Umineko no Naku Koro ni

[purplemo]

Umineko no Naku Koro ni
(a.k.a. When They Cry 3)

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Discuss individual episodes and first impressions of this anime here; reviews and final impressions should be posted in the Anime Reviews Forum. Post format and full rules can be found here.
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Well, the first episode is out. Let's begin.

Animation - Gorgeous. Everyone looks great. Background too. And they even added in little touches like the clock, the breaking glass, and Beatrice's original portrait. No complaints here at all. And the OP/ED looks nice too.

Audio -
Kinzo - Goldsmith sounds crazy enough
Krauss - Not bad
Natsuhi - Pretty good.
Jessica - Can't wait to see her sing "Tsurupettan"
Eva - PERFECT!!!
Hideyoshi - Very good, though a Kansai accent would be nice.
George - Good too
Rudolf - Horrible. Utterly horrible.
Kyrie - Jury's out.
Battler - Quite good. Though I'm still waiting for his stupid crying and yelling.
Rosa - PERFECT!!! COMPLETELY PERFECT!!!
Maria - Quite good, and her ~uuu is surprisingly less annoying than I thought it would be.
Shannon - PERFECT!!!
Kanon - Fits perfectly
Genji - PERFECT!!!
Kumasawa - Mackerel lady is pretty good too.
Gohda - Not arrogant enough.
Nanjo - Jury's out

OP is excellent. ED is less worse than I thought. Music is pretty good. I love how they actually kept the original VN soundtracks.

Now for the meat.

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I expected the first episode to make it to Beatrice's letter and was surprised by the fact that the episode ended before that AND that there was one helluva lot of backstory left out. I didn't realize just HOW much setup there was until I noticed how much was left out. It was probably a good idea to leave out everything at the airport since it wasn't all that necessary, but so much of the setup for the infighting for the estate was left out it felt almost out of the blue. Same with a LOT of important points on the epitaph and Shannon that was left out at the beach. A good lot of the stuff left out can still be told again in the next chapters before their omission really begins to hurt the story, so that's okay . . . for now. The fact that the OP shows the aquarium means the next chapter will not cut out everything before the OP again (like the airport). Still, I'm rather disappointed they left out all the epitaph stuff.

Overall a solid first episode. It's missing a LOT (like Higurashi), but it does not feel quite as much and as intrusive. I hope the next episode doesn't skimp too much on the thoughts going through Kyrie and Battler's mind, as they have to cover Beatrice's letter, another argument, Maria, the ring, the scorpion, and Natsuhi's door before they (almost certainly) end at the storage shed.

Edit: I just noticed the OP is called "La divina tragedia." I wonder if they screwed up on the name of the Divine Comedy or if that's a play on words . . .

[Garyuu]

I just watched it. I thought it was really good. I thought the music was great, except they need to get a different person to sing the ED. I think they pulled it off well. In this first episode they created a good atmosphere. If another group of people tried to make this episode I might have gotten bored, but I was sucked in. Personally, I'm glad I don't know anything about the show before I started watching it. I don't like comparing things to originals. A good show can feel bad if it is not as good as the source. Plus, this way the show is more exciting because it is all fresh to me.

[KnoxSe7eN]

Being a Higurashi fan I was pumped to watch the first ep. So far so good. Knowing how Higurashi was(is) I am really feeling the suspense in the show. I keep waiting for something horrible to happen. I know its coming I just don't know when..... The whole jack in the box feeling. For me it feels pretty intense after watching so many happy/action anime as of late.

[Omurqi]

First episode was great. Was better then I hoped for. We even got to see the Keiichi-face on Battler (if thats a good thing is something else >_>)
Anyhow, it's visually appealing, it brings up good suspense right in the first episode and has good characters. Loved the OP, and the ED did deliver a bit, since the singer sounded almost exactly like the grandfather.
I haven't read either the Higurashi or the Umineko VNs, planned to read them AFTER the Umineko anime.

[Quizap]

Since I've only read the manga up to the first twilight I can only go by so much.

Rosa was indeed perfect, voice actor and everything, VERY pleased about that. Battler was just as good, and I really liked Maria, her "u.u" wasn't bad at all and fit someone her size perfectly. Kanon was actually well done as well, fit the profile exactly for being "furniture." I was expecting a little more screen time with Shannon and I'm amazed at how much was left out! I liked Natsuhi as well, very well done with her character.

Shannon was at the beach with them originally, they left out the dialogue that occured on the boat and a lot of other things that I think should of been left in there, especially the emphasis on Maria being pure and doing anything she's told to; as well as her clairvoyance for seeing things.. if you get my meaning.

I'm going to assume episode 2 will end either when Shanon is doing her night patrol or when Natsuhi wakes up and sees the door. Not sure if I should spoiler this or not so I'm going to anyways.

[Adam]

I'll have to watch this.

[samshadow999]

Loved the episode, only problem was Maria who i pretty much wanted to stab everytime she came on screen.

Aunt Rosa got top marks from me, she was awesome for the screentime she got.

Can't wait for another episode of 'Uhhhhh! Uhhhhhhhhh!' *gets gun and shoots Maria*

[legnanellaf]

I think it was intentional. Like in higurashi, they didnt tell you everything in 1 episode. The big challenge is the the Main cast is much larger, so they have to include their back stories throughout the arcs, like higurashi, since they cant spend the time like the VN did.

I love the ending theme.

[Orophin]

Didn't really like the first episode...

I knew that they would have to skip scenes for the anime but I never thought they would skip THAT much. As a result, the characters, story and atmosphere suffered a lot from it. A good example of this is the scene in the rose garden. In the game, Rosa is shown as being a kind mother up until this point which gave the scene a lot more impact. The Eva vs. Natsuhi scene is also another good example. Aside from that, Battler was shown as a pervert and Kinzo was only shown his madman side (he is much more than an old man who has gone insane). As for the rest of the cast, they didn't even have 30 seconds of screen time. I'm pretty sure those not familiar with Umineko won't even have time to remember their names that they will already be dead. I also found the atmosphere to be lacking compared to the visual novel.

Spoilers for the visual novel:

Okay, why the hell did they decide to show Beato in the OP, ED and garden scene?! Not knowing if Beatrice exist is a big part of the first arc and showing her will greatly change the mood of Episode 1 for the first time viewers. As for the garden scene, I didn't like how they handled it since it is still unclear who gave Maria the umbrella in the game. It could have been Gohda for all we know.

Now for the things I liked. I thought the voice acting was pretty good from what I heard so far. Also, I heard some people complain about the animation but that didn't really bother me. It's true that it wasn't the best but it got the job done. However, I didn't like the designs for some of the characters like Battler and George. As for the music, I liked how they used some remixed musics of the original OST.

So yeah, the first episode left a bad taste in my mouth but I still have faith in the anime adaptation. There's still four episodes left for Legend of the Golden Witch and having such a rushed first episode means that they will have more time to work on the rest of the story.

[Scython]

I wonder if they just wanted to be done with the introduction right away or are just fast-pacing like hell to fit everything within the season.