Will the war between Battler and Beatrice turn out to be a Blitzkrieg and over in a flash now that the Golden Witch has taken the field?
Creative Staff
Story: Ryukishi07
Art: Jiro Suzuki
Translation/Adaptation: Stephen Paul
What They Say
With the six sacrifices of the first night claimed, Beatrice, the Golden Witch, turns her attention to selecting the sacrifices for the second night: the “Two Who Are Close.” As the corpses begin to pile up, Battler struggles to disprove that the deaths can only be explained by the existence of magic, and the crafty Beatrice is using every strategy in her playbook to trip him up.
Logic and truth perform an acrobatic dance in which a single misstep could spell certain death. Can Battler defeat Beatrice in this match of wits and wills? Or will he find himself kneeling at the witch’s feet?
Content: (please note that content portions of review may contain spoilers):
The second take on the events surrounding the mysterious Witch Beatrice and the Ushiromiya family continues on as the clash of wills between the Golden Witch and the family’s rebellious member Battler compete over the fate of the family members…and Battler’s side continues to mount loses. Already down 6 members due to the murdered bodies in the chapel, Jessica and Kanon now find themselves in the Witch’s sight as she declares she needs a pair that is close to fulfill her second night prophecy and the two meet her qualifications, which seem to include a bonus for her as she gets to torture Kanon at the same time. In order to protect the young woman he cherishes, Kanon tries giving everything he has to save her but he falls to the Witch’s strength and he loses his own life as well in the process.
Now desperate as the events look to be spiraling out of control, the struggling Battler manages to drag a new rule out of Beatrice in order for her to have a chance try to break his will without him dismissing everything she says and now everything she says in red (though only bold in the text in the book) will be an absolute truth…though she will not explain anything about what she says either to clarify or reword her statements. With that condition wormed out Battler thinks he has won as he can use the words Beatrice has used to prove that the murders don’t have to have a supernatural origin and thus could have been committed by a human. Of course since Battler wants to refuse that both the fact that Witch is real but also that his family members committed these crimes he is left in a catastrophic Catch-22 where by winning he loses and either situation gives Beatrice the win she craves and Battler finds that the possible theories he comes up with dead end faster and faster and leaves him in a frantic state. Will the story of the Golden Witch ended after such a short turn of events or can Battler summon the will to continue after being inspired by a completely unexpected source?
Following in the pattern of the Higurashi series, Umineko continues its second story that gives a different take on events and follows different paths so that the tale’s audience can get both a new look at characters as well as a different course of events that will help to piece together the mystery at the heart of the story. What this means though in practice is that there can be wildly inconstant tales in terms of how effective each arc is at advancing the narrative as well as overall tone and the conclusion to this arc falls a bit flat for most of its run as once the titles really big moment hits in the first chapter or so much of the rest of the material is stuck redoing many of the same steps as the previous arc did.
That could do well enough if new ground was covered or new insight was gained but a fair amount of the material involves Aunt Rosa becoming more and more paranoid (though given the circumstances probably a bit reasonably so) and seemingly more prone to outbursts which lead to pages of her and Battler displayed as yelling, with large text and speed lines used to try to sell the emotion which never quite seems to connect and many of which were also raised and often dismissed in the previous arc. Unlike the previous book’s focus on establishing one of the adults as a full character Rosa is never developed to a point where she is sympathetic before the very end of the collected chapters which robs the material of an emotional punch that could otherwise be present. Instead many of the actions she takes seem to just be those of someone who may be at the edge of self control…and which side of that edge she is on may be something the reader has to decide for themselves but which leave little common ground to sympathize or understand her.
This really hurts the book as there are some fantastic individual moments that take place as Beatrice and some of the other characters face off and some of the secrets behind her powers may be glimpsed while the heart behind others gets a reveal but which on the whole is drowned out largely by the events around Rosa and her actions that follow. The book does save itself at the end as the last few chapters finally give a glimpse of not just who Rosa is as a character but it also gives a bit more power to Beatrice as well as helping to fill Battler out as a fuller personality, even if in doing so the material does tip the mystery scales a bit farther toward an explanation of Beatrice as a powerful Witch in the process. With a different focus, or perhaps an artist who could display some of the needed emotion a bit more subtly, this could- maybe even should- have been a very powerful volume that keeps fans on the edge of their seat. Instead what is present is a story which seems forced at times and over dramatic in the wrong places which robs the impact from some of the events that should have charged up the readers. This creates the odd situation of a book that has some important and meaningful moments that are lost in flat moments which can’t help but lead to the conclusion that either the wrong things were chosen as emphasis or that this is a story that does not deal well with being condensed from its original and much longer form.
In Summary
With Beatrice taking an active role and showing her hand in person the story of Umineko gets a tremendous jolt and her actions allow for some intense moments of drama as she confronts those who have been chosen as her sacrificial pawns in what should be a completely charged book filled with emotion. Instead the overreliance on the path from the previous story- following the survivors plus the adult who takes charge- collapses as the character of Rosa never really comes across as likeable or even particularly interesting until far too late to justify her central role in a large part of the story. None of this is helped either by a technically skilled artist who often overuses full page drawings and speed lines as well as large text to try to convey emotions, though this may be just be as much a reflection of a script that spends too much time with characters yelling as it feels like a rougher and less refined version of the previous story arc. Still, given the important elements introduced as well as the fantastic last two chapters the book is one Umineko fans can’t skip, even if they may find their eyes glossing over some of the parts of the book that are weaker than others.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: August 20th, 2013
MSRP: $20.99