A review by irayred
Umineko WHEN THEY CRY Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch, Vol. 1 by Ryukishi07, Kei Natsumi
4.0
Umineko is a murder/mystery that I’ve been wanting to read since I watched the anime adaptation, like 10 years ago. And despite the fact that these volumes are +500 pages big, I devoured it completely.
In this first arc we get introduced to 18 characters that are inside the mansion, placed in the Rokkenjima island: The Ushiromiya family, plus the people at service. They’re all gathered after six years because, apparently, the head master of the family has little time before he passes away.
But the thing is that Ushiromiya Kenzo has always been drawn to supernatural things and occultism. Even his employees believe that the island is really owned by the Golden Witch called Beatrice, instead of him: there is a rumor that the fortune Kenzo made was all thanks to Beatrice.
So, we have all these 18 people inside an island and who can’t get out because there’s a typhoon outside. There is no communication to the outer world and on top of that, after the first night, 6 people are brutally murdered.
Who is the responsible? Battler, our protagonist (and one of the cousins) will have to search for the clues that were left behind, since he doesn’t want to believe the witch Beatrice was responsible for this so called 'sacrifice'.
Now, I must admit that the art style is not really my favorite, but the story is one of those that I haven’t forgotten in over 10 years (for me that’s a lot to say). It has some minor issues (like the non-existent anatomy proportions and Battler being a pervert), of course, but aside from that the story is quite something. I would totally recommend you to read this manga, but be aware that this should be read by a mature audience (it has explicit content of the murders).
In this first arc we get introduced to 18 characters that are inside the mansion, placed in the Rokkenjima island: The Ushiromiya family, plus the people at service. They’re all gathered after six years because, apparently, the head master of the family has little time before he passes away.
But the thing is that Ushiromiya Kenzo has always been drawn to supernatural things and occultism. Even his employees believe that the island is really owned by the Golden Witch called Beatrice, instead of him: there is a rumor that the fortune Kenzo made was all thanks to Beatrice.
So, we have all these 18 people inside an island and who can’t get out because there’s a typhoon outside. There is no communication to the outer world and on top of that, after the first night, 6 people are brutally murdered.
Who is the responsible? Battler, our protagonist (and one of the cousins) will have to search for the clues that were left behind, since he doesn’t want to believe the witch Beatrice was responsible for this so called 'sacrifice'.
Now, I must admit that the art style is not really my favorite, but the story is one of those that I haven’t forgotten in over 10 years (for me that’s a lot to say). It has some minor issues (like the non-existent anatomy proportions and Battler being a pervert), of course, but aside from that the story is quite something. I would totally recommend you to read this manga, but be aware that this should be read by a mature audience (it has explicit content of the murders).