Lurker > handsomeboy2012

Jessica made a couple of statements - basically, when they were inside the guesthouse, none of them could have committed murder. Someone other than them: Eva, Hideoyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa have to have killed Gohda, Kumasawa and Nanjo. Although the guesthouse was sealed, it can still be broken, so it is possible that they have broken in.

I triple-checked the narration to make sure I didn't miss anything, and there's a part that says Jessica is a corpse? I think that means Jessica is dead too?

Now the list of innocent people is: Nanjo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, Kumasawa, Genji, Jessica

From these characters, I can conclude that:
-The dining hall was indeed a closed room.
-No one hid in the dining hall (but they can still play dead)
-Genji's master key was destroyed
-Genji was indeed dead, as confirmed by Genji
-'each child confirmed their parents died' isn't a lie by Shannon. What it means, though, is still vague.
-None of the servants could have committed the crime in the second twilight.
-Natsuhi's room was indeed a closed room.
-The mansion was sealed, and it was never broken.
-No one had an alibi for the fourth twilight
-Shannon's master key was destroyed

Add Genji to the list of non-culprits.

No one is going to mistakenly confirm a death. Let's see who confirmed who's deaths.
-Shannon: 'each child confirm their parents died' which might be a lie. They can't make a mistake, but they might have not even attempted to confirm deaths.
-Kanon: 'Nanjo and I confirmed Genji was dead' same as above.
-Maria: 'All of the victims died instantly'. This doesn't confirm anything.
-Nanjo confirmed Krauss and Natsuhi died, which must be true.
-Nanjo confirmed Shannon died, which must also be true. This extends to Kanon.
-Nanjo confirmed Gohda and Kumasawa's deaths too.

In total: Nanjo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, Kumasawa are definitely NOT culprits. I'm very confident in this.

I just remembered that the narration will not lie, and found some important clues

Narration:
-No one has an alibi in the first twilight.
-All of the servants with master keys have alibis for the second twilight.
-They indeed entered and then sealed the guesthouse
-Gohda and Kumsawa's keys were destroyed after they died, and no master keys were left.
-Nanjo was killed in the entrance - fuck. I was wrong then, Nanjo wasn't the culprit after all

Well that wasted hours of my time. But Nanjo being innocent makes his statements true which eliminates a lot of people.

Can't find anything with the purples, some of them are backed up by other people but I can't tell if they are lies or not. Maybe I should check the narration again to check the order of events.

Looking at Nanjo's death again. If Nanjo isn't the culprit, everyone else is dead, and Jessica said the ones alive couldn't kill him, so no one can kill Nanjo. Alright, I got a bit confused here, but Nanjo definitely is a culprit, otherwise it wont' work.

Which means that Jessica, George, and Maria are indeed culprits too. Time to check their purples.

I think there's something wrong with my logic though. It is true that the four cousins couldn't have killed Nanjo, but that doesn't mean they didn't kill Jessica. Still can't confirm Nanjo is the culprit yet.

Hint 2: Those who are dead can't be culprits.

This is obvious, but Battler did give two more important hints.

First, and I can't believe I missed that, Nanjo said no one is going to mistakenly confirm a death. If Nanjo didn't lie on this, everyone up to Jessica are dead, which means that only George, Battler and Maria can be culprits. I look at Jessica's statements, which have to be true - 'The four cousins couldn't have killed Nanjo', and we end up with no culprits.

Here I conclude that Nanjo has to be a culprit.

Second, I have to look for a death that is more reliable than purple statements - does he mean the red that says 'Kanon is treated as being killed?'

At least there's a bit of progress.

If Krauss or Natsuhi are culprits, they can't possibly lock the door after killing 5/6 people in the dining hall. So either Gohda lied about the dining hall being locked, or that another servant locked the door after the crime. And Krauss was the one who confirmed that the dining hall was a closed room.

I had thought targeting them would be easy, but there are so many possibilities...

What if Krauss is the culprit?

Just swap Natsuhi and Krauss from the above post. The purples are different, but that's not what I'm focusing on right now.

What if Natsuhi is the culprit?

Scenario 1
-Natsuhi killed all 6 people in the dining hall and no one else.
-She might have lied about destroying Genji's master key. That doesn't really matter because she can't use it anyway.
-She went into her room with Krauss.
-Some other culprit killed Krauss. Someone locks the room. Natsuhi pretends to be dead.
-The others discover the bodies, then leave and seal the room.
-Natsuhi is trapped forever.
-The culprits of the later twilights cannot be those 6, or Natsuhi or Krauss.

Scenario 2
-Natsuhi killed 5 people in the dining hall; one of them is not dead.
-She went into her room, killed Krauss to make 6 people, and then pretends to be dead.
-Someone comes and locks the room.
-The others discover the bodies, then leave and seal the room.
-Natsuhi is trapped forever.
-The culprits of the later twilights cannot be those 5, or Natsuhi or Krauss.

A 3rd scenario is impossible

Hint 1: Find someone who can never be the culprit.

That isn't very useful. But it does confirm that it is possible to eliminate a few characters in this way first.

Natsuhi's room was sealed after the second twilight. Alive or dead, they could never leave the room because according to the red, the culprit didn't join them, they definitely sealed the room and it was never broken. Therefore, even if one or both is the culprit, they can only be involved in the first and second twilights. And the culprit of the first twilight must kill 6 people.

Furthermore - the red says that only servants can use master keys. So even if a family member lied about destroying the master keys, they cannot use it. On the other hand, it would be redundant for a servant to take a master key from a dead body.

I also notice that some characters repeat the same statement - if one of them is the culprit, than the other is one too.

You know what, this will take me ages to get anywhere, and time is not on my side. I give in and start reading the hints. Later I'll reload to get the achievement.

Looking at the reds might be useful.
-'All the seals on Natushi's room, the dining hall and the mansion will not be broken'. This should make all purples about sealing these places (Maria, Battler and Nanjo) truths as well. However, if someone lied and the seals weren't placed, it still doesn't contradict the red because you can't break something that wasn't placed...

-'No culprit joined the group as they left Natsuhi's room' i.e. no one was hiding in there. Now there is possibility of wordplay here, but let's assume there isn't any. This makes Natushi's room a true locked room and allows me to narrow down how the crime was carried out. Either:

1. The culprit used Genji's master key to lock the door. This suggests that Natsuhi is a culprit, and then Battler and Nanjo.
2. The culprit is one of the servants. This suggests that Shannon and Kanon were culprits, and then Nanjo and Geroge, and then Jessica and Maria. That's a lot of culprits.

Nanjo becomes the culprit in a lot of these scenarios because he kept confirming deaths.

-'Kanon is treated the same as being killed' so does this confirm Kanon being absolutely dead, or does this only mean Kanon dies IF AND ONLY IF Shannon dies?

Kumasawa:
Only spoke in purple in the 1st twilight. 'That's when I arrived' (at the dining hall door) and '...six people were lying there covered in blood' don't seem to be lies. Even if those 6 are faking their deaths, Kumasawa wouldn't be lying. And Kumasawa being a culprit would make Nanjo and Jessica both culprits, which makes George a culprit, which makes Maria also a culprit.

Natsuhi:
Only spoke in purple in the 1st twilight too. If she lied about destroying Genji's master key, it would give the culprit free reign and nullify those closed rooms. This would also make Battler and Nanjo a culprit.

It is only POSSIBLE for a culprit to lie, for all I know the culprit can lie all the time, lie once, or never tell a single lie. So you can't count out characters even if they never lied.

I notice now that labeling someone as the culprit makes anyone who confirmed that person's deaths a liar, and therefore also a culprit, since a culprit cannot die. I can use this to 'chain up' a series of culprits, and see if that contradicts anything.

(Please don't be wrong in the very first line of reasoning)

The steam achievement wants me to find the culprit without any hints, I'll go for it.

One question before I go - in the 'culprit select', I mark those I think as the culprit in Red, correct? And there may be multiple culprits?

Only the culprit can tell lies with the purple statements, the others only tell the truth. And Bern is giving some more rules now: The culprit can lie, the others can't lie, there are no accomplices (can it be unintentional accomplices though?), he must murder with his own hands, he cannot die, the narration does not lie...

Rules are supposed to be stated before the game started, Bern. Is there going to be a in-game summary because there's no way I can remember what was in purple or not.

Seventh twilight
-Nanjo was killed in the entrance hall of the guesthouse
-George says it's instant
-Those alive couldn't have killed him
-No one could kill him inside the guesthouse... and he didn't leave it?

Doesn't look like they checked the seals after discovering the body?

Eighth twilight
-Jessica was killed outside the guesthouse
-Instant death
-George Maria and Battler were together the whole time and couldn't have killed her
-Maria couldn't kill anyone, George couldn't kill adults

Well that was fast. Kinzo wasn't included in the story, for some reason.

Fifth and Sixth twilight
-Gohda and Kumasawa are dead in the guesthouse
-Jessica said they are definitely dead, and Nanjo said they died instantly
-No one had alibis
-But the cousins and Nanjo couldn't have killed them
-Everyone sealed themselves in the guesthouse, and it was still locked up after the crime occured
-No more master keys exist, except those on Gohda and Kumasawa; they were destroyed too afterwards.

Well, if say, Eva was already wandering outside the mansion, it would be easy for her to kill Shannon/Kanon, then hide in the guesthouse before everyone else went back in and sealed it off.

Fourth twilight:
-Shannon and Kanon went outside and didn't come back
-They all went outside and found Shannon dead in the rose garden
-George 'acknowledged' Shannon's death, and Nanjo confirmed it
-No one had alibis except Geroge
-They then destroyed Shannon's master key

Even though they only found Shannon's body, Kanon is treated the same. More evidence that Shannon = Kanon.

More reds:

-The culprit of the first twilight really did kill six people
This isn't the same as killing the six people whose bodies were in the dining hall though.
-The group sealed Natsuhi's room at the same time they left. No culprit joined the group as they left
Can the culprit join the group when they entered the room?
-The seals will not be broken

Here's an early idea of mine - One of the bodies in the dining room, let's say Eva, was pretending to be dead. She killed the other 5 people there. When everyone left, she left the dining room, went to Natushi's room, and killed Natsuhi, so she killed 6 people in total. Krauss can die for some other reason. Then she left the mansion. The servants then came and locked the room. When the others sealed the dining room, I think they didn't double check the bodies there. This makes it possible for Eva to be outside the mansion without breaking them.

Second twilight

-Discovered after noon? In Natsuhi's room
-Krauss and Natsuhi are dead
-The room was locked, Shannon unlocked it
-Nanjo checked and announced their deaths, said they died instantly
-Also a closed room
-Servants were all together and have alibis (that's what they said anyway)
-The crime scenes, doors and windows, are sealed with packing tape afterwards, no one can enter or leave
-Then they sealed the doors of the whole mansion and went to the guesthouse; the windows or have bars

Some are these are in purple text so it's possible that the people who said it were lying.

I had a look at the achievements and looks like finding the culprit is also interactive?
Jotting down some notes now.

First twilight

-Discovered at 6:00 in the morning
-Gohda found the dining hall locked up
-Kumasawa arrived and they unlocked it with a master key
-Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Genji are dead
-Children confirm the death of their parents; Kanon and Nanjo confirmed Genji's
-No one made a mistake (really?)
-Instant death
-Closed room with doors and windows locked, nothing suspicious in the dining hall
-No one hiding in the dining hall
-All doors can only be locked from the inside, or outside if you have master key
-1 master key for each servant, can't be used by anyone else
-Destroyed Genji's master key after they found the body

Bern - 'I'm going to release Ange after this ends but not before traumatizing her'

I'm actually agreeing with Bern for once, stop with this sentimentality, I don't want them to become friends and would rather see her act evil just so I can hate her more

Bernkatsel's game is a normal murder mystery. It's a welcome change of pace, and also what I thought I was getting into at the very beginning of Umineko. Have to wonder if going to be relevant to all those questions I have however.

There she is, for a final battle before 'the cat box closes'.

Wish they could give a proper explanation of this cat box thing, and the very nature of all the people in it. I mean I've got a general idea, but right now it's all speculation and it would be much better to have an official answer.

Lol at Bern keeping promises, and lol at Battler still being gracious. 'She is our enemy, but is also our friend, you have to save Erika!' This makes zero sense, get off your high horse. Why do anime characters always do this?

Raka_Putra posted...

There's still a fair amount of the game left, actually. I think it's one, if not the, longest episodes.

AxemRedRanger posted...

Episode 4 is the longest by a decent bit. The others are all relatively similar in length assuming you count Tea Parties and ???; the gap in word count between episode 4 and the second longest (3) is greater than the gap between the second longest (3) and the shortest (7) episodes.

Episode 8 does have the interactive aspects though.

I would like everything to have a proper closure, especially for a story as long as this.

The crowd is here. Turns out Will and Lion got picked up by Lambda, which now I think about it is the only way they could have conceivably survived. I'm relieved that she didn't introduce yet another random new character this far into the game.

Bernkatsel didn't come. Let me guess, she's going to appear at a later moment and ruin everything again.

Got a steam achievement for 17/17 medals. Well technically some are random guesses and I reloaded in one of them, but whatever, better than going through this whole section again.

I don't exactly hate this part. But I feel this is not the right place and went on for way too long. A lot of things that I care more about still aren't addressed: the crimes of 1-4? What on earth is a game board? Where are Will and Lion and those magical beings? And do we get to make Bernkatsel pay? With so little time left for the game I feel some of these are going to be half-assed.

Q16: I vaguely remember coming across a similar question before. So I got the right answer, though not sure how

'The truth is something you decide for yourself' Can't agree with that.
Stop with the metaphors and admit you're all dead. And Battler telling Ange to understand Eva, didn't she do that in episode 4 already? And at the end of that episode it says Ange 'died in 1998'

Q14: Liar puzzle - finally a easy one.
Q15: Got this in 5 seconds. Ange's parents have got to be giving her easy ones on purpose...

Finally, the long awaited confirmation that the babies were swapped and Battler is actually Kyrie's son. How fitting for the most obvious 'mystery' to be revealed in such a anticlimactic way. I doubt that there is even going to be any consequence or ramifications because everyone is probably dead and this has zero impact on the current story. So, I guess I'm glad I figured it out early on, but not as glad as I would have liked?

Q12: Way to make the question as vague as possible so that I would answer 7 ingots. Nope, I refuse to accept that I'm wrong, just going to reload and pick 8.
Q13: Ok, this is getting ridiculous. For example, if a person is on a boat and doesn't leave it, and there's another person on the bank of the river, does it count as being 'together'? Best I could do is 11 steps, but I'm sure it's going to be less, so I picked less than 10 steps. Luckily that's the solution, though the line is thinking is completely wrong.

Ange does understand magic, but not really? So does she understand or not?
'We'll always be your side' Yes well this isn't the same as coming back which was what Ange wanted as first, small comfort.

The characters are speaking as if they're all dead.
And I'm really not a fan of this 'cat box' interpretation they're going for.

Q8: A: White. It's a piano.
Q9: D: '4'. Who the hell calls a 7-story building a skyscraper? Anyway it's 4 because only 4 goes with 'th'.
Q10: C: 78 coins. Fuck you Kanon, do you think Ange would even know the periodic table?
Q11: D: 'I'. The second letter of the taste.

It's harder than I thought, I used hints for most of them and managed to get them right. It's kind of fun and we get more info on the characters, but they aren't that important in the grand scheme of things.

I must have stumbled into the wrong game. This is one of those educational CD-roms in the early 2000s that I played back when I was a kid. It had loads of quizzes and simple games, and an absolute scam for parents now that I think about it.

Q4: D: 'The ice cream'. It would have melted if the witch got home late I guess?
Q5: C: 'b'. This took me a long time, I was thinking very hard about dessert names until I saw it was asking for a desert, not dessert. You can be sahara from sabara by changing b.
Q6: D: 20. This is actually easier if you know a bit Japanese.
Q7: E: 10mm. Thank fuck I went and read Eva's hint because I would have answered 6mm otherwise.

Kinzo being all dramatic while talking to Ange is pretty funny.

This is very touching and all but are we seriously going to do this for every family member and servant? Because this episode so far is solely about this happy family gathering and healing Ange, if it goes on there won't be enough time for everything else

A quiz for kids is the last thing I expected from Umineko. Let's see how I do and you can all laugh at me if I fail.

Q1: A: 'It's possible'. A day starts at night and ends at night so of course it is still Christmas when night comes. -> Correct
Q2: A: 'A grapefruit'. The objects begin with the letter A, then B, and so on. It's a completely different question in Japanese though. -> Correct
Q3: B: 'A very cold place'. You can do that near the south pole -> Correct

(These are certainly for 6 years olds. Hope I don't embarrass myself because I should be able to get all correct)

Ange got an almond. I don't know if I got lucky and there is an alternative outcome if the wrong piece is chosen, or that it's all scripted. Mostly likely scripted I think.

I have to choose a piece.
Oh shit, there is actually Gameplay in Umineko.

That's... a really good image of a cake. Great, I'm getting hungry now.

'Ange would have to use her own power... to accept the truth as truth'
Stop getting all philosophical with me dammit and reveal it already

Child Ange is really adorable (my complaints on Ange this episode was the 18 year ago version). Every time I see these nice kids in anime I would have a sudden urge to have one myself. Then I remind myself that raising children are a lot of trouble in real life and I am single anyway.

Looks like Battler's game is retroactively shown to Ange when she's heading to Rokkenjima? And then she goes there, kills some people, and appears in game 4. This is some time travel shennigans and would make it even more confusing, let's hope not

In episode 4 we see Ange reaching an understanding of magic, and stop hating on Eva. She made a big speech about that and now she has gone back to taking revenge? What?

Sure you can say this is before she reached Rokkenjima, before she came to that conclusion, but do we need to see angsty Ange again? I already read about her character development, this feels like retreading old ground and a waste of time.

Best moment of TPP for me was catching Zapdos

The narrative is jumping all over the place again. It's always strange that Ange's journey ended on Rokkenjima in episode 4 and then it's back to the car.
And Amakusa is talking a lot about Ange's mental state even though it was implied he is planning to kill her
Why is Ange in the car and thinking about being on Rokkenjima in Battler's game? Don't tell me it's some sort of dream.

The more Ange says Eva did it the more I'm convinced Eva didn't do it.
Maybe the purpose of Battler's game is to stop Ange from making assumptions, or stop her revenge because it's self-destructive and bad, etc. etc.

Like Ange I am very interested in learning to truth of what happened on Rokkenjima. It would be extremely shitty if the answer is something like 'no one will ever know' or 'make your own interpretations' or 'it doesn't matter at all' or 'there are many possibilities'. Everyone has their own preferences but personally I hate these kinds of open endings.