So it was the final episode. Now as a VN player I think the episode was god awful. But I feel that DEEN did one thing right: showing the audience that Battler looked brilliant, even though this is probably the dumbest he’s ever been.
It leads one to question:
-What is the purpose of this game?
and
-What are Beato’s motives.
Purpose of the Game.
Now what is the purpose of this game. To deny witches and magic? That’s what it looks like. But the real purpose should be rather to find the real culprit of the murders, since the stance is that Beatrice is claiming to be the culprit. Now she’s claiming to be the murderer because she says magic exists and magic is the cause. However why is she so proud of it? Like murdering 17/18 people is something to be happy about. I’ll go back to that later.
The purpose of the game should be to find the real culprit. Episode 26 Battler was suppose to be the fight to figure out the culprit and solve the mystery. But Battler failed to do that in the end. It wasn’t because of Beato’s final riddle. Its because he wasn’t even trying to find the culprit – he was just trying to basically destroy Beato by using the most ridiculous theories he could come up with OR pin the blame onto one person. Want proof? Look no further than-
SMALL BOMBS IN THE FOOD.
He just made up the most retarded thing he could think up and simply threw it as the cause. That’s not trying to find the culprit – that’s just making up stories. There is nothing in the chapel in EP 2 that ever suggested bombs were used and how would anyone even bring a bomb onto the island without anyone noticing (remember the people that came to the island had to go on a plane before going on a boat). Then he tried to pin all blame of the murders on Eva in EP 3, despite the fact that in EP 4 it was pretty much denied to hell and back that she’s the culprit when we looked at her with love. He was just pinning blame and making up half-assed theories to try and kill Beato and go back to Ange. He wasn’t trying to find the culprit he was just trying to defeat Beato.
What is the purpose of this game. Is this a game of just Anti-Fantasy and Anti-Mystery? If that’s the case then where’s the fight to discover the identity of the culprit fit in. Believe in magic or not, there is a human culprit on the loose. And Anti-Fantasy vs Anti-Mystery ignores that component completely. Rather than being Anti-Fantasy or Anti-Mystery, how about the third component.
To find the human culprit you must look for one. Therefore there is a three-way battle.
Anti-Fantasy vs Anti-Mystery vs Pro-Truth
Are you looking to deny magic or are you looking for the culprit. In episode 26 Battler proves he’s fighting to deny magic at this point and not to find the truth. Unfortunately completely denying magic is impossible. Which leads one to wonder: Why didn’t Beatrice deny his asinine theories.
Beatrice’s motives
According to Lambda in the final moments of the episode and season Beatrice could have easily destroyed the theories presented by Battler, especially small bombs. So why didn’t she? In the game Bern and Lambda theorize it’s because Beato was acting again, similar to EP 3. But what was the purpose of acting in a situation and crying out for Battler to kill her. There simply is none, so Beatrice was not play acting. She was truly genuine.
Now when people die Beato normally laughs about it. But after Ange died she was mocking her death at all – she was very straightforward and almost seemed sympathetic to how Ange was simply destroyed like that. Then during the battle when Battler began making up stupid theories she just called them amusing and played along. Why did she do that? Because she knew that if Battler kept attacking her like that she would die.
So we come to the core of it all – what is Beato’s motivation? Not even for this alone but for everything. The fact that red text exists is proof enough that the culprit is human – Beato didn’t have to give all that information to Battler so he can formulate theories, especially if she wanted to win. But that’s just it – as Bern and Lambda said Beato cannot win. She’s outnumbered. Red and Blue text alone are double-edged swords to her and the double troll witches don’t want her to win either. Yet she’s aware of all of this and continues on.
The reason – Beatrice wants the mystery solved. She wants Battler to win.
Well thats it for this review. The anime is over (for now?). Most posts on this blog will consist of posts concerning the VN now among other things. Just so everyone knows: Umineko Chiru EP 6 – Dawn of the Golden Witch will be released on December 30th. Look forward to the next installment…if you can read moonrunes or spoil yourself. As for EP 5, Witch Hunt announced translation is completed and that the editting process is in the final stages.
Look forward to it~
Analyzing Umineko no Naku koro Ni 
I was honestly wondering if that’s Beato motivation–to get the crime solved, although I was hesitent to believe it’s actually true. Even as an anime only viewer, I think she’s a far more sympathic character then we’re led to believe.
But yeah. If she wanted to beat Battler, I think she already would have.
Part of me wants to attribute Beatrice’s resignation to her realizing that she’d never be able to shake whatever hold that Lambdadelta, and to a lesser extent Bernkastel, has over her (to become a true witch, I guess). But then I think back to the scene where she challenged Battler to remember his crime and he failed to do so. We never did find out what that crime was, but it felt like, at that point, her fighting spirit was broken. She goes onto deny Battler’s existence, then barely puts up a fight once he’s brought back to the game. So I can’t help but think that the “crime” is a big reason for why her motivation seemingly changes.
Yeah, but they don’t want Beato to win. I think the miracle would occur if Beato DID win the game.
I like your stance of the third-way battle. I hoped that Battler would learn something from Ange’s journey and stopped trying to deny magic and instead focus on finding the culprit.
And as for Beato winning, she really needs a miracle. She is in the worst position, where she’s forced to either play for all eternity or be beaten by Battler. Her not wanting to win has been pointed out several times in the games, especially in EP3’s Tea Party and it’s also quite present in EP4. While she could have beaten Battler’s ideas (I give him points for coming up with such ridiculous theories and say them with a straight face), she almost begged him to continue and deny her. She even mentioned Ange as a way to fuel Battler’s hatred/rage and force him to kill her. If she were playing the way she did at first, she’d be mocking Ange while telling Battler how she was torn to pieces, telling her stuff like “You can’t imagine the face she was doing while being ripped by the pincers”.
Bernkastel and Lambdadelta were right, Beato was acting. But not when they think she did. When she “mocked” Battler after Ange’s death, she seemed like trying to play as the bad guy, even if it hurt her or even if she didn’t like it anymore. Sure, we can’t really trust what we see, but it makes no sense that she’d fake that sad face she did before going back to “villain mode”. After all, Battler’s too hurt and angry because of Ange’s sacrifice. Trying to appeal to his soft side at that time is too risky and it’s almost doomed to fail.
I thought it’d be completely awesome if Beato were to win with Battler’s help (probably unlikely, unless there’s some loophole in their game where both can “win”). That would be some massive ownage to Bern and 34, who clearly denied all possibility of her winning. And it’d prove that Bern’s miracles aren’t that powerful at all. Beato winning would be the ultimate miracle, against a probability of ZERO.