| Ja Kanji: | うみねこのなく頃に |
| Ja Romaji: | Umineko no Naku Koro ni |
| Genre: | Murder mystery[1] |
| Developer: | 07th Expansion |
| Genre: | Visual novel |
| Type: | manga |
| Author: | Ryukishi07 |
| Publisher: | Square Enix |
| Demographic: | Shōnen |
| Magazine: | |
| First: | December 22, 2007 |
| Last: | June 22, 2015 |
| Volumes: | 53 |
| Volume List: | List of Umineko When They Cry chapters |
| Type: | manga |
| Umineko Biyori: Rokkenjima e Yōkoso!! | |
| Author: | 07th Expansion |
| Illustrator: | Makoto Fugetsu |
| Publisher: | Ichijinsha |
| Demographic: | Seinen |
| Magazine: | Manga Palette Lite |
| First: | March 1, 2008 |
| Last: | March 2, 2009 |
| Volumes: | 1 |
| Type: | manga |
| Umineko no Naku Koro ni EpisodeX Rokkenjima of Higurashi crying | |
| Author: | 07th Expansion |
| Illustrator: | Yuki Hiiro |
| Publisher: | ASCII Media Works |
| Demographic: | Seinen |
| Magazine: | Dengeki G's Festival! Comic |
| First: | January 26, 2009 |
| Last: | February 23, 2011 |
| Volumes: | 2 |
| Type: | novel series |
| Author: | Ryukishi07 |
| Illustrator: | Tomohi |
| Publisher: | Kodansha |
| Imprint: | Kodansha Box |
| First: | July 1, 2009 |
| Last: | September 30, 2018 |
| Volumes: | 15 |
| Volume List: | List of Umineko When They Cry novels |
| Type: | tv series |
| Director: | Chiaki Kon |
| Producer: | Mika Nomura Hiroyuki Ōmori Takema Okamura |
| Studio: | Studio Deen |
| Network: | UHF Stations |
| First: | July 2, 2009 |
| Last: | December 24, 2009 |
| Episodes: | 26 |
| Episode List: | List of Umineko When They Cry episodes |
| Other | |
| Content: |
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is a Japanese dōjin soft visual novel series produced by 07th Expansion. Its first episode debuted at Comiket 72 for Windows in August 2007. The story focuses on a group of eighteen people on a secluded island for a period of two days, and the mysterious murders that befall them. Readers are challenged to discern whether the murders were committed by a human or some other, supernatural source, as well as the method and motive behind them. The eight main Umineko games are split into two sets of four, which are considered the third and fourth titles in the When They Cry series, preceded by the two sets of Higurashi When They Cry games and followed by Ciconia When They Cry.
Square Enix, Ichijinsha, Kadokawa Shoten, and ASCII Media Works all published various manga adaptations of the series. It was adapted into an anime television series, which aired from July to December 2009. A series of novels written by Ryukishi07 are published by Kodansha Box. A fighting game based on the franchise, , was released by 07th Expansion in December 2010.
Umineko When They Cry is a murder mystery visual novel, and as such conveys its story primarily through text-based narration and dialogue supplemented by visual and audio elements such as character sprites, background music, and sound effects. It is described as a "sound novel" by 07th Expansion, due to the game's greater focus on creating atmosphere through audio elements rather than visual aspects. The original releases contain no voice acting for the characters. Umineko is almost entirely linear and contains no interactive gameplay elements, with the exception of small portions of its final entry, Twilight of the Golden Witch. Besides advancing text, players may also access the Tips Mode, allowing them to read various supplementary information regarding the characters and story. Each episode also contains two epilogues which are successively unlocked, which are continuations of the main story that often contain important plot points.
Despite the lack of interactive gameplay elements, Umineko is framed as a game between the author and the reader, with difficulty ratings given in the descriptions for each episode. This refers to the difficulty of the mysteries in each episode, which the reader is intended to actively try to solve. Several story elements are introduced through the course of the story to aid readers in solving the mystery along with the story's protagonist.
See also: List of Umineko When They Cry characters.
The story begins on October 4, 1986 at, a private island where the wealthy Ushiromiya family have gathered to discuss the division of assets belonging to the ailing family head, Kinzo.[2] Returning after a six-year absence, Kinzo's grandson Battler becomes reacquainted with the legend of the "Golden Witch" Beatrice, who supposedly gave Kinzo ten tons of gold to restore his financially crippled family in the past. Beside her portrait is a riddle-like epitaph, which is believed to grant the rumored gold and the succession of the headship to the solver. A typhoon traps the eighteen people on the island, and occult-like murders occur in accordance with the epitaph, often in ways that seem impossible for a human.
At the end of the first episode, the witch Beatrice seemingly kills everyone. In the credits it's revealed that story up this point was just a retelling of a message bottle found up years after massacre happened. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of magic, Battler is seemingly sent to the parallel dimension of Purgatorio, from which events on Rokkenjima can be seen as a "game board". There he meets Beatrice and faces her in the games of logic, tasked to explain murders with human tricks.
Subsequent episodes show events on Rokkenjima arrange in a different ways each time while Battler discusses them with Beatrice and other magical entities in Purgatorio. Story also shows the real world 12 years later, where the only survivor is Eva Ushiromiya, Battler's aunt. Eva adopts Battler's sister, Ange, who did not attend the conference due to illness. Ange, who has a hateful relationship with Eva and is bullied by her classmates can't accept the death of her family and tries to reach the truth on her own.
As the story goes, Battler at first is filled with hatred for Beatrice, but then trying to understand her true motives, he teams up with her and opposes Furudo Erika, a new character put on the “game board” by the witches Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, and who serves as the detective.
Direct solutions are never made completely clear, with the need for the reader to solve it personally and the importance of the truth being contained within the Schrödinger's cat box maintained by the narrative. However, clues and context imply that the true identity of the culprit of each of the games is Kinzo's illegitimate child, Sayo Yasuda, playing the roles of two servants, Shannon and Kanon. Kinzo handed Sayo, the child born after he raped his secret daughter by his long-dead mistress, to his son's wife, Natsuhi, who had been unable to get pregnant for a long time. But unable to accept the child, she throws it off a cliff. However Genji, the head servant, and Nanjo, the family doctor, save Sayo's life
Sayo, with the help of Genji, starts working for Ushiromiya family at age nine, but is ostracized by the older servants, so they begin to create imaginary friends and different personas through “magic”. They also begin a relationship with Battler in their youth, but eventually suppress their feelings during his absence and begin a relationship with Battler's cousins, George and Jessica as Shannon and Kanon. Sayo solves the mystery of the epitaph and takes possession of legendary gold and a massive number of explosives, both remnants of World War II military base. Sayo also learns of their connection to Kinzo, and realizes that relationships with any of the cousins would be incest. They throw bottles with possible scenarios into the sea, which forms the basis of the first two games. Sayo's plans end up with blowing up the mansion, thus creating the perfect crime.
On the actual family conference of 1986, the epitaph is solved by the adults of the family, and as such, Sayo's plan does not take place. However, an argument breaks out over the possession of the gold, and Battler's parents, Rudolf and Kyrie, carry out a massacre of the family. Eva survives after killing Rudolf and Kyrie in self-defense; Sayo and Battler also survive, but Sayo commits suicide by drowning at sea. Battler, who attempts to rescue Sayo, suffers brain damage and loses his identity as Battler, but retains his fragmented memories. He takes on a new identity named Toya Hachijo, and his attempts to piece together the truth of the incident, represented by his battles with Beatrice in Purgatorio, lead him to pen the tales of subsequent arcs. In the finale, Ange manages to learn the truth about her parents through Eva's hidden diary, and despite having a difficult life gets over it and moves on to meet Toya many years later.
consists of the first four arcs of the series. They are referred to as the Question Arcs and introduce the world of the story and its mysteries. Each arc contains all the previous ones.
tells the second half of the story, delving deeper into the core of the mystery while providing more clues towards the truth of Rokkenjima. Each arc in this series contains all of the previous Chiru arcs.
(2010) is a compilation of short stories written by Ryukishi07 outside of the games, released on December 31, 2010 alongside Twilight of the Golden Witch. Several of the stories are humorous in tone, but the more serious ones are considered canon.
(2011) consists of two additional short stories written by Ryukishi07: Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan and Forgery no.XXX. It was released on December 31, 2011 alongside Golden Fantasia Cross.
(2019) is a collection of all previous official visual novel content for the series along with two additional scenarios. It was released on October 4, 2019.
Umineko When They Cry is the second visual novel series produced by 07th Expansion, the first being Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The scenario writer for the series is Ryukishi07, who also drew all of the character illustrations. Game direction was handled by Ryukishi07's younger brother Yatazakura, and the overall management of the series was handled by BT until his death in July 2009.[3] Image and text processing was headed by Jika, who took over BT's position of overall management. Background images and photography were provided by Yatazakura, Zekozakura, Mali., and All Season Kisetsu no Irodori. The games were designed using the game engine NScripter. The music of Umineko was provided by various music artists including both professionals and dōjin artists, and Dai, the composer of most of the music found in the answer arcs of Higurashi, also had a hand in the project as the music director. The word umineko is the name of a kind of seagull known as a Black-tailed gull.[4] Naku means, specifically referring to those sounds made by non-human organisms. According to the original creator, Ryukishi07, the red character Na (
な) in the logo is an official part of the title.[5]See also: List of Umineko When They Cry titles. The first game of the Umineko When They Cry visual novel series, titled Legend of the Golden Witch, was first released on August 17, 2007 at Comiket 72.[6] [7] The second game Turn of the Golden Witch was released on December 31, 2007 at Comiket 73, and the third game Banquet of the Golden Witch was released on August 16, 2008 at Comiket 74. The fourth game Alliance of the Golden Witch was released on December 29, 2008 at Comiket 75.[6] The first game in the Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru series, entitled End of the Golden Witch, was first released on August 15, 2009 at Comiket 76. The sixth game Dawn of the Golden Witch was released on December 30, 2009 at Comiket 77. The seventh game Requiem of the Golden Witch was released at Comiket 78 on August 14, 2010. The eighth game Twilight of the Golden Witch was released at Comiket 79 on December 31, 2010. A fan disc titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni Tsubasa was released the same day as Twilight. A second fan disc titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni Hane was released at Comiket 81 on December 31, 2011. MangaGamer released the Windows games on Steam and GOG.com in two parts, Question and Answer arcs, respectively.[8] The release features original Ryūkishi07 sprites as well as new sprites by Kei Natsumi.
Taito released a version of Legend of the Golden Witch playable on certain mobile phones on March 31, 2009.[9] The game is playable on FOMA 900 and i703 phones, using BREW as a runtime environment.[10] A remake for the PlayStation 3, subtitled, was released by Alchemist on December 16, 2010.[11] The release covers the original four games, and its features include a full HD rendition, all of the original soundtracks from the PC games, and full voice acting. Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru was similarly remade for the PlayStation 3, subtitled [12] and released by Alchemist on December 15, 2011.[13] Both remakes were to be ported to the PlayStation Portable under the title, each to be released as two separate games. Rondo was split into Portable 1 (which covers Legend and Turn) and Portable 2 (which covers Banquet and Alliance), released on October 20 and November 17, 2011, respectively. Nocturne was to be split into Portable 3 (which was to cover End and Dawn), and Portable 4 (which was to cover Requiem and Twilight), but both games never came out.[12] [14] A dōjin 2D fighting game produced by 07th Expansion titled Golden Fantasia was released on December 31, 2010 at Comiket 79.[15] An append disc, titled Golden Fantasia Cross, was released at Comiket 81 in December 2011.[16] In addition, an Xbox 360 port of the original game developed by Alchemist was released on October 6, 2011 under the title Golden Fantasia X.[17]
On November 3, 2018, developer Catbox Creative announced they would be launching a Kickstarter campaign for an updated version called Umineko When They Cry: Gold Edition, with an English dub.[18] In the following weeks, they announced delays to launching the campaign.[19] A compilation of all previous official visual novel content for the series along with two additional scenarios titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku (When the Seagulls Cry Bloom) was released on October 4, 2019 for Windows. A port of Saku for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, subtitled was released on January 28, 2021.
See also: List of Umineko When They Cry chapters. A manga version of Legend of the Golden Witch drawn by Kei Natsumi began serialization in the January 2008 issue of Square Enix's Gangan Powered, which was later transferred to the debut May 2009 issue of Gangan Joker after Gangan Powered was discontinued, and continued until the September 2009 issue. An adaptation of Turn of the Golden Witch drawn by Jirō Suzuki began serialization in the August 2008 issue of Square Enix's GFantasy. The manga adaptation of Banquet of the Golden Witch began serialization in the October 2009 issue of Gangan Joker and is illustrated by Kei Natsumi. Sōichirō draws the adaptation of Alliance of the Golden Witch, which began serialization in Square Enix's Internet-based magazine Gangan Online on October 1, 2009. The first bound volume for Legend of the Golden Witch was released in Japan on June 21, 2008 under Square Enix's Gangan Comics imprint. Yen Press licensed the various Umineko manga published by Square Enix for release in North America.[20] Notably, the manga adaptation includes certain departures from the original visual novel narrative, such as solutions to the gameboard mysteries previously only alluded to with riddles. In an interview with APGNation, Ryukishi07 confirmed the portrayed solutions as canonical.[21] The manga adaptation of Twilight of the Golden Witch features the original arc Confession of the Golden Witch delving into the culprit's backstory beyond the scope revealed in Requiem of the Golden Witch.
A four-panel comic strip entitled and illustrated by Makoto Fugetsu was serialized in Ichijinsha's Manga Palette Lite magazine between March 1, 2008 and March 2, 2009. A single bound volume for Umineko Biyori was released on June 22, 2009. A cross-over manga drawn by Yuki Hiiro and featuring characters from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni EpisodeX Rokkenjima of Higurashi crying was serialized in ASCII Media Works's Dengeki G's Festival! Comic magazine between January 26, 2009[22] and February 23, 2011. Two volumes of EpisodeX were released, the first on February 26, 2010 and the second on April 27, 2011 under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint. The manga's story takes place roughly during the start of Episode 4's game.
Frontier Works began to produce a set of drama CDs for Umineko starting with the first volume released on June 24, 2009.[23] [24] The second volume, followed on July 23, 2009.[24] [25] The voice cast is the same as the anime.[24]
See also: List of Umineko When They Cry novels. Kodansha Box released novelizations of the visual novel arcs, written by Ryukishi07 himself and illustrated by Tomohi, in two volume sets, beginning with Legend of the Golden Witch released on July 1, 2009 for volume one and August 4, 2009 for volume two. Fifteen volumes were released in total, with the last released on September 30, 2018, novelizing the last arc in one volume.
See also: List of Umineko When They Cry episodes. A 26-episode anime adaptation based on the visual novel series aired in Japan between July 2 and December 24, 2009 on Chiba TV, and aired on additional stations at later times.[26] The anime is produced by the animation studio Studio Deen and directed by Chiaki Kon, with Toshifumi Kawase handling series scripts and Yoko Kikuchi designing the characters based on Ryūkishi07's original concepts.[27] The opening theme of the anime is by Akiko Shikata, and the ending theme is by Jimang from Sound Horizon. The singles for both songs were released on August 19 and September 16, 2009, respectively. The anime is licensed by NIS America for release in North America and was released in two Blu-ray Disc compilation volumes in December 2012.[28]
An Internet radio show titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni Episode R: Radio of the Golden Witch aired ten episodes between August 26, 2009 and January 13, 2010. Produced by Animate TV, the show was hosted by Sayaka Ohara (the voice of Beatrice in the anime adaptation) and featured numerous guests who were also voice actors from the anime such as Daisuke Ono (Battler) and Marina Inoue (Jessica). A special episode was later aired on April 28, 2010 featuring Rina Satō (Ange) and Ryukishi07 as guests. Two CD compilation volumes containing two CDs each were released on December 23, 2009 and January 27, 2010 compiling the ten main episodes.
The theatre troupe Shingidan Yumei Classics produced stage play adaptations of the first three episodes, Legend of the Golden Witch, Turn of the Golden Witch, and Banquet of the Golden Witch, under the name Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Stage of the Golden Witch (うみねこのなく頃に ～Stage of the golden Witch～).[29] Sayaka Ohara reprised her role as Beatrice for the performance of Episode 1.[30] An adaptation of the fourth episode, Alliance of the Golden Witch, is slated for September 2024.[31]
The visual novels have three opening theme songs. The four games of Umineko When They Cry use the opening theme, composed and performed by Akiko Shikata, which was released at Comiket 74 on August 15, 2008, and for public release on August 29, 2008 by Frontier Works.[32] The first two games of Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru (End and Dawn) use the opening theme sung by Ayumu from Zwei. The single for "Occultics no Majo" was released on November 26, 2009 by Geneon. The last two Chiru games (Requiem and Twilight) use the opening theme sung by Nei Kino. The PlayStation 3 versions use different opening themes. Majo to Suiri no Rondo uses, sung by Kokomi. Shinjitsu to Gensō no Nocturne uses, sung by Ayumu from Zwei.
At the end of each game, there are two ending themes: one played after the completion of the main game (or, in some episodes, after the Tea Party) when the cast of characters is shown and another played after finishing the "????" epilogue when the staff credits are shown. In Legend of the Golden Witch, "Bring the Fate" composed by Hironori Doi is the first ending theme and composed by -45 is used for the staff credits. Turn uses composed by U2 Akiyama for the first ending theme and sung by Kazumi Kimura for the staff credits. The first ending theme of Banquet is "Dread of the Grave (Rhythm ver.)" composed by SB Yune and the staff credits theme is "Active Pain" performed by Zakuro Motoki. The first ending theme for Alliance is "Discode" sung by Kanae Sakura and "Rōgoku Strip" is again used for the staff credits.
Ends first ending theme is composed by -45 and the staff credits theme is performed by Rekka Katakiri. Dawn uses "Birth of New Witch" sung by Zakuro Motoki as the first ending theme and sung by Nei Kino for the staff credits. The first ending theme for Requiem is "The Executioner" composed by Zts and the staff credits theme is sung by Kanae Sakura. Twilight has three ending themes, and differs depending on the ending chosen. For the trick ending, the theme used is "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" by Akiko Shikata. For the magic ending, the first ending theme is, also composed and performed by Akiko Shikata. The staff credits theme is "Engage of Marionette" composed by Dai. An original soundtrack for Legend of the Golden Witch titled Essence was released on August 26, 2009.[33]