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Creative Staff
Story: Ryukishi07
Art: Jiro Suzuki
Translation/Adaptation: Stephen Paul
What They Say
With help from the witch Beatrice, Shannon has enjoyed a budding romance with George Ushiromiya, her master’s eldest grandson. As a servant of the Ushiromiya estate, Shannon is little more than furniture, but since her bargain with Beatrice, Shannon has never felt happier… or more human. Her brother and fellow servant, Kanon, is troubled by his sister’s reliance on the witch to reach beyond her lowly status. But when love begins to flutter in Kanon’s heart, will he be tempted to abandon his station and take the witch’s hand as well?
Content: (please note that content portions of review may contain spoilers):
The Ushiromiya clan, its servants and the patriarch’s doctor appear to have fallen victim to something incredibly horribly as the bodies of all but four of the people had been discovered to have been murdered, some in incredibly gruesome ways while the missing bodies of four of the children who had been present were never found and that is where the story ended. Or where it should have ended anyway except that the events on the island were of an unusual nature that appear to have been caused by the Golden Witch Beatrice and she demands acknowledgement of her power from those on the island- acknowledgement that Battler refuses to give unless she can prove that there is no way that a human could have committed the crimes on the island. An intrigued Beatrice takes him up on this challenge and so a brand new game with the same pieces begins though this time there may be different moves made as Beatrice and Battler face off with the lives of those on the island hanging in the balance.
And the reader doesn’t have to wait long to see differences in this return trip as from the opening pages it seems that Battler will see his role reduced greatly as the romance between Shannon and George gets to take center stage as the pair attempt to climb the wall between them that their respective status in life has placed in their path. As Shannon starts to have thoughts that she isn’t just furniture but is actually a human deserving love she is going to find precious little support from the adults in her life as George’s parents both has ideas for how his marriage can help the family as they and other family members as can see that the two young people are getting a bit too close for the status obsessed family- and Shannon’s brother isn’t going to be of any help either as he tries to remind her of the siblings place in the hierarchy on the island. With so much stacked against them it will take a miracle for things to progress but miracles aren’t just the exclusive purview of god as the island has a legend of a being who has helped the patriarch with one in the past and who may show herself to help this young woman…for a price.
As the family gathers on the island they will discover an extra member on the island as the being who claims to be the Golden Witch Beatrice has decided that she isn’t going to stick to the shadows this time around and Shannon has helped to make that possible with her actions in payment for the Witch’s help. Beatrice’s presence is having a rippling effect on the other people on the island as well as Kanon starts to find Beatrice’s words a poison he desperately wants to take as he starts to awaken to his feelings for Jessica and the Witch continues to tempt him to curry her favor and benefit from her ability to make the impossible happen. This time around the readers also get to see a different look at the impact that her brief appearance so many decades ago had on Kinzou which has driven him to a desperate madness and maybe some hints of cracks in Beatrice’s facade while there are also hints from Marie and her mother’s behavior that the Witch’s influence has been seeping into the island residents and visitors for years which may explain their erratic behavior at times. As the family gathers on the island there will be new sacrifices in different places and it may be that those who the Witch helps may pay the highest price as the battle between Beatrice and Battler takes on a new and possibly even darker turn in their clash of wills.
Having ended the tale in the previous volume in such an amazing and supernatural manner helps to explain the characters return for another take though it does seemingly leave stuck in a bizarre karmic loop where they find themselves facing very similar situations but with subtle changes that start to build up and create different results- but are the results going to be different enough for the cast to avoid become little more than pawns to be sacrificed for the deal cut between the patriarch of the family and Golden Witch cut so many years ago? To that end the double sized volume here presents many different angles from the previous arc as this arc doesn’t need to spend as much time setting up the larger parts of the story and so the tale has time to play with some of the characters that got kind of glossed over previously in order to deepen the relationship that the reader has with some of them- and being a Ryukishi07 story this development can be then used to make the events even more painful as he twists the knife from a new angle into the reader’s heart.
That twisting becomes particularly nasty as some of the characters who the reader might have liked- or at least found sympathetic- at the end of the last arc get a chance to be seen in a new light, and that light isn’t always all that flattering as the obsession with money and status seems to dominate the thinking of almost all the adults on the island leaving the children in an even worse place as the many of the adults are even more harsh than their previous incarnations which revels some viciousness that was softened before. On the other hand though the story also does a remarkable job of humanizing some characters as it gives a look at Kinzou that helps make him feel far more human as his quest to reunite with the woman he fell for so many years before gives a sadness to his part in this that wasn’t present before as well as giving some moments that make one wonder just what Beatrice may feel for him which makes her a more complicated character in the process. In addition to that Maria’s mother gets some more depth as well as she shows signs that her erratic behavior may be the result of something that happened to her in the past (which doesn’t quite excuse her behavior but it does give hope that she will have the chance to confront it) and contact she had with Beatrice…though with the Golden Witch making her presence known it seems less likely than ever that anyone will be able to beat her which means no one will get out alive and that Battler may be forced into recognizing Beatrice’s power.
In Summary
Umineko raises its game and also the stakes in this start to the second arc as the Golden Witch Beatrice moves out of the shadows and onto the center of the stage as she goes from being hinted at to undeniably present and she re-sets the events on the island while she matches off against Battler in a contest of wills as she strives to provide him proof he can’t deny she exists while he is desperately trying to prove the cause of all the events could be done by a non-witch and save his family. Caught in between the two’s contest will be the members of the Ushiromiya clan who have long been linked to the Witch’s legend and now find themselves being used as pieces in a larger game, often at the mercy of the very powerful and cunning Witch who knows just where their dreams and weaknesses lie, though Beatrice may discover that there are limits to just how she can manipulate these pawns as humans sometimes can show a tenacity of operating under their own will. With the Witch now on full display though is Battler doomed to be playing a losing hand in trying to deny Beatrice the recognition she craves right from the start?
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: May 28th, 2013
MSRP: $20.99
