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Let's Play Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episode 1 Chapter 11
Episode 1 Chapter 11 – Holy Shit, Battler and Maria
So. One third of the characters are dead, there's a homicidal maniac on the loose, and nobody knows how to tell Maria to stop watching Japanese Dora the Explorer. Natsuhi tries to take charge of the situation.
Genji goes on his way to call the police, while Natsuhi and Eva go inform Kinzo.
You know, Eva, it's not like half your family died just now or anything, don't feel too reserved about putting on your usual predatory smirk.
Kumasawa had been instructed to fill in for Gohda and make breakfast, so she was in he kitchen this whole time and nobody really remembered to fill her in. WHOOPS. But could she have found the scene where at least some of the actual murders took place?
Maybe it'd be easier to just go look.
It seems likely that someone burst into the dining hall while the conference was still going on in it and did some murdering, since everybody that was in there after Eva and Hideyoshi went to bed is among the victims. But compared to what everybody else saw in the storehouse, this is a completely bullshit amount of blood. It's nothing. They wouldn't stop eating a sandwich that had gotten this much human blood on it. Or so Battler bitterly opines.
But from now on, every time Jessica has dinner here she'll know it's where her dad got shot or stabbed or god knows what, probably in the same seat she's sitting in.
But at any rate, for now, it's another crime scene. Back to the parlor with everybody. And in the parlor waits...
Very, very bad news. Whether it's the storm or intentional interference from the culprit, all communications on Rokkenjima are down.
Even if help could get to them, they couldn't send for it. Not until the boat arives tomorrow.
Jessica's grieving strategy of channeling it all into anger doesnt change the fact that they're all in unyielding mortal danger for the next 24 hours.
Oh no, Maria, she. Uh... She must be too childlike to really have a proper concept of death...
Good job, Jessica, fifty points. (Disclaimer: Let's Play Umineko does not endorse the Genre Movie franchise on any level.)
Nanjo takes a whack at actually breaking the news semi-decently.
We know what Maria said.
But before she can build up creepy momentum, Natsuhi and Eva get back to the parlor and need to be caught up on the radio and dining hall situations.
You're half-right, Nanjo.
Being informed of the murders isn't what made him leave the study.
Like we know from the prologue, Kinzo's “study” might as well be a house within the house. No simple, practical need would force him to leave, and he hasn't for well over a year.
The best anyone can come up with is that he just stepped out for a walk, which is exactly as likely as him barreling into the room right now and giving all his granchildren presents and bear hugs.
Or, we could try being semi-realistic about the significance of someone going mysteriously missing while a murderer is on the loose. Again, note the business-as-usual smirk.
Hey, we know she's not a gourmet like Mr. Hugecorpse, but don't be a dick, Battler.
After they force themselves to eat to keep up their energy, Natsuhi, Genji, Kumasawa and Kanon go to search for Kinzo and make sure the mansion is totally locked down so the culprit can't get in. (Or out.) The rest are ordered to stay in the parlor—nobody moves alone today.
Predictably, this fails to make George feel better. But it turns out George wanted to talk about it, anyway. He explains everything.
The victims did seem to be everyone who was awake in the mansion after about midnight...
But come now, George. Why blame yourself for a horribe coincidence?
Battler lets Jessica comfort George, since she knew Shannon better. He goes to sit with Aunt Eva.
Tough guy. Well, there was his total screaming meltdown earlier, but he seems completely recovered already.
[BGM: Suspicion]
Battler's initial reaction was to the tragedy, but now he feels himself putting that on the backburner. What he really wants, right now, is to focus on the mystery. He's got more than a hypothetical interest in figuring out who did this.
It isn't just a matter of who sent the letter anymore. The puzzle of the nineteenth person now represents a much more important question: is the murderer an outsider... or one of the members or servants of the Ushiromiya family? And remember, Kyrie reasoned that it's extremely unlikely that there's a nineteenth person—the whole umbrella ruse would call unhelpful attention to someone who's not supposed to be there, but distract attention from someone hiding in plain sight. So... the killer must be in the mansion right now?
Eva never had any hesitation in assuming that.
Plus, there's the fact of the culprit knowing where the only key to the storehouse was.
In other words, Eva's pointing the finger at... one of the servants. Or even a conspiracy between them. The crime must have involved at least someone used to handling the myriad keys to the myriad locks on all of Rokkenjima's buildings. Plus, multiple culprits would have had a much easier time assaulting so many people and dragging them all the way to the storage shed.
“And maybe Battler,” she says to Battler's face. Exlcuding Jessica and Maria. (Of course she'd exclude Natsuhi.) Eva is cutthroat as fuck.
Her general message is “We're boned.” She's not done, though.
She doesn't trust any of the servants, but she also thinks they must have a ringleader who's in the family. Someone connected to the inheritance. The person with the most to gain from the other heirs dying. Her logic is pretty obvious. It's what any jackass who sat down and thought about it would come up with.
It's not even so obvious it must be a red herring. It's that, plus, well... this doesn't read like a careless crime by the servants. It's more like someone went out of their way to incriminate the servants. Battler uses the tool Kyrie gave him: he turns the chessboard over.
A lot of Eva's reasoning is that it would be a huge pain in the ass to move the bodies to the storehouse, and the servants could do it best, but... why? Why would they go to so much extra effort to put the bodies in the place that incriminates them most? And then lock up afterwards, even? It wasn't so the bodies wouldn't be found—the culprit made sure the carnage would be located very quickly into a search for the missing people by drawing that creepy-ass rune mark.
Ryukishi loves chronologically nonsensical self-referencing.
But anyway, at the heart of the matter, the exact same logic Kyrie used to guess that the letter was probably delivered by one of the servants rules them out as culprits. In the hypothetical event that they were the murderers, they did several things that served absolutely no purpose but disadvantaging them. It must be someone else. But Battler can get more clues out of this than just probably exonerating the servants.
This isn't just a murder someone's trying to get away with. The culprit may be trying to remain anonymous, but even so, their first priority is putting on a show. Why? Who knows. That's as far as this line of thought can take Battler with the current evidence.
Well, almost. There's something else vaguely related.
Jessica lost a dad, and Natsuhi a husband. Battler lost a dad and stepmom. Maria lost her only parent. George lost his fiance, Kanon his sister, and Genji and Kumasawa one of the servants to whom they were almost parental figures. Gohda... well, people liked Gohda, he was a great cook. The point is, Eva wouldn't put this crime past almost anyone, but Battler feels just the opposite. None of the eighteen could just dispassionately kill all of these victims. Except...
Eva technically lost all her siblings, but 1.) she fucking hated those losers and 2.) depending on what the official verdict is on Natsuhi's role in all this is now that her husband is dead, Eva is now the sole direct heir. Plus she and Hideyoshi luckily ducked out of the conference before everyone who was there was killed at once, even though they'd been so actively involved earlier. PLUS she just went out of her way to point out what we can now be almost sure was a deliberate frameup against the servants. Eva is suspicious as balls, is what I'm saying. Naturally, Battler doesn't say any of this out loud.
OH FUCK SHE READS MINDS
It seems she's had this thought herself. But it's true. By the same logic Battler used to exonerate the servants... well, it's a little more tenuous, but there's so much reason to suspect Eva it's just overbearing. To start with, after the hardcore kerfluffle over the inheritance yesterday, if three of the siblings died even under circumstances that weren't obviously a mass-murder anybody in their right mind would immediately side-eye the fourth. Eva would have to be completely insane to try to pull this off, from a purely practical standpoint—she's automatically the prime suspect even before any evidence can be found against her. Still, she claims she and Hideyoshi went back to the guesthouse late last night.
Genji can corroborate, but her own theory about the servants working for a ringleader to secure the inheritance would just mark him as an accomplice. So it all ties together: Eva and Hideyoshi working with the servants to commit the murder? Turn the chessboard over, and that's what the real murderer wanted it to look like. Unless you turn the chessboard over again and find that they turned the chessboard over and decided to make themselves so suspicious they looked like they were being framed?!?
Okay, this is getting to be a little much. Frankly, I'm already baldly astonished. It seems Battler is really smart in a certain area, finally. Let's just see if we find out anything more later. What's everybody else doing?
Consulting Little Miss Junior Occultism Scholar about the rune, apparently.
Hideyoshi's approximation is a lot more vague than this, of course. They debate whether it's more like a cross or a swastika, or maybe some kind of obscure religious symbol, but...
[BGM: Fishy Aroma]
What the fuck? Maria's demeanor changes radically.
Next to Hideyoshi's vague recollected circle with some crossy shit and scribbles inside, Maria perfectly reconstructs the actual blood drawing without ever having seen it. Everyone nervously pretends not to wonder if she's possessed by the devil.
Maria Ushiromiya, nine years old, formerly incapable of understanding that “Jessica ate all the seagulls on the island” was a joke, is trolling her entire surviving adult family for not having thoroughly read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew script.
I don't think I can deal with what's going on anymore.
She then begins elaborately explaining the meaning of the symbol. It's supposed to be a talisman that gives its wearer the ability to break free from any kind of imprisonment. But why kill six people and put a nice, optimistic kind of spell like that at the scene?
Maria continues to loudly not give a shit that she's talking about her late mother, but, well, obviously, they were just the sacrifices required to make the spell work. Magic fuel! The killer intended the spell for their own benefit, of course.
In other words, they're fucking insane.
But that insanity is the rule, now. The murderer set the island up to be perfectly under their control. The Ushiromiya family is damn well not in Kansas anymore.
Suddenly, Battler has a vivid memory of his childhood. Something Rudolf said to him before he started hating the old bastard. Battler had been scared for days after accidentally seeing a very not-kid-friendly horror film...
Battler learned from his dad not to believe in spooky supernatural horseshit when he was little. That people like going out of their way to blame what they can't explain on magic, and that he shouldn't fall into that trap. The real world is always more important than stories about monsters and curses.
[BGM: Core]
And no way in gold-plated hell is Battler gonna forget that lesson just because some murderous asshole scribbled Bible verses on a folding door.
That's right... this magic talk is all just a ruse. By making the issue seem larger than life or supernatural, the culprit wants to intimidate them into not thinking things through. There's definitely no other explanation.
After all, magic isn't real.
That's it. That's the point of the theatrics, what they have to gain from it. The culprit knew they'd be setting a suicidal trap for themselves by committing the crime when they couldn't get off the island. Their way around that was to keep the survivors terrified and unsure with the occult imagery, as a distraction from the simple fact that there's a human killer to be found.
For god's sake. It's Scooby Doo logic.
But then there's the issue of how they drew the circle. If it's a real design, and so intricate, it must have taken painstaking research and a lot of time to draw. Why?
Either the circle was intended as a message for Kinzo and he... somehow saw it and reacted, hence leaving his study, or the intention was that everyone would assume he was orchestrating this ritual bullshit.
It's all a puzzle. But Battler intends to solve it.
About that.
Natsuhi, don't just tote a deadly-ass fucking firearm into a room full of people half-expecting to get murdered without warning.
Like all elderly rich men around the world are legally obligated to do, Kinzo used to hunt for sport sometimes. He owns a modest yet fine collection of Winchester rifles, which are kept well-hidden. Natsuhi brought one of the four.
Only Kumasawa can find Kinzo Ushiromiya wielding a lethal weapon adorable.
So, yeah. He just straight-up evaporated.
Know what's a good idea, Eva? Picking a fight with someone holding a gun while you're all in an emergency situation. Currently, the tensions in the room all come down to a single uncertainty: is the culprit inside or outside?
So. One third of the characters are dead, there's a homicidal maniac on the loose, and nobody knows how to tell Maria to stop watching Japanese Dora the Explorer. Natsuhi tries to take charge of the situation.
Genji goes on his way to call the police, while Natsuhi and Eva go inform Kinzo.
You know, Eva, it's not like half your family died just now or anything, don't feel too reserved about putting on your usual predatory smirk.
Kumasawa had been instructed to fill in for Gohda and make breakfast, so she was in he kitchen this whole time and nobody really remembered to fill her in. WHOOPS. But could she have found the scene where at least some of the actual murders took place?
Maybe it'd be easier to just go look.
It seems likely that someone burst into the dining hall while the conference was still going on in it and did some murdering, since everybody that was in there after Eva and Hideyoshi went to bed is among the victims. But compared to what everybody else saw in the storehouse, this is a completely bullshit amount of blood. It's nothing. They wouldn't stop eating a sandwich that had gotten this much human blood on it. Or so Battler bitterly opines.
But from now on, every time Jessica has dinner here she'll know it's where her dad got shot or stabbed or god knows what, probably in the same seat she's sitting in.
But at any rate, for now, it's another crime scene. Back to the parlor with everybody. And in the parlor waits...
Very, very bad news. Whether it's the storm or intentional interference from the culprit, all communications on Rokkenjima are down.
Even if help could get to them, they couldn't send for it. Not until the boat arives tomorrow.
Jessica's grieving strategy of channeling it all into anger doesnt change the fact that they're all in unyielding mortal danger for the next 24 hours.
Oh no, Maria, she. Uh... She must be too childlike to really have a proper concept of death...
Good job, Jessica, fifty points. (Disclaimer: Let's Play Umineko does not endorse the Genre Movie franchise on any level.)
Nanjo takes a whack at actually breaking the news semi-decently.
We know what Maria said.
But before she can build up creepy momentum, Natsuhi and Eva get back to the parlor and need to be caught up on the radio and dining hall situations.
You're half-right, Nanjo.
Being informed of the murders isn't what made him leave the study.
Like we know from the prologue, Kinzo's “study” might as well be a house within the house. No simple, practical need would force him to leave, and he hasn't for well over a year.
The best anyone can come up with is that he just stepped out for a walk, which is exactly as likely as him barreling into the room right now and giving all his granchildren presents and bear hugs.
Or, we could try being semi-realistic about the significance of someone going mysteriously missing while a murderer is on the loose. Again, note the business-as-usual smirk.
Hey, we know she's not a gourmet like Mr. Hugecorpse, but don't be a dick, Battler.
After they force themselves to eat to keep up their energy, Natsuhi, Genji, Kumasawa and Kanon go to search for Kinzo and make sure the mansion is totally locked down so the culprit can't get in. (Or out.) The rest are ordered to stay in the parlor—nobody moves alone today.
Predictably, this fails to make George feel better. But it turns out George wanted to talk about it, anyway. He explains everything.
The victims did seem to be everyone who was awake in the mansion after about midnight...
But come now, George. Why blame yourself for a horribe coincidence?
Battler lets Jessica comfort George, since she knew Shannon better. He goes to sit with Aunt Eva.
Tough guy. Well, there was his total screaming meltdown earlier, but he seems completely recovered already.
[BGM: Suspicion]
Battler's initial reaction was to the tragedy, but now he feels himself putting that on the backburner. What he really wants, right now, is to focus on the mystery. He's got more than a hypothetical interest in figuring out who did this.
It isn't just a matter of who sent the letter anymore. The puzzle of the nineteenth person now represents a much more important question: is the murderer an outsider... or one of the members or servants of the Ushiromiya family? And remember, Kyrie reasoned that it's extremely unlikely that there's a nineteenth person—the whole umbrella ruse would call unhelpful attention to someone who's not supposed to be there, but distract attention from someone hiding in plain sight. So... the killer must be in the mansion right now?
Eva never had any hesitation in assuming that.
Plus, there's the fact of the culprit knowing where the only key to the storehouse was.
In other words, Eva's pointing the finger at... one of the servants. Or even a conspiracy between them. The crime must have involved at least someone used to handling the myriad keys to the myriad locks on all of Rokkenjima's buildings. Plus, multiple culprits would have had a much easier time assaulting so many people and dragging them all the way to the storage shed.
“And maybe Battler,” she says to Battler's face. Exlcuding Jessica and Maria. (Of course she'd exclude Natsuhi.) Eva is cutthroat as fuck.
Her general message is “We're boned.” She's not done, though.
She doesn't trust any of the servants, but she also thinks they must have a ringleader who's in the family. Someone connected to the inheritance. The person with the most to gain from the other heirs dying. Her logic is pretty obvious. It's what any jackass who sat down and thought about it would come up with.
It's not even so obvious it must be a red herring. It's that, plus, well... this doesn't read like a careless crime by the servants. It's more like someone went out of their way to incriminate the servants. Battler uses the tool Kyrie gave him: he turns the chessboard over.
A lot of Eva's reasoning is that it would be a huge pain in the ass to move the bodies to the storehouse, and the servants could do it best, but... why? Why would they go to so much extra effort to put the bodies in the place that incriminates them most? And then lock up afterwards, even? It wasn't so the bodies wouldn't be found—the culprit made sure the carnage would be located very quickly into a search for the missing people by drawing that creepy-ass rune mark.
Ryukishi loves chronologically nonsensical self-referencing.
But anyway, at the heart of the matter, the exact same logic Kyrie used to guess that the letter was probably delivered by one of the servants rules them out as culprits. In the hypothetical event that they were the murderers, they did several things that served absolutely no purpose but disadvantaging them. It must be someone else. But Battler can get more clues out of this than just probably exonerating the servants.
This isn't just a murder someone's trying to get away with. The culprit may be trying to remain anonymous, but even so, their first priority is putting on a show. Why? Who knows. That's as far as this line of thought can take Battler with the current evidence.
Well, almost. There's something else vaguely related.
Jessica lost a dad, and Natsuhi a husband. Battler lost a dad and stepmom. Maria lost her only parent. George lost his fiance, Kanon his sister, and Genji and Kumasawa one of the servants to whom they were almost parental figures. Gohda... well, people liked Gohda, he was a great cook. The point is, Eva wouldn't put this crime past almost anyone, but Battler feels just the opposite. None of the eighteen could just dispassionately kill all of these victims. Except...
Eva technically lost all her siblings, but 1.) she fucking hated those losers and 2.) depending on what the official verdict is on Natsuhi's role in all this is now that her husband is dead, Eva is now the sole direct heir. Plus she and Hideyoshi luckily ducked out of the conference before everyone who was there was killed at once, even though they'd been so actively involved earlier. PLUS she just went out of her way to point out what we can now be almost sure was a deliberate frameup against the servants. Eva is suspicious as balls, is what I'm saying. Naturally, Battler doesn't say any of this out loud.
OH FUCK SHE READS MINDS
It seems she's had this thought herself. But it's true. By the same logic Battler used to exonerate the servants... well, it's a little more tenuous, but there's so much reason to suspect Eva it's just overbearing. To start with, after the hardcore kerfluffle over the inheritance yesterday, if three of the siblings died even under circumstances that weren't obviously a mass-murder anybody in their right mind would immediately side-eye the fourth. Eva would have to be completely insane to try to pull this off, from a purely practical standpoint—she's automatically the prime suspect even before any evidence can be found against her. Still, she claims she and Hideyoshi went back to the guesthouse late last night.
Genji can corroborate, but her own theory about the servants working for a ringleader to secure the inheritance would just mark him as an accomplice. So it all ties together: Eva and Hideyoshi working with the servants to commit the murder? Turn the chessboard over, and that's what the real murderer wanted it to look like. Unless you turn the chessboard over again and find that they turned the chessboard over and decided to make themselves so suspicious they looked like they were being framed?!?
Okay, this is getting to be a little much. Frankly, I'm already baldly astonished. It seems Battler is really smart in a certain area, finally. Let's just see if we find out anything more later. What's everybody else doing?
Consulting Little Miss Junior Occultism Scholar about the rune, apparently.
Hideyoshi's approximation is a lot more vague than this, of course. They debate whether it's more like a cross or a swastika, or maybe some kind of obscure religious symbol, but...
[BGM: Fishy Aroma]
What the fuck? Maria's demeanor changes radically.
Next to Hideyoshi's vague recollected circle with some crossy shit and scribbles inside, Maria perfectly reconstructs the actual blood drawing without ever having seen it. Everyone nervously pretends not to wonder if she's possessed by the devil.
Maria Ushiromiya, nine years old, formerly incapable of understanding that “Jessica ate all the seagulls on the island” was a joke, is trolling her entire surviving adult family for not having thoroughly read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew script.
I don't think I can deal with what's going on anymore.
She then begins elaborately explaining the meaning of the symbol. It's supposed to be a talisman that gives its wearer the ability to break free from any kind of imprisonment. But why kill six people and put a nice, optimistic kind of spell like that at the scene?
Maria continues to loudly not give a shit that she's talking about her late mother, but, well, obviously, they were just the sacrifices required to make the spell work. Magic fuel! The killer intended the spell for their own benefit, of course.
In other words, they're fucking insane.
But that insanity is the rule, now. The murderer set the island up to be perfectly under their control. The Ushiromiya family is damn well not in Kansas anymore.
Suddenly, Battler has a vivid memory of his childhood. Something Rudolf said to him before he started hating the old bastard. Battler had been scared for days after accidentally seeing a very not-kid-friendly horror film...
Battler learned from his dad not to believe in spooky supernatural horseshit when he was little. That people like going out of their way to blame what they can't explain on magic, and that he shouldn't fall into that trap. The real world is always more important than stories about monsters and curses.
[BGM: Core]
And no way in gold-plated hell is Battler gonna forget that lesson just because some murderous asshole scribbled Bible verses on a folding door.
That's right... this magic talk is all just a ruse. By making the issue seem larger than life or supernatural, the culprit wants to intimidate them into not thinking things through. There's definitely no other explanation.
After all, magic isn't real.
That's it. That's the point of the theatrics, what they have to gain from it. The culprit knew they'd be setting a suicidal trap for themselves by committing the crime when they couldn't get off the island. Their way around that was to keep the survivors terrified and unsure with the occult imagery, as a distraction from the simple fact that there's a human killer to be found.
For god's sake. It's Scooby Doo logic.
But then there's the issue of how they drew the circle. If it's a real design, and so intricate, it must have taken painstaking research and a lot of time to draw. Why?
Either the circle was intended as a message for Kinzo and he... somehow saw it and reacted, hence leaving his study, or the intention was that everyone would assume he was orchestrating this ritual bullshit.
It's all a puzzle. But Battler intends to solve it.
About that.
Natsuhi, don't just tote a deadly-ass fucking firearm into a room full of people half-expecting to get murdered without warning.
Like all elderly rich men around the world are legally obligated to do, Kinzo used to hunt for sport sometimes. He owns a modest yet fine collection of Winchester rifles, which are kept well-hidden. Natsuhi brought one of the four.
Only Kumasawa can find Kinzo Ushiromiya wielding a lethal weapon adorable.
So, yeah. He just straight-up evaporated.
Know what's a good idea, Eva? Picking a fight with someone holding a gun while you're all in an emergency situation. Currently, the tensions in the room all come down to a single uncertainty: is the culprit inside or outside?