When the Cicada Calls

あなたは今どこで何をしていますか？

この空の続く場所にいますか？

「You」（雪野五月）

Where are you right now? What are you doing now?

Are you somewhere beneath the far-reaching sky?

"You" (Yukino Satsuki)

About the title of this post: isn't it insane that there's a Scooby-Doo show with a Higurashi: When They Cry-inspired episode?

The last two months, the posts on this blog have included short updates on my progress through 07th Expansion's long mystery suspense visual novel Higurashi no Naku Koro ni ("When the Cicades Cry"), released in English as Higurashi: When They Cry. If you've been into anime and manga these last twenty years, it's very likely you have at least heard of this monster hit. Higurashi: When They Cry originally started as a 8-volume doujin (self-published) PC game, with the first chapter released in 2002 and the concluding chapter in 2006. Since then it has grown into a behemoth of a multimedia franchise, with several manga and anime adaptations (the most recent one was broadcast last year!), drama series, live-action films, pachinko machines, everything. It's been a part of Japanese pop culture especially after the first anime adaptations in 2006-2007. As it was a very big mystery-themed franchise, you'd think I would have gotten started on this a lot earlier, but I always found myself an excuse not to: while the anime was easily available since back in the days, I tend to prefer the original work if possible, but I don't really like to play novel games on my PC either, especially not if it meant having to read 8 chapters each about 8-12 hours long. The games have out in English on PC for a long time now by the way, so I think a lot of the readers here do already know Higurashi, either in game form or for example via the anime. Anyway, I kinda missed out on it in the second half of the 2000s, and then for a long time, I eyed the DS version, but that was kinda expensive because it had been divided into four different releases, but with added content. But with the current Switch/PS4 release titled Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou ("When The Cicades Cry - Offering"), I finally found a release that had everything I wanted of the franchise (both the original 8 chapters, as well as extra material and console-exclusive chapters), and for a modest price tag too! So it took me a while to get to it, but I finally understand all those Higurashi memes!

Anyway, last year, I played through the memorable mystery novel game Umineko: When They Cry, which is from same creators (07th Expansion). Because I knew beforehand it would take me a while to get through Umineko, I decided to write down any thoughts I had on the mystery on a special blind playthrough memo page on the blog. I liked how it kept me engaged with keeping an eye on clues and what I thought the solution would be. So after having fun with both the game of Umineko and the playthrough, I decided I'd finally play Higurashi: When They Cry this year and after asking commentators here, it appeared keeping notes to guess the solution to the mystery as I was going through the individual chapters would be feasible here too, so I decided to do the same this year. Those who have already played, seen, or read Higurashi: When They Cry might find it interesting to see how my ideas changed (or not) as I played through the chapters. I don't usually do long projects with multiple posts on this blog (because experience told me I don't really like doing them), but these playthroughs were pretty fun!

So what is this gigantic mystery franchise about? Higurashi: When They Cry introduces us to the village of Hinamizawa in June 1983. Hinamizawa is a small rural community with just about 2000 villagers and lies deep in the green mountains. Teenager Keiichi has recently moved to Hinamizawa with his parents and also attends the local school, which is so small all the children of all ages are put together into one class. Keiichi becomes close friends with his fellow members of the after-school game club: Rena (who also recently moved back to Hinamizawa), Mion (the heir of the most prominent family in the village), Rika (the young daughter of the clan of priests which tend to the local shrine) and her bestie Satoko. The change from life in the city to the slow, calm life in the countryside is of course big, but his friends make Keiichi feel welcome in quaint Hinamizawa. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of the big cities, Hinamizawa is like perhaps not exactly a paradise on Earth due to some inconveniences like not having facilities like supermarkets or public transport, but its certainly a peaceful place. Times flies by for the friends and eventually it becomes June, which is when a local annual festival is held: The Watanagashi Festival is a tradition, celebrating and thanking Oyashiro, a local deity believed to watch over Hinamizawa. In recent years, the festival has grown larger and even people from neighboring towns come to attend the festivities. It's at this point we learn that for the last four years, Hinamizawa has always seen one death, and one disappearance on the night of the Watanagashi Festival. While few people talk about this out loud and efforts have been made to silence the fact that these deaths and disappearances have been occuring at an annual rate now, villagers believe this to be the Curse of Oyashiro and some even whisper that 1983 will be the fifth time the Curse of Oyashiro will take its victims. But is there really a supernatural curse at play in Hinamizawa, or is there something else going on beneath the facade of this seemingly peaceful village, and how are Keiichi and his friends involved in this?

 

Higurashi: When They Cry is a novel game, so the type of game that is focused on presenting a story visually, featuring very little interaction nor does it ever test you with quizzes on your deductions or anything like that. You just read the story as it unfolds, and the "interactive game" element lies outside the actual game: it challenges you to solve the mystery of what happened. The original PC release of Higurashi: When They Cry consisted of 8 chapters. The first four chapters, titled Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi and Himatsubushi form one set together commonly known as the Question arc. As you can guess from the name, these first four chapters basically set-up the mystery for the reader, providing them with the questions that need to be answered, as well as the clues necessary in order to solve the mystery of the series of mysterious deaths and disappearances in Hinamizawa. There is a distinct, unsettling atmosphere that builds in these Question chapters that is really great: what starts out as the story of a young boy settling into a completely new environment and finding new friends, slowly turns into something much grimmer, as slowly he starts to stumble upon glimpses of a Hinamizawa he never knew existed, and he is not sure what to think of a lot what is considered "normal" and "tradition" in Hinamizawa, and as events unfold, he learns that perhaps, he never wanted to know. The final four chapters, Meakashi, Tsumihoroboshi, Minagoroshi and Matsuribayashi, in turn form the Answer arc together, with each of these Answer chapters providing answers to mysteries seen in a corresponding chapter (i.e. Meakashi provides answers to the events in Watanagashi), but also offering answers in regards to larger, overarching mysteries that played throughout the Question arc. Similarly to how events played out in the Question chapters of Umineko: When They Cry however, the chapters in Higurashi's Question arc are in essence telling variations of the same basic story about the horrible events that occur after the Watanagashi Festival in 1983, but each of them is executed in completely different ways. The reader is given different "parallel versions" of the events of June 1983 that all build on the same basic set-up, but each time, events play out differently after the Watanagashi Festival, leading to different people dying and other bloody events to occur. Each of the Question chapters basically culminate in a completely different horrible tragedy, even though they all have the same starting point, using the same characters. 

That however is exactly how the game challenges you to solve the mysteries in Higurashi: When They Cry. The reader has to guess why all these horrible events are happening by examining all these "parallel versions" and figure out why they can end up so differently even though the basic parameters are the same. Why did that character do that in Onikakushi, while she didn't in Watanagashi? Why did those events happen both in Tatarigoroshi and Onikakushi, but not in Watanagashi? It's like trying to complete a bigger picture using pieces coming from different sets of jigsaw puzzles, and it's something you don't often see used in mystery fiction. Mystery fiction that deal with parallel universes, time travel stories or games with branching storylines like Kamaitachi no Yoru do utilize similar concepts, with stories unfolding in different manners depending on a story-changing choice made, which therefore forces you think about the underlying meaning of that choice. But like Umineko: When They Cry, Higurashi: When Thy Cry uses eight novel-length puzzle sets and asks you to see which pieces from the different sets, can also be put together to form one extra, hidden picture. Each chapter also tends to focus on different core narative characters and provide extra background information that are relevant to all the chapters. For example, Watanagashi is the second chapter and tells its own version of the June 1983 tragedy, but it also focuses more on the history and folklore of Oyashiro in the village of Hinamizawa, an aspect of the story that was not touched upon nearly deeply in the opening chapter Onikakushi. And the third chapter Tatarigoroshi focuses more Satoko's home situation, which is only briefly touched upon in earlier chapters. Each of these elements spread across the "parallel versions" thus form puzzle pieces that not only address the mystery of the respective episode, but also the broader picture. Because the chapters do build on the same basic setting, earlier parts of each individual chapter do feel kinda samey (even if they focus on different parts of the story), but once the Watanagashi Festival occurs, the uneasiness really starts to settle and each chapter slowly builds to a dramatic, catastrophic finale.

Umineko: When They Cry revolved around a series of impossible murders occuring on an isolated island, with the Golden Witch Beatrice claiming these murders were made possible through magic, while protagonist Battler tries to defy her by finding rational answers to the impossible murders. Whereas the series features witches, monsters and other supernatural elements and focused on the theme of magic vs rationality, Umineko: When They Cry drew very heavily from classic mystery fiction in a meta fashion, quoting Van Dine and Knox freely and very much focusing on discussions about how the impossible murders could have been committed by a human murderer using sly tricks we know from mystery fiction, or whether it really was all just magic. Higurashi: When They Cry, while still a series that poses a mystery to the reader and challenges them to solve it, is less firmly built on the traditions of classic mystery fiction and offers more open-ended mysteries for the reader to solve. People who liked the locked room murders and more from Umineko: When They Cry therefore might be a bit disappointed how "mundane" the murders in Higurashi: When They Cry are: don't expect locked room murders or people disappearing from observed spaces or anything like that, more often than not these are murders that could've been committed by anyone in the village or feature other open-ended aspects. The focus therefore lies less on the direct dynamics of how specific each murder is committed, but much more on the macro-level mysteries: what are the underlying circumstances/factors that make it so that in each version we see of June 1983, it always ends in a tragedy? What are the factors that caused the tragedy to unfold in this particular way in this chapter, but in a different manner in the other chapter? I think this makes Higurashi: When They Cry a lot easier to solve than the more technical Umineko: When They Cry and probably also more accessible. Umineko: When They Cry had a lot of meta-level discussions about mystery tropes (like I mentioned in the Umineko reviews, a lot of mystery fans actually get into mystery fiction via Umineko), whereas Higurashi: When They Cry is much easier to enjoy as a suspenseful thriller with a mystery to solve, and I think the clewing in Higurashi is telegraphed more clearly. 

I did enjoy tackling the puzzles in Higurashi: When They Cry. While I can imagine some readers might think the mystery in Higurashi: When They Cry isn't really fair, it's certainly possible to make educated guesses about the most important parts of the secrets Hinamizawa and its residents hold. In my review of Umineko: When They Cry, I noted how the mysteries at the micro-level there were not as impressive as the mystery at the macro-level. That holds even more so in regards to Higurashi: When They Cry, where a lot of of the individual events seem pretty straightforward and even the murders are often just "what you see is what you get", but the focus here lies on how you are going to put each event in the context of the larger mystery: why are these events happening, and how does that relate to the other chapters? In a way, it's like seeing several playthroughs of a board game being played out in front of you. You don't know the game and the rules yet, but by observing several playthroughs, which may have different outcomes in terms of game flow and winners and losers, you still slowly start to see what the game rules are, because you saw connections between the playthroughs. Imagine a person not knowing chess, and observing the pieces across several games. Perhaps the first time they think the Queen can only move 2 spaces diagonally because that is the only move the Queen did in that game, but in a subsequent game she might move across the whole board, and another time she moves across straight lines. And eventually, the person will deduce the exact move range of the Queen. This approach results in a very different kind of mystery to engage with, compared to most detective novels you'll be reading, and I personally like these kinds of unexpected approaches to the genre. But to bring up my last Umineko: When They Cry comparison: Higurashi: When They Cry is also much clearer in its Answer arc in regards to the happenings in the Question arc. Umineko: When They Cry basically gave you a "key" in its Answer arcs, and then asked you to use that key and clear up any questions you have about the Question chapters yourself. Higurashi: When They Cry on the other hand explains the events in the Quesion chapters rather clearly in comparison (basically: "and that's what happened"), again a reason why on the whole, Higurashi is a bit easier to "engage" with than Umineko: When They Cry.

 

Writer Ryukishi07 of 07h Expansion is not an economical writer by any means, and besides the mystery, Higurashi: When They Cry spends a lot of time on characterization and fleshing out the background of Hinamizawa. Considering the focus of this blog, I will mostly concentrate on the mystery-side of Higurashi here, though I know a lot of fans of the franchise are probably more interested in the various colorful characters the series has. It's not something I'll be discussing here, but I do want to make a special note that there is a lot to enjoy about Higurashi: When They Cry beyond the mystery and the way it tackles some sensitive themes, like the issue of child trauma and how to cope with these problems, is quite memorable and it's clear that Ryukishi07's own history as a civil servant had a tremendous effect on Higurashi. As for themes that may interest the reader of mystery fiction more: the idea of an isolated village community with powerful old clans and old folklore comes straight out of a Yokomizo Seishi-style novel of course, and I think that people who liked The Village of Eight Graves especially will find a lot to enjoy in Higurashi: When They Cry. Similarly, the concept of the local deity Oyashiro, the surrounding folklore like the Watanagashi Festival and inferences into the real meaning of Oyashiro's curse, the festival and the history of the village Hinamizawa as a whole is the kind of theme you'll see in Mitsuda Shinzou's Toujou Genya novels, that deal with local history and folklore, murders occuring during traditional ceremonies and "hidden truths"  behind local folklore. If you're into these kind of themes, Higurashi: When They Cry is definitely worth looking into to. 

 

As mentioned earlier, I played the Switch/PS4 version titled Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou, which does play a bit differently than the PC version. Most importantly, this release, like previous console/handheld releases on PS2/DS/PS3/Vita, has a few extra console-exclusive chapters that collectively tell a side-story focusing on other characters. This release also presents the various chapters of Higurashi in "sets of chapters", which are all connected as a flowchart. You can only move on to the next flowchart if you have finished the previous one, but that meant I couldn't actually only play the original eight chapters of Higurashi: When They Cry, because each "set" of chapters includes both the original PC chapters as well as the console-exclusive chapters. While most of those console-exclusive chapters are not directly connected to the happenings in Hinamizawa (mostly set in the nearby Kakiuchi City), they do provide with additional clues that pertain to the events in Hinamizawa, so they do make it easier to solve the main mystery in Hinamizawa. It's a shame they force you into this playing order, for I originally planned to play the original 8 chapters first before moving to the extra stories, but that's not possible (unless you use the additional quiz game to unlock all the chapters in advance, but that requires you to... answer questions about spoilers, so option is that's only for people who already know the story). I like that Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou has all the content and I like the console art assets/voices too, but it does force you into experiencing Higurashi's story in a very specific manner, which might not be the best one to be honest. Oh, and while I have finished the original Higurashi finale Matsuribayashi, I still haven't finished the console-exlusive finales (the two Miotsukushi chapters) and there's a lot of fan disc content I haven't touched yet either, but I'll get to that some other time...

As with my review of Umineko: When They Cry, my focus in this post was on Higurashi: When They Cry as a mystery story, and while it is not as firmly settled within "meta mystery fiction lore" like Umineko: When They Cry and is less "by a mystery fan, for a mystery fan" in that regard, I still enjoyed my time in Hinamizawa a lot. The way the game challenges you to make connections between the various chapters and try to find some connecting tissue that explains both the mystery in the respective chapter, as well its relation to other chapters is simply something you simply don't see often in mystery fiction, regardless of medium, and while I do think Umineko; When They Cry, as a kind of spiritual sequel, did improve upon the idea, Higurashi: When They Cry was still enjoyable to me. It is by no means a "perfect mystery story", but it is an excellent example of how diverse the mystery genre can be, not just in subject matter but also in the manner in which a mystery is presented and how it challenges the reader/player to interact with it. For those who play on PC in English, I believe the first chapter (Onikakushi) is available for free at the various storefronts like GOG and Steam, so how about a little trip down to Hinamizawa?

Original Japanese title(s):『ひぐらしのなく頃に』「鬼隠し編」/「綿流し編」/「祟殺し編」/「暇潰し編」
『ひぐらしのなく頃に解』「目明し編」/「罪滅し編」/「皆殺し編」/「祭囃し編 」

Last Note of the Golden Witch

安らかに眠れ、我が最愛の魔女ベアトリーチェ

Sleep peacefully, my beloved witch Beatrice

Aaand like I had hoped, I managed to finish this post just before the Famicom Detective Club remakes release next week!

A few months(!) ago, I started playing 07th Expansion's very, very long mystery visual novel Umineko no Naku Koro ni ("When the Seagulls Cry"), released in English as Umineko: When They Cry. I knew beforehand that playing through all eight episodes of this game would take a long time, so I decided to add a playthrough memo to the blog to write down my theories/ideas per episode and at the end of March, I also wrote a post on Umineko when I had finished the first four episodes, putting me on the halfway point. The eight episodes of Umineko are split across two story arcs: the first four episodes form the Question arc, presenting the main problems for the players to solve, while the last four episodes form the Scatter arc, which doesn't explicitly spell out the complete solution, but does provide the player with many important answers which can be used by the player to fill in the remaining gaps. In a way, this post, and the previous post on Umineko also form one set together too. In the first post, I mostly wrote about the concept of Umineko: When They Cry as a product, the basic story and the mystery elements that stood out to me in the first four episodes. In this post I'll try to look at Umineko: When They Cry more closely a piece of mystery fiction, so I'll skip a lot of the basic information regarding the games here. 

You'd best read the other Umineko: When They Cry article first if you aren't familiar with the concept yet, but to put it very simply: a series of locked room or otherwise seemingly impossible murders occur on the island of Rokkenjima, where the Ushiromiya clan has gathered for an annual family gathering. It appears the murders of the Ushiromiya family members and the servants are part of a ritual to revive the Golden Witch Beatrice and indeed, she rises as the last people on the island die. Battler Ushiromiya, one of the victims, however refuses to believe in magic and witches, which amuses Beatrice. She decides to play a game of wits with Battler: she creates a 'new' version of the closed circle murders on Rokkenjima, which Battler and Beatrice observe from an parallel universe. Beatrice's position is that the impossible murders are made possible through her magic, while Battler has to prove that these murders are not the result of magic, but committed by a real-life person. They go through this twisted game again and again, resetting the 'chessboard' of this insane fantasy mystery game again each time, with the two discussing the various murders from a meta-level, and Battler struggling every time to come up with a comprehensive human explanation for the events.

I finished the final episode about two weeks ago, but honestly, it took me a long time to sort out my thoughts on the game. Mainly, because it's really long and grand in scale. While the eight episodes form one story overall, the first four episodes Legend of the Golden Witch, Turn of the Golden Witch, Banquet of the Golden Witch and Alliance of the Golden Witch are each basically a whole mystery novel on their own. The following episodes End of the Golden Witch, Dawn of the Golden Witch, Requiem of the Golden Witch and Twilight of the Golden Witch also feature some murder mystery elements, though less elaborate and they are usually just used as a kind of case study that function as hints to solve the mysteries in the first four episodes. But even so, there's just a lot going on here, and I do have to say that if you ever want to start playing Umineko: When They Cry, you do need to plan it out it a bit because it's time consuming, with each episode taking about 8-10 hours.

This makes Umineko: When They Cry a tricky mystery story, because from the start, it simply tries to overwhelm you with sheer volume. At the end of the first episode, the Golden Witch Beatrice revives and no real explanations are given regarding the murders that occured. From that point on, the player and Battler are thrown in the game of the ever-repeating Rokkenjima murders, meaning you have the previous series of murders to solve, as well as newer iterations, as none of the murders are solved in the first four episodes. Nearly twenty people die in each iteration of the Rokkenjima murders, often in locked rooms or seemingly impossible situations because everyone has an alibi, so the number of individual murders you need to solve quickly becomes rather hard to keep track of. This wouldn't be a problem on its own if not for one characteristic of Umineko: When They Cry: writer Ryukishi07 isn't economical with words. While every scene may have a certain purpose, some only apparent with the power of hindsight, the writing is extremely longwinded, with each seperate conversation going on for like thirty, forty lines even though it'd only take four lines to convey the main message of a certain scene. So it's not just that the main murder mysteries and the relevant background stories take on a grand scale in Umineko: When They Cry: all of this is also buried in so much text it's just tiring to get through at times. Because there are so many murders in each episode, sometimes you think of a theory and want to check up on/compare to an earlier dialogue, but more than often I just didn't do it because I knew it'd mean having to dig through a haystack, even though I knew precisely what kind of needle I was looking for.

That said, the concept of having to piece the truth together by viewing various alternate versions of the Rokkenjima murders was very entertaining. While in each episode, the Rokkenjima murders are quite different, with changing victims and murder circumstances, the underlying basic story and interpersonal character relations at play remain the same: only the specific events that occur on 1986, October 4 and 5 on Rokkenjima differ each time. This means that while the player has to solve different murders each time, there are always connections between the 'parallel universes' and these allow you to solve the mystery. An event that occurs in Legend of the Golden Witch might take on a different meaning after seeing a scene in Requiem of the Golden Witch for example, or perhaps you notice something that happens in the first episode, actually turns out to be a pattern that repeats across all the episodes. Figuring out how these pieces that are apparently from different sets of jigsaw puzzles do actually fit together is something you don't often see in mystery fiction. Mystery fiction that deal with parallel universes, time travel stories, or games with branching storylines like Kamaitachi no Yoru have similar ideas at times, where stories unfold in different manners depending on a story-changing choice made, which therefore make you think about the underlying meaning of that choice. This however never happens at the scale of Umineko: When They Cry, with complete novel-length stories as its puzzle pieces. While I was jotting down my ideas for each episode in the playthrough memo, I'd always try to see how the events we saw in an episode could also apply to previous episodes, and whether I could see patterns emerging. It did actually put me on the right track, which was really satisfying. At first you have all these scattered points that seem miles away, but as you progress, you'll be able to connect all the dots and draw clear lines between them.

One of the core themes of Umineko: When They Cry is whether you give in to the fantasy solutions the Golden Witch Beatrice offers you, or whether you try to find a 'realistic' explanation. The player and Battler observe each version of the Rokkenjima murders from a parallel universe, but through a 'filter' of Beatrice, who actively tries to push her 'fantasy' solutions. The result is that as the player, you'll often see grand fantasy battles between the warriors and monsters summoned by Beatrice and the murder victims: these are the 'interpretations' of Beatrice of how the murder occured, while Battler and the player have to try to figure out how these locked room/impossible murders could've happened without interference of the supernatural. You could simply enjoy Umineko: When They Cry as a fantasy story by the way, believing in the story that witches suddenly appeared inside a room to horribly torture a victim, but I already declared we'd be talking about Umineko: When They Cry as mystery fiction here. The merits of Umineko: When They Cry as mystery fiction do definitely lie more on the overarching storyline than the individual murders though. Not that they are bad, but often a lot of options are left open on purpose when it comes to the impossible crimes. Some locked room murders are basically only "impossible" if you choose to believe that some characters aren't accomplices or lying, something often pointed out in the episodes themselves. This is usually done purposely as to not tip the balance in favor for a fantasy or mystery solution, but because many options are kept open/vague, sometimes the mystery seems to lie mostly in the fact that the reader isn't given enough specific information regarding each murder scene. Seeing how these murders eventually link together though is good though, but it's clear Umineko: When They Cry is best enjoyed at the macro level.

Umineko: When They Cry starts in an overwhelming manner, with the lengthy narrative and then explicitly showing off the 'magical fantasy solutions' of Beatrice to confuse the reader who's looking for a human explanation for the events, but as you go through each episode, you'll slowly piece together an internal logic of the game, which can be both fun and frustrating. At various moments in the story, the game will make it clear that the mystery is solvable based on the hints it'll provide and that there are certain rules it will adhere to make this a fair and solvable mystery, but it expects the player to figure out these limitations themselves. Which adds another layer of mystery to solve for the player, but which can feel a bit unfair, because the player can never be sure whether 1) the game and the player are really playing according to the same rules and 2) whether the rules won't change midway. The game has an inherent advantage from the start, so by making the rules part of the mystery too, it's only tilting the balance even further. It's unclear for example at first how 'much' of the information seen in each individual episodes actually apply to all the other episodes. It demands a lot of dedication of the reader to not only engage with the core plot, but with the meta rules too, so that's quite tricky and doesn't always feels fair.

The meta-gaming element of Umineko: When They Cry is also prominently shown with its concept of Red Truths introduced in the second episode: a statement made in red is true. Beatrice might for example show victim X being killed by a monster in a locked room, which the player and Battler can choose to not believe, but if Beatrice states in red that X was killed and The door was locked from the inside and the only key was found inside the victim's pocket, at least these facts are true and no further evidence needs to be provided to support these statements. The Red Truths are the main game-like element of Umineko: When They Cry which otherwise doesn't feature any gameplay elements which allows the player to direct interact with the mystery and, personally, I love the Red Truths. They function like third-person narration in mystery fiction, because a fair-play mystery novel should never blatantly lie to the reader in the third-person narration. Beatrice is most definitely a subjective and unreliable narrator, but any statements she makes in red are true regardless of her status. In a way, Red Truths can simplify a situation because it gives you some certainties regarding an otherwise confusing situation: by stating X was killed for example, the player doesn't need to worry about X faking their own death. Of course the Red Truths are also used to further confuse the player, as it often leads to interesting dynamics to the deduction battles between Beatrice and Battler, as Beatrice can sometimes kill off a complete theory of Battler just by making a red statement that contradicts a fundamental premise. Like Obi-Wan, Beatrice is also good at stating truths that are true from a certain point of view though, so often, you need to be careful to the exact meaning of each Red Truth. But it's quite fun to come up with a theory that manages to wiggle its way through all the various relevant Red Truths and definitely one of the best ideas of Umineko: When They Cry. It reminds of the plotting technique often shown in the logical reasoning school of mystery fiction, where a long line of reasoning changes when a new fact is introduced. In Umineko: When They Cry too, Battler and the player have to constantly adapt to new Red Truths being introduced. Sometimes you have a working theory up until the very end of an episode when Beatrice suddenly decides to make a new Red Statement that kills your hypothesis and now you have to reconsider how that new fact changes things. I think the Red Truths make this notion a lot more tangible for mystery readers, making it instinctively easier to understand how deductions can and sometimes have to change with the introduction of new facts.

It's a shame though that the game make it harder than necessary for people to approach Umineko: When They Cry's story from a mystery angle. The game introduces a lot of Red Truths starting from the second episode, some applying to specific murders, some applying to the overal storyline, but even though the game has a special menu for character profiles and so-called TIPS (extra background information), the game for some reason does not provide a kind of database or list that collects all the Red Truths for you, nor can you look up details for each crime scene afterwards. If you want to read up on specific Red Truths again, you need to be lucky and remember in which scene they were mentioned, because that's the only way to find them again  (and that brings us back to the problem of Umineko not being economical with words). For a game that so often explicitly challenges the reader to solve the mystery, it's a complete enigma why it doesn't allow the player to look up Red Truths in a simple manner, especially when sometimes you have situations where a Red Truth is mentioned that also applies to previous episodes, and it just becomes a hassle to look things up again between episodes.

Whereas the first four episodes of Umineko: When They Cry offer you the main problems to be solved (the four different iterations of the Rokkenjima murders and the underlying circumstances that led to the murders), the last four episodes form the Scatter arc: these episodes do not explicitly say who did it how and why, but are like allegories that hint very strongly a some of the major answers, and once those answers have put you on the right track, you should be able to fill in most of the remaining questions yourself. I mentioned in the other Umineko post that the concept of a work of mystery that doesn't actually reveal the truth at the end reminded me of Higashino Keigo's Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") and Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him"), which both don't reveal who's ultimately arrested for the murders in those books, nor is a detailed explanation given to the reader as to how the detective managed to identify the killer. I'd say Umineko: When They Cry is a lot more generous with its hints than those books though (though the scale of Umineko does make it more difficult). But by the time you get to Requiem of the Golden Witch (episode 7), it's basically only not dotting the i's for you and with the hints and answers provided there, the attentive reader should be able to figure out the details for themselves. The way how especially End of the Golden Witch and Dawn of the Golden Witch (episodes 5-6) use new variations of the Rokkenjima murders to not only present new murder mysteries, but also to act as hints to solve the previously seen murders in other episodes is brilliant though! You're basically shown easier murder cases that utilize elements from the mysteries from previous episodes, so if you manage to solve these 'easier' versions, it will help you on the way to figure out how the murders in first four episodes were committed. The game also starts throwing Knox and Van Dine around to players who aren't really familiar with mystery fiction, and while I think I know finally understand why people into Umineko often seem to consider Decalogue and the Twenty Rules to be far more important than they actually are for good mystery fiction, I guess at least Knox and Van Dine do give unexperienced mystery readers something to hold on to. But the way these episodes use an oblique manner to guide the player to the solution without explicitly showing it is great, and I think the execution was good: I was somewhere on the way to the solution myself by the time I started on episode 5, but they really helped me focus in on the solution without actually explicitly telling me the answers.

The grand solution that ties all the various iterations of the Rokkenjima murders together is quite satisfying too, using an interestingly thought-out background story and characters to allow multiple 'parallel universe' versions of the Rokkenjima murders to occur. I really like how the answers to whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit are very closely related, meaning that once you figure out one angle, you're likely to solve the rest too. Once you start seeing the big picture, you'll also see how the macro concepts can apply on the micro-level and in turn how each individual murder could've been committed. Some scenes also take on a completely different meaning knowing what's really going on, and the player is even challenged to take a good look at some Red Truths again: sometimes they seemingly clash with the answer, but after a little bit of thinking you'll see how you could fit the Red Truths in without creating a contradiction. I sometimes mention the theme of synergy in mystery fiction here, how a mystery plot often feels more satisfying if it doesn't have discrete "blocks" of mysteries/murders, but where things are interconnected and elements work because of the existence of other elements, and I think Umineko: When They Cry does a good job at tying up the whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit together in that regard. I think that's also a reason why Umineko: When They Cry can get away without explicitly stating the solutions in the game. That said, some aspects of the solutions to the many, many murders that occur throughout the narrative do feel a bit easy, some almost coming down to "Ha, X lied at the time, they did commit the murder!". But seen from a macro-level, the mystery is definitely entertaining enough, though I do wonder whether it really needed eight lengthy episodes to tell.

While Umineko: When They Cry has the confidence to not overstate the various solutions of the mystery, it oddly does not have the same confidence in its themes though. Umineko: When They Cry can easily be consumed as a character drama, as it spends a lot of time fleshing out the various characters, both human and from the witch world and the characterization is ultimately also necessary to set the motives up, but the game is really, really intent on making you understand what it thinks about the theme of fantasy vs. truth and its impact on the characters. I'm sure a lot of people love the character-focused approach of Umineko, but if you're mainly here for the core mystery, you'll find this an extremely slow mystery story.

Umineko: When They Cry also has distinct 'anti-mystery' themes by the way, and obviously takes inspiration from the famous four Japanese 'anti-mystery' novels, Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Death Mansion Murder Case"), Dogura Magura, Kyomu he no Kumotsu ("Offerings to Nothingness") and Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku ("Paradise Lost Inside A Box"). It shares especially a lot of themes with the latter two. Umineko does not try to be like a tightly plotted Queen-like mystery novel where logic will prevail and clear all mists, but embraces themes from the mentioned novels like the unreliable narrator/observer/presentation, murder as entertainment, investigations into narratives-within-narratives, meta-discussions on mystery fiction, mysteries at multiple story levels (micro and macro) and an open-ended approach to the notion of "truth" with multiple solutions and characters not discussing the truth, but a possible truth. The more character-focused approach of Umineko in particular seems to be direct reaction to one of the major themes of Kyomu he no Kumotsu and I do think that if you like Umineko, it's worth taking a look at Kyomu he no Kumotsu and Haka no Naka no Shitsuraku or vice-versa. 

Considering its length, one could probably tackle a review of Umineko: When They Cry from a lot of angles, perhaps delving more into the characters or the overall themes of the game, but as I'm writing this post for this blog, the focus is on Umineko: When They Cry as a mystery story, and I am happy to say I'm glad I finally got around to playing it after hearing so much about it. It is an ambitious mystery story, using several parallel versions of the 'same' Rokkenjima murders to weave a complex web of storylines and while at the start, things can be overwhelming, the moment you start to see the connections and patterns and slowly work your way to the solution, you'll see Umineko: When They Cry is quite unique as a mystery story due to its enormous scale, though length is definitely also one of its more frustrating points. Sometimes you'll just have to roll with the story and accept characters doing this or that, but on the whole, I think Umineko: When They Cry manages to present an interesting fantasy story weaved by the Golden Witch Beatrice, which can also be seen as a complex mystery story by the reader as long as they are willing to engage with the various murders and mysteries. Umineko: When They Cry is worth a read if you're into Japanese mystery stories (as it's obviously written within a context of shin honkaku fiction), but on the other hand, I do have to repeat it's really, really long, so it's a reading project you'll want to 'plan' ahead. Oh, as a final note, I'll probably keep the playthrough memo page where it is, because I've been linking to it in various posts anyway. If you are going to play Umineko or if you have already read it, it might be interesting to compare notes.

Original Japanese title(s): 『うみねこのなく頃に散』 「End of the Golden Witch」/「Dawn of the Golden Witch」/「Requiem of the Golden Witch」/「Twilight of the Golden Witch」

Golden Fantasia

第一の晩に、鍵の選びし六人を生贄に捧げよ。

『うみねこのなく頃に』

On the first twilight, offer as sacrifices the six chosen by the key. 

"Umineko: When They Cry"

It was almost ten years ago that I read Nikaidou Reito's Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle") and when I tackled that enormous story on the blog, I decided to discuss each of the four volumes seperately, even though the four pockets formed one story together, so the first three books didn't even explain the mysterious murders that occured at the titular castle. But the story was just so insanely long, I knew I was going to forget things while reading it (and other books in between), so I opted to do those 'incomplete' write-ups on each book anyway. Which is basically the same reason why I am writing this post today.

People who have played the visual novel game series Umineko no Naku Koro ni ("When the Seagulls Cry"), released in English as Umineko: When They Cry, are probably quite aware that it's insanely long. And I am also sure a lot of people who frequent this blog have already played Umineko, for I often see the name mentioned in the comments and sometimes people from Umineko fandom even link to specific book reviews on this blog because apparently those books served as inspiration for the games. Anyway, Umineko is a pretty well-known mystery multimedia franchise created by 07th Expansion (with Ryukishi07 as the main writer), as there have also been anime, manga, novel and drama CD adaptations of these games, which is probably why people often assumed I had played the games, and I had to disappoint them. Heck, I'm sure a lot of people only started to develop an interest in Japanese mystery stories because of Umineko. Hardware preferences etc. meant I only recently started on these games with the Switch version (which collects all the available material at this moment) released in January 2021. Oh, I can also reveal I have not played/seen Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and certainly won't even think about it until I'm at least done with Umineko.

This post however is not meant to be a full review of Umineko: When They Cry as I'm literally just halfway through the main game (you may have noticed me mentioning my blind playthrough memo on the blog this last month). The main story consists of eight episodes, which were originally released between 2007-2010. The first four episodes, Legend of the Golden Witch, Turn of the Golden Witch, Banquet of the Golden Witch and Alliance of the Golden Witch are collectively known as the Question Arc, which basically pose the main mystery for the players to solve. The remaining four episodes on the other hand I believe don't spell out the solution literally, but do give you more pointers/show off a bit more of what's behind the curtain, allowing the player to solve the mystery. As of this moment, I have only finished the first four episodes, but I decided to write something down already before I move on. The series is available on a wide range of systems from PC to PS3, PSP, PS4 and Nintendo Switch and probably more and then there's all the adaptations too. I probably don't have to mention that the English version of Umineko: When They Cry Question Arc has been available on Steam and GOG for some years now, but if you hadn't played the games yet and this post managed somehow to pique your interests (Do note that the Switch version I played has different art assets and therefore looks differently). The manga has also been released officially in English I believe.

The story of Umineko is set in 1986, on the private island Rokkenjima. Rokkenjima is the property of Ushiromiya Kinzou, an man who after World War II managed to bring back fortune and fame to the fallen Ushiromiya clan. Some say Kinzou's success came from his unmatchable luck, others say it was the result of his ruthless and overwhelming aura that annihilated any enemies in his path, but there are also rumors that Kinzou, who has more than an interest in the occult, had a pact with the Golden Witch Beatrice, whom he summoned. According to the stories, she bequethed him with a mountain of golden ingots, which was what got Kinzou's rise to power starting. Whatever the cause was of Kinzou's success though, by 1986 Kinzou has grown old and health-wise, he shouldn't have much time left. In recent years, he's stayed cooped up in his study and become completely absorbed in the occult , even having a portrait of the Golden Witch Beatrice made in his house, along with an epitaph with a curious riddle which is supposed to lead to the gold treasure and revive Beatrice. Oldest son Klaus and his family still live on Rokkenjima, though they hardly see Kinzou anymore. Kinzou's other three children Eva, Rudolf and Rosa still come back once a year in the fall, together with their own families, ostensibly for a fun 'family gathering', but as all four children have always been terrorized and abused by their father, they can't wait for him to go so they can inherit his immense fortune.

On October 4, 1986, three genereations of the Ushiromiya clan gather again on Rokkenjima, just in time before a storm arrives. For the four grandchildren George, Battler, Jessica and Maria, it's a nice family meeting, but their parents however are all desperate for money, and are willing to do anything to get some money from Kinzou, who however seems to have become completely kooky by now, as he longes for a reunion with the Golden Witch Beatrice. When the storm finally reaches Rokkenjima and cuts it completely off from the outside however, the tragedy starts. On the first night, a mass murder occurs in the garden shed, and it had been signed by a creepy occult symbol. The survivors try to contact the mainland, but the radio's out and with the storm raging on, there's no way out off the island. After the first shock fades away however, the survivors start noticing little suspicious things about the murder, like the question of why the garden shed was locked, while the key to the shed was kept in the servant's room. But as the day continues, more and more people are killed and some of them even under seemingly impossible circumstances, with for example everyone having an alibi for the time of the murder. By the time it becomes clear that thesemurders happen according to the riddle on the epitaph, it's already too late: the Golden Witch Beatrice revives and nobody survives.

Despite not surviving the Rokkenjima massacre however, Battler refuses to believe in the existence of magic and Beatrice herself, so our witch decides to have a game with Battler: the events on Rokkenjima are "reset" and from a parallel dimension, Beatrice and Battler look on as the murders on Rokkenjima happen all over again, though the details of the events play out differently this time, with other kinds of impossible murders and other victims. In this game, Beatrice maintains that every impossible occurrence, including the locked or otherwise impossible murders, are made possible because she's the Golden Witch Beatrice and that she committed the murders with magic, while Battler has to prove that these murders are not the result of magic, but committed by a real-life person. As they observe each 'new' version of the Rokkenjima murders, they hold discussions on how a situation could've been created by a human, or whether magic would be the only possible explanation for events. They go through this twisted game again and again, resetting the 'board' of this insane fantasy mystery game again each time, with Battler struggling every time to come up with a comprehensive human explanation for the events. 

As I mentioned above, the so-called Question arc of Umineko: When They Cry consists of the four episodes Legend of the Golden Witch, Turn of the Golden Witch, Banquet of the Golden Witch and Alliance of the Golden Witch, which take close to ten hours each and all four episodes present a different version of the Rokkenjima murders: while the base story of the Ushiromiya clan gathering on the island is the same each time, the murders all occur very differently, and the focus in each episode lies elsewhere too, with some episodes focusing more on certain characters, or opting to show more of the family history or build-up or aftermath of the family gathering. Umineko: When They Cry is however quite different from the novel adventure games I usually discuss here: there is no interactivity whatsover in these four episodes, and you're just reading the story. You don't have to make story-changing choices, nor does the game ever test you (the player) directly by quizzing you on theories. You're just a bystander to Battler and Beatrice's back-and-forth on magical vs non-magical murders. Personally, I'm not that big a fan of novel games that don't have any interactive elements: as a person who got started on novel games with the Chunsoft games like Kamaitachi no Yoru and 428, figuring out the right route down a flowchart is my jam! 

The 'game' element of Umineko: When They Cry therefore lies outside the game: each of the episodes challenges the player to see if they will subject to the fantasy 'solution' offered by Beatrice or try to solve the mystery themselves, for at least these four first episodes don't actually explain how the murders in each seperate episode were committed or feature any game mechanics that allow the player to check whether they were right or wrong about the case. Starting from the second episode on, Battler will try to come up with theories to explain not only the impossible crimes that occur in the episode in question, but also of previous episodes, but often his theories are either shot down entirely, or have too many open questions to feel satisfying. None of the episodes have a proper denouement where it's shown that magic was never used in the Rokkenjima murders, so it's up to the player to come up with a theory that explains things. This is made harder by the fact that the Golden Witch Beatrice will often show "her interpretation" of the events, resulting in many scenes that are most definitely fantasy, with witches summoning magical beings to commit the murders, and it's up to Battler and the player to figure out how to explain the results of the same scene, without actually accepting the "explanation" that the crime was committed by a witch. The meta game-element is also seen in the concept of Red Truths introduced in the second episode: a statement made in red is true. Meaning that even if you don't believe that X was killed by a magic stake in that one scene, if it's stated in red that X was killed, you do have accept that specific fact. This is basically the function of third-persion narration in mystery fiction: a fair-play mystery novel should never blatantly lie to the reader in the third-person narration. The unreliable narrator is of course a subjective narrator and in that sense, Beatrice is most definitely an unreliable narrator, but any statements she makes in red are true regardless of her status, which brings some interesting dynamics to the deduction battles between Beatrice and Battler, as Beatrice can sometimes kill off a complete theory of Battler just by making a red statement that contradicts a fundamental premise. 

The idea of a single work of mystery that doesn't actually reveal the truth to the reader reminds me of two of Higashino Keigo's books featuring Kaga Kyouichirou: Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") and Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") both don't say who's ultimately arrested for the murders in those books, nor is a detailed explanation given to the reader as to how Kaga managed to identify the killer, so the reader has to solve the whodunnit themselves, with or without the extra help in the sealed commentary pages.

This is just an 'update' post on my progress on Umineko: When They Cry and I still have half of the story to read through, so there's little I can say about the quality of the mystery at this moment. As you may have noticed however, I've created a Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo page, where I wrote down my thoughts each time I was done with an episode, dotting down what scenes I thought were suspicious, and what implications they might have. I'm probably very wrong, but if you have played the games already, it might be fun to read through them (they're ROT13 protected). One thing that's noticable about the murder situations in Umineko however is that a lot of options are left open with the impossible crimes. Some locked room murders are basically only "impossible" if you believe some characters aren't in cahoots or something like that, which is also pointed out in the episodes themselves. This is often the case to leave the possibility open that the murders could be committed by either magic or by a human hand, but it does result in murder situations where the mystery seems to lie mostly in the fact that the reader isn't given enough specific information about each murder scene. Even when Red Truths are later introduced (sometimes also concerning earlier episodes), things often feel a bit vague (perhaps on purpose) and even the "rules" of Umineko, as a game that challenges the player to solve the mystery, aren't always made clear. For example, each subsequent Umineko episode will give out background information that is probably also applicable to previous episodes, but it is never stated as such, so the game is being intentionally vague to make the reader assume something, but as none of the rules are ever told to the reader, Umineko is never really trying to be fair. A good mystery story with fantasy elements will usually set down clear limits so the reader knows whether their theories remain within bounds, but even though Umineko has the Red Truths, those colored short statements only cover the bare minimum of the events that are actually shown and don't really give the player a good idea of what should be considered part of the game and what not.

Which reminds me: Umineko: When They Cry is insanely wordy, and to be honest, I feel like the game always needs like twenty lines to convey a message that had already been conveyed after the first two lines. At times the writing simply feels too self-indulgent.

Of course, it's clear that Umineko: When They Cry takes inspiration from the famous four Japanese 'anti-mystery' novels, Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Death Mansion Murder Case"), Dogura Magura, Kyomu he no Kumotsu ("Offerings to Nothingness") and Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku ("Paradise Lost Inside A Box"), with its focus on occult topics, the family of four with Western names, the unreliable narrator/presentation and its open-ended approach to "truth" but that does mean that story of Umineko, at this point at least, never feels like a tightly plotted Queen-like mystery novel where the logic will pull everything straight at the end.

Anyway, this was just a quick (but too long) post to say I'm now halfway through Umineko: When They Cry. At this point I honestly can't say whether the conclusion will be rewarding enough considering the interesting set-up, but writing the entries in the Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo page has been interesting enough, and it'll be fun to see I at least got on the right track regarding the various solutions to the many versions of the Rokkenjima murders. A more indepth post regarding how Umineko:When They Cry works for me as a piece of mystery fiction, will follow when I'm finally done. Considering the length of these episodes, that make take a few months again though. Depending on what happens in the coming episodes of Umineko:When They Cry, I might continue working on the playthrough memo, because I'm not sure whether it's still going to present new murders or not and if there's anything for me to update in the first place. Guess I'll find out when I go back to the game. Obviously, I'd very much appreciate those who have played the game already to not spoil or even nudge nudge wink wink hint at the events awaiting me!

Original Japanese title(s): 『うみねこのなく頃に』 「Legend of the Golden Witch」/「Turn of the Golden Witch」/「Banquet of the Golden Witch」/「Alliance of the Golden Witch」