[Spoilers][Also Discussion of Past MH-/Sui But I'm Fine Right Now] someone please remind me to actually do productive things instead of starting a reread I am ThisClose to snapping and reading it all over again
lily!
[Spoilers][Also Discussion of Past MH-/Sui But I'm Fine Right Now] someone please remind me to actually do productive things instead of starting a reread I am ThisClose to snapping and reading it all over again
[Spoilers][Also Discussion of Past MH-/Sui But I'm Fine Right Now] someone please remind me to actually do productive things instead of starting a reread I am ThisClose to snapping and reading it all over again
Quinnfernal
at least finish the ep8 manga first
lily!
I already have
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oh I didn't know
It's Nick
Remember it took you a year to finish reading Umineko!
Quinnfernal
that means i can talk about my manga erika theorizing
It's Nick
You can't spend another year!
lily!
please do
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Erika appears to Ange in ep8
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and talks with her about the idea of abandoning her life as a human to become a witch of truth
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when Meta Ange learns the truth, she throws herself off the roof to her demise
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Erika washed up on a non-canonical island after 'falling' off of a cruise ship
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I think Erika is dead
lily!
I see where you're going with this
lily!
ouch
Quinnfernal
but the point
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the real point of this theory is
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the trick ending.
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where ange kills everyone on the boat
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and then
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erika appears
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I don't think Ange survived the trick ending
raiden witch ⚡︎
This is where I go and say read Last Note instead if you haven't already
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anyway the 1 reason I prefer the manga for ep8 over the VN is the scene in the golden land after Ange opens the book
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where everyone admits their part in responsibility for the rokkenjima massacre
lily!
it's so fucking necessary
lily!
also yeah
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and apologizes to ange
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it feels like a more complete version of Battler's message
lily!
there's the fact that she's on the boat in the first place too
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that the journal only shows the bitter cruel ending
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and the reality is that everyone involved were complex people with multifaceted lives
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that ended in tragedy but had value and meaning beyond that tragedy
lily!
exactly, fuck.
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and the true culprit was the gradual accumulation of sins over multiple generations that eventually devoured the family
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(the true culprit is also kinzo fuck that guy)
lily!
like... rudolf and kyrie were uncountably, unimaginably cruel. but i also think they legitimately did love ange—even kyrie did, despite her whole unhinged screed to eva in the tea party
lily!
but the cruel, bare truth didn't show that because it was only from "one perspective"
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even Erika eventually learned to see multiple truths
lily!
even if it was the "real truth," you can't see the truth only looking with one eye open
Quinnfernal
with love
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it can be seen.
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
sayo & ange finally having a true face to face meeting and heart to heart about everything makes the final beat of ange, as an adult, fully purifying sayo and maria's magic and teaching it to the children in her care so they can cope with the fraught, messy, upsetting and unfair real world hit SO hard
lily!
yeah it fucked me up really badly
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I also really like the erika vs battler rematch in ep8 being about erika finally piecing together the solution to ep6
lily!
something that hit me hard is like, at the very end of the hidden tea party/human side epilogue in the manga
lily!
in that at the orphanage you actually get to see ange sit down one of the kids and help her through her grief with the "come, come, try to remember" spell and it really hit
lily!
yeah
lily!
i think it was important for what the vn was trying to do as a piece of metanarrative fiction that its version of episode 8 lacked a bunch of these details, but as a complete, whole story in of itself rather than an experiment in storytelling, umineko really needed the ep8 manga
lily!
...belatedly marking this for spoilers
lily!
there is exactly one tiny detail which i don't think the manga did well, but i think it's only because of my personal experiences
lily!
in that in the manga, ange did take a step off the balcony but was caught by the safety net
Quinnfernal
yeah
lily!
where i think the vn's version of her conclusively going "...yeah, there's no way i could've survived that" looking down off the roof both served the themes of what bernkastel was really offering her was a lot better, and also, like
Quinnfernal
that's less clean than the whole jump being a fantasy
lily!
okay this is going to get extremely personal but, like
Quinnfernal
anyway my single favorite page of the whole manga might be this one
lily!
god yeah that's so fucking good. perfect paneling
lily!
...updates tags again
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
CLOSES MY EYES IN PAIN
lily!
when i get really suicidal i sorta try to justify it to myself with, like. "all i need is this release to just get this done and over with, i don't really want to die but i need to get this out of my system and surely there'll be something that saves my life in the end, some kind of miracle" even though i know that's also me trying to convince myself to
lily!
well. stop being a pussy and jump, basically.
lily!
and that sorta mindset of ange looking down and realizing "...there's no way i could've made it through that" felt, uh
lily!
idk i'm not making sense but her entire moment up on the roof was painfully accurate to my personal experiences
lily!
so the manga beat of her taking a step off but getting saved didn't really agree with me, ha
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
traumazied gay bitches will see ange umineko's entire character and go that's me baby!
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
(we're traumatized gay bitches)
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
but yeah I totally feel you there
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
I think from a storytelling standpoint it 'suited' the manga's stance better, in that the manga more definitively says 'fantasy is real, magic is real, ange really did go on this journey'
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
whereas the vn's intentional gentle ambiguity better suits ange never taking the leap at all
lily!
that's why i think the vn's version of ep8 is just as important to umineko's message even though the manga tightly wrapped up the story itself a lot more neatly
Quinnfernal
other things that are important to me in ep8 manga
lily!
the vn lands the message of "it's what you choose to believe in" a lot more because it keeps everything close to its chest, including sayo's everything, so making the choice of trick or magic feels a lot more meaningful
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- Genji reflecting and admitting that yeah, he and the rest of the island deserve whatever sayo does to them
lily!
but that's something it can ONLY do as a vn because you have the ability to make that choice yourself
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- George admitting that he did feel like something he didn't understand was going on with Shannon but he was too afraid to confront her about it
lily!
so the manga taking a different route makes a lot of sense considering it's working with different constraints of medium
lily!
the manga warmed me up on george very, very, very slightly i think
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- this page breaking me in half
lily!
i still hate him but i think i hate him more for the reasons ryukishi writes him to be hateable now rather than foibles in ryukishi's writing
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
lily!
YEAH THAT PAGE FUCKING KILLED ME
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
the art in ep8 is fucking. impeccable
lily!
the touch of their wet hair looking so much like kanon's and that being when they get the idea is. mwah
lily!
tbh i really didn't like kei natsumi's ep1 art and her ep3 art was only marginally better but her ep8 art was fucking phenomenal
lily!
i'm legit kinda staggered at the growth there
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
she got SO fucking refined as she got used to the characters and the world
Quinnfernal
all the chiru manga has incredibly good art
lily!
YEAH
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
i'm so, so glad she did ep8, i can't imagine it working as well with anybody else
lily!
also i feel like kei natsumi was the exact right person to do the ep8 manga because you can just see how much she loves sayo
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
YES
lily!
in both her art and all the dumb little collage theaters and all her notes
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
her portrayal of sayo is just... so raw and unflinching
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
she's unafraid to show how ugly and raw her feelings are, because she loves sayo and she has faith that the readers will see her with love too, despite everything
lily!
exactly
lily!
...also her babby sayos are criminally adorable ngl
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
RIGHT
✶ 天才的なIDOL様！
i want to pinch her cheeks and give her a big old timey lollipop
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also for amazing manga visuals for me is the scene where Ange unlocks the journal
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and before she turns the key, her whole family is behind her
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then
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click
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graveyard
lily!
GOD THAT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD
Wolfgirl Summer
she's so expressive with lambda too
Wolfgirl Summer
also even if it does pull the curtain back, i love that the way erika kills beato is by saying her real name
Wolfgirl Summer
thus establishing the story as a mystery and erasing the fantasy
Wolfgirl Summer
and that's only defeated because Ange, the only person with the vantage point to decide for herself refuses to reduce the story to that limited perspective