It took me around 24 hours to finish the first episode of Umineko. And I am now unhinged. So I want to talk about it. But like with the game itself, we'll have to start at the beginning.

Part 0: Kinzo

VOD Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sufSOsCuhec

I can't believe I almost forgot about this part. The Kinzo scenes. Specifically, we sometimes get glimpses into what Kinzo is doing - and he's the head of the entire family. There's a lore around him - but the game mainly starts with us seeing him play chess with his doctor. In these scenes, you'll come to understand plenty about him.

He looks drinking weird green alcohol.
Sometimes he's lucid and says some interesting stuff.
He plays chess with his doctor. I said this before but the chess does play a part, considering the game uses it as a whole metaphor regarding how
Kinzo will be dying pretty soon. Dude hasn't got much life left, and the weird green alcohol probably isn't helping. He seemingly doesn't care about this though.
He sometimes goes apeshit and starts screaming about BEATRICE. Who is a witch.
He refuses to leave his room. Doesn't care about the reason. He's gonna stay there all day and night. I mean his room is actually like a mini house within the mansion so it kinda makes sense but still.
He basically hates his family. I mean probably not completely, but considering he sees the adults as money-hungry vultures waiting for him to die so they can split up his inheritance, and the kids as a bunch of dipshits - yeah I think it's about right to say that.
He's got two close confidants - Genji, his butler who is endlessly devoted, and Nanjo, his doctor who's also a longtime friend - and whose advice he always ignores because goddamnit no one's taking his hulk piss away.
He loves black magic. I probably should have put this under Point 5 considering the witch thing, but yeah he's got a ton of books about black magic, and his obsession about BEATRICE is sort of an extension on that.

The one golden thing you'll realise is that literally every scene he's in, becomes one of the best scenes in the game. I love this asshole. He is so fun to watch go from a pretty smart and lucid guy, to a complete and utter screaming madman who cares about literally nothing but BEATRICE. It's kind of sad, but he's also quite an asshole, so I don't exactly feel that bad for him. At the time. Kinda.

Occasionally throughout Part I his scenes will show up, mostly notably at the actual beginning - you start the game next to him, and then you pivot to what follows next. Which I think ends up exacerbating the pacing and its effect on me, considering we go from Kinzo's shenanigans to...

Part I: The Beginning

The longest part of the episode, and it is one hell of a doozy. If you hear about the reputation of this game, you'll know two things. That it is incredibly long - and that it is one of the best visual novels ever made despite being a Kinetic Novel, meaning that you don't get any options. You have a path to follow, and that's it. This doesn't mean the game is linear, but as far as you're concerned during this part - it very much is. And boy howdy what a path you have to follow.

If Episode I is a rollercoaster, the first half is an around 10 hour slow climb. Maybe you'll be interested and follow along. But if you're like me, you're going to have to push yourself. Now that I've finished the episode, I appreciate the beginning quite a bit - however during it, again - if you're like me, you'll find yourself losing interest partway through. It takes a long ass time just to get to the island.

Let's be blunt - Part I is a casual rich family drama. The Ushiromiya's are a rich family, and the entire beginning will introduce almost every single member of the family, save for the ones already on the island. Personally, I think it's best to split this part further into before and after making it to Rokkenjima.

Part I-A: Before Rokkenjima

VOD Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_Xiw07GnE

I'll be honest. This part is a bit of a blur, and was a big part in getting me to drop Umineko for a fat couple of months before picking it up again. I started out normal, but as time went on and we were seemingly stuck in the same place, I entered a sort of weird state where while I still was interested in these characters, I was just hoping for something interesting to happen. It felt like I was watching a multi-hour pilot.

You start out waiting for a plane to take you - not to Rokkenjima - but to a dock where you can then get on a boat which then leads you to Rokkenjima. This doesn't sound like much, but we spend a very very large amount of time just waiting for the plane to come along. It's casual, and everyone is written quite well - but while I started out somewhat invested, soon it became a bit mindnumbing. Getting on a plane was huge - it meant we were finally getting some movement. We arrive, get our laughs at Battler being scared of the plane out of the way, and make our way to the boat where we meet a couple more people - including a servant which, they're also a part of the story beyond the Ushiromiyas, and then get on the boat.

Do we cut to us arriving? No - actually we cut to Battler screaming his ass off because the boat is actually way too fast. The screen was shaking so much that with time I honestly found myself growing sick of it - not in a bad way but moreso in a "damn okay I'm empathizing a bit with Battler here" way. There's a lot of this kind of fluff - and while now I can say that it wasn't filler but entirely necessary - it's filler-adjacent enough to where on my first time playing, it was just using up my "giving-a-shit" stamina.

This far in, when you're on the boat, and you can start to see Rokkenjima on the horizon, is where we get our first feeling that something's wrong - and it's cause of Maria who brings a paranormal horror kind of vibe to the boat that makes you feel like things are ominous and about to get real interesting soon. And well, things do get interesting -- kind of -- but it's still going to be one hell of a while before you get anything concrete.

This is where I want to make a disclaimer - I did stream all of this and it's available in a playlist. I'm not looking back to verify because I mainly want to write down my impressions after I finished the chapter yesterday. Since this thing will probably come out later -- I have a lot of things to say -- I'm writing this on 6th September 2026. You can check out me finishing Episode I here - and yes it's 9 hours. I couldn't stop playing it. But anyways - the main point is that I might get some things wrong since I'm operating purely on memory - so yeah. If you're a superfan who knows everything in extreme detail - pls be nice.

Part I-B: On Rokkenjima

VOD Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZMfQ4IGmdU

So we make it to Rokkenjima - huzzah! Now, despite the disclaimer, I had to check this -- but yeah, there's no seagulls when we arrive. Apparently there's always seagulls, but today there isn't. Another weird ominous thing. We get to meet Kanon who is a bit clumsy and also is furniture (he'll make sure you know that he's furniture), check the garden which is cool, check out the house a bit, see a weird portrait of Beatrice, have lunch (my timing might be wrong on this one) - and visit the guesthouse where we stay. And this is where the game splits.

You have three paths. One is the Kinzo - the guy sipping alcoholic broccoli smoothies locked up in his room. Then you have the guesthouse, where the cousins are - and they basically chill out. They watch some TV, chat up, Shannon appears, they have a beach lunch or something while talking about a weird epitaph under Beatrice's portrait - gee I wonder what's up with that - oh yeah there's the epitaph - it's meant to be a riddle that leads you to the golden treasure which doesn't exist but does, and also talks about a bunch of deaths. Actually, you know - fuck it.

Detour: The Epitaph

Behold the sweetfish river running through my beloved hometown.
You who seek the Golden Land, follow its path downstream in search of the key.

As you travel down it, you will see a village.
In that village, look for the shore the two will tell you of.
There sleeps the key to the Golden Land.

The one who obtains the key must then travel to the Golden Land in accordance with these rules.

So, here we want to get to the Golden Land. Now, this is written from the perspective of Kinzo, so "my beloved hometown" means Kinzo's hometown. It mentions some path, which the kids get into trying to think of what this could point to - and as far as I know they draw a complete blank. They know where to start from with the sweetfish river, but from there...

On the first twilight, offer the six chosen by the key as sacrifices.
On the second twilight, those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close.
On the third twilight, those who remain shall praise my noble name.
On the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
On the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.
On the sixth twilight, gouge the stomach and kill.
On the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.
On the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.
On the ninth twilight, the witch shall revive, and none shall be left alive.
On the tenth twilight, at journey's end, you shall attain to the power of the Golden Land's treasures, once and for the last time.

Alright cool. So once we do solve the previous part, we just need to kill uh... 6 + 2 + 5 + everyone else = all people. So everyone including me has to die. And on the tenth twilight everything's over.

Cool.

The witch shall praise the wise and bestow four treasures.
One shall be all the gold from the Golden Land.
One shall be the resurrection of all the dead souls.
One shall be the resurrection of the love that was lost.
One shall be to put the witch to sleep for all time.

Sleep peacefully, my beloved witch, Beatrice.

And I suppose that's why. Once everyone dies, we get all the gold from the Golden Land which is probably a lot -- like way too much -- and then everyone revives, after which "the resurrection of the love that was lost" which. Hmmmmm... and the last would put the witch to sleep for all time. So she can sleep forever. And then Kinzo calls the witch Beatrice.

So basically that's the epitaph. It's interesting, and clearly important, but... we kinda don't go anywhere with this yet. Emphasis on yet. Soon it becomes all too familiar.

It's Rich Family Drama Time

VOD Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulEAkHycJ2o

It is time for this side - the one I was actively being patient for. At this point everything to do with the kids was fluff - and with the adults it seems that once the kids are gone, the fluff sloooooowly starts to dissipate and get replaced by family drama.

I mean consider that Kinzo can literally die at any point now. That means his riches go down to his kids. That's right - inheritance! And everyone wants a piece - but more importantly, this affects all the dynamics.

So let's refresh here, and sort the Ushiromiya's by age.

Krauss, and Natsuhi. Daughter is Jessica. She's pretty rough, and not really at all a fancy rich type who cares about playing the game. It also took them a long while to get Jessica. Which goes into
Eva and Hideyoshi. Son is George. Everyone praises the guy, he's the best in basically every single way except physique I suppose, and even then he's still good. He's the oldest of the grandkids - which then lends more legitimacy to Eva. Speaking of, Hideyoshi inherited the Ushiromiya name, letting Eva keep the name and in turn keeping her claim to the whole thing more legitimate.
Rudolph and Kyrie. Son is Battler. And he's good at battling - everyone calls him strong. He's also incredibly endearing - but it honestly feels like no one here gives a shit about the power dynamics. That's not because they don't - because Rudolph does.

So, now that we have all that, consider that Krauss has the most legitimate claim as the oldest son, whose wife basically manages the entire mansion and works herself to the bone to keep things as good as possible. It seems pretty solved, right?

Well, the other siblings united, and started telling him about how he very likely has done some fraud. Specifically, stolen from Kinzo to fund his ventures. There's quite an extensive argument here - and it really does apply a ton of pressure on Krauss. They offer a piece of paper, and talk about splitting the inheritance. Krauss gets the biggest share, but a big chunk is split amongst Eva and Rudolph still. More notably, Krauss has to pay them a small percentage ahead of time - just as insurance of sorts.

I am doing this whole scene a complete disservice by the way. You really should experience it for yourself.

VOD Reference (2:06:44): https://youtu.be/ulEAkHycJ2o?t=7604

But something about it feels weird. Why wouldn't they just demand a much bigger share? I mean they have him by the balls, no?

Well, Battler isn't here, and Kyrie is quiet, so it's left up to me to flip the chessboard. Thinking from the perspective of the opposing side.

This has three components - the fraud provides legitimacy to their demands, and their demands are a revised split which is in Krauss' favor, and money immediately. Why would they not force a tougher split? Because of the immediate money. And wouldn't you know it - Krauss' knows what's going on.

Krauss is having money issues. His businesses are failures. But Hideyoshi and Rudolf also have money problems. Hideyoshi was victim of corporate bullshit, and Rudolf... I can't remember if I'm honest. I think he fucked up an investment or something? But in any case, pointing this out kinda shattered their offense, because the reason they were asking for immediate money is because their money problems were more urgent. One side needs money to retain control of his business, and the other side (??? debt or something?), so realistically Krauss could just... wait. I mean they couldn't take back the offer, they're depending on it - but they also really need the money - so he's basically pressuring them into more favourable terms before he'd sign.

Let me tell you, this shit was electric. I was hooked on the whole thing - it was so interesting to me. This isn't just people screaming at each other about inheritance - but people coming to wage a sort of war. Each side came with their strategy, and while both left with wounds, Krauss won. God this was good.

...now that I think about it, the beach bit might have come after this one. I forget the exact order.

Oh Maria...

I have to mention this bit. Because boy howdy it's harsh.

So Maria. She's a nine year old who strongly believes in witches and hates it when anyone denies their existence. She also goes Uu-uu a lot. It's very cute, but of course you can imagine how this could make her school life hard. Unfortunately it also pisses off her mom, Rosa. Well, at least when shit gets bad enough.

So, you've seen the above part, so you know that the younger siblings got dogwalked, and Rosa is the only one who didn't come with her partner, and is very much reliant on the money to come in - so when she leaves the meeting, she's very much under a lot of stress. And then she sees the kids and Maria outside at the garden.

Still out there, because Maria wanted to find a specific flower again - one that disappeared. And refused to stop looking.

So yeah, I had a feeling I knew where this is going to go, and yep indeed, we got a chance to see Rosa lose her shit and, basically, beat up Maria - Battler of course tries to chill out the situation, but fails and eventually the cousins agree to just... kinda... leave. George says some shit about parenting, and voila.

That scene was so unpleasant - such a moodshift. It essentially ends with Rosa being unable to force Maria away from the flowers even while its raining, and eventually just leaving as well.

So Maria is now outside, in the middle of the storm, looking for a flower no-one could find. The cousins have left a while back, and Rosa basically goes to sleep because it's been an exhausting day - then wakes up and, oh yeah right. Maria.

Cue in a panicked search segment, where I'm already imagining that she's the first victim and bracing myself, but then she's found again, with an umbrella.

the weird shit begins

So, notice how I've never mentioned an umbrella up til now. Yeah, because Maria didn't have one. So, of course, someone gave her an umbrella. Rosa asks Maria, and Maria says it's Beatrice.

...

Okay. So. As a reader, I basically immediately went - oh that's the witch. But of course, everyone in the story was like, well that doesn't make any sense, but she's been outside for so long - let's not do the "witches don't exist" thing. Let's just ask everyone else.

...

...and no one accepts. Shit gets awkward and I start wondering where this is going. Well - it's time for dinner, and Maria pulls out a letter, saying Beatrice told her to read it out loud. Except, the letter basically has to come from Kinzo, because the seal is the same as his ring. Except of course for the fact that we got to see him throw the ring out of his window. So, clearly, the owner of the letter is Beatrice. But again, that requires believing in the witch.

Anyways, time for Maria to read the letter...

...and she changes completely - like I mean the entire demeanor goes away, no more Uu-uu, she's talking like an adult, including the voice. And I lose my shit - because no one reacts to that - they're too busy reacting to the contents of the letter, which talk about Beatrice coming to take all their inheritance and everything the Ushiromiya have unless they find the Gold from the legend or something. Which immediately sends the room in a frenzy, of course. Someone gave Maria a letter talking about this game with their inheritance, claiming to be Beatrice, and Maria basically refuses to say any other name than Beatrice - which of course we know - but it does mean the night as a whole is just, well, unpleasant.

Cousins are a bit disturbed since they get to see their parents greed in full display, Maria is basically done with everyone's shit because they won't believe in witches so fuck everyone, the parents are discussing the inheritance late into the night, and basically everyone who's not the kids, or Kinzo's servants, was told to stay in the mansion.

charm chain

a small detour - earlier on, Maria gave out charms that should protect against Beatrice, I believe to Battler and Jessica. George didn't get one because... well I dunno. all I remember is that she gave Battler and Jessica a charm, because they come up later.

there's a cute little moment before the cousins go to the guesthouse between Jessica and Natsuhi - Natsuhi is a wreck because Krauss is a colossal asshole, and Jessica kinda notices. so in a bit of an awkward moment where their relationship is less abrasive and more compassionate, Jessica gives Natsuhi the charm that Maria gave her. it's a cheap thing, but Natsuhi obviously deeply appreciates this gesture, and promises to give her a charm of her own. when she goes to her room, the places the charm on the doorknob on the inside.

keep that in mind.

okay game i get what you're doing here

so now it's time for the romantic section with George and Shannon, who, by the way, love each other. cue an extended romantic sequence that's awkward but also cute, where George essentially proposes, while making clear at every step that Shannon can definitely say no - likely because of the insane power dynamic between a servant, and the "heir" out of the cousins. it's all cute, but of course, i know this shit. immediately i started thinking that Shannon is gonna die. this is way too oddly cute and wholesome, i'm not falling for this.

anyways, once that's done, Shannon goes to the mansion - basically cause she's too shy and needs some time alone - with George going back to the guesthouse - and Gohda, the fuck, basically offloads his work onto her while he reads some magazine. fuck him. but yeah, she goes around the mansion, checking the windows and doors to make sure there's no weird ghost that's broken in or something --- like they know it's irrational, but Natsuhi who also understands that a bigass fuckoff mansion is probably best left secure, just incase.

and then, some golden butterflies come out, Shannon starts thinking about Beatrice, and then the game immediately starts to go through basically every single character, and a whole bunch of locations, with no one talking, but with an ominous track in the background, and then the game skips forward a whole bunch of hours.

oh yeah. let's go

Part II: The Goldenslaughter

good fucking morning. get ready for some wild shit.

if you're anything like me, you're thinking okay, something very big happened during the night. Shannon is probably dead. There's a ridiculous tension in the air, and it only gets worse when Kanon and Genji go to the mansion.

Kanon goes to the kitchen, which is where Gohda should be. Unfortunately, he isn't. Actually, he's not even in the servants room. So he's probably dead - let's take a moment to celebrate this. Okay.

Genji goes to visit Natsuhi - who woke up on her bed and is just kinda staying there because it's nice compared to the clusterfuck that probably awaits, what with all the inheritance bullshit. He knocks on the door, wakes her up - which is, apparently, weird to do this early on, and tells her that he had to come over because the phone lines broke. Okay, one more thing. She doesn't like it, but it should be ultimately fine. Then Genji mentions that there's no breakfast, and that is what immediately worries Natsuhi. Probably because she can already imagine Eva saying some smug shit.

...aaaaand there's a weird symbol on Natsuhi's door. It's drawn in red, but the knob is also red, and there's a bunch of scratches on the door.

...hey, remember the charm? Yeah I bet you have a lot of thoughts about it huh. Have fun simmering in them, the game takes a while before it addresses this, probably because the idea that "a charm stopped a witch from breaking into Natsuhi's room" is completely ridiculous to literally everyone in the cast apart from Maria and Kinzo. But I will say, yeah. I had the same thought. It doesn't get confirmed, but the people do eventually discuss it.

Anyways. So, phone lines don't work, Gohda is missing which means no breakfast - and it seems like a whole bunch of other people are also missing. Shannon is obvious, but then you have basically all of the parents except for Natsuhi, Eva, and Hideyoshi.

So, let's connect the dots, and consider who was in the mansion. You have Kinzo, of course, who never leaves his room. Shannon and Gohda were also in there, we saw them. All the parents were there as well. So everyone who went missing was in the mansion. But of course, not everyone who was in there died.

You have Natsuhi who had the charm and about the most obvious sign that she would've been taken if it weren't for the charm. Then there's Eva and Hideyoshi... who left the meeting early cause they got tired, and went to the guesthouse. Then there's Kinzo, is he dead?

Natushi, the One Winged Eagle?

Eva essentially taunts Natsuhi into going to talk to Kinzo to tell him about coming down for breakfast. I swear she was going to tell him about the people disappearing, but then again they do theorise that everyone else just continued the discussion and went outside or something. In the rain. Sure. Definitely not cope. Of course she knows there's no way he'll come down, but Genji gives her his key to the study. Okay.

So she goes up, knocks on the door, and he doesn't respond. She assumes he's asleep or something and opens the door. ...and yep he's right there looking out the window. So, not dead. She tries and fails to get him down, and his reasoning is solid - they're obsessed about the inheritance so he has no goddamn reason to want to join them for that meal. She goes to leave, and then, out of nowhere, Kinzo asks her about her old family, and she says she's an Ushiromiya first and foremost.

Then he says that if Krauss was a woman and Natsuhi was the guy.... and stops himself. Clearly the fucker was saying that he'd love for her to inherit things. THEN he says that while she's not qualified to wear the One-Winged Eagle, she definitely has it in her heart.

This whole thing is cute and previous and everything yeah ok - where the fuck did any of this come from. Genuinely, what the fuck prompted any of this? Is it that one or both of them might die from all the witch bullshit? I'm at such a loss, but I'm not complaining - especially because when the scene is over and Natsuhi leaves, and Eva can be heard coming up the stairs being all like "oh you were taking so long i wanted to come check", Natsuhi essentially stops giving a shit and tells her yup, dude's not coming 'cause y'all only care abt the inheritance. Eva handwaves this, but then Natsuhi says that she gets why Kinzo doesn't give a shit about joining them, before leaving. Which leaves Eva stunned - I mean where in the fuck did all that confidence come from?

The Storehouse

so. Kumasawa is cookin up breakfast, and Kanon comes back in after looking everywhere for the missing people to report that he couldn't find them. Natsuhi says it's fine and leaves, just before Kanon tells Genji that he found something weird at the storehouse. Eva and Hideyoshi hear this and ask about it, to which Kanon proceeds to... not say - dude's blueballing us. No matter, we can just go get the key to the storehouse

we're there and, wouldn't you know it - on the locked door, there's a weird magic circle drawn in red goop that the inner-voice avoids calling blood, opting to call it mucus? which... alright? it's offputting but whatever, we just need to clean it up - tools are in the storehouse so we just need to unlock it...

...snap back to the lounge. Everyone's chilling. Maria watching TV, cousins talkin, Nanjo readin some stuff, then Genji runs in and discreetly asks Nanjo to join him, whispering something in his ear which makes his face go white. Okay. As they leave, they meet up with Natsuhi, Genji does his whisper trick again and... same reaction.

Now, me personally, I thought that he was whispering about the symbol (for some reason), but maybe they found a corpse in the storehouse. I don't know why I didn't discard the symbol theory entirely, but I think that I was presuming things would remain slow. So they run off, and George notices them - which in turn leads everyone to realise that oh, everyone's gone. It looks like they're heading for the storehouse, so let's follow them!

...bad idea.

Everyone's there, but as the kids approach Natsuhi notices and rushes at them waving her arms, saying to stay back. Which unfortunately, leads Jessica to see something that makes her scream. By the way, the voiceactors are fucking magnificent, I'm playing on the Umineko Project version and goddamn Jessica's scream left me stunned.

Everyone's there. Including the missing people. As bodies. They're all dead, in the same place. So already I was shocked - I expected like, corpses to pop up one by one, I still am not entirely sure why, but I think the slowness of the start conditioned me. If you graded the curve of this game's intensity, this moment would completely break the graph. We already had some spikes with the whole Beatrice letter thing but now we're driving right off the deep end.

It gets worse too - they're not just dead, they were butchered. Everyone's face is at least half smashed, and Rudolf and Kyrie specifically had their entire face smashed - to the point where Battler couldn't see where the eyes and nose were, but could see the mouth open and twisted - I genuinely can't even envision how fucked the corpses were.

George is stopped from going in by his parents. Jessica is stopped by her mom. Battler's parents are both dead, so no one stops him from just making his way in and seeing the butchering in high detail. As you can imagine, he doesn't take it well. In essence, everyone breaks down here - George especially when he learns that Shannon is also dead. He wants to see her, but Best Dad Hideyoshi stops him, telling him that she wouldn't want to remember him like this. He asks them about the ring, and at this point it becomes very clear to his parents that he proposed to her, which prompts Eva to freak out - who is immediately met by Best Fucking Dad Hideyoshi telling her that shit does not matter right now.

And yep. She wore the ring.

I cried during this whole thing by the way.

Part III: Road to Zero

I'll speed through this portion because fuck you if you think this is going to be a replacement for actually experiencing Umineko. I've walked you through the introduction, and the rest assumes you already know what happens next. I suppose I could call a spoiler warning - but it's going to be a shitshow if you would be spoiled, so... I s'pose good luck?

Status Check

So, just to keep track of things --- who's still alive?

The Dead: Rudolf, Kyrie, Krauss, Shannon, Rosa, Gonda
The Familiars: Genji, Kumasawa, Kanon, Nanjo
The Parents: Hideyoshi, Eva, Natsuhi
The Cousins: Battler, Jessica, Maria, George
The Missing: Kinzo

I have to write this to make sure I cover everyone's moments, because there's a big cast and it's easy to have things slip through the cracks. But also, I wanted to have a bit of a... schedule of deaths here as well.

Deaths I: The six sacrifices. Covered above.
Deaths II: Hideyoshi and Eva. Died in a locked room. Meant to be impossible to taunt Battler's "wish".
Deaths IIb: Kanon. Who ran after Beatrice but foolishly decided to confront her for some reason without really much of a plan. Also Kinzo, whose body was thrown into the incinerator.
Deaths III: Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo. Who were chased out of the impenetrable study room due to paranoia.
Deaths IV: Natsuhi. Went after the witch with a gun, and seemingly shot herself despite aiming at Beatrice. Kept a door locked to stop the cousins from following.
Deaths V: Everyone who remained. Seemingly blamed on Battler who refused to believe in Beatrice despite her showing up infront of him. Though, more particularly, refused to believe in her magic. The ending is a bit of a fugue, it really just throws me off -- but I gleaned that much at least.

And now, for the details.

Hideyoshi and Eva

Everything from this point on is present in the following VOD: https://youtu.be/3_uJIgkrB5U

On the second twilight, those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close.

This part is what made me completely discard what twilight meant. I thought it was counting nights, but it seems like they just mean stops. However, it was pretty damn clear that they were going to die the moment that we pivoted to their perspective, locked in their room. It was getting a bit too sweet.

An interesting clash - on one hand I was immediately prepared for these two to die. On the other hand, I was appreciating their moment of vulnerability together which, well, they are married so it makes sense. I'll be honest, I always had some suspicion that Eva secretly didn't care that much about Hideyoshi, but this basically shattered that. It was sweet seeing them talk to each other that intimately, and reflecting on their lives and futures. Talking about going on vacation just the two of them, talking about George and how he's grown... it was very sweet.

I mean Eva is still an awful person, especially now that I've gotten through like, 2% of Chapter 2, but I really do like how she's a complex character and not just a cartoonishly evil person - even if she does have a cartoonishly evil performance at times. Hideyoshi is still a baller though.

In any case this was a bizarre murder that feels a bit core to parts of the mystery - after all, how the hell could it have worked without magic? The door was locked from the inside, and though you could open it, you could only see a small part - you'd still have to cut down the chain. Eva was possible, though incredibly unlikely because of the circumstance -- but Hideyoshi was in the bathroom. There was literally no way to kill him from outside - someone had to be inside - but if someone was inside, then the room wouldn't be locked from the inside.

I feel like we literally do not have enough information to understand what the hell could be possible in this room - can't even begin to draft up a theory on how it happened without magic and I'm not as delusional as Battler in just blindly saying it can't be magic because... I mean, the fuck?

Kinzo's Bizarre Death & Kanon's Blunder

Then we have this - a stink coming from elsewhere in the house that Kanon and Kumasawa run to - though Kumasawa is old and very obviously cannot catch up. So obviously the stink is something ominous, but there's no way it's a corpse, unless it's of someone who we haven't even seen - because bodies don't decay that fast.

Kanon does, what I call, a classic blunder and decides to rush in after the killer without much of a plan. He has his moment, does his speech, and I mean - he has a lot to say after all this bullshit especially with how the killer got Shannon as well, but uh... the guy seemingly forgets that the killer is a killer, who then proceeds to kill him with like, some kind of fucking drill gun thing?

I don't remember exact details and there's so much VOD footage to scrub through (im lazy lol), but it was some ornate thing that basically impaled his chest - I believe the same thing that impaled Eva and Hideyoshi. Actually...

On the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
On the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.

Well there we go. And of course, the head gouging is Kinzo - who was stinking up the whole place. Dude got impaled in the head and thrown into an incinerator. Honestly kinda disrespectful of Beatrice lmao - like I know that she cares on some level about Kinzo, but I also know that she technically has reasons to hate him. But still the fact he gets thrown into the incinerator feels so bizarre when compared with everyone else.

Infact, actually, the murders have some weird disconnects between them. Later, in their own section. Because we need a whole view of the situation first. And I went really verbose with it.

What's up with Maria?

Genuinely, what's up with Maria? She seemingly gets possessed by witches at points, but whoever she's getting possessed by - while being an asshole who taunts people like how a witch would - is still generally helpful and answers several questions. Of course there's an incentive - for magic to exist it must be believed in, and her explanations would strengthen knowledge about magic and thus potentially fuel belief. The game makes it sound like this could be a dissociative identity situation, but that feels so weird to me.

At the end of the day, Maria is still a kid. She's obsessed about witchcraft and magic, but are you telling me someone that young is going to laugh at murders happening, the misfortune of everyone around, and talk like that? This whole theory feels like a cope by the characters to find some non-magical explanation. It could very well be the case mind you, I have no idea where this story is going, but... I'm skeptical.

The Study Confrontation

Now this part - beautiful. First you have everyone basically terrorized, moving together as a group while Natsuhi holds a big ass gun, making their way to the study because it's objectively the safest place in the entire mansion. Then they make their way in and finally they can breathe a bit - with Battler checking out the books to see if he could learn anything, before then yet another letter appears, and before they read it Natsuhi immediately goes on red alert and prepares her gun. It immediately becomes clear that the suspects are Maria, Kumasawa, Nanjo, and Genji - and mainly because they were the only ones who realistically could have put the letter there. And Maria is spooky.

So then you have a whole thing where she tries to figure out what to do because well, you know, she doesn't exactly want to kill the innocent, but she also just got handed "evidence" on a silver platter - so eventually we settle on exile. The suspects all gotta go leave the room, and everyone also recognizes this to be essentially a death sentence - the room literally has an anti-magic knob on it. It's pretty hard to blame Natsuhi here, but of course something like this utterly fucks the morale of everyone involved. People outside of the room are now just waiting to be murdered, and the people in the room are inevitably going to think about how they sent these people out of what is essentially the only safe room in the entire place.

Which comes back to bite them pretty quickly as everyone starts to feel awful about it, with Natsuhi also feeling awful but of course she has to maintain this stance because leaving the room at this point would remove them from the only bit of safety that exists. After all, everyone involved can be sure as shit that everyone currently in the room is not the killer. Of course, everyone is still being eaten up by this and it's not helped when the goddamn phone rings and plays the most ominous shit, with Maria singing far away from the phone, and no one really answering it - making them wonder who the hell is calling. So at this point they leave the room to check out what's happening because well. Curiosity killed the cat. But the cat still can't help but be curious.

So they make it there, the room's locked and they have to break in, and...

The Crescendo

...hooooly shit the scene that awaits.

Of course they're all dead except for Maria who we could hear on the phone, but the main part is the camera panning to the right, showing the room with a whole bunch of blood on the floor, before eventually showing Maria, staring at the wall, still singing, not hearing them, also covered in blood. Shit brought me back to that one moment in the final case of Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. I won't spoil it but you know the one. It's haunting. Eventually they can talk to Maria, who promptly tells them what happened and how she didn't see anything which doesn't help everyone's opinion of her at this point.

Then Natsuhi disappears. She's just gone. I think she got a message or something from Beatrice and decided to confront her without telling anyone, keeping them in the room - that she "locked" from outside to just go and shoot the goddamn witch. Of course this doesn't work, and apparently Natsuhi shot herself. Which, the fuck?

So then the cousins break out of the room and make their way to where Natsuhi is, and this is when Beatrice finally makes her appearance to everyone. And at this point I'm just wondering what the fuck is going to happen next. I shit you not, all I remember is Beatrice and Maria making fun of Battler, Battler continuing to deny them, and then the end starts. I don't remember the fact that Battler pulled a gun on them, or that the time ran out, because what follows is something that literally breaks me.

This is 7:26:28 of the VOD above. Some credits-narration starts scrolling upwards. Everything returns to normal, the cops arrive on the island, and while some triumphant sounding music plays, it talks about how the corpses of the children are never found, they find everything else and conclude that everyone's basically dead, there's literally no hints as to what the fuck happened, except a strange wine bottle that appears years later which shows someone's writings about what happened - but only about as much as we know, so it confuses everyone else too, and the writer's signature belongs to Maria.

Turns out, they found Maria's jaw - somewhere, who the fuck knows, uniquely identifiable compared to all the other bullshit on the island (did they find it on the island?), and the final paragraph Maria leaves behind is this:

By the time you read this, I will probably be dead.

Although there may or may not be a corpse.

You who have read this: please uncover the truth.

This is my only wish.

Then it shows the results page for the 1st game (??? fuck you mean 1st game??), also scrolling up like everything else, which plainly states what happened to everyone.

Krauss, Rudolf, Rosa, Kyrie, Shannon, Gohda all died on the first twilight, chosen by the key and sacrificed.
Eva, Hideyoshi died on the second twilight, both their foreheads pierced. Eva by the Stake of Asmodeus, and Hideyoshi by the Stake of Beelzebub.
Kinzo died on the fourth twilight, forehead gouged by the Stake of Mammon. Why gouged instead of pierced? I don't know.
Kanon died on the fifth twilight, chest gouged by the Stake of Satan.
Genji died on the sixth twilight, stomach gouged by the Stake of Lucifer.
Nanjo died on the seventh twilight, knee gouged by the Stake of Belphegor.
Kumasawa died on the eighth twilight, leg gouged by the Stake of Leviathan.
Beatrice revived on the ninth twilight, ready to open the door to the Golden Land.
Natsuhi died on the ninth twilight, duelling with the witch. Apparently her nobility was praised so, that's nice. Unfortunately she died but y'know.
George, Jessica, and Maria all missing on the tenth twilight, having accepted the witch, prostrated themselves, and got invited to the Golden Land.
Battler also went missing on the tenth twilight, but denied the existence of the witch and we don't even know if he got invited. Probably died or who knows what else.

THEN, it just says yeah they revived the souls of the dead and the love they possessed, so George got Shannon back, Jessica got "her lost loved one", and Maria got the lost love of her mother. Which I didn't even realise, who's Jessica's "lost loved one" again?? Anyways, Beatrice is told to rest in peace, declared the winner, and no one solved the riddle of the gold in time.

And despite what the previous paragraph just fucking said, all eighteen died, and none were left alive.

...

the end!

Part IV: Explaining the Ending

...what the fuck do you mean explaining the ending? what do you want me to say? i still don't understand what the fuck happened here lol. but what i can do is talk about the murders.

Part V: Reasoning about the Murders

It's time to talk about how curious the murders are. They can easily slip you by - as they did me - while you're playing the game, because of how much shit is going on and how many things there are to keep track of, or that the game is shoving in your face, but focusing on them specifically starts to raise some more questions.

One distinguishing factor is whether they were moved or not. The first 6 were presumably moved, and everyone from then on except maybe Kinzo was left right where they were murdered. Eva on her bed, Hideyoshi mid-shower, Kanon mid-confrontation, and the same goes for the rest, excluding the cousins whose deaths were basically offscreen.

Kinzo is an unknown because no one knew where he was - Natsuhi was the only one who met him that morning, and Eva's receipt gambit makes trying to triangulate when he left his room damn near impossible - and Beatrice couldn't really make her way in due to the knob which had a protective seal on it. Which leaves us with the idea, beyond an impossibility like the Eva/Hideyoshi locked room, that Kinzo left his room. Then we have two options - he was in the incinerator room, or he wasn't.

If he wasn't, this marks the only other time that we know people were moved after death. This begs the question: why was he moved? Is it the same reason as the first 6? If so, why only Kinzo? If he was in the room, what was he doing there? In either case we still have a pretty useful question - why incinerate Kinzo's corpse? This gives us another link to the first six - namely that these are the only bodies that are confirmed to have been tampered with after death.

Then we have the others - Eva and Hideyoshi could have been left in the room because it would have been an impossible locked room mystery - exactly what Battler asked for - as a taunt. Kanon was killed simply because he was the one to confront the killer in the incinerator room, and presumably there wasn't enough time to move him. Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo were all killed in the room they holed up in - which was notably also locked, leaving only Maria who was told to look away by Beatrice.

Consider the original six - who were presumably murdered in the dining room, then moved to the storehouse. All six, in the middle of the night. With the only trace of blood being a small one in the dining room. Which then raises even more questions - why leave that stain when you'd have presumably cleaned a lot more blood? Why would a stain be missed in the dining room of all places? What message or purpose would this stain have in being left there at the scene?

Let's seriously think about this murder as happening in the Dining Room. 6 people are killed, and presumably bleed all over the scene. If they do not, then the puddle is unexplained. They are then moved to the storehouse - which unless you're superhuman, you'd have to do one at a time and get a whole bunch of blood over yourself. You then need a way to open the storehouse, which means you must have a servant's knowledge, as it's pretty difficult otherwise to find the right key. Then you open the door, place the bodies inside, close and lock the door, and draw a magic circle - before returning the key back to its place. At some point during all of this, you inconsistently smash their faces, and you also clean up all of the blood.

Any magical explanation for this also needs an explanation for why the puddle was leftover. Any non-magical explanation needs some way of justifying the ridiculous logistics - not to mention that if you're one of the established characters, you also have to clean yourself up, and somehow deep clean your clothes during the night. You probably didn't sleep a single wink. We were never told about other characters too. Occam's Razor then states that it must be a witch, but relying on the Razor during mysteries can send you in the entirely wrong direction due to how exploitable it is.

Not to mention, if we presume the killer to be Beatrice alone, then this contradicts the reasoning as to why you'd leave Kanon there. If you can move 6 people with magic, you can definitely move one.

Now, a lot of methodology to these murders could also be chalked up to psychologically messing with the people present - which is a thing the killer is known to do considering the phone call to the Study once the cousins and Natsuhi are all inside. There's also the letter, which appeared in the study somehow. Now, we know via the knob that the witch cannot have placed the letter, and the suspects end up being the servants, Nanjo, and Maria. Of course, Maria is the easiest suspect due to her connection with witches and tendency to be possessed by them or something - unless the game is serious about the dissociative identity theory presented by the cousins which I find hard to believe but, I suppose is theoretically possible.

It's hard to reason through all of this, there's so much to keep track of, so many unknowns - it's damn near impossible to know what actually happened so far. But if I had to guess, there's two avenues to take.

One is that the murders are magical. Beatrice killed everyone with at least a single accomplice - as evidenced by the letter in Kinzo's Study, unless Beatrice had an alternate route in, or no one noticed the letter as they were entering the room. Both of these are pretty out there - but theoretically possible - so I maintain that at least one accomplice must be involved. The purpose of the accomplices would be to assist in dividing the group and placing them in the best position to be murdered. If Maria is an accomplice, her overall behaviour and demeanor which makes no one trust her or even like her in this moment kinda works against her. The main thing she would've done to help would be that call where the cousins and Natsuhi could hear her, which eventually led them outside.

The other is that the murders are not magical. This is more bizarre, but I also can't shake the feeling - kind of like Battler. There's so much focus in making you believe the magic - on magic being the miracle of immense risk paying off - and this whole sequence tied with the epitaph... There are many things pointing to this theory. But if this is the case, then I feel as if there's people we don't know also on the island. Otherwise none of this makes any sense - who killed everyone? Who killed Eva and Hideyoshi? Who could've even killed Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo? It cannot have been Maria on her own, how would she even overpower them? Thus, there must be other people on the island.

In any case, to conclude this section... I definitely think that we're missing a lot of information. The frame isn't fully painted - as is with the information we've been given, there's no way we can complete the puzzle without guesswork. But on reflection, I think it's impossible that the killer was just Beatrice alone, or a subset of the established characters alone. There must either be accomplices to Beatrice, unknown people on the island, or both. And I'm leaning towards both.

Part VI: The Extras

So, time for the start of the conclusion. I've said pretty much everything there is to say about the chapter, but then we have the Tea Party and the ??? segment.

The Tea Party

I was fully gone at this point. No idea what was going on. Just going through the motions.

This entire thing is a meta mindfuck. You have all the cousins talk as if they were actors in a play - Shannon is also there, the atmosphere is all relaxed and nice, Beatrice shows up and just chats up, and then what happens is that Battler begins to doubt the magic again, seemingly breaking out of a trance or whatevhttps://blog.enbyss.com/remote/finishing-umineko-episode-1er the hell this thing is. He gets warped to the locked room again and told to explain what happened without using magic, which he struggles with but tries to hallucinate some idea of a reality which doesn't make sense.

The interesting part however is that when it becomes clear that he's not going to get convinced, the cousins begin to rot or something. They just, melt and die slowly and horrifically infront of him because well, he's denying the magic. So I guess they were revived by magic, and since Battler was so focused on not believing in magic, it undid the magic and so they started dying again. And that's the tea party. What the fuck.

???

Then this. We're in the goddamn witch zone now, seeing Beatrice hanging out talking about a game, and it becomes pretty goddamn clear that everything in the first chapter was essentially orchestrated by her. Which brings me even more confusion as to what's going on or what the point even is.

A new witch pops up, Bernkastel, who Beatrice tries to keep interested because Bernkastel is always really bored. They talk about their powers, and I'll be honest I didn't understand a single goddamn thing about whatever they were talking about. I don't even remember. Their powers are weird as hell and I don't know how they work. Then, Bernkastel sees US or whoever the fuck we're supposed to be, and gives us some kind of power???

This section is complete gibberish. I could go over the scene again but frankly I think I'd need to approach it through a lens of analysis or something because while I could do this writeup about Chapter 1, chapter 1 was also a lot less "encrypted", because instead of being held in a meta-mindfuck-witch-prison, it's in the "real world" with people who also have no idea what is going on. So if you expect me to shed light on anything in this post, sorry about that. It's already taken me too long to write this whole thing, the last thing this bit needs is yet another delay.

Part VII: Conclusion

I genuinely don't even know how to conclude this whole thing. It's the longest thing I've written, probably ever if I'm honest. I've started Chapter 2 a bit, and it already threw me for a loop because honestly I was expecting it to basically be a replay of the day with weird changes - but instead we start with Shannon being on a date with George. I'll be honest, I don't like George that much, and while the romance is cute, it's far down in the list of things I like about this game. But then we're sent back, and that's when shit gets weird again. I don't really know how to even begin understanding what's going to happen next, but if this chapter takes place from the perspective of Shannon, we won't really get to see much of the murderous shenanigans because she's kind of the first person to die or something.

Which I suppose does remind me. Shannon wasn't in the dining room. She couldn't have been killed in there unless she was forced to go. So huh, that's interesting. But I guess we'll understand what the hell happened with that whole part soon enough. Maybe. Probably not.

Finishing Umineko | Episode I