Sometimes you just wanna--
Jesus Christ, Rosa!
Okay, clearly parenting is very stressful on top of your financial troubles and you lost yourself for a split second and we all just need to calm down and make things ri--
Rosa you are slapping your elementary-aged daughter in the face repeatedly. Cut it the fuck out.
Battler nervously intervenes.
But Rosa basically tells them to mind their own business.
Japanese culture conditions one to think of being rude as being about as bad as... well, slapping a kid in the face, but Battler fights that instinct. This has to stop.
Rosa is... severely missing the point, but what she says is true. It's not just the noise, really. The cousins avoid thinking about it, but Maria is a nine-year-old who acts like she's four or five. Rosa has serious concerns that she's becoming emotionally stunted, while the rest of the family casually enables it because she's cute in small doses... but that's nothing even resembling cause to hit the kid.
Rosa goes in for yet another Batman onomatopeia, and George pulls Battler aside.
What we have here is a severe conflict of values. And short of physically dogpiling their aunt, there's not much they can do about it, anyway... like it or not, the older cousins—very uncomfortably, at least—step out of it and walk away.
To the novel's credit, this actually seems more like social commentary than an endorsement of George's point of view.
Soon Rosa leaves too, leaving Maria alone in the fading light and brewing storm, sobbing and searching the rose bushes in vain.
Rosa isn't exactly the lovechild of Satan and Hitler here. She honestly cares about Maria, she's just... sick.
Soon, the rain begins in earnest. Elsewhere...
Kinzo's not planning on performing this ritual himself. He leaves the choice and execution of the sacrifices to the master of Rokkenjima's night. To the witch's ghost.
To Beatrice.
That's the Head's Ring, signifying his role as master of the family and the island. In fulfillment of his debt, it now rightfully belongs to Beatrice.
The game begins.
no subject
懐かしき、故郷を貫く鮎の川。
黄金郷を目指す者よ、これを下りて鍵を探せ。
川を下れば、やがて里あり。
その里にて二人が口にし岸を探れ。
そこに黄金郷への鍵が眠る。
鍵を手にせし者は、以下に従いて黄金郷へ旅立つべし。
第一の晩に、鍵の選びし六人を生贄に捧げよ。
第二の晩に、残されし者は寄り添う二人を引き裂け。
第三の晩に、残されし者は誉れ高き我が名を讃えよ。
第四の晩に、頭をえぐりて殺せ。
第五の晩に、胸をえぐりて殺せ。
第六の晩に、腹をえぐりて殺せ。
第七の晩に、膝をえぐりて殺せ。
第八の晩に、足をえぐりて殺せ。
第九の晩に、魔女は蘇り、誰も生き残れはしない。
第十の晩に、旅は終わり、黄金の郷に至るだろう。
魔女は賢者を讃え、四つの宝を授けるだろう。
一つは、黄金郷の全ての黄金。
一つは、全ての死者の魂を蘇らせ。
一つは、失った愛すらも蘇らせる。
一つは、魔女を永遠に眠りにつかせよう。
安らかに眠れ、我が最愛の魔女ベアトリーチェ。