DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 3: Banquet of the Golden Witch
MANGA DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 2: Turn of the Golden Witch
MANGA ComedyUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch
NOVEL ComedyUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch
MANGA DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 4: Alliance of the Golden Witch
ANIME HorrorHigurashi no Naku Koro ni
SPECIAL ComedyUmineko no Naku Koro ni Specials
MANGA ComedyUmineko no Naku Koro ni Tsubasa
NOVEL DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 2: Turn of the Golden Witch
NOVEL DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 3: Banquet of the Golden Witch
NOVEL DramaUmineko no Naku Koro ni Episode 4: Alliance of the Golden Witch

REVIEWS

• 

  lamalogi

  20/100
  A complete failure of an adaptation

  This one here is a real tragedy.

  Umineko no Naku Koro is a sound novel and the third installment of the popular When They Cry series. It was written by Ryukishi07 and published by 07th Expansion. In 2009 Studio Deen adapted this novel (ah shit, here we go again). It is one of the worst adaptations I have seen to date. It is an example of almost everything done wrong. So let's start this review.

  Let's start by talking about the source material. Umineko is the combination of two visual novels, Umineko and Umineko Chiru. The novels combined are a tremendous read. It takes 140 to 200 hours to read, depending on one's reading speed. Spanning approximately a massive 1.5 million words. The first novel takes about 60-80 hours to read. Now the anime was tasked with compressing that 60-80 hours' worth of reading material into 26 episodes. It was very devastating for a dialogue-heavy story like Umineko. So it was impossible to fit all that content within just 26 episodes. So how do you make the impossible possible? Simple, by cutting off a lot of content. Even the parts that are absolutely vital to the story. Forget the subtle details and nuanced characterization; the anime skips over entire hour-long sequences. It even goes into the story skipping the hour-long character introduction sequence the VN had. Characters are the most vital aspect of Umineko, but the anime manages to completely butcher them at every level. Due to the shortage of screen time, characters only receive surface-level characterization to the point that they feel like different people compared to those we have seen in the VN. Characters aren't even developed because of how little screen time they receive. Even the protagonist, Battler Ushiromiya, appears only as an annoying, stubborn, and childlike individual. Beatrice seems to be just a sadistic individual that tortures and kills people for sport. Also, the Visual Novel was to be finished when the anime was adapted. Due to certain revelations later in the story, the anime now contradicts the source material because they ignored the wording used in that context and assumed something that wasn't mentioned.

  Now comes the story. The novel is a character-based psychological drama with supernatural and mystery elements. It's a deconstruction of the mystery genre. Honestly, they completely destroyed the story beyond redemption. As I said, they skipped over entire segments of the novel. Even details and clues that were necessary to solve the mystery itself. "Without love, the truth cannot be seen" is one of the series' recurring themes. But the anime fails to make you love (or at least like) any of the characters, leaving one of the series's most significant themes absent. Umineko, initially, is an over-the-top fantasy that explains itself more as the series progresses. But the anime doesn't. And even when it tries to, it's massively condensed.

  The character and background designs of the original Sound Novel could definitely have been better. They used the same sprite for every character, changed the costumes, and replaced the heads. But even with that, the sprites were more expressive than their anime counterparts. Visual detail might have been one of the aspects that the anime initially did better than the VN. But now, with the updated PS3 sprites and backgrounds, the VN completely outshines the anime visually to the point it's irrelevant. Also, for some reason, the characters were drawn in a way that made them seem older than they were.

  The music in the novel was masterfully crafted and was an integral part of creating the atmosphere. The music that is used in the anime is the part I have little to no complaints about. Because the anime used original soundtracks from the visual novel. They did use some anime original soundtracks, but they were less memorable than the one from the novel. But more than just having good music is required. You have to properly use them. This is where the series failed. It has poor sound direction. The OSTs needed to be appropriately utilized. This destroys some moments. As different kinds of music induce various types of emotions. A good example is that at the end of the series, the anime uses an OST called Toitsume. But the novel uses a soundtrack called Dir. Now, these two soundtracks are nothing alike. But the soundtrack in the novel perfectly matches the emotions that are supposed to be induced by the text on the screen. The one in the anime just......... doesn't. But one of the redeeming qualities of the anime was probably the OP. The anime has an unskippable and fantastic OP.

  Now Umineko is broken into two parts, like how Higurashi was. The first 4 chapters, aka question arcs, create a mystery, and the last 4 chapters, aka answer arcs, solve them. But the anime never adapted the answer arcs. The first season had poor reception from fans and the general public alike. I don't see Umineko getting a complete adaptation as things stand. It's an incomplete and unsolvable mystery.

  Look, I am a massive fan of the When they cry series. Higurashi is one of my favorite anime of all time. I consider the Umineko novels to be a masterpiece. If it was good, I would be the last person to call the anime terrible. But the anime is awful and fails on almost all levels. If you wanna properly experience the series, read the sound novel. Heck, you can even read the manga or the light novel. Both of them are a lot better adaptations than the anime. You'll miss out on the visual novel's music and voice acting. However, they'll still be a much better experience compared to watching the anime.

  Verdict: It's a surface-level adaptation that needs to catch up to the source material in every aspect. An abomination of an adaptation that should never have existed.

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• 

  pixeldesu

  20/100
  This adaption is like putting a piece of swiss cheese on the VN and reading through the holes

  This one is a real mess.

  To preface a bit. Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a popular sound novel and part of the When They Cry series by the doujin circle 07th Expansion. It centers around the Ushiromiya family and their annual meeting happening at the beginning of October, the key date for this being the 4th and 5th October of 1986. After a series of mysterious killings it is your task to figure out what and why everything has happened, and who did it.

  Umineko in it's entirity has 8 episodes, split into 4 each as arcs, the first 4 being the Question Arcs, and the latter being the Answer Arcs. As the anime adaption was produced and released in 2009, only as the first arc was finished, this is the only part of the sound novel that is present there (obviously).

  If you like the premise, then here is the catch: Don't bother with the anime. Read the sound novel. Depending on your reading speed you have way over 100 hours of full reading time, if not even more of this mystery, filled to the brim with details.

  That's the key here. Umineko is a mystery, and highly dependent of the details presented over the course of time. If we look at the anime from the very beginning, we don't even know who the characters really are. The anime misses the catch of giving us at least some kind of introduction, so we pretty much just start of with getting to know their names. Why that is somewhat important I'll come back to later.

  Let's talk about the story for a bit. In general, I'm not doing any segmented ratings, but the adaption of the story would get a flat 0 out of 10. Granted, it is just impossible to fit any amount of that massive source material into a show with a total runtime of around 10 hours. Instead of focusing on a good mix of the rather conversational "slice-of-life" parts and the important parts for the mystery, sometimes you just end up seing a few frames flash by, blending into black and just like that you skipped several hours of key information.

  Now, if it only was for skipping, it'd be half bad, but starting with Banquet of the Golden Witch (Episode 3 of the sound novel), the order of how things get presented is shifted around, so it is incredibly hard to follow up. As an example, there is a key scene which in one episode gets mentioned as a flashback, and one episode later is actually shown fully. So for people that have no knowledge of the source material, it just gets confusing from that point onwards and doesn't really recover as it ends.

  Moving on to the presentation, I want to start with the art aspect. I don't know what happened to Studio DEEN here, but many many scenes just look incredibly flat. There are some scenes where everything is fine, but there are others where it flat out just looks like they forgot to properly shade the characters. Onto more things, Umineko displays a lot of gruelsome murders, and while these are depicted well, there is some "oomph!" missing with those murders that makes you really invested in them. One reason, not having to do with art however, is the missing connection to the cast. If we have had a proper introduction, this would have been different, and that's where the sound novel shines. Every action and inaction affects the reader/viewer and has some impact, not so much in the anime.

  Further on, let's talk about probably the only positive aspects here. The voice acting cast is good, these are the same VAs as used for the PS3 remake version and so people already familiar with that will remember the voices. Another thing taken directly from the source is the music, where all the tracks are the Umineko original score, aside of the opening/ending songs, which were...okay, but outshined by the rest of the OST presented, definitely.

  Final verdict? Please don't watch it, or if you ever plan to, please read the sound novel and/or manga of Umineko first, because you are at high risk of ruining your experience of both of those when you botch the mystery with all the presented contradicting details here. I only went through it because I heard it was bad and wanted to see myself how bad it really is.

  Without love, there can't be a good anime

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• 

  IzayoiKizu

  30/100
  Uma falha completa como adaptação, mas pelo menos dá pra dar risada.

  Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Review sem spoilers

  ---

  • Provavelmente a pior adaptação de algo que eu já vi até hoje. Nada tem ritmo nenhum, literalmente tudo perde peso e a direção é terrível, totalmente sem alma. O visual é bom em momentos violentos, é bem grotesco e não tem medo de mostrar sangue ou o rosto estourado dos personagens, mas os elogios a ele acabam aí. A animação é bem travada em 90% do tempo, existem alguns sakuga mas são muito poucos, e essa nem é minha maior crítica. Os designs são feios demais, são infiéis ao que os personagens deveriam ser e por vezes sexualiza demais desnecessariamente eles. Eu não teria um problema com isso normalmente, mas eles não são bonitos de se ver, então eu tenho. Eu precisaria de mais umas 5 mãos pra contar a quantidade de meme que esse design tem.

  • Existem momentos que as expressões dos personagens é importante pro desenvolvimento deles ou até pra outro personagem descobrir algo, por exemplo no episódio 24 o Battler fala pra Beatrice sobre algo que ele pensou porque a expressão dela estava triste, mas se você volta na cena anterior a expressão dela claramente não estava. Ou no episódio 3, a Beatrice fala que não consegue não expressar o que ela tá sentindo, mas as expressões são tão rasas que isso perde totalmente o peso.

  • A produção é cagada até no CGI, principalmente na reta final, onde aparentemente o orçamento pra fazer o CGI das Red Truths acabaram e coisas que foram ditas em vermelho na Visual Novel simplesmente são ditas normalmente aqui. Isso causa até algumas incoerências engraçadas, a Ange no episódio 25 fala que a Beatrice falou "x coisa" em vermelho, mas se você volta pra cena citada, a Beatrice só disse normalmente sem a Red Truth. O roteirista simplesmente pegou a fala da Ange da Visual Novel e deixou ali sem ter cuidado nenhum com as mudanças que haviam sido feitas e isso causou esse erro de continuidade bizarríssimo.

  • Além de tudo isso, existem certos momentos momentos que sofreram pequenas alterações mas que mudam completamente o significado das cenas ou o sentido da ação de certos personagens, o que em uma obra de mistério com tanto foreshadow é um problema bem grande. O último episódio deve ser o que mais sofre de problemas, é literalmente um aglomerado de todos os defeitos que eu citei acima e mais um pouco. Até pros padrões desse anime ele é rushado, corta uma cena inteira que é importantíssima pro entendimento de Alliance of the Golden Witch e quase tudo que deveria ser dito em vermelho não é. É tão anticlimático que chega a ser tosco.

  • A única qualidade que eu posso apontar nisso, além da trilha sonora (que apesar de muito boa é mal colocada em 80% das cenas), é justamente o quão tosco é, que por mais que seja um defeito 90% do tempo, algumas cenas são tão ridículas tanto visualmente quanto textualmente que chegam a ser engraçadas. Existem algumas feições que os personagens fazem que são pérolas, a Eva-Beatrice vesga, o Kinzo parecendo uma criança idosa, o rosto do Krauss também é uma piada por si só, eu dava risada em toda cena que ele aparecia, e etc. São exemplos demais pra citar todos então vou deixar apenas com esses.

  • • - __

      Eu não sei como concluir isso aqui decentemente e não tô com saco pra fazer um resuminho, então essa vai ser a conclusão, foda-se.

      __
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