You know, despite the supposed details that are left out from the original Umineko, I’m really enjoying this series. Even Maria is getting better if we consider her as the culprit, or one thing very much related to the culprit, but that’s where the mystery comes in: perhaps she has a very good reason to act the way she does? I mean, this is a fantasy-series: we’ve got glowing butterflies, so a bit of a mental delusion also might fit.

Anyway, what really struck me about this series is the amount of fans from the visual novel that complain about the details that were left out. I’ve been blogging for more than three and a half years now, and I’ve covered lots of series that had the same “the manga/novel/game is so much better”-vibe. The thing however, is that I haven’t played the original novels. I’m simply trying to watch an anime here, and without all the comments on the things that were left out, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. The only thing that would have annoyed me was how the anime creators tried to overplay Maria’s Higurash-faces, but even that would have been a small detail that’s easily overlooked.

While I haven’t read Umineko, I do want to try and put this into a bit of perspective. If I recall correctly, the first episode of this series lasted a whole three hours. With four episodes, the anime has now been going on for let’s say an hour and 20 minutes (assuming that every episode is 20 minutes long, plus 3 minutes of OP and ED). Within that hour and twenty minutes in the game, was the storyline already this exciting, intriguing and mysterious in the game? I really doubt it.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Take any anime A, it doesn’t matter which one it is, as long as it’s really, really good; amazing in every single way. Now, ask yourself the question: would that series have been even better if we knew every single detail about the cast? How they spent their exact life, what their hobbies are, their entire wardrobe, childhood sweat-hearts, whatever. In my opinion, it doesn’t necessarily have to be so.

This of course is an extreme example, but the same principle goes for Umineko: according to the comments I’ve read on the previous episode, Ryukishi decided to go for the far end of the spectrum by adding lots of background, but that’s not the only way to achieve a deep cast, in my opinion. I’m of course not saying that the anime does have a deep cast, but we’re only four episodes in. There is NO way to tell whether the cast is going to be deep or not at this point.

Anyway, as for this episode, I’m really curious to where the creators are going with this: there are only five people alive at this point. Are the creators going to pull the same thing as Higurashi, and keep pulling a time loop over and over? There are a multiple amount of different arcs, after all.

Remember that the Higurashi anime was also incredibly inconsistent. Every arc was different, and even within each arc there were huge mood-changes. what if this goes the same in Umineko? We’re now at the point at which the story is building up, using the past slaughters in order to create a sense of despair. However, with so many episodes left, there still is enough time for the characters to either die and revive, or regroup and try to figure out what the heck is going on, and who Beatrice is. The thing I liked best of this episode was the atmosphere. It was a really tight one, especially considering we’re only four episodes in.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Read or Die is the example of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (har har har). I originally watched its first few episodes about four years ago, and even though I liked the premise of a professional writer hiring a bunch of bibliophilic body guards who attack with paper, it didn’t do enough for me to remain interested. However, as the series goes on it definitely proves that it does have its excellent sides.

But yeah, the first half of this series does little to stand out. It consists out of a bunch of episodic stories that either deal with some sort of treasure hunt, or the school life of one of the bodyguards (Anita, who’s just a little kid). These stories however are just too disconnected from each other, and too random to really care about them, and as standalone stories they’re just too formulaic, dull and uninteresting. It’s only when the second half comes and connects the pieces of the puzzle that you can see the merits that this series has.

Because the back-story of this series has tons of creative and original ideas stuffed in. Suddenly from out of nowhere we’re dealt to a multi-layered plot that has to do with books, brilliant minds, political intrigue, and pterodactyls. At the same time, the characters who previously weren’t that interesting suddenly come together as well and gain their share of depth. Especially Nenene was a delight to watch whenever she appeared on the screen, but the rest of the cast also has its merits.

As much as I liked it though, the second half does have its flaws as well. For the back-story to be so creative, sacrifices had to be made unfortunately; in this case, these sacrifices come in the form of plot-holes, and lots of ‘em. While some things are explained quite well, others require a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to buy, especially the way in which the seemingly random events of the first half somehow magically all turn out to be relevant to the plot.

My biggest beef with this series however is that it tried to go a little too epic in the end. It’s a common mistake of anime (or just about any storytelling medium, really) that the fate of the world is a little too often put at stake as the big climax of the story, but Read or Die really takes it a step too far in the way that the bad guys at one point use politics in order to take control over the entire world: there are no protesters whatsoever, nobody aside from our lead characters finds it strange that suddenly every nation is being united out of the blue, especially considering the rather questionable things that lie in the past of the villains. This series definitely fails in making its setting come alive, because the world feels more like populated by a bunch of sheep rather than human beings.

Nevertheless, Read or Die is a great series with a select number of wonderfully animated action scenes. It’s not among the classics of anime due to its rather boring first half and the other flaws mentioned above, but nevertheless it really does make for a nice watch for anyone looking for something new and creative. And for me, that’s more important than having a plot without plotholes.

I love the subtitle of the Noise timeslot: “War Cry of Animation Monster. GAOOOOO!!” Let alone the awesome roar, it’s ironic how despite such an aggressive motto, the past two series of the timeslot have been very charming and very quiet slice of life series. At the moment, I’m not going to call Noitamina or Noise the better time slot, because Noise has only started. However, after the fourth season of Noise’s lifetime, its repertoire only consists out of truly excellent and well-thought out series, so it really got off to an amazing start. But then again, this was the same thing with Noitamina (I would have rated Paradise Kiss much higher if I had watched it today): its first screw-up came with its fifth season and Jyu Oh Sei. Let’s now see whether or not Noise can beat that.

Anyway, about this episode: it yet again was excellent and continues to subtly flesh out and develop the different characters, mostly Fumi and Yasuko. Fumi shows herself to be really uncertain about her relationship, and in her mind she sees herself in the middle of a love triangle: while she’s in love with Yasuko, she doesn’t want to lose Akira at the same time, and yet staying with Akira makes her believe that she’s betraying Yasuko.

Yasuko in the meantime thankfully made sure that this series avoids the biggest pitfall that shounen ai and yuri shows can have: the “everyone is gay”-syndrome. As it turns out, Yasuko used to be in love with one of her teachers, but got rejected. And now suddenly, she is in a relationship where she has to be the strong one, taking care of the ever-gloomy Fumi. I guess that she uses that to make her forget about the relationship with her teacher, but at the same time the way she rejected Kyouko two episodes ago suggests that she isn’t that desperate, and didn’t just start dating Fumi for the heck of it, and instead has real feelings for her.
Rating: ** (Excellent)