The Most Interesting Umineko Episodes So Far

Lately, I've been trudging through Umineko no Naku Koro ni slowly and asking myself why I'm even bothering to finish it. It reminds me of how old I'm getting. I'm talking about the dry and childish humor is no longer palatable and the pushy manner in which it tried to shove sex down my throat (Battler's remarks at his cousin's chest). Four years ago when I [re]introduced to anime by a friend in high school, I watched Baka to Test which really hit home with my crude sense of humor and the mutual feeling of being young, free and stupid.

I know myself the best for seeing things to the end no matter what (I'm hating FFXIII and ACIII's guts right now but I'm still planning on beating the games because I paid good money for them) so I forged on ahead.

Episode 14 and 15 of Umineko didn't disappoint. In wake of the ensuing game Beatrice plays with Battler, some interesting events unfolds in the episode. I'd like to insert "without spoiling too much of the episode..." but I've been long overdue on finishing the series anyways so I think I'll just go full steam ahead.

First was the introduction of a new character, the old "Beatrice," a regal witch who Beatrice knew as a child (parallel to Maria and Beatrice's relationship as well as Eva and Beatrice's relationship) who bestowed the Endless Witch title on her. They duke it out spectacularly when old Beatrice fights for her title back and ends up dying. Much props to the animators for the scene when she falls down dead. Kind of made go "Wow. She's very dead." This is probably the first scene that illustrated for me how despicable Beatrice is (although I wouldn't have found her mischievously cute and a little dazzling if it weren't for her design) and how terrible the power of the Endless Witch is.

Yep, definitely dead. Terrible. And to add insult to injury, Beatrice takes care to step on her mentor's head.

The "dead" witch later appears to Battler and is introduced as a supporting character (Virgilia? I don't remember what her name was exactly) who has some very intuitive advice for him.

Moving on to Episode 15, Eva and Rosa the Ushiromiya sisters solve Beatrice's riddle on their own and stumble upon the gold. Instead of blowing their heads apart, they negotiate to split the gold between them, but not before Eva claims head of the household. Meanwhile, Beatrice passes on her powers to the "witch inside Eva" her younger persona who Eva claimed supported her as a child in a dazzling ceremony. She gets a witches outfit and Beatrice's name to boot (from thereafter, Beatrice is referred to as Beato) and almost certainly loses her humanity and innocence. Witch Eva now starts sucking the life force out of adult Eva who becomes bedridden with headaches.

She materializes as her adult form in the garden when Rosa and Maria go out to find the flower Beatrice marked in earlier episodes and endlessly tortures and revives the two. I did laugh when Eva creates a giant cake and jello to crush the two in, but winces when they were dropped from miles high in the air and hit the floor -splat- dead. Now there's nothing more pitiful than seeing a little girl cry over her dying mother. When original Beatrice comes by to stop the torture, you can see how noticeably human she becomes. She ends up strangling Maria and impaling Rosa and telling young Eva off about screwing around with her powers as a witch.

Young Eva as a witch.

Overall, wow, what an emotional two episodes. Again, I find most of the child-like humor and the girly cuteness a little bland (by contrast, if Umineko were a western feature, it'd be stark, cold and humorless) but there are those moments in the series like the ones featured in these episodes that really freshen the anime up and make it worth the while.

*As an aside, I absolutely adore the artwork of this series. The slender bodies on the female and the varied poses is quite a relief to see in wake of overused moe-ness in most anime character designs nowadays. I tend not to follow new series'. I'm still waiting for a Cage of Eden anime and even a Baka to Test season 3.