02.06
NOTE: This is about the anime adaptation. I like the visual novel – it’s good. Also, I wrote this over three years ago and acknowledge that it is very abrasive and kind of obnoxious. I’m only leaving it up for posterity. Please do not judge the rest of our blog on the merits of this particular piece.
Hello, everyone! Foggle here, back with another anime review! Unfortunately, there are no pictures this time, because I am far too lazy. Anyway, enjoy!
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Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a mystery with no intrigue, a romance with no soul, and a story with some of the most uninteresting characters and appalling plot twists ever created. Not since Hannibal Rising have I been so shocked by such a putrid sequel (or spiritual successor here, I suppose) to one of my favorite series. Perhaps Higurashi was just a fluke, since Rei was markedly worse. Beginner’s luck, I suppose.
Let’s start with the story. “Story.” Haha, you’re killin’ me! It starts out promisingly enough; the Ushiromiya family arrives on Rokkenjima for a family meeting, and things go very bad very fast. A few episodes of terrible animation, retarded boob jokes, creepy laughs, and mysterious yet violent incidents later, the entire family ends up dead. Sound familiar? It’s not as solid as Higurashi, but expectations run high.
And then we meet Beatrice.
The unconventional but wholly intriguing “tea party” happens. Viewers everywhere are pumped up for the next arc. “This is going to be amazing!” I remember thinking. How wrong I was.
I knew from the moment the ambiguously gay Dickens-esque urchin child randomly sprouted a laser sword with which to fight off a bunch of goat-men that things were about to go downhill. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. From this point on, the plot-points become increasingly more stupid; so much so that you’ll be actively wondering what the hell everyone was smoking when they green-lighted this catastrophe.
The mystery also completely falls off at this point in favor of inane magic fights, the worst “torture” (and I use this term VERY loosely) scenes ever put on video, and one of the most contrived and possibly most idiotic romance sub-plots I’ve ever seen in an anime series. This garbage is so rancid that I had to drop it after 16 episodes (though I did skim the rest to see what I was missing, which almost made me puke in disgust).
Next, let’s talk about the characters. After all, you can’t have a good story without good characters, and the characters in Umineko are about as good as the story. Meaning? They’re horrendous. There are so many characters it’s hard to keep track of them all. Not that it matters, as their “development” (another term I use loosely) is outclassed by the likes of Italian Spiderman and perhaps even Ninja Gaiden 2. It seems throughout much of the series that their only purpose in life is to die. This raises some thoughts of Existentialism. No, I don’t mean that the philosophy is present in the anime itself, I mean that Umineko is so bad it makes me want to kill myself.
Worse still are the characters introduced midway through the series. The Siestas and the Seven Stakes Of Purgatory would merely be a bad idea in any other anime, but here they’re just vomit-inducing. One of this series’ crowning moments of awful is the synapse-destroying scene in which the bunny girls (the former party mentioned in this paragraph) shoot one of the family members with their magic bow, a dramatic and completely-intended-to-be-serious moment in which DEEN felt like it was a good idea to parody The Terminator. My face damn near smashed my keyboard in half at this point while my accomplice with whom I watched this monstrosity proceeded to vomit on my shoes. They were pretty nice shoes, too. Fuck you, Umineko.
Of course, it is impossible to discuss the flaws of this anime without mentioning the downright horrible art and animation. DEEN does it again with this one, from giving the characters disproportionate heads to actually forgetting to fully draw and color in one of the character’s suits at one point.
The only redeeming aspect of this series is the audio. I really like all the music used in it, especially the tracks ripped straight from the VN, as they’re wonderfully atmospheric (when you can hear them). The OP and ED are also quite catchy, and perhaps my only solace during my unfortunate stint of watching this miserable pile of shit.
The voice acting is also pretty decent. Not the best in the world, but it definitely gets the job done.
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Story: 1/10
Characters: 1/10
Art/Animation: 1/10
Music: 8/10
Voice Acting: 7/10
Overall: 2/10
The Verdict: Don’t watch this show. Ever. If you really want to dive into the story, read the VN. It’s much better, but, IMO, still not all that impressive. At least I can actually see why people would like it, though.
–Foggle
Originally posted on Friday, December 25, 2009.