This was suggested to me by one of my superiors at work. Yep, you read right! My co-workers are awesome! This was suggested after my disappointment with the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni due to the lack of gore. And I have to say, this, somehow, did not disappoint.
The story started with the Ushiromiya family reunion in a island called Rokkenjima which is owned by their family. With the head of the family only having 3 months to live, they gathered to talk about inheritance. Quite common I must say, from here we can have a feel of what's about to happen. However, things changes when elements of magic and witches came in.
I was wondering why Higurashi and Umineko have that same title and it turns out that both anime is based on a game produced by 07th Expansion. And so you'll have to expect this in the anime.
The animation is way better than Higurashi and it seemed that they also used some 3D effects in some parts of the scene.The character design throws me off, the story is set in 1986, I understand that Beatrice is some kind of an immortal which would explain her clothes but the other characters look like from this generation.
And since I watched the TV version of this, the gory parts are pixelated. This is worst cause you know something is being covered. Like seriously, my co-worker described a scene that interested me so much that I looked forward to it but gets surprised by this instead!
As for the theme songs, I am never the kind of person who can review music but this is the first time that I would skip them. I don't think I'm just being excited about the series, I just can't sit through it. The lyrics compliments the series but the whole mood that the song was giving out somehow doesn't fit for me.
My first impression of this was is some kind of a detective story and so I sided with Battler so much that I wanted to be able to solve it myself. However, because of the super natural events, much like Battler, I get quite frustrated.
One thing that I didn't like it is that every chapter a new character is added, ranging from servants from hell to a girl from another world. And another thing that I hated is that it ended in a cliffhanger. There are questions left unanswered as well.
My overall thoughts about this, it's like a high speed car chase with you on the front passenger seat. The decisions and interpretation that we could be deciding for ourselves is executed by Battler. And judging from the last episode, it seemed that the main murder story is interpreted differently making it hard to point out the cause of death. Also at this point I still have no clear idea of how the story would end and also the whole point of the story.
This is very much like Higurashi, no definitely answers until the next season. However since I couldn't help myself, I read some summary of the story from the games released so far. It seemed that the game is still on going and the 2nd season is not yet released.
Question is, would I make an effort to play the game? Maybe not. First of all, most likely I don't have the luxury to do so (in short, I don't have money for it). Second, I definitely would just want to watch them than play it. And last, mostly likely its not released in English. For sure though, I'll be on the look out for this anime.
originally posted: December 26, 2013
