#battler

Finally made Battler. And yup he was immediately abducted by aliens

In the Summer of 2025, I launched one of my largest threads on Bluesky. It was an episode-by-episode analysis of Umineko: When They Cry. I delivered several of my impressions and observations as I was reading it for the first time, with only the mildest knowledge of what it was actually about. I have decided, at long last, to repurpose my thread into a series of articles to facilitate its readability. The writing shall be left mostly untouched, unburdened by hindsight, in order to convey the many feelings that organically sprouted within me during the discovery phase. This is going to be one hell of a journey and it begins now!

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I have engrossed myself with a certain reading material. A certain, massive work of fiction of the seminar and deeply influential variety. It has something to do with seagulls and crying. Perhaps, you know of it?

There isn't enough space within the confines of a leisurely composed piece, such as this, to discuss the complex and prolific literature of one Ryukishi07. He was the author of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, a two decades long spanning franchise for which I have opinions!

Forgoing the preamble entirely, I will get to the point. Umineko no Naku Koro ni (literally translated as When the Seagulls Cry) was Ryukishi07's second big narrative project, made between 2007 and 2010. You might have seen the memes here and there.

It is an astoundingly large, dense work of literature built around a classic Agatha Christie-style Murder Mystery setup that constantly escalates its scope and reworks its setting. It's an extremely slow-burn of a read, in that regard. To give you an idea of its actual size, it took me more than six hours to get to the first kill. Furthermore, this is merely the first episode out of eight. The VN is said to be hundreds of hours long. Ryukishi07's approach to writing is Melvillian in nature! I have come across entire paragraphs dedicated to flesh out the linguistic and cultural barriers between Japan and "The West" in relation to how the characters' Anglo names are spelt in the Kanji alphabet. The protagonist being named Battler is a purposeful rib! Likewise, there are full chapters that contextualize the ongoing narrative within the real-world history of Japan, from the Ushiromiya family head building his fortune by profiting on the Korean War to the year in which the game's story starts: 1986, the beginning of the Bubble Era. There are thorough explanations about the Stock Market and how Insider Trading works in order to provide background to the many illicit dealings, blackmails and backstabbings that will occur in the plot. This is a living, breathing world informed by unflattering historical events. It appears to be a story about obscenely wealthy twats (and their slightly less twat-ish children) being torn asunder by Greed in a time of unprecedented prosperity which would soon implode under its own weight... There might be a message in here, somewhere.

Anyway, the version I'm playing isn't the one sold on Steam. Instead, I've gotten my hands on the "Ultimate" edition which was originally released on PS3. It comes with newer art assets, full voice acting and, most crucially, a better reading format for my poor eyes. Performances are very good, by the way.

It's important to keep in mind that Umineko has a huge cast of characters, all with their own dynamics, agendas and conflicts being inevitably entwined to their relationship with the Patriarchy. Everyone, at various levels of the social ladder, is a victim of an overbearing hierarchy. From the lowly servants who have come to view themselves as "furniture", to the women of the family being regarded exclusively for their ability to produce a heir, to the children being pressured into dust by their parents to live up to their Name, the same way they experienced it. Patriarchy is a generational trauma that affects everybody regardless of how much they benefit from it. Capital is the poison that perpetuates the horror, and familial bonds are shattered in the quest for winning at Society. This novel is getting to me. To be perfectly honest, the original plan was for me to start posting screenshots from the game with my usual array of funny remarks, the occasional meme, and so forth... but, after coming across a certain scene, I was forced to reconsider my entire approach. Sure, I could make fun of how much of a freak Battler can be around women (even his own cousins) but I have found that, otherwise, I have very little else to riff. I knew Ryukishi07 was a good writer, I didn't grasp just how smartly realized these characters were going to be - eventually.

Let me tell you about the scene that gave me pause. The youngest member of the cast, Maria, is a 9 years old autistic child. No, I'm not "diagnosing" her or projecting my lived experience onto her. This is an intentional portrayal.

She has trouble communicating, stubborn habits, hyper-obsessions, a general inability to conduct herself in a manner deemed "socially acceptable" by the adults in her life. This culminates in a heartrending scene whereupon her own mother, frustrated by her behavior, strikes her multiple times.

In truth, Rosa isn't generally a bad mother but she was never provided the necessary tools to understand her kid. She could only pass down what she learnt from her father. She, herself, has unresolved issues because that is how she was educated and she would come to regret her outburst. The writing hits hard because it comes from a very real place. The author used to be a social worker. He had witnessed, first hand, how society treats "problem children" as well as how abuse is carried out, the dehumanizing nature of our institutions. The point I need to emphasize is that the characters in Umineko are deeply, painfully human. Yes, even the crazy old patriarch himself who spits his lines as if he were performing a Shakespearian play in front of God!

So, when half the cast suddenly drops dead, the emphasis is not given to how brutally violated their corpses were but, rather, to how their passing affects their loved ones. The bodies are not even shown, in that regard. The anime really did a disservice to this, uh?

So, the first episode of Umineko played out like the most refined, painstakingly-built Murder Mystery novel in almost all aspects except in the manner by which it denies us a resolution, turning the genre on its head whilst teasing the audience with the idea that the killer might not be human. Conventions are thusly flipped as the "mystery" becomes increasingly more unfair, the killings more inconceivable. The Supernatural takes root and the characters find themselves lost in a tragic horror folktale - or so it would seem. Beatrice the Golden Witch, our principal antagonist, is framed like an entity beyond human comprehension, hunting everyone down, one by one, until none should remain. Episode 1 ends without any of the puzzles having been solved, the apparent answer to all the questions being, "Magic did it!" It's purposefully unsatisfying. Which is why I find it interesting that the real introduction of the Witch comes in the form of a "Tea Party" taking place in a dimension outside of the fiction itself, and she's this quirky girlboss that immediately flirts with Battler!

Right, so, to slightly pull the curtain from this sordid ordeal: there is an entire meta-narrative to Umineko that exists both concurrently and beyond the regular narrative. In it, Battler and Beatrice are locked in a battle of wits as they passionately discuss the plot of the game!

Battler, the world's most annoying subredditor, is trying to disprove the existence of God (as in, witches) with facts and logic! Beatrice counteracts him by simply existing. This bewildering debate becomes the framework for the entire "mystery." The game is literally challenging you, the reader, to solve it. It gives a new meaning to the term 'thinking outside the box.' Now you have to think outside of the fiction itself. It's too early to fully grasp what's the intent behind such a decision but the fact of the matter is that Umineko is breaking its plot in order to tell its story, and that's wild! ... Wait, is that Rika Furude from Higurashi!?

[EPISODE 2]

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