うみねこのなく頃(ころ)に(When the Seagulls Cry) is a multi-media franchise that started with a Visual Novel but has since expanded into a bunch of other stuff, like an Anime, Manga and Light Novels.
I was trying to get into it and I find parts of it interesting, but I honestly don’t like Umineko. Read more about it below!

I’ll note right now that I have not finished Umineko and probably never will. Thus this is an exception to my personal rule/guideline that I only review things that I finish. I’m doing so because, despite not finishing it, I did end up spending a lot of time on Umineko, writing about Umineko (for myself and to friends) and thinking about Umineko. More so than…for example Allison. Though I guess that’s also an example of something I haven’t finished…?
Anyway, the point is that I’m writing from the point of view of someone who quit Umineko early, though continually tried to get in. However…I did finish the anime, not that that matters, since that apparently only adapts the first half of the story.
More specifically, I quit the Visual Novel before I finished Episode 1 and I also quit the manga during Episode 6. This was after I decided to skip Episodes 1-4 since those were (mostly faithfully) covered by the anime.

Is Umineko bad? Yes, though I’ll get into that into the dedicated Critique section. This review will be focused a bit more on my personal feelings regarding Umineko. Though since the main topic of the Critique section is focused around the construction of the story, I will take some time here to highlight the other issues.
Umineko is excessively long. I’m using the word ‘excessively’ deliberately, because it actively undermines the themes and the plotting. One of the key themes of Umineko (for whatever reason) is that you shouldn’t dehumanize the characters in a mystery story. Ignoring the reason as to why, the excessive length of Umineko undermines this by repeating events over and over and over and over and over and over again. Not only do characters end up dying (and reviving) multiple times, but information regarding them is consistently hammered in to the point you become desensitized to whatever is going on. If Ryukishi07 understood this, Umineko would have been made significantly shorter.
The other main issue is with the writing style. Part of it might be on the translators, but since I’ve experienced the same thing on a lesser scale in the manga, I’d say it’s actually just how Ryukishi07 writes. For whatever reason, Ryukishi has a tendency to write the same bit of information being repeated back-to-back 3 or more times. As in, almost the exact same thing is said 3 times in a row without much change. Another way of putting it is that the same information is repeated 3 times back-to-back. If that annoyed you, consider the fact there are over 120 hours of that. As I said before, this is also present in the manga…though, thankfully, it’s limited to the dialog.
However, repetition doesn’t just happen on a micro scale, but on a macro one too. The same plot-lines are repeated multiple times, the same scenes are repeated with slight differences and the same information is communicated again. The same-ish murder mystery ends up happening 8 times, we witness Rosa being abusive multiple times, among many other things.

Neither of those issues are desirable in a mystery story, where you need to keep track of details. There’s a reason Agatha Christie’s stories tended to be short.

Now, putting aside objective issues with the storytelling…do I actually like Umineko or not?

Before reading Episode 6, I would have answered that I do like Umineko because while it’s objectively broken in multiple ways…it was interesting to think about how it was broken. But it’s also the case that a lot of the characters are legitimately interesting, or that character interactions themselves are mostly alright – Battler and Beatrice talking together is rarely dull. Even individual plot-lines made some sense. All of this made me feel that it was interesting.^A)
However, my enjoyment initially suffered while watching the anime – which is when I realized the story wasn’t a mystery and, thus, there wasn’t much point speculating about it. I kept speculating about it (even after accidentally learning some spoilers) with the intent of figuring something out anyway, but it didn’t really help.
It did help though that I liked the anime. I thought it was very fun to watch and the pacing was mostly fast – well, ignoring all of the non-mystery and backstory segments. It was only near the end (between episodes 21-26) that I felt the story really got bad.
But despite all the issues that I noticed (and I would continually notice more of them as I went on, or found new ways to interpret old issues), I thought it was worth persevering for two main reasons: 1. I would get “legitimate justification” to critique the story to my friend; 2. I still found it mostly enjoyable.

However, now that I’ve read thru Episodes 5 and 6 of the manga, I can safely say that I do not like Umineko. I’ve actually grown a little resentful towards it because, despite me specifically choosing the manga over the VN, it still felt as if it wasted my time. The fact I wasn’t able to escape Ryukishi’s writing style in the manga irritated me greatly.
But the bigger issue is that I realized how the Red Truth actually worked, plus I learned (and internalized) the fact most of the fantasy stuff is metaphorical or non-existent…and, as compared to the anime especially, there is way more of that fantasy battling and fantasy stuff in Episodes 5 & 6 than was in Episodes 1-4. I found it incredibly vexing to witness a fantasy battle representation of a legal battle in the Witch’s Game world fought amongst characters who probably don’t exist. While also knowing that the game boards themselves don’t exist.
Though what’s worse is that once you realize how the Red Truth works, you quickly realize that Ryukishi doesn’t understand the full ramifications of it…because none of the characters take advantage of the versatility of it…which just makes you, the reader, frustrated as all Hell because you can see obvious solutions to problems that none of the characters see and none of the characters ever go for.
It’s surprising to me how quickly the few things I liked about Umineko turned into extreme dislikes. At this point I really don’t care about the characters. If I want to see characters similar to those in Umineko, but happy, I’ll just write it myself.

Keep in mind that a lot of what you read looks a bit like this:

This isn’t a literal extract from the VN, though it’s based on something that happens in it. If I actually extracted the text, it would have been significantly longer, so just keep that in mind.
This is just to get across what the writing style is like. The VN is much worse because it includes narration, but the manga also suffers from this repetitive style.

It really doesn’t surprise me to hear that Ryukishi apparently lost his Japanese fanbase after Umineko. Though I haven’t found any way to confirm it, I think the quality of Umineko speaks for itself.

Yes, there’s a dedicated critique section here. This is because Umineko is badly written but explaining why requires effort.

There are several things in Umineko that are worthy of being criticized (negatively), though I’ll mostly be focusing on one – Narrative Incoherence. Umineko‘s prose is also worthy of critique, alongside its themes. However, I find the narrative incoherence to be the single biggest structural issue. The prose is the biggest practical issue.

To be a bit clearer, the problem I’m focusing on isn’t just that Umineko is incoherent, but that it’s incoherent in a way that just so happens to insult the audience by breaking the promises it made to them. So, let’s get into it!

Umineko promises a mystery. Though some people argue that it promises an ‘anti-mystery’, it should be noted that that’s a very specific Japanese term and, from what I could gather, anti-mysteries are still qualified as mysteries^1)B)…so outside of mentioning that angle here, I’m going to ignore any arguments made from that perspective.^C)

As a mystery story – in order to be a good mystery – Umineko needs to present a set of clues which allow the audience to solve the mystery prior to the reveal. This is for the sake of ‘fair play’ on the one hand, and the requirement for stories to be written properly.^D)
Generally, mystery stories present a ‘whodunit’ – the mystery of the story is who the culprit of the murder is. However, Umineko takes a different approach (which is presented as a subversion of the tropes) in that the central mystery is “Is the witch real?”. Tied to that are several smaller mysteries: “Who is Beatrice?”; “Is magic real?”; “What really happened on Rokkenjima?”; etc.
The story is then supposedly written in a fashion that allows you to figure out the answer. However, as I’m going to argue, the story fails to make any of the mysteries fair as a result of its incoherence, but we’ll move on from that.

Also, to be clear, Umineko definitely thinks of itself as a mystery and treats itself as a mystery. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a massive focus on presenting all the clues, testimonies, evidence or even the Red Truths. Even within Episode 6 we’re still having characters explaining murders. And there’s no indication that this is any different in the latter episodes either.
For those who want to argue that Umineko isn’t a mystery and never promises to be one, just remember that it goes out of its way to present itself as a mystery and Ryukishi himself described it as a mystery and strongly implied (several times) that the mysteries are solvable and that, in fact, Umineko is a mystery.
I’m intentionally repeating myself just to hammer home the fact Umineko presents itself as a mystery story.
I actually heard from a friend (who might be reading this review, in case oops) that it isn’t a mystery and never promises to be, despite all the overwhelming evidence disproving that claim.

Since I stated that Umineko is narratively incoherent, I guess I should explain what I mean. To do that, I’ll also need to explain what is going on in Umineko.

Umineko‘s story is split into different metaphysical layers. Each of those is further split down. There are basically ≈3 main layers which are then further split up. Below is a visual representation.

Now keep in mind that each of those (sans Reality and the top-most layer) is also further split something like this:

Something to be kept in mind is that layers above reality are built off of it. That means that they contain facts/hints that help tell us what really happened. We (the audience) probably never see the bottom-most layer. That isn’t inherently wrong but…we’ll get to that.
Though remember that the Fantasy/Metaphor layers can also get layered on top of each-other.
I may also be missing something because I’ve read some stuff that implies the existence of more stuff.

These layers can end up getting incredibly complicated as well. There is a moment in the story (at least in Episode 6) where…

You’re reading a debate between two witches^F) about a metaphorical representation of a fantasy representation of an incident that occurs inside of a game that is meant to reflect – and hint at – events that happened in the real world.
And if you think that’s simple, there’s also a fantasy representation of a debate^G) about that metaphorical representation of the fantasy representation of an incident that occurred in the game which is meant to reflect and hint at events that occurred in the real world. Also, the debate that is represented fantastically may or may not have actually happened.

And just to be clear: the fantasy/metaphorical representations happen in most of the layers, not just the games. There was a particularly egregious moment where we read a fantasy battle representation of a legal debate in The Witch’s Game interspersed with the ‘literal’ events of the fifth game.

Now, all of this wouldn’t be terrible assuming that, y’know, there’s a way for the audience to be able to differentiate fact from falsehood, right? I mean, all the layers above ‘reality’ have hints towards that bottom-most layer, right? So there must be facts in those upper layers. You’d be correct!

However, Umineko has no means of telling the difference between fact and fiction. And since we never actually see that real layer, basically everything is suspect.

At this point Umineko‘s fans will protest that there are at least two ways to tell what’s real. Those are anything Battler witnesses and the Red Truths. Let me explain why neither of those actually help.
The reason Battler can’t be trusted is because he witnesses things that are obviously non-existent. Also, which of the Battlers has a trustworthy perspective? Because we can’t be sure that many of the Pawns are real (and thus their perspectives are dubious) and we also can’t trust what the Narrator/Witch’s game Battler sees because…he’s witnessing magic.

The Red Truths are unreliable and this becomes obvious once you realize the rules that actually govern them.

Umineko presents the Red Truths as being 100% true. In other words: facts that can’t be argued against. However, that isn’t actually the case. A Red Truth is true as long as one of any possible interpretations is true. A Red Truth can also elaborate on a Red Truth, which helps to tell what is or isn’t true. But the vast majority of Red Truths are never expanded upon.

Now, let me elaborate on that “one of any possible interpretations” thing because it trips people up.
First, I’ll quickly note that the story itself makes it clear that this is how the Red Truths work. Not only does the official solution require the Red Truths to be interpret-able, but there are moments that don’t make any sense unless you consider them to be interpret-able.
At the end of Episode 4, Battler wins an argument against Beatrice by suggesting that ‘Kinzo’ (who is meant to be dead in that game) could have appeared before the rest of the family because…sigh…somebody called themselves ‘Kinzo’ and was acknowledged as such by the rest of the family.
In Episode 5, Lambdadelta states several Red Truths back-to-back to elaborate on what a ‘Knock’ is, which would be unnecessary if Red Truths couldn’t be interpreted multiple ways. In fact, this is done specifically to prevent Erika from suggesting several solutions to who may have “knocked” on a door.
There are probably more of them, by the way.

Now let’s explain it. Let’s assume we have the following Red Truth: Jessica killed Rudolph.

Most people would assume that that means that Rudolph was killed by Jessica, right? However, because a Red Truth is fine as long as one of any possible interpretations is true…heh.
Who is ‘Jessica’? Does it refer to the person whose name it is? Does it refer to someone pretending to be Jessica? Does it refer to a persona taken up by another person? Is it a fictional character? Is it even a person?
What does ‘killed’ actually mean? Does it mean that someone was literally killed? Does it mean that someone was killed metaphorically? Is ‘killed’ hyperbolic? Who is ‘Rudolph’? We already went over that.

Because of how much is up to interpretation, it’s entirely possible that nobody died and neither Jessica nor Rudolph were involved. And somehow George is dead.

Now, you may be tempted to argue that an individual statement doesn’t tell us much, which is why we have multiple statements to help elaborate on things. However, this only really applies if a Red Truth explicitly refers to something in another Red Truth or otherwise helps elaborate on something.
And the majority of Red Truths are independently interpret-able. As in, even if Red Truths seem to refer to the same thing…since they can be interpreted any-which-way, there’s no guarantee that they actually do. You can interpret them as referring to the same event or referring to separate events.

Let’s make a list of Red Truths:

• Janet died in the room.
• Janet was dead in the kitchen.
• Janet was killed by Katie.
• The murder was committed with a knife.
• Janet didn’t die by suicide.
• Janet died at 12:00.
• Janet made tea at 1:00 PM.

Now, keep in mind that the story itself reportedly does what I’m about to do. This may look pretty “case-closed”, but remember that a Red Truth is true as long as one of any interpretations is true.

So…Janet and Katie are the same person. Katie didn’t literally kill herself, she simply discarded the alternate identity. This is how Janet died in the ‘room’. While the room and the kitchen are not the same room, Katie did relocate to the kitchen which is how it’s possible for ‘Janet’ to be dead in the kitchen.
Because Janet is a persona of Katie and Katie didn’t actually kill herself, the death of Janet wasn’t a suicide. This death occurred at 12:00^H), so how could ‘Janet’ have made tea an hour later? She was, after all, dead at this point. Simple. Katie resurrected the persona of Janet. Until that point, Janet was dead.
What does the murder refer to? It’s obviously unrelated to any of the events mentioned up to now. Aren’t you paying attention?

See how a list of Red Truths doesn’t necessarily guarantee the truth is one and absolute?

The Red Truth existing is worse than it not existing. Because it’s a subjective statement that presents itself as purely objective.

This is also definitely accidental (or rather unintentional) on the part of Ryukishi07.^I) The reason I think this is because the way the Red Truth is being used in the narrative suggests that none of the characters actually seem to be aware that the Red Truths can be interpreted in multiple ways. Y’know, outside of the few times they actually do. They treat them as absolute and objective.

So what is it that makes Umineko incoherent?
The fact it’s so deeply layered and has so many alternate representations of literal events and no way of telling what is or isn’t actually real. Every character is an unreliable witness. The one way of telling what is or isn’t true – the Red Truths – can be interpreted in so many ways that they don’t tell us anything either.

Everything about Umineko is up to interpretation. And I do mean everything because we never actually witness the real world from the eyes of a purely neutral/objective witness.

This section will be much shorter because it’s quite conclusive.

Umineko breaks its promise to the audience – of being a mystery story with solvable mysteries – by being narratively incoherent. Because what happens in Umineko can be interpreted any way you desire – because there is literally no way to tell what is or isn’t real – that means that Umineko has many (to put it lightly) possible interpretations. And since there’s no way to tell which interpretation is better or worse, that means that there is no actual solution to any of the mysteries.

That isn’t even mentioning the fact that Umineko breaks the rules of fair play – it cites the Knox Decalogue but the official solution violates it. Even if we consider that the Knox Decalogue isn’t absolute, Umineko still fails to be fair because everything can be interpreted however you want.

At best it misleads the audience with the Red Truths and at worst it straight-up lies to them. Some people might think that insulting the audience by lying to them is a good (or neutral) thing and those people are, frankly, not very smart.

• VNDB
• Various Links
  • Is it ACTUALLY possible to solve Umineko on your own? Like, realistically? – I thought this post was very good. I argue something similar here.
  • Fake metafiction: The Umineko review – I found this one to be too long, pretentious, possibly incorrect at points but still okay overall.
  • Reviews by kanjieater on VNDB
    • Part 1
    • Part 2
  • review by dastruller
  • review by Baffles
  • review by Aphanes (on Chiru)
  • review by animecac (on Chiru)
  • Did you feel the game was worth reading all the way through? – a VNDB discussion.
  • What is the difference between Umineko VN (1-4) and anime? – a (not very useful, frankly) discussion comparing the anime and VN.
  • Umineko: An Anime and VN Comparison – A comparison between the anime and the VN and the one I read. I find it pleasant that he includes screenshots comparing the two and isn’t hyper-focused on details.
• There are a number of other issues that I noticed which only make Umineko worse. One of those was the question “Is magic real?” Either way you answer that question, Umineko‘s plot breaks.
  Assuming it is, there is no actual ‘real’ event that occurred and everything we witnessed is actually what happened, which means that Umineko is misleading us into thinking that there was a ‘true’ event on Rokkenjima. Also, it implies that it could be undone if it did happen.
  Assuming that it isn’t, you’ve just rendered most of the story completely pointless.
  Remember that the closest we get to reality is in Ange’s layer and even then we witness magical things occur. If magic isn’t real, that only places more doubt on everything else.
  • The way I interpret this (on a meta level) is that Umineko assumes that magic isn’t real but requires magic to be real. Take that however you will, it’s a Red Truth after all.
• Another issue with the Red Truths is the fact that once you know, you know and thus you wonder how characters can be so colossally stupid that they don’t make obvious arguments regarding the interpretation of several Red Truths.
  • Want an example? In Episode 5, Erika is declared the ‘detective’ which means that under the Knox Commandments, she can’t be the culprit. This is despite all of the highly suspicious behavior she exhibits during the game which would have her labelled as the culprit immediately. What I was expecting to happen was that Battler would point out that Erika can’t be the detective according to the Knox Commandments because she only performed all those suspicious activities because she assumed a murder would occur. Under the Knox Commandments, the detective can’t rely on intuition or supernatural means to solve a crime. This behavior suggests one or the other^J). If Battler had pointed this out, Erika couldn’t be classified as a detective and thus her suspicious behavior would point to her being the culprit. This never happens and it’s maddening.
• I’ll lay out how I went thru Umineko here:
  • I started by watching the anime.
  • Around episode 5 I decided to also start playing thru the VN since I didn’t want to miss anything.
  • After I played it for around 5 hours, I decided to quit the VN because I found the writing style deeply irritating and repetitive.
  • I went back to the anime and continued watching it until I hit the end. Around episode 21 I started to feel the quality was dropping.
  • After that, I decided to start the manga Episodes 1 & 5 in parallel. The reason why was to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
  • After finishing Episode 1 and reading Episode 2 for a while, I decided to check a comparison between the anime and the VN because nothing of significance seemed to have been removed from the anime. I was (mostly) right, so I decided to focus on Episode 5.
  • I finished Episode 5 and moved onto Episode 6. Around here I started getting irritated by Umineko.
  • During all of the above stages, I did glance at the wiki and a few reviews but it was during Episode 6 that I stopped caring about spoilers completely. Thus I know basically what happens and I wasn’t very pleased with what I saw. Though I decided to keep going.
  • Well, I decided to keep going for a while but Episode 6 really got on my nerves particularly because, being aware of the issues, it was hard to get invested into anything.
• One of the reasons I became curious about Umineko is because I found out Ryukishi07 was to write the new Silent Hill game (ƒ). But since experiencing Umineko, my interest has completely dissipated. I’m convinced it can’t be a good game now.
• I think my proofreading caught most of the obvious issues, so I’ll just pretend it’s fine until someone points an issue out.
• I noticed another potential problem with Umineko: its rendering of the knox decalogue. Though I told myself I wouldn’t think too hard about Umineko anymore, all I’ll say is that Umineko presents them as way more absolute than they actually are.