Ranked #291

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Umineko is an outstanding anime. But it has a serious problem: IT IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK AT THE FIRST GLANCE.

If you are expecting a standard murder mystery, IT IS NOT.
If you are expecting an other Higurashi, IT IS NOT.

The author of both Higurashi and Umineko, Ryuukishi07, seems to have a hobby of throwing crazy stuff at the face of his readers. And in Umineko, he threw A LOT.

So watching this anime, you need to prepare for some WTF moments. The first one is at the end of the first arc, and the second is in the middle of the second arc. Many people have dropped this anime at those points, they just can't accept them. But if you can and go on, you'll realize they are what make Umineko unique and why the VN players love Umineko.

Umineko is not a anime for everyone. Because compare to Higurashi, Umineko's content is much harder to consume. The first arc has nothing special (except the ending), the second arc is quite painful to watch. You'll need a lot of patience. read more

So here I finally am, the bad guy who is gonna compare the anime of "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" against the visual novel.

I was happily waiting for the release of the anime, since I really liked the first four novels. While I wasn´t expecting TOO much of the story of chapter 1, chapter 2 has underlined my bad feelings......

STORY:
Overall, they followed the story well. Some keyfacts where sadly left out, like some explanations from Beatrice. Still, nothing too important was left out, but of course, MANY other funny or interesting things are missing; but in the end, you can´t push a whole book or novel in a 24 - 26 episode anime.

ART:
When I saw the first pictures I thought "OMG WHAT´S THAT?", but after seeing it in action, it´s not so bad as I thought. Still, it can´t underline some characters like Eva and Beatrice very well, but I say more about that later.

SOUND:
I always like it when good music from a visual novel is used in the anime again. in Umineko, the recycled old music well and used many new tracks, too. Most of the time, the music is underlining the situation perfectly; but in chapter 1, it started to annoy me that 3 episodes ended with the same track in a row...

CHARACTERS:
And here we are, at the biggest weakness of this anime.
While the parents like Rudolph, Rosa and Eva where intruduced as very nice people in the start of the novel (what changed not so much later), here we got to see only their ugly sides from the start.

Evas "lovely" side was completely ignored, making her look like a b**** from the very start until now. Kyrie was nearly completely left out of the picture, even though she already played a good part in chapter 1 and 2, even though she may be the most interesting character out of the parents. The grand personality of Kinzo is nowhere to be seen, you see him crying most of the time. Maria´s creepyness is so exaggerated that it hurts. Jessica is only presented as a lovesick girl, but not the strong girl she really is.

About Battler, he´s not half as fun as he used to be in the novel, since he´s reduced to to the tragic hero that has to oppose the witch, even though in the original it wasn´t like that.

But the REAL annoyance is about Beatrice.
Her funny, easy to tease character is completely left out, showing only the "evil witch side" of her, but not the interesting character she really is. The somewhat "friendly rivalship" between her and Battler is completely left out, as well as the fact that Battler calls her "Beato" since near the start of chapter 2l.

Partly, the art-style may be at fault as well, I have trouble imagening a sulking or happily laughing Beatrice with the mostly "serious" style.

ENJOYMENT:
When you ignore that it is an anime to an existing story, it´s not bad, and I will still continue to watch it, since the really interesting stories are gonna start now.

OVERALL:
Even with the left out things of the story, it would be a great anime, if they only didn´t screw up the personalities of the characters so bad. Because they did, the story isn´t what it could be, especially because the relationship between Beatrice and Battler is totally different.

Like that, many potential was thrown away, what makes me quite sad. It might be a good anime in it´s own way, and I still have hope for the second half, but it is not the "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" it should have been. read more