Umineko Points Of Interest

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ AT LEAST EPISODES 1-4 OF UMINEKO!!!  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

What follows is essentially just a list of what was going through my mind as I read through the first 4 episodes of Umineko.  As you will notice, my points of interest start out as just simple observations and then over time progress into full blown theories as I try to understand the novel more and more.  I personally found coming up with these theories on my own to be the most enjoyable part of the novel up to this point so here they are for anyone that might be interested.   Also, if you are interested in an actual review of episode 4 instead of a list of ideas here is my article where I put my thoughts and feelings together up to that point: Umineko Episode 4 Personal Review

Episode 1


1. Maria is really weird she didn't even react when she found out her mother died

 2.  Maria is like another character I know from another novel.  If you've read it you'll know which one I mean

 3. The outline of a woman in Maria’s eyes in that cg which looked like Beatrice

 4. Rudolf saying he might be killed and rosa acting like she would never see Maria again

 5. Blood on natsuhi’s door on the outside

 6. Blood in the dining room

 7. Shannon not fitting with the other victims because of her one winged eagle and servant status simultaneously

 8. Gohda being loyal to Krauss

9. Possible fight during the meeting last night

 10. Eva leaving before everyone else during the meeting which seems like an obvious lie considering how important the inheritance was to her

 11. Gohda taking the rose from outside for his dessert

 12. The shrine being destroyed on the way there

 13. The seagulls being absent

 14. Eva being the only one left

 15. Kanon knowing about the keys

 16. Genji grabbing the keys

 17. Maria being unaccounted for during the rose incident

 18. Maria being apart from everyone during the night and when the bodies were found

 19. Maria’s voice changing

 20. The letter from Beatrice

 21. The fact that Maria was outside when Kinzo threw his ring out the window

 22. The epitaph and the gold

 23. The fact that Maria looks like a younger version of Beatrice

 24. The fact that Gohda had the bottom of his face intact, Shannon had the left side of her face intact, Krauss had the right side of his face intact, and in the characters section it would form a triangle between the three

 25. The fact that if Natsuhi had been killed in place of Shannon three out of the six would have been Krauss and his supporters

 26. Parallel between whether a 19th person exists or not and whether it is a curse or not

 27. The fact that Genji gave Natsuhi the key to Kinzo’s room and Kinzo did not act too upset about that fact. It almost seemed like he wanted to be seen by Natsuhi. I think Kinzo told him to do that

 28. Charred corpse whose identity is uncertain is oddly similar to another novel. Considering he created an alibi by Natsuhi seeing him for the last time in his study he could be the mastermind. He hasn’t exactly been subtle about the fact that he is scheming

 29. Krauss’s, Shannon’s and Gohda’s faces were smashed but still recognizable unlike Kyries’ Rudolf’s and Rosa’s faces. Could they have brought fake bodies in to replace there’s so they could keep scheming behind the scenes? Or could Krauss, Gohda, and Shannon actually have something going on as well? who knows……………..

 30. Interesting analogy between the flaw of chess theory and the idea of some situations being set by a strong will and others being random

 31. Natsuhi’s headaches stop being mentioned after a while. Not sure why but it is significant

 32. The possibility of two Kinzos’. What if he had a twin that he was switching with?

33. Could also be that it is a split personality thing and it runs in the family. Rosa seemed to become a different person at times too and her daughter is definitely weird enough as it is

 34. In the study, the discussion about throwing dice. Pretty obvious nod to Higurashi

 35. The fact that the one winged eagle is on everyone’s left side accept for Battler who has it on his right side

 36. Fumbling for the right key at the parlor door. hehe

37. Why did Nanjo have to check Hideyoshi’s pulse when he had an icepick in his head?

 38. Nanjo, Genji, and Kinzo all play chess just like Beatrice


Episode 2


1. Punishment game allusion at the beach was a nice touch

 2. Kumasawa received some black tea from Rosa in EP1 and Beatrice also likes black tea. If it were any other novel I would say coincidence but not so when Ryukishi is involved

 3. George is acquainted with a president from Okonogi Foods. Not exactly subtle is it

 4. Jessica’s brass knuckles will show up again at some point elsewhere lol

 5. O come on…..edited for spoilers but if you've read it or seen it you'll know what the festival part was about anyways. :P

 6. Yep it is official now, Kumasawa is a mastermind behind things I can feel it and she knows way more than she lets on. She is going to pop up at the end and be an older version of Beatrice or maybe a long lost relative looking for her cut or something like that eventually.

 7. Wow, Gohda sure knows how to spin a loud of crap. Krauss called him out on his French style food using non-French ingredients and he spun an amazing tale to cover himself. I hate that guy but you know what……that was a pretty awesome recovery.

8. Battler and Beatrice both have the one winged eagle on the right side while everyone else has it on their left side with Rosa being the sole exception with it in the center

 9. That whole fight scene was .....edited for spoilers. The energy blades, the furniture thing versus familiars, everything was straight.......edited. Kanon only needed the outfit and he would have definitely been the same as....edited..... at that moment

 10. Rosa was with everyone in the chapel during the siblings meeting with Beatrice and yet she survived and is acting like she doesn’t remember anything that happened

 11. The 2 initial sacrifices happened in a warehouse and now in a chapel. Both of the second sacrifices happened in a room in the mansion

 12. Rosa is awfully quick to point fingers at others even though she is by far the most suspicious. We have no idea if she really met with Kinzo or where she was during the night. In the first episode she and Rudolf both hinted at the fact that they might be killed too. She and the other siblings were also all at the chapel too so she probably switched envelopes with Maria without her knowing to gain access and then acts like she doesn’t remember. She accepted the witch so who’s to say she is not an accomplice putting on an act. We also still do not know anything about Maria’s father accept for the fact that he has been on an extended ‘business trip’. I guess battler kind of hit on this as the episode progressed so pretty much everything but the chapel, envelope, and father parts

 13. Beatrice seemed to really get mad at Shannon when she stood by George until the end in Natsuhi’s room. The way she went on a tangent like she did almost seemed like she spoke from some sort of personal experience. She also contradicts herself as well by going out her way to do things for Maria even though she acts like she does not care. Strange indeed.

 

Episode 3

 1. If Bernkastel and Lambdadelta originated from living people then Beatrice must have as well. She took the name Beatrice from her teacher apparently so who was she in life then. Maria seems to be following in her footsteps as well which may be the symbolism with the crown on her head

 2. Eva’s alter ego talks about magic too so she is probably another witch as well

 3. Yeah……it’s pretty obvious that something happened six years ago to Battler that was pretty significant. This is the third time they have harped on him and how much he has changed in six years so something is definitely up there.

 4. Ronove sure looks an awful lot like Kanon’s sprite, albeit older. Very interesting indeed and makes me wonder if there is not some time traveling stuff about to be brought up at some point. Hmmmmm

 5. What if this is all a hallucination of Battler’s? He could have killed everyone after going crazy and is now stuck in a fantasy world that he cannot escape. Maybe Beatrice is an alternate personality inside his head which his mind is using to avoid facing the fact that he was the one that really killed everyone. Just a random thought

 6. I also thought of a brand new theory while I was doing some stuff for work. I figured that maybe Kanon and Ronove are connected in a more obvious way too. Kinzo started his black magic obsession primarily because of Beatrice so he probably tried learning some of her magic as well. Perhaps Shannon, Genji, Kanon, and even Battler perhaps were all his attempts to replicate her familiars and Shannon, Genji, and Battler will have counterparts of their own show up in future episodes. It would make sense from a chess standpoint too since it would be Kinzo's way of setting up his own pieces on the board, after all a chess game isn't very fair if both sides aren't evenly powered at the start eh

 7. Well my theory about Kumasawa being suspicious was right although I didn’t guess she was the original Beatrice. I guess her love of black tea that I thought was suspicious in ep1 makes since now.

8. Still confused on the prologue scene. It seems like it was Beatrice who broke the vase but then why would she refer to Kinzo as “grandfather” while her teenage self-did not…….strange

 9. Hmmmm……the music from Higurashi when the older Beatrice is talking to the younger Beatrice and when Eva’s alter ego is talking are definitely not lost on me

 10. The beloved hometown and the Sweetfish River could be an allusion to Maria. If you follow the river you end up at Maria/village. She is the key right? Well the novel pretty much continued past this and this theory is kind of mute at this point.

 11. 07151129…..hmm could possibly be his birthday and his sisters. Kyrie said something about her and Asumu giving birth on the same day though so even if the miscarriage is a lie that sort of kills it. Could also be a date with a year such as the year 11, 29, 0715 though the significance is still unknown.

 12. I noticed it only when Battler brought it up but Kyrie mentioned his sister Ange too. I figured at that point she would play a role in the story but I never expected she would make such an entrance. The one thing that throws me off though is the fact that he said she was six years old and she is definitely not six. Could be further proof that events are not necessarily taking place at the same time in every episode. Well the novel spoke for itself yet again and explained that there was a time gap. Lol

 13. It’s a cipher! It is either an anagram or the numbers have something to do with placing letters in certain places to finish up portions of the epitaph that are hidden. EVA and ANGE and one more that I may have heard but am forgetting at the moment.


 Episode 4

 1. Ange went to St. Lucia’s Academy eh……interesting

 2. Here is a good one right. I noticed that the CG where Beatrice was ‘sacrificing’ herself for Kanon and Jessica she had the Ushiromiya Head’s ring on her finger. Considering she handed that ring over to Eva well before that point and Eva certainly never gave it back then why was it still on her finger? Hehe Me thinks he has found something interesting there. Perhaps that CG is used near the end as well and they didn’t want to make another just because of the ring. I know it is the same ring now too because Okonogi …….what?!...... mentioned it being on Ange’s finger and it has the same design as the one on Beatrice’s finger. Very interesting indeed

 3. I was just thinking that perhaps Kyrie is the mastermind behind all of this. She reminds me of another character in a novel I read about in that she seems suspicious and yet always keeps anyone for pinning any hard evidence on her. She is always coming up with various theories that show how smart she is and she has to still be bitter about her previous history with Rudolf and his wife. It could be that her plan is to take everyone out in the Ushiromiya family and let the inheritance pass to her daughter Ange and then pop up as her mother and then use the funding to take over her own family from her younger sister. Definitely a character that is planning something behind the scenes

 4. Hmm…I could be going about this all wrong and Ange is actually the one behind it all. It seems unlikely but her whereabouts were never proven concretely and she could have been elsewhere during the incident. What if she snuck on the island at some point near the end and threw a body into the water or something? Then there could still be 18 people on the island and all of the ones mentioned could be dead and still have a culprit for Nanjo’s death. I came up with this one after applying the three names of the witch’s to the epitaph and figured if EVA was the one that found the key and the door then Ange was the one who sacrificed everyone and Maria is the one to bring them back at the end and put Beatrice “to sleep” as it were. Just another off the wall theory to add to the collection I guess

 5. I just realized that I’ve been doing things the same way Ange was telling Battler to do things with the arrow versus shotgun analogy. Lol Considering I thought it was all just my pointless speculation it is kind of cool that I was ahead of the curve in a way. Pretty good quote right here too so figured I’d add it. No other significance than that really:

 "Please, don't be afraid of being happy. Becoming happy isn't the same thing as accepting your misfortune. It means creating a new happiness out of your current misfortune. That is the Magic of Origins." Lady Maria, Witch of Origins

 6. Well if Maria is part of the ‘Mariage’ Sorcierge then wouldn’t logic dictate that she was not really dead in the first two episodes? It seems strange that Beatrice would break the pact of the Mariage Sorcierge when she herself went on about how important it was.

 7. Nanjo keeps mentioning the fact that he is a parent and grandparent it seems. It wouldn’t mean much accept for the fact that this is two episodes in a row he has mentioned it. I’m wondering if he has a connection with Kyrie perhaps. Ange was at her grandparents’ house, at least it is stated, but that doesn’t mean both of her grandparents were necessarily there at the time. No one, including Nanjo himself, has ever confirmed who his family is so it is entirely possible that he and Kyrie could secretly be related as father and daughter but have never told anyone else. Update: Nanjo’s son was introduced later on but that still doesn’t completely change the possibility that this theory could be possible

 8. I just remembered that Rosa had a gold butterfly land on her back in episode 2 and Kinzo had one fall off his back at the end of the same episode. They both have strange bipolar tendencies too so who’s to say Beatrice is not partially responsible for the overly extreme and ruthless behavior they displayed in episode 4. It doesn’t forgive Rosa for things she has done in the past at all but it may explain events on the island a bit better, especially if Beatrice wanted to push Maria that little bit extra so she would fall into the same pit of madness that she lurks in. With that said though what happened to Beatrice that made her so harsh anyways? She probably had a rather difficult time in her earlier days herself and is trying to project that misery onto Maria who she relates too. Could also be darker than that and she is just using her too I guess

 9. The significance of the letters to the relatives could very well be part of an attempt to spread the craziness at Rokkenjima even further. Perhaps Beatrice won’t be satisfied until the entire country falls under her spell. Would make for a good plot in an anime or manga, which Ryukishi seems to enjoy joking around about lol

 10. There is something funny about Gaap’s character. Didn’t Eva say she was trained to fight and was very good with her feet? Doesn’t Gaap have an extremely similar fighting style? She also was the one to test George about his resolve to so could she be also testing his resolve about Shannon as well? She even looks a little like Eva too if you changed the hair a bit. Very odd indeed

 11. Maria probably was not dead to begin with considering the circumstances in every episode, except possibly ep3 so could it be possible that Maria herself is Beatrice then? Would go along quite well if you applied my earlier theory about Battler and his mental state and applied it here as well. I guess my time travel theory would also be another potential theory as well. Considering the novel kind of hit on these possibilities already it makes them seem plausible. I actually theorized this back in ep1 when I saw that really creepy CG of Maria going all crazy psycho kihihihiing on everybody back at point three but now it just seems even more likely.

 12. I also think Lambdadelta and Bernkastel are underestimating Beatrice as well but not in the since that they are pushing me to think that way. Beatrice and Kinzo said multiple times in the beginning that magic grows stronger with the risk. So by putting herself in a situation with virtually no chance of victory and then pulling off said victory would then itself create the strongest magic ever created, at least according to her and Kinzo’s rules.

 13. If you apply the account number 07151129 to MARIAANGEEVA and take the first and last letters of the word you get and move them to the end it actually comes out to “Mamma ne”. Probably no significance at all especially with the translation being factored in too but considering everything that happened it just makes Maria seem even more like a tragic figure. “uu-uu “

 14. What if Kinzo and Genji are switching places? Perhaps Kinzo switches places with Genji from time to time for whatever reason. It could be that in ep4 Genji turned on Kinzo during one of the times when they switched by killing him/Genji in the parlor. Maybe it is not Kinzo who is obsessed with Beatrice but it is in fact Genji.