Hey Umineko fans! We’re back. It’s… been a pretty crazy few months (always saying that lately.) But, Umineko’s not gone anywhere. Can we wrap up this episode before the next rush around Europe?
Last time, we proved once and for all that Beatrice isn’t real, and Natsuhi totally did all the crimes, even the ones she logically couldn’t have done, and also despite having a red declaration that Natsuhi didn’t dunnit. Good job Erika. It seems like this chapter is setting itself up for a victory lap, presenting a bullshit ‘motivation’ for the crimes, as determined by Erika reading Natsuhi’s diaries.
No comments to respond to this time—either my commenting system broke (lmk if you commented on the last post and it’s not there) or there wasn’t so much to talk about last time—so let’s just get on with it.
Episode 15: Revenge After 19 Years
…at this rate this liveblog could take 19 years. Ahem.
OK, so we get a sort of authoritative-sounding, past tense, seemingly omniscient narrator going like ‘After being forced into an unwanted marriage, Natsuhi…’ It’s credited to ‘Trial Summary’, and later, ‘Bernkastel documents’, ‘submitted evidence’ and even ‘Great Court Internal Documents: Library of Law’. It accuses Natsuhi of fucking Kinzo, as part of a plot to steal the Ushiromiya fortune.
Curiously, it also claims that Natsuhi dressed as Beatrice, and this was witnessed by an unnamed ‘servant’. That part wasn’t state outright in the trial scene.
One thing that’s kind of curious here is that we have had it stated in red that Natsuhi isn’t the culprit, which means—to an even greater degree than usual in Umineko!—we are to assume that nothing we’re being told here is actually true.
The problem of ‘who moved the bodies’ is solved by blaming it on Kinzo, who in this telling is not dead. We get some additional evidence, like ‘a button from Natsuhi’s clothes’ confirming that she was hiding in the closet after the murder of Hideyoshi.
We end with an official declaration from the Great Court of Illusions that Natsuhi dunnit, signed of course by Dlanor. And then cut back to the parlour scene, where Natsuhi goes ‘just say I did it then’ (which apparently counts as a confession) and Battler, in first-person narration, repeats the conclusions above.
But then she immediately segues into talking about the ‘man from 19 years ago’. She claims one of the people present must be the man’s pawn. Battler observes her looking at ‘some being behind us’… shit is that me…?
Psychologically broken down, Natsuhi confesses to a murder of a baby 19 years ago. So it’s finally time for the other strand of Lambda’s plot to be surfaced to Battler and Erika..? Anyway, Natsuhi says she was commanded to adopt a baby from a ‘welfare institute’ (is this Kinzo’s orphanage..?)
In Natsuhi’s telling, an unnamed ‘servant woman’ followed her around carrying the adopted baby she wanted nothing to do with. In a moment of ‘temptation’, she considered throwing the baby off the cliff. At that moment, she claims, the servant tripped and leaned on the fence, and Natsuhi shoved them both the rest of the way. But her telling is strange: she suggests they were ‘swallowed up by empty space’ instead of falling; it sounds like she’s trying to figure out which memories are real. (Can relate.) The way she describes it, she had a full-on dissociative episode about it, unsure whether she’d pushed or if they fell on their own.
We move to a more summary narration; Kinzo covered up the baby’s existence and the servant was claimed to have died alone. Her husband was paid off and believed the accident story, and later died of old age. Natsuhi says she apologised on his grave (kind of late, huh) but the rest of this must be happening because she never apologised to the baby. So the baby must have survived and grown up to come here and frame her for murder.
Natsuhi ……And now, ……you’ve taken everything I’ve gained since pushing you off that cliff, 18 years of my life, ……and smashed it all to pieces… ……I no longer have my beloved husband or daughter. ……And I’ve lost even my honor, ……and am being called a murderer… ………No, ……I really am a murderer, aren’t I……
It’s a very Natsuhi-centric version of events. All of this was orchestrated to fuck with her, definitely couldn’t have any motive separate from her.
Will Erika just weave this into her narrative? Nah, she just brushes it off.
But Battler interjects with his trademark ‘dame da na… zenzen dame da ze’..! And… straight into the ‘credits’ scroll.
In this case many characters are ‘alive when the game was suspended’. Also Battler and the witches get special pre-scroll screens with the ‘breaking glass’ transition. As usual, let’s reproduce it here…
End scroll for Episode 5
Nothing particularly surprising there, though it’s cute that ‘All the goats’ get a credit.
Damn, that was a really short chapter. We probably could’ve knocked this one out back in June. But I guess it’s time we plough on into the tea party… a quick check of the character scenes and the Tips screen reveals nothing particularly new.
I feel like this entry is more plot summary than commentary but there just isn’t much to talk about. It’s cool how they’re messing with the format: the episode ends when the game ends, and it seems like the bulk of the actual ending with thematic resolution etc. will be in the tea parties?
Lucky that with player!Battler dead, piece!Battler still has enough insight to step in!
OK, see you in the tea party~
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