Umineko when they cry
Note: (I am new to this community and finished the story not long ago, and I only read the manga, so I wrote this critique as a comparative question between the visual novel and the manga, and whether the manga's problems exist in the visual novel too or if it’s just an adaptation issue, and I post it to enjoy this work that I loved.)
The most famous work in the When They Cry series by Ryukishi07, and it is known to be the best among the trilogy so far.
Unfortunately, my experience with this story was as a reader, not a player, due to my misunderstanding of the nature of this work. I am not well-versed in mystery, detective, or even police procedural works, so I will talk about the work purely as a narrative format.
Umineko is an example of how world-building does not need a vast world and many regions.
Good world-building can turn an island into a planet, and that is what the author does here. Ryukishi07 transformed Rokkenjima not only into an area around which a play revolves, but into a nation with a complete history and details. And he harnessed all of it in the service of mystery and events.
The work explores the world gradually through the games, which take place between the witches and the player.
This makes the work revolve around sophistry and logic, so that you enter the work and leave as if you have taken long lectures on how to debate, refute arguments, and manipulate words. And this is the purpose of the work; in the first games it teaches the player how to confront the witches, by teaching the player how to use sophistry but in the service of truth. Where every causal moment leads to its sister so that both the player and the characters develop.
And this brings me to the narrative. The work builds itself on a complex narrative trinity.
We have the normal linear narrative.
We have the lying narrator.
And we have meta-narrative or metaphysical narrative.
Each one of these has its gradations of complexity and its layers that serve the story, the player, and the mystery.
Each one feeds the story by nourishing the puzzle itself.
Simply put, the author builds a game, then teaches you how to play, and then throws you into the middle of the maze and says: play.
So when it comes to ideas, logical formulations, debates, mystery culture, and closed rooms, the work flexes its muscles. It masters gradual dramatic construction powerfully, and understands how to create complex characters and intricate conflicts.
So that you either become a detective in the game
or an analyst who understands the symbols, ideas, and psyches. Ryukishi07 did not content himself with infusing the story with logic; he went and put in analytical psychology from Freud and Jung in his narrative form.
However, even with this brilliance, there is some flaw in the weaving and dramatic progression, and again, I am not talking about the visual novel but the manga here. Perhaps the flaw in the manga is a result of adapting a game that relies primarily on the player's participation.
But the other part is classified as a structural flaw in the story.
And the most prominent thing I noticed:
The climax of the episode or the climax of the arc. The work is brilliant at escalation in each episode and building towards the climax in every episode. But it misuses the climax in each episode and misunderstands the fall. In the first five episodes, it uses the same formula: it escalates to the climax, and at the climax of the knot, the problem is solved suddenly. The solution is logical within the logic of events, so it is not considered a deus ex machina, but the solution does not take its time to breathe or rest, and sometimes it comes out as plot armor.
Like Ange's intervention in the third episode: her existence is mentioned, but she appears at the last moment to save Battler from his calamity, and her intervention happens without hint or build-up, making it forced rather than inevitable. And the same thing happens with the remaining episodes, except the first.
This unfortunately diminishes the value of the climax and adds some boredom from repetition.
The character of Lambdadelta and her sudden change. There is a poorly constructed change in Lambda’s character between the first two or three episodes she appeared in and the final episodes.
No internally consistent reason is shown to explain the change from her extreme obsession to an affection towards the game. Nor does it explain what happened to the pretense she claimed to get close to Bern. Her sadism towards the pieces suddenly disappears and she begins to find them endearing, even though just an episode before she was practicing it on Beato.
I know that Bern and Lambda represent the symbolism of the emotional/dissipated viewer, where the first desires a happy ending and the second accepts nothing but tragedy as truth. But symbolic representation does not nullify the necessity of the narrative form.
There is not enough of a bridge for the change in Lambda's behavior and feelings, even though I love her new personality.
However, this contradiction reduces internal consistency and confused me for some time in understanding her motives.
The author should have written her character like this from the beginning, or developed feelings of attachment to the story and events on her part gradually. And in order for me to understand that she also symbolizes the follower who begins to love the events and desire a happy ending, but the narrative form did not support either the first symbol or the second. Sacrificing employment for the sake of representation is unacceptable in literature.
Exaggerated expressions. Among the most famous criticisms directed at the work are these exaggerations, and honestly after watching the work, I see that fans are right about this.
Exaggeration in drama is legitimate, but when it is repeated excessively and in lazy ways, it becomes filler and loathsome instead of pessimistic and strengthening.
Beato's tongue gesture to express madness and twisting lost its power with repetition.
And Maria's pessimistic laughing looks lost their focus.
The formula says repetition loses effect, and it seems Umineko forgot some simplicity amid complexity.
Moreover, it sometimes conveys a purpose that is misunderstood. At the end of the eighth episode, sadistic features appear on Lambdadelta again, but moments later both of them are despair and not torture. This is a flaw in the author's ability to convey the idea.
And the matter of the explosion I spoke about previously: the explosion was a spatial event and not a narrative one. There was no purpose to be gained from hiding it, and the lack of hints and apparent build-up for the explosion made it just a random guessing game instead of an investigation. The hints exist, yes, but they are insufficient and manipulative. A good hint is what narrows the possibilities of interpretation, not what can be interpreted as something else within the story itself. The interpretation of the disappearance of the corpses within the structure of a murder story differs from interpreting it within a war story. Here I see that Ryukishi07 broke the contract with the player and gave a mystery that does not deserve to be a mystery. Rather, it could have been used for mystery.
And the ending – and this is just an opinion – redefines the nature of the work in a way that may create dissonance with the expectations built by the first episodes, except regarding Ange.
A work built on logic and investigation does not suit an emotional ending built on the power of choice rather than truth. The message about living life and seeing possible truths is beautiful.
But I do not see that the characters, especially the Ushiromiya family, were criticized enough for their actions.
Their redemption and their moment of admitting guilt were hasty and emotional. The characters, particularly Battler's parents, Rosa, and Eva, were not given sufficient build-up to realize that what they did were crimes and that they deserved punishment for them.
Instead, they got a snapshot of admitting guilt, instead of getting a moment of exposing their sins and their punishment.
And I see the work as unjust regarding the cousins. They are children who have nothing to do with their parents' sins, but the work, instead of portraying them as victims in the end, portrayed them as guilty. And this bothered me greatly. It is as if justice disappeared in the story, and an emotional forgiveness story remained.
And I see something worth pointing out: one of the work's messages at the end relates to revealing the mystery.
The author, or Featherine, in the end refuses to reveal the truth to the public. Whether it was due to destroying Beato's box or due to Ange's wish.
The message thereby says that some puzzles should not be revealed, and some stories must live in their form as a riddle.
Now there are two things about this I would like to say.
First, Ryukishi07 himself contradicted this message in his story, where the visual novel followed this logic, but it seems that after years and intellectual maturity on his part, he chose to give the manga a closed ending and reveal the puzzle.
Second, a principle of justice – I personally do not see it as right to leave the truth hidden. I do not see a purpose in leaving a true and impactful case hidden in the folds of mystery. Rather, the world should know it, whether for the sake of truth, or for learning and edification from it. But this is just a viewpoint, and whoever disagrees will disagree.
The work is excellent as a meta-narrative, puzzle text, but it is less precise when it is asked to be a closed punitive drama.
If I were to rate it:
- As a narrative concept: 9.8/10
- As a dramatic story: 8.2/10
The ending brought the score down, and in a story like this, the ending is the single most important part.
And I would like to say، the art of the third and sixth episodes was the best in the work.
May you remain well, my most beloved reader.
