The Purple Sickle Murders

"GOOD"

Umineko: When They Cry

Finally got started on the Famicom Detective Club remakes! Funny to see how old-fashioned they still play, despite the new coat of paint.

After completing the mystery game Umineko: When They Cry a few weeks ago, I decided to have a look at what kinds of spin-off material are available, and the one that caught my attention was Umineko no Naku Koro ni Murasaki: Forgery of the Purple Logic ("When The Seagulls Cry Purple: Forgery of the Purple Logic" 2012-2013), a two-volume manga which was also mentioned in the comments in the Umineko: When They Cry review. The main reason why this title stood out was because it starred my favorite character Furudo Erika: an obnoxious girl who is aware that she's cast in the detective role in a mystery story and is willing to do the craziest things if it will allow her to solve the truth behind a case. But then I read a bit more about Forgery of the Purple Logic and it turned out it was more interesting than I had first expected. The short-lived series is illustrated by Suzushiro Kurumi and written by Hitohira, based on an original idea by Umineko: When They Cry author Ryukishi07 and is conceived as a pure whodunnit mystery story. When this series was originally serialized in the magazine Comp-Ace between 2012-2013, the readers were even challenged to guess the truth and send in answers. With a lot of spin-off material focusing more on character interaction, Forgery of the Purple Logic stood out with its focus on a mystery, so I picked up the two volumes immediately (okay, I'll admit that was because there was a sale going on).

In Umineko: When They Cry, a series of murders among the members of the Ushiromiya clan and their servants occur on October 4th and 5th, 1986 on the private island Rokkenjima. The Golden Witch Beatrice claims that the seemingly impossible murders were committed with the help of her magic, but Ushiromiya Battler refuses to believe in her magic. Amused by Battler's attempt to deny her magic, Beatrice holds a series of "games" with Battler by "resetting" the events of October 4 and 5 and having the events unfold differently each time, challenging Battler to come up with a "rational" explanation for the various impossible murders or give in to her magic. Beatrice and Battler observe the deadly events on Rokkenjima from a meta-universe where witches and other supernatural beings live, like watching a live broadcast or a narrative-within-a-narrative structure and Battler has to figure out what's happening on the island based on what he is shown to him.

In Umineko no Naku Koro ni Murasaki: Forgery of the Purple Logic ("When The Seagulls Cry Purple: Forgery of the Purple Logic"), the Golden Witch Beatrice decides to do things differently for a change, and she creates a new "gameboard" (iteration of the Rokkenjima murders) where magic doesn't exist at all. Her stance this time is therefore not to make Battler give up and accept magic as the answer. In fact, she simplifies the enigmatic murders on Rokkenjima to one single question: whodunnit? Events start in a familiar manner: the members of the Ushiromiya Clan have gathered on Rokkenjima for their annual family gathering, but on the first night, six of them are killed together. The telephone has been disabled and a storm prevents the others from fleeing the island. Coincidentally though, a mysterious girl called Furudo Erika washes up on the shore, having been in an accident at sea. She claims to be a detective, but even she can't prevent more murders from occuring, even though everybody is aware there's probably a murderer among them. Can Erika on the island, and Battler in the meta-universe, figure out who the culprit on Rokkenjima is before everyone is murdered?

Even if you're not familiar with Umineko: When They Cry, the basic premise of a closed circle situation on an island will not be very surprising, but Forgery of the Purple Logic is actually quite a unique mystery manga, because it uses two concepts from the game to create a pure logic puzzle for the reader to tackle: the Red Truths and Purple Statements. In the world of Umineko: When They Cry, Red Truths are statements that are absolutely true and do not need further supporting evidence. If it's stated in red that X is dead, you don't need to worry about X faking their own death or anything. Likewise, if it's stated in red that access to room is only possible using one of the available keys, you don't need to worry about secret passages. You can consider it a way for the author to tell the reader directly that these are the exact rules/parameters of the detective game and that you don't need to be too suspicious about some facts. Purple Statements were originally only featured very briefly in Umineko: When They Cry, but are used more extensively in Forgery of the Purple Logic: like Red Truths, Purple Statements are also absolutely true unless they are spoken by the culprit: they are able to lie even if their statement is in purple. Note that the culprit is not obligated to lie when stating something in purple: they may be lying, but they can be stating an absolute truth too. 

The reader is thus challenged to solve the question of whodunnit in Forgery of the Purple Logic based on the Red Truths and Purple Statements presented throughout the tale. Red Truths are absolutely true, while only the culprit in this story (specifically defined as someone who has killed someone personally, so it can't be just an accomplice) can lie with a Purple Statement, so the reader has to identify the murderer and make sure that accusing this person of the crimes does actually fit with all the known Red Truths and Purple Statements. The concept is somewhat reminsicent of the old riddle with people who only speak the truth and people who only lie and you have to find out who the liar/honest person is, but on a much greater scale because if the variety in statements: colored statements can be about everything, from the circumstances of the deaths and crime scene to people vouching for other people's alibis. Figuring out how your murderer fits with the long list of known colored statements can be trickier than you might expect at first.

Oh, and if you're looking at these black/white images and thinking, geez, there's awfully little red and purple there, you're absolutely right. Like most manga, Forgery of the Purple Logic is mostly printed in monochrome, so they had to come up with a different solution to convey the differences in color: Red Truths are denoted with a wiggly line next to them, while Purple Statements are denoted with a straight line next to the relevant text. It's a... servicable solution, but after a while wiggly and straight lines blend together as you read on, and it's definitely never as clear as using colors. I wish they had used something more obvious to set the two types of statements apart, like blocks and circles or something like that.

Forgery of the Purple Logic thus offers an original approach for a mystery manga, as you're basically tackling an elaborate logic-based puzzle where you need to figure out what the truthful statements are actually hiding, which Purple Statements don't seem to work together with Red Truths, and from there, work your way to the solution. There are two big caveats however. The first is that like the original Umineko: When They Cry games, Forgery of the Purple Logic won't spell out the whole solution for you. In the last chapter, Erika does reveal who the killer is and there's a whole "and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for this meddling kid" scene, but the manga does not explicitly explain how this person committed the murders or how the reader was supposed to figure it out based on the Red Truths and Purple Statements. If you hadn't figured it out yourself, the final chapter will at least make it clear whose statements you should distrust and you can probably work your way back, but it's still up to the reader themselves to figure out how the murderer managed to lie low among all those colored statements. I myself had figured out the last half of the story, but the first half of the story was a lot trickier and I had to google the solution. Which admittedly, was actually quite clever: the final solution makes pretty clever use of the Red Truths and Purple Statements to fool the reader in a certain way and it's a story that only could have existed because it used colored statements. It's definitely designed as a logic puzzle and while some might find it too sterile, I love these kinds of stories.

The other caveat is that Forgery of the Purple Logic is pretty much unreadable unless you know Umineko: When They Cry already. There are many characters in this series, and Forgery of the Purple Logic barely attempts to properly introduce them to readers who don't know anything. The story starts of right away with six of them dead on the island and it's not even really explained how everyone is related. This is even worse in the parts set in the meta universe, as Battler and Beatrice are constantly visited by other witches, demons and other supernatural beings while they're observing the murders on Rokkenjima, and these appearances are just fan service, with them all showing up just to say one or two lines and leave again without contributing anything to the story. The final chapter of Forgery of the Purple Logic just goes very briefly into the subject of motive, and while the reader who has played all the eight episodes of Umineko: When They Cry can probably come up with something that could work as a motive because they know all the characters and their motivations, it's absolutely impossible for someone who doesn't know anything yet to come up with anything remotely satisfying based solely on this manga. 

I think Umineko no Naku Koro ni Murasaki: Forgery of the Purple Logic is an interesting experiment in mystery manga, one that builds on the 'solve-it-yourself' attitude of the original Umineko: When They Cry games by providing a pure logic puzzle mystery story without a detailed solution. If you liked Bernkastel's puzzle in the last episode of Umineko: When They Cry, you'll definitely love this and I have to say, the puzzle Forgery of the Purple Logic presents using Red Truths and Purple Statements is amusing. Which is perhaps why I also think it's a shame it's so deeply and firmly set within the Umineko: When They Cry world and setting, because the way it is written, it's basically unaccessible for people who don't know Umineko: this is in no way an introductionary work as it basically wants the reader to fill in the many, many gaps that are left untold in terms of characterization and background information, and that means many readers will miss out on a what is otherwise a fun approach to the puzzle plot manga.

Orginal Japanese title(s): 竜騎士07（原案）, 人比良(シナリオ）, 珠洲城くるみ（絵）『うみねこのなく頃に 紫 Forgery of the Purple logic』