It turns out I couldn’t deny the witch anymore.

I’d been fairly charitable throughout most of the anime’s run. I mean, there’s absolutely no way that any studio can adapt Umineko and have everyone be satisfied with the result. It just isn’t possible. So I was willing to give Deen a little slack. Okay, so it has bad animation, but Umineko isn’t known for great art. Okay, so some things aren’t paced well or got cut. I understand, it’s a challenge given the time constraints. Okay, so they remixed awesome tracks for the anime OST but never use them. Wait a second.

Episode 4 was terrible. Unlike the other arcs, there was not one scene throughout the entire Episode that was done well. Episode 1 had its tea party, Episode 2 had its tea party, and Episode 3 had Beatroll.

The weakest parts of every arc have been October 4 and 5, 1986. The problems with the pacing are because they decided to slow down only as much as necessary and to blaze through whatever could have been rushed. So all the mundane, important parts got the time that they needed, while the awesome parts got cut or rushed. And so, a lot of the emotional connection that Umineko has is lost.

The problem is magnified in EP4, where a lot of the story is introducing and fleshing out who Ange is. Ange’s parts of the story are comparable to the very first airport scenes. That is, they’re long, not very exciting, but pretty necessary. With that making up the bulk of the anime’s EP4 and the decision to do it mostly in one shot, the last part of the anime seemed worse than usual.

And what happens when you take all of the character and emotion out of Umineko? It’s just a bunch of tl;dr. It’s not even a coherent mystery that you can solve because there are quite a few things missing from the anime.

The final blow to the Umineko anime is that Deen just isn’t very good. Yeah, the animation is some improvement over Higurashi, but that’s not saying much. The music, even with the zts tracks that people were worried wouldn’t make it in, ended up being a travesty. And, as all Umineko fans are aware, the music of Umineko is a very integral part of the experience.

It’s really disappointing because I was really, really hoping that it’d at least be decent. At least now I know to preemptively be in despair whenever I see Chiaki Kon in the director’s seat (pretty sure Nodame Finale is going to be terribad).

…there is one survivor.

Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

So if it wasn’t clear enough from EP2, EP3 will definitely convince you that Umineko is a completely different beast from Higurashi. We begin with a look into the past with the revelation of the existence of Kuwadorian and someone who’s actually named Beatrice as well as Rosa’s confirmation of this fact. We also take a look inside Eva’s ambitions and how this plays a part in 1986 Rokkenjima.

The exciting parts of this episode during the actual twilights were decent. Both Beato vs. Virgilia and Rudolf/Kyrie vs. Stakes were a bit short. All of the important good parts were kept, of course, but the extra stuff that really sealed the deal was absent. The depiction of Evatrice’s carrying out of the second twilight was one of the more disappointing parts of EP3. The visual novel was able to render it much more nightmarish than in the anime. The anime’s offering was also a lot weaker than what we all imagined. When they said sea of jelly and mountain of cake, I think that was what we were expecting to see.

But the most important part of the Episode was the ending. How well did it do on that front?

I felt like the ambiguity of who died and who survived shouldn’t have been there (yes, Eva was the only who survived). The buildup from the beginning of the episode was fairly well done. From the looks of my feed reader, Beatrice did her job and masterfully trolled everyone. Ange’s introduction was pretty good, although it could have been foreshadowed better (like mentioned once in a while over the last three Episodes rather than have a flashback the episode before). I’m not sure about the choice of forgoing more EP3 Tea Party stuff for going straight into EP4 material. I suspect that they wanted to clear up who died and who the mysterious girl was, but from the discussions I’ve read, it seemed to make little difference.

The main problem with the adaptation is that it hasn’t managed to convey the depth and richness of the visual novel’s storytelling. This is for two reasons. The first is that there simply isn’t enough time. At the moment, I think that they’re doing the best that they can, leaving in all of the important stuff. That’s good, but it’s all of the small details that get paved over that really makes Umineko fantastic and I think that another twelve or thirteen episodes would have given enough time for the studio to include even small, incidental stuff. I’m not saying that it needs to be one-to-one, but the selection of material to adapt can definitely improve.

The other thing is that I just don’t think DEEN is good enough to render an adaptation that matches up to what we see in our heads when we read the VN. All of the awesome parts of the visual novel so far have been good in spite of the adaptation. However, for every single one of these moments, there’s always something lacking in the execution.

…there are no survivors.

So Episode II should provide some character development that was pretty lacking from the first arc. In particular, the focus is on the relationships between Kanon and Jessica, Shannon and George, and Rosa and Maria. We also move into the real main story thread of Umineko and we learn some more about the mechanics of the world.

The biggest adaptation challenge for this Episode was the meta-world stuff, particularly the red text. The in-world meta stuff worked pretty well, with the greying and freezing, and I guess it’s a good excuse to use the CG golden butterflies. The red text is more interesting. When the first screencaps came out, the assumption was that red text would only be indicated by the red tint on the screen. Obviously, that would make what the exact red text was a lot more fuzzy. It turns out they chose to have the red text flying around, which I found that I didn’t mind so much. Of course, it’s amusing when it flies in weird paths.

The most surprising thing about this arc has been the censoring. I guess slit necks, fingering a deep chest wound, and disembowelment aren’t very broadcast friendly.

Overall, Episode II was pretty well adapted, other than some rushing near the end. Again, most VN readers’ whining are because of some really minor details or inconsequential stuff, like music choices. Wah, wah, wah, Dread of the Grave didn’t get used until the end of Episode II, so the Umineko anime must be terrible.

Everything before the first twilight was pretty spot on, with bonus Jessica silly faces. The first scene that I really wanted to see animated was Kanon vs. goats. It actually turned out better than I expected, although the magical blades could have used some work.

The biggest problem with the anime so far is that even though all of the major events and main points are able to fit in, the dramatic pacing has been lost. Just about all of the moments that made me drop my jaw (Kanon’s furniture reveal, Rosa Musou, etc.) didn’t make as much of an impact.

Other than the timing, the portrayal of the events that took place has been fine. Kanon’s fight was exciting enough and Rosa Musou was Musou enough, even if it was shortened. I was most impressed with Rosa’s scene at the tea party, which was pleasantly and surprisingly disturbing. It makes me look forward to the more creative murders in the next Episode.

tl;dr – there was no にぱー☆ from Bernkastel, EP2 is ruined.