Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Welcome to Rokkenjima.

"When will you believe in me?
That is all that matters.
If you want to do some detective work, go ahead.
If you believe that there is an answer, go and continue to search.
This is torture that will not end until you can believe in witches."

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (When the Seagulls Cry) is a kinetic sound novel that takes place in 1986, on the island of Rokkenjima. The rich Ushiromiya family is gathering in order to discuss what will happen to patriarch Kinzo's inheritance, since he has been ill in recent days.

While the arguments about the inheritance ensue, a typhoon traps all eighteen people on the island. The family then finds a mysterious letter from a person claiming to be Kinzo's alchemy councilor, the Golden Witch, Beatrice. Beatrice claims that she has been summoned by Kinzo to claim the inheritance, as the family has been deemed unworthy of it. Unless someone solves the riddle of the epitaph on her portrait before midnight on October 6th and becomes the family successor, Beatrice will claim everything that the family owns, including the ten tons of gold that Kinzo claims will be given to the successor.

Naturally, this sows chaos among the family members as each one of them argues about who will succeed the family. As the weekend continues, mysterious murders start picking off the family one by one. By the time the typhoon is over and the seagulls start crying, none of them will be left alive.

The protagonist, Battler, then gets challenged by the Golden Witch, who claims that she killed everyone on the island. Were the murders committed by magic, or were they done by a human?

Similar to its predecessor, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni consists of several arcs with the same scenario repeating for mysterious reasons. This time, the plot focuses on the murders that occur on the island and trying to figure out who kills everyone, how they all died, and why they were all killed. The first four arcs are the Question Arcs, where the puzzles are presented to the reader. Instead of outright Answer Arcs, the last four arcs are the Core Arcs, which provide the reader several hints on how to solve the murders, but without outright giving away the answer.

Part of the When They Cry series, which also includes Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

The series currently consists of a sound novel, a manga, and an anime. The sound novel is 8 Episodes in length, along with two fandiscs, Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Tsubasa (When The Seagulls Cry: Wings) and Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Hane (When The Seagulls Cry: Feathers) containing extra short stories called TIPS that don't fit into the main story. Each Episode is adapted into a manga, with the first four Episodes completed so far and the last four (and Tsubasa) still ongoing publication. In addition, the anime adaptation by Studio DEEN spans 26 episodes, but only covers the first four arcs.

The entire novel has also been ported to the Play Station 3 for a remake, complete with voice acting, remade sprites and CGs. The first four novels were released as Umineko no Naku Koro ni ~ Rondo of Witches and Reason, and the last four novels were released as Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru ~ Nocturne of Truth and Illusions.

In addition, a PC fighting game in the vein of Melty Blood has been released, entitled Ougon Musoukyoku (The Golden Fantasia), featuring ten of the characters from the novels. An Xbox 360 port, Ougon Musoukyoku X, has also been released, featuring the ten characters, plus three more added to the roster. And an expansion to the PC version, Ougon Musoukyoku CROSS, has also been released, featuring all the characters from the original and the Xbox port, plus three more characters, and three others set to be added as updates.

Summaries of each arc may be found at the When They Cry page. Please put character-related tropes on the Character Sheet. Also check out the Nightmare Fuel page and the massive WMG page. And if it doesn't go anywhere there, it probably goes on the Trivia Page.

Be wary of the terms used on the Umineko pages -- "Episode/EP" (with a capital "E") refers to a Story Arc of the novel, while "episode" refers to an episode of the DEEN anime.

A fan translation patch of the games may be found here, acknowledged by Ryukishi07 himself. The patches require an original copy of the game, which may be found on the links page of the translation site.

On the fourth twilight, gouge the tropes and kill:
  • Actor Allusion - The anime's next episode previews are filled to the brim with these. We've got Jack Bauer, a potentially millennia-old witch claiming she's 17...
  • Adaptation Distillation - Just like its predecessor, the manga is generally more faithful and does a better job in some areas of capturing the mood.
    • With the exception of the Alliance of the Golden Witch manga, which takes Ange's bro con to near insane levels. Simply put, manga Ange only keeps moaning about "Battler Onii-chan" and didn't mention a single word about her parents (not to mention freaked out when her classmates touched the hair bobbles Onii-chan gave her). While in the VN, she always put her parents first while she still loved her brother.
    • It's definitely worth noting that the manga takes things Up to Eleven in almost aspect, from how pretty the costumes are to how sadistic Beatrice is, to Maria's creepiness. Even how Itsuki Ronove is for Battler.
  • Adaptation Dye Job - Beatrice's dress (in the anime) and of course the eye colors of just about every character (Battler, Jessica, George, Shannon, Lambdadelta, Virgilia, etc...)
  • Aerith and Bob - Most notably the witches: We've got Lady Bernkastel, Lady Lambdadelta and, of course, Lady Beatrice.
  • An Aesop - An original story by Aesop is discussed a lot in EP 1 and EP 3, The North Wind and the Sun.
  • All Just a Dream - Maria murdering Rosa, apparently.
  • All Hallow's Eve - Actually, it takes place on October 4 & 5, but Maria is obsessed with Halloween for the first part of the second arc, a fact that is played with very nastily during the first twilight.
  • All There in the Manual - A number of TIPS were not shown in the game itself but released as side materials; these were generally short stories. Often they were humorous and not meant to be taken seriously, but some were plot relevant. Tsubasa collects most these short stories and presents them in a Visual Novel format.
  • Altar the Speed - Part of Eva's plan to have George jump ahead in the succession was to rush a marriage to Hideyoshi. In spite of that, they're quite Happily Married.
  • Alternate Character Reading - Up the yin-yang in the anime's ending theme, "la divina tragedia". A few examples: "orgy" is read as "banquet", "demon" is read as "my beloved", and "tonight we'll sacrifice this fool" is read as "sacrifice sheep TO GAWD!"
  • Alternate Timeline - Several of them. A notable one is shown in EP7, where there are no stories of Beatrice as a witch or a ghost who haunts the mansion, Shannon and Kanon do not exist (though they are used as pieces to represent servants), Kinzo never wrote the epitaph, and Battler does not come back to Rokkenjima--not to mention the existence of a new family member, Lion Ushiromiya.
  • Always Save the Girl - George in EP4.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie - as of Episode 5, Battler is the new Endless Sorcerer.
  • The Anime of the Game
  • Anthropomorphic Personification - Most of the magical beings can be interpreted this way.
  • Arc Number - 19
    • 07151129
    • Quadrillion
  • Arc Words - "Without love, it cannot be seen."
    • "On that day, what happened?"
  • Arranged Marriage - Kasumi was forced into this after Kyrie ran off with Rudolf, which is the reason she hates both Kyrie and Ange so much. Eva also tries to set up George with someone to get Shannon away from him. Also happened to Kinzo when he was chosen as the family head. Similarly, Krauss and Natsuhi.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign - If the letters on the blood runes in the original visual novel are actually supposed to be Hebrew, it is really sloppy Hebrew. The manga writes out the actual letters, evidently.

Bernkastel - That Hebrew sure is crappy.

  • As the Good Book Says... - Each of the blood runes has scrawled on it a Bible quote in Hebrew.
  • Ascended Meme - One of the anime's episode preview gags uses Eva-Beatrice's Fan Nickname, "Evatrice".
  • Audience Monologue - Kumasawa does a few of these in the first arc to explain various issues among the residents of the Ushiromiya mansion.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning - Hugely subverted in the third arc. The epitaph is solved, the title of Golden Witch is passed on in a grandiose ceremony, and the murders can stop now, right? Like the letter said, right? Wait, why's Eva-Beatrice pointing her staff at Rosa like that...? And then there was cake.
  • The Baby Trap - Kyrie claims Asumu pulled one to steal Rudolf out from under her.
  • Back for the Finale - Nearly every character comes back in the 8th arc.
  • Backwards-Firing Gun - Battler suggests this to explain one crime.
  • Badass Adorable - Groups of cute young girls will mess you up: the Stakes, the Chiester Sisters, etc.
  • Badass Family - The Ushiromiyas, hands down.
  • Badass Normal - Most of the Ushiromiya family gets a Badass Normal moment or two, but special mention must go to Kyrie, who's usually the first to start firing off shotgun shells or beating demons and whatnot with chairs while everybody else is still panicking.
    • EP4, where practically everyone who hasn't been killed in the first twilight gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome, which are all thoroughly underscored with the revelation that everything was going according to the witches' plans.
  • Baleful Polymorph - In EP3, Eva-Beatrice turns Rosa into one of the golden butterflies, which promptly gets blown into a spiderweb.
  • Batman Gambit - Episode 3: Beatrice coming out on top from her duel with Virgilia hinged on Virgilia healing Beatrice before realizing she was fatally wounded herself. Of course, they were actually working together the whole time, so not really.
  • Beat Still My Heart - EP 3 features Eva-Beatrice trying to destroy Beatrice's, but failing miserably, with Beatrice's heart refusing to stop beating, because it would leave Kanon and Jessica at Eva-Beatrice's mercy.
    • The end of EP4 features what is probably one of the most touching moments ever created by this trope.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For - "The Witches' Tanabata" plays with this: Beatrice pulls the thread on Maria's simple wish, gradually getting her to imagine her ideal world in greater and greater detail. Bernkastel, meanwhile, plays this terribly, horribly straight.
  • Beat Them At Their Own Game - What Battler is trying to do. All the weapons he has to defend the Muggle possibility are supplied to him by the beings he is trying to deny.
  • Begging the Question - Accepting the red text as only speaking the truth requires you believe that both that Beatrice is being honest and that the red text speaks only the truth when statements like The red text speaks only the truth! come up. Well, at least that's the case until we see Battler attempt to use the red to say something that turns out to be untrue. That said, it does happen to be true: Anything said in red is at worst misleading.
  • Beyond the Impossible - Everything that happens in one game usually gets this treatment in the next; heck, it also happens in the middle of the games themselves, from the awesomely epic magic shows to the badass BGM to the number of characters per game to the ridiculous and outrageous theories for the murders to the amount of memes generated per game. Special mention goes to Episode 5, in which the HSQ reaches its peak, but YMMV.
  • Big Damn Heroes - Ange's entrance. Also, in EP6, Beatrice crashing the wedding.
    • EP5 has all of Beatrice's Furniture come in to counter Erika's argument that Natsuhi is the culprit. While doing so, they beat the everloving shit out of her. In order: Gaap summons a hole at Erika's feet and has it open on the ceiling. Virgilia summons her "Smothered Mate" lance to skewer her. And the Stakes of Purgatory attack her all at once, so by the end she has a giant lance and 7 small stakes going through her.
    • EP6 also has Kanon breaking out of the closed room Erika created to save Battler from his closed room by switching places with him.
    • Will's entrance in Episode 7 shows him coming to the rescue of an innocent maid who's being interrogated by his own agency. He does it again for Lion at the end of Episode 7.
    • EP8 has multiple, surprisingly many pulled off by the antagonists! (and some morally dubious members of the case) Erika saves little Ange from being eaten by goats and Lambda sets off a multi-colored words battle the likes of which have never been seen in game against Featherine. The main cast gets their share too fighting off hoards of goats.
  • Big Fancy House - The Ushiromiya mansion, complete with servants and a secondary guest house, in case the main mansion wasn't big enough.
  • Big Screwed-Up Family - The Ushiromiya family, of course.
    • The Sumadera family also qualifies.
  • Bittersweet Ending - The author intentionally gave you two ways to see this - either bittersweet or as a Downer Ending. Which one really depends on whether you take the mystery or fantasy explanations for what happened. Even with the fantasy stuff, though, it's pretty difficult to say it ends any better than bittersweetly. By the end, almost everyone is still dead. Those who survived (Eva and Ange) still lived pretty miserable lives, although the ending gives Ange a chance to move on. You find out that Battler also survived, albeit amnesiac, traumatized, and crippled. It turns out that the series is about him coming to terms with his past, so in that way, the story ends happily, but in that way only.
  • Blood From the Mouth - In episode 14 of the anime, Beatrice doesn't so much cough up blood as she foams red from the mouth.
    • Also used during episode 26, as Battler uses the Blue Truth and Beatrice gets impaled, upon which she starts vomiting blood rather profusely.
    • Quite possibly this image as well. Looks a bit like the bottom row of teeth in someone's mouth bleeding profusely.
  • Bolivian Army Ending - EPs 2 and 7.
  • Book Ends - In the sound novel, the OP for EP 1 plays in the credits of the Trick Ending in EP 8.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall - The first tea party has the characters musing about how surprised they were about the "fact" that the story's a fantasy, rather than a mystery.

Battler: "Hey, everyone, good job finishing 'Umineko no Naku Koro ni'! Man, I still didn't have a clue what was going on when the story ended!"
Jessica: "So just what happened? Was that basically the 'bad ending,' where time runs out before the culprit can be exposed?"
Maria: "Uu-. Definitely a bad ending. Uu-."
George: "That's right. Beatrice's letter, which Maria-chan read on the first day, did tell us in advance to solve the riddle of the epitaph. We were all so busy trying to protect ourselves and look for the culprit that we didn't even take a shot at it."
Shannon:".........That's right. If we had actually tried to solve the riddle, I'm sure things would have ended differently."

  • Break the Haughty - Bernkastel/Erika's whole scheme in End of the Golden Witch leads to this against Beatrice.
  • Break the Cutie - What Beatrice does to Shannon
  • The Butler Did It - Shannon and Kanon are usually suspects for many murders. Doubly Subverted throughout the series as many incidents occur which completely dispel the audience's belief that either are involved, but Shannon and Kanon are later revealed to be the same person and heavily involved in the murders.
  • Butterfly of Death and Rebirth - If you see a gold butterfly, you're boned.
  • The Can Kicked Him - In the first arc, Hideyoshi's corpse is found in the shower with the water still running.
  • Cassandra Truth - Maria keeps trying to warn everyone about Beatrice, but no one believes her.
  • Casting Gag - Beatrice is played by Sayaka Ohara, who is said to be the successor to Kikuko Inoue's role as go-to-Yamato Nadeshiko actress--incidentally, Inoue plays Beatrice's mentor, Virgilia. (The Play Station 3 port adds Inoue's predecessor, Sumi Shimamoto, but not in any way that could take the gag further, sadly, since she plays Kasumi Sumadera and not a witch.)
  • Cat Smile - Maria, when Rosa gives her Sakutaro for her birthday.
    • And about half of Dlanor's expressions.
  • Catch Phrase - Battler's: "It's useless, it's all useless!"
    • Both Kyrie's and Battler's: "Turn the chessboard around."
    • Erika Furudo: "Simply by X, this level of reasoning is possible for Furudo Erika. What do you think, everyone?" and "<Good!>"
    • Eva-Beatrice's: "Why don't you just give up and die?!"
    • Gaap's: "But only if he's hot!"
    • Maria's: "Uu- Beatrice exists."
    • Ange's: "See you again, have a nice day."
    • Will's: "Don't think too hard about it. You'll get a headache."
    • Clair's: "Oh, I am one yet many."
  • Character Shilling - Played for dark humor in the fifth and sixth chapters. The narration itself is clearly bent by Bernkastel and Lambdadelta so that the story will constantly gush about Erika Furudo, as do the characters to a slightly lesser extent. However, she is clearly a complete bitch.
  • Chekhov's Gun - Shannon mentioning a Childhood Marriage Promise between her and Battler in EP3 is one. Beatrice mentioning the Knox's Decalogue in Episode 2 is another.
  • Chekhov's Gunman - Ange and Gaap are mentioned in the first novel (Ange is specifically stated to be bedridden with flu and can't join the...festivities; Maria mentions Gaap's powers as one way for Beatrice to smuggle Kinzo out of his room without breaking the closed circle). The anime's Image Songs also have Maria mention Sakutaro once near the end of her song; when the single was released, the anime was still midway into its third arc, when Sakutaro only appears in the fourth, sixth and eight.
    • Willard H. Wright was first mentioned off-handedly a TIPS from Episode 5, as the head of the SSVD, "Wizard-Hunting Wright".
  • Chess Motifs
  • Chess with Death - This series extends the metaphor from Higurashi into a motif.
  • The Chessmaster - The repeated invocation of a chess board by, oh, everyone regarding this plot. As of this writing, the only ones who seem capable of applying for the trope are the witches, although Battler seems like something of a chessmaster-in-training.
    • As of EP5, Battler becomes the Endless Sorcerer, with approval by Lambdadelta. This means that he is now the game master, like Beatrice in the previous episodes. He has also gained the ability to use the Golden Truth.
  • Childhood Marriage Promise - EP7 reveals that one took place between Battler and Shannon. It snowballed into a horrible tragedy.
  • The Clan
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe - Beatrice's magic, as evidenced in the first tea party.
  • Closed Circle
  • Clothing Damage - Lucifer in the anime. Nice big ole straight line, right across the chest. Said chest jiggles heavily.
  • The Commandments - A variation of Knox's Decalogue -- see the trope page for the complete list.
  • Compressed Adaptation - The anime is a victim of this, but special mention goes to the fourth arc, which cuts out the entire fourth game after Jessica and George accidentally kill each other. This was the trade-off for what many saw as too much time given to the 1998 and metaworld sequences.
  • Conspicuous CG - The butterflies in the anime.
  • Contrived Coincidence - As stated on the character sheet, Erika is a detective prodigy who just happens to shipwreck on an island with a soon-to-be murder mystery.
  • Cooldown Hug - Ange toward Battler in the fourth arc. Unfortunately, its double purpose is to keep him from seeing her as she's ripped apart for having said her name as Bernkastel's piece.
  • Cosmic Chess Game
  • Creator Breakdown - After Ryukishi's dear friend BT died, Umineko took on a very different tone from EP6 onwards.
  • Creepy Cathedral - Kinzo had a special chapel built near the mansion, where the first twilight of the second arc takes place. Happy Halloween for Maria indeed.
  • Creepy Child - Maria has these moments from time to time, kihihihihihihi! It was turned Up to Eleven in the anime.
  • Creepy Twins - Furfur and Zepar.
  • Crossover - The Umineko No Naku Koro Ni X manga is a rather comical and energetic crossover with Higurashi, plopping the Ushiromiya manor within spitting distance of Hinamizawa. So, if you ever want to see Rena mowing their lawn, Rudolf hanging out with the Stakes in Angel Mort, or Battler perplexed by the whole deal, this is it.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death - The first twilight of Episode 2. The bodies of Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolph, and Kyrie are found locked inside the chapel with bloody candies spewing out of their bellies. Their internal organs are found lying on the ground next to the bodies, apparently having been forced out by the surge of candy.
  • Curb Stomp Battle - Something like this: In Episode 5, Bernkastel introduces Canon Sue and new furniture to kill Beatrice, further her own plans, and royally screw with the status quo. Eventually, Battler and Beato's furniture decide that they are having none of this. Epic smackdown ensues.
    • An even bigger one in Episode 8: Lambdadelta challenges Featherine to a battle. Featherine doesn't even bother explaining HOW she wins, she just decrees it so, then promises to go back and write an impressive fight-scene later.
  • Curtain Camouflage - Jessica in Banquet
  • Cuteness Proximity - The Stakes. Sakutaro. Result: glompage and a lot of Squee.
  • Cycle of Hatred - Too many to mention, to the point where there's even a character who exists as an incarnation of it.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy - Both In-Universe and invoked. In fact, it's largely the point of the final episode, which points out that the Ushiromiya family could not have been nasty to each other all the time and that the previous episodes more or less both showed the family at their worst and that said worst is more or less only the theories of a bunch of gossipers.
  • Dark Reprise - goldenslaughterer is already a pretty dark BGM to begin with, since it plays during the more cruel deaths, but it gets a darker and more intense remix as the_executioner in EP7, which plays during the fight between Will and Bernkastel.
  • Dark World - This is what the Meta-World mechanic of Ougon Musoukyoku does, turning the localitations into a more fantastic and macabre version of itself, enveloped in night.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy - Beatrice. See Easily Forgiven below.
    • In EP5, Erika. She's fully aware that as a detective, people die wherever she goes.
  • Death by Materialism - Kinzo doesn't seem to care about any of his children at least partly because he doesn't like them fighting over his inheritance.
  • Death Is Cheap - Because of the Groundhog Day Loop, the fact that furniture apparently can be recreated without much difficulty, even if their very existence has been denied, and the powers of any with with the Endless title to kill and resurrect someone infinitely.
  • Death's Hourglass - The clock that appears in the corner of the screen, of the spur-to-action variety.
    • When the Clock Strikes Twelve - Twice. Usually, on the first day, there will be a time jump from around midnight to around six AM, implying that that's when the first murders occur, although the fourth arc is a little different. By midnight of the second night, well...
  • Deconstruction - Blatantly one of the mystery genre.
  • Defeat by Modesty - Kanon against Lucifer in the anime. He slashes a nice, clean, boob window onto her shirt.

Lucifer: "I've never been this ashamed--!"

  • Department of Redundancy Department - Rather common in the sound novels.
  • Deus Ex Machina - The gold truth. It appears rather conveniently.
  • Did You Actually Believe? - End of the 3rd arc when Battler is about to lose, again. Beato pulls this off and brags about how her "tsundere" technique worked, and that Battler's a sucker for it. Later subverted when it's found out she wasn't acting at all, and really is that nice.
    • Well, Beatrice was acting when she trolled Battler to keep him on the path towards the truth, which meant when she was being nice she was acting like a troll who was acting like Beatrice. She's that kind of girl.
  • Distant Finale: Episode 8's Hidden Tea Party. Decades later, Ange becomes a famous author under the alias "Yukari Kotobuki". Having become famous, she attracts the attention of Tohya Hachijo, who turns out to be two people, one of which was Battler, who lost his memories and regained them. Ange and Tohya meet, but Tohya couldn't associate himself with his identity as "Battler". In the end, Ange invites Ikuko and Tohya to the reopening of the Fukuin House to let Tohya come to terms with his past.
  • Doing In the Wizard - A plot point. If Battler can Do In The Wizard, he wins his and Beatrice's game. Beatrice would, presumably, disappear in a puff of logic.
  • Doorstopper - The entire novel (all eight episodes) clocks at around 6 MB as a text file. Compare War and Peace, which is around 3 MB.
  • Double Entendre - The entire wedding scene in EP6, particularly when Erika tries to forcibly put a too small wedding ring on Battler's finger after lubing the ring and his finger up with saliva and insists that she will shove it into "the deepest part."
  • Drink Order - Tea. Tea tea tea tea tea tea tea. Everyone drinks tea. Especially Beato, Lambda, and Bern (They are called "tea parties," after all, right?) But Bern usually specifies that she wants umeboshi (sour, pickled plum) tea.
  • Drunk with Power - Leading to a rampage of perversion in this spoilery sidestory (which takes place after Episode 5).
    • Apparently Yasu's motivation for becoming Beatrice, specifically, the first taste of magic by being possessed by Gaap.
  • Duct Tape for Everything
  • Duel to the Death - In EP1, Between Natsuhi and Beatrice. In EP3, Between Rudolph and Belphegor. In EP6, One between Kanon and Shannon and another one between Beatrice/Battler and Erika
  • Enemy Without: Bernkastel to Rika Furude. To summarize, she's representative of all the Rikas who died in June 1983. Released from Rika's subconsciousness after surviving.
  • Epiphanic Prison - The meta-world, at least in theory.
  • Even Evil Has Standards - The third arc has Beatrice trying to impress this on Eva-Beatrice. It fails, horribly.
  • Everyone Is a Suspect - Almost every single character is a suspect for one murder or another.
  • Everyone Is Related - Because it takes place at a family conference.
  • Evil Is Stylish - Everything about Beatrice down to the whole idea of the chess game.
  • Evil Phone - Hardly ever works; the one time it does during the first arc is when it starts ringing while everyone's holed up in Kinzo's room. Natsuhi picks it up and hears...a little girl singing.
    • Every single time the phone rings in EP5, it's for Natsuhi, and a man claiming to be her son from 19 years ago gives her strange orders and taunts her mercilessly.
  • Evolving Credits - The witch portrait changes each arc (default-Beatrice, then Zettai Ryouiki-Beatrice, then Eva-Beatrice); the fourth arc simply shows all three portraits in reverse order. Starting in the third arc they also added 15 new characters to the opening and changed the positioning of four others to reflect their relationship. By the fifth arc, Erika now has a portrait in the opening, and by the seventh, all of the previous portraits plus Battler's and Wright and Lion's are seen.
  • Expy - Battler and Beatrice bear more than a passing resemblance to Adell and Rozalin of Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories.
    • Bernkastel and Rika [dead link] , though this is intentional, given Bernkastel is all the incarnations of Rika Furude who never made it past June of 1983.
  • Extreme Doormat - Kanon verges on this with his whole "furniture" ideology, but it's subverted-ish in the end of "Turn of the Golden Witch," when he admits he's in love with Jessica.
    • Played straight with Genji, who barely shows any emotions.
  • Faceless Goons - The goat-headed butlers.
    • Played in multiple episodes where it is shown that the goat heads are actually wearing "masks." EP2 shows Bern taking off a goat head; EP4 had Goat-kun which, as mentioned above, reflects on his life; and EP6 has the entire Ushiromiya family taking off goat heads during Beato and Battler's wedding.
  • Failed a Spot Check - One or two of the riddles, most notably the Kanon-in-the-closet one from EP6 seriously relies on this (It's not that there's no body in the closet - it's that the body is now inhabited by Shannon or Beatrice rather than Kanon).
  • The Fair Folk - While they're called "witches" and have all the traditional trappings, their existence, playing with reality and fiction and following seemingly nonsensical rules, has many similarities.
  • Fair Play Whodunnit - This work is somewhat bipolar towards this trope. The very first trailer started with the words "No Knox. No Dine. No Fair". Then it begins with a fairly normal mystery plot which flies out of the window as witches and other magical beings keep appearing. But upon rereading earlier episodes it becomes obvious that all revelations were hinted at.
    • In Episode 5 a new character is introduced whose name is Ronald A. Knox backwards, who gives the possibility that the Knox rules are true in the game, scolds the reader for getting distracted from the mystery by the fantasy elements and outright states that the author wants the reader to solve it on their own. Beatrice herself actually states that the novels follow the Knox decalogue as early as EP2 when she and Battler are arguing over hidden doors; most people don't notice this the first time around.
    • Episode 7 follows Episode 5's trend and introduces an incarnation of Willard H. Wright (the real name of S.S. Van Dine), who shows up to 'bury' Beatrice and reveal her heart. In layman's terms, he solves most mysteries and undeniably proves that the story is indeed a Fair Play Whodunnit.
    • The anime drops this entirely, in favor of best visual presentation probably. The first arc doesn't even provide enough evidence to solve it as a mystery, and later arcs are reboots in which circumstances change, previous pasts are revealed in ways that couldn't be known to most the characters, and even characters differ without demonstrating development. Also, the on-screen deaths become more and more ostentatious in the use of magic.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Trollkastel: A rather infamous name for Bernkastel.
    • Trolls Trolling Trolls Trolling Trolls. Nickname for the series due to the huge amount of Trolls in the cast
  • Fan Service - The game has the Stakes, the anime has...pretty much every other female.
  • Fan Translation - Witch Hunt, which actually got an acknowledgment from the author and a Shout-Out in EP4. And it is most certainly well-deserved.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry - The Ushiromiya crest is a one-winged eagle, so it's only to be expected.
  • A Fate Worse Than Death - Thanks to Endless magic, people can be killed over and over again in new and interesting ways. This pales in comparison to the closed room Battler gets trapped in in EP6.
    • In that same episode, it's shown even Lambdadelta is scared by the hell of being trapped in a logic error. "Hey....are you guys...really.....real?" Asking if the people she's talking to are there, and not just delusions of a mind that went insane from being trapped in a logic error.
  • Faustian Rebellion - Battler is trying to prove that witches and magic don't exist, while at the same time arguing with them and watching the period of time played out over and over. It's a miracle he doesn't just disappear in a Puff of Logic. Battler himself notes the irony.
  • Fighting a Shadow - Even if Beatrice (and Battler, for that matter) die on the chessboard, since their souls actually exist in the meta-world, they're fine to play another round.
  • Flat Earth Atheist/Nay Theist - Battler can be interpreted as being either of these at the beginning of the story, what with all the witches running around. However, as the story progresses, Battler's arguments and reasoning change as well, as he realizes that he doesn't need to disprove witches, just that witches commited the murders and mysteries. By EP6, he finds out the solution of the games and switches sides, becoming the Endless Sorcerer, and allies with Beatrice. Let's just say it's complicated and leave it at that.
  • Foreshadowing - This being a murder mystery, there's bound to be loads of them. One plot related one, having nothing to do with the mystery aspect, occurs in EP 4 when Battler says that he'll put Beato's name on the Death Sheet in the place of his true love (it was part of a gamble where he either had to kill himself, his love, or his family). In EP 6, they marry.
  • For Want of a Nail - EP7 presents an alternate 1986: Natsuhi accepts the baby that Kinzo asked her to adopt. Because of this, the epitaph does not exist, and there are no mentions of Beatrice as a witch or a ghost in the mansion.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble - At the very least, the aunts.
  • Freudian Excuse - Rosa often uses this to rationalize her Mother of the Year harsh treatment towards Maria. Her's own parents and siblings showed little mercy towards her when she was growing up, so she believes holding back on Maria would be "spoiling" her.
  • From a Certain Point of View - Anything said in Red needs careful attention paid to its Exact Words.
    • Even that might not always help - if the Fanon theory about EP6 is true, EP2's Red Truth that Kanon died in this room! can only be true metaphorically.
  • Gag Boobs - Virtually every female over the (apparent) age of 13 is noticeably... "blessed". Especially true of the Ushiromiya clan, which leads to...
  • Gainaxing - In the anime with anyone with developed breasts.
    • Boobs in this series come in two sizes; almost non-existent (Bernkastel, Lambdadelta, Maria) and DD (every other female).
    • It also appears in the game Ougon Musoukyoku. Shannon's boobs jiggle every time she performs a special attack.
  • Gambit Pileup - Most non-magical explanations for the murders in any given arc require multiple murderers, often working at cross-purposes, and different ones for each arc.
  • Game Between Heirs: The successor to the Ushiromiya family's headship and fortune (which includes ten tons of solid gold) seemed to be locked and set in stone and then a letter from the resident witch arrived, announcing that the spoils have been made fair game to anyone who can solve the Witch's Epitaph, a long riddle which incidentally, details a ritual requiring human sacrifice. Mind games (and lots and lots of murder) ensue.
  • Genre Busting - Fantasy? Mystery? One with elements of the other? Nope! Try "romance with fantastical mystery Jungian-psychological elements".
  • Genre Shift - Or so Beatrice would like you to think as she piles more and more fantastic elements into the murder mystery.
  • Geodesic Cast - With the exception of Maria's branch, most of the cousins' families work kind of like this - one mother, one father, and one child. It gets more confusing later, with the introduction of Ange.
  • Geometric Magic - The blood runes.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar - In EP3 of the sound novel, while trying to explain playing with letters and anagrams, Rudolf says "...It's like 'Sucker Merry Barrels'. What do you get when you take out the e's and r's?"
  • Gilded Cage - Kuwadorian.
  • Glove Slap - In EP6, Beatrice throws a white glove at Erika, challenging her to a duel. Refusing would forever mark her a coward in the eyes of the entire magical community.
  • Go Mad From the Isolation - What happens to people who get trapped in a logic error. Specifically, Lambdadelta and especially Bernkastel. Doesn't make up for the horrible things she's done, but you still sympathize with her, considering Bernkastel's logic error wasn't even her own fault - she was only a piece in that game. Her master, the player, created the logic error, then abandoned the game, leaving a piece that knows nothing with the task of solving the error to escape. The fact that, after hundreds of years, she was able to do so is why she became the Witch of Miracles.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser - Battler and Beatrice have a dialogue (and applause contest) at Eva's succession ceremony.
  • Gold Fever - All four siblings to some extent, but particularly strongly with Eva. EP7 shows how the Japanese and Italian forces on the island wiped each other out over the massive load of gold; the siblings then repeat this in the tea party.
  • Good Witch Versus Bad Witch
  • Gorgeous Period Dress - Just about all of the witches in the series wear these.
  • Gothic Punk - The plot and style share many, many similarities in common with the Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries.
  • Gratuitous English - There are a bunch of cases. Please don't list them here, or this will get too long.
  • Gratuitous French - The upcoming fighting game's opening is full of it, it is a translation of the witch's epitaph in French. Also, every sentence under the health bar is also displayed in bad french: for example, you can see under the message counter hit "sens inverse coup" whereas a more fitting translation would be "contre".
  • Gratuitous Greek - Lambdadelta (ΛΔ) as well as the firing sequence of the Chiesters.
  • Gratuitous Italian - The opening song. Averted in the case of Virgilia and BEATORRICHEE'S names, which are often mistaken for horrible Gratuitous English.
  • Greek Chorus - If the meta-world didn't turn into its own subplot, it would be a very developed one of these. However, a more straightforward example occurs in the sixth arc, with Featherine and Ange taking up this role.
  • Gretzky Has the Ball- Ep 6 With all the chess talk up to this point about pieces, moves, and checks, Lambdadelta all of a sudden starts using poker terminology when asking to see Battler's "cards" to fix the logic error. Battler joins in too talk about flushes and straights. It goes back to chess when Erika declares checkmate though
  • Groundhog Day Loop - Only magical/meta-characters (and "furniture") are aware of this, though, and each arc is actually a different world.
  • Happily Married - Oddly enough, the most stable couple (the wife's problems come from elsewhere) is Eva and Hideyoshi. And when Hideyoshi kicks it, Eva completely SNAPS and goes madder than she already is. In EP6, Battler and Beatrice as well.
  • Harsh Word Impact - Colored text can be utilized in such a way that declarations of truth, theories and things of the like behave as this trope, done for drama and gone far beyond any scale of Meta-awareness. Justified because the characters who are affected by this trope reside in a place commonly referred to as the Meta-World.
    • In Episode 4, Beatrice is impaled by giant blue spikes when she can´t (or won´t) deny Battler's theories.
    • In Episode 5, we have Dlanor manifesting the power of Knox's Decalogue in red swords, culminating in Dlanor denying Battler's theories and impaling him a gigantic sword. What happens afterward must be seen to be believed.
  • Haunted House - The Ushiromiya mansion, in theory.
  • Heel Face Revolving Door - Some of the witches enjoy going through this, notably Beatrice and arguably Lambdadelta.
  • Heir Club for Men - Eva was almost pushed out of the line of succession because when she married Hideyoshi, she should have lost her name. However, she convinced Kinzo to adopt Hideyoshi as an Ushiromiya, allowing herself to retain her position (Rosa retains hers because no one even knows who she married). This is also a reason, along with George's older age, that Eva thinks he should be ahead on the succession.
  • Heroic BSOD: Hilariously subverted. Ronove says that Battler was so shocked by Beatrice's plan to trick him into believing in her that he refused to talk or eat, but then he shows up fighting with one of the Seven Sisters of Purgatory for a basket of bread rolls. Ronove was just teasing her.
    • Later played straight and brought Up to Eleven when Battler finds out that the woman he thought was his birth mother, really wasn't his mother at all. He subsequently stops existing for half an arc.
  • Heroic Sacrifice - Several. For example, Jessica throwing herself in front of Kanon to block one of the stakes in EP2, Ange revealing her name to snap some sense into Battler in EP4, and Kanon trading places with Battler in the closed room in EP6.
  • Hijacked by Ganon - Taken to Beyond the Impossible levels as Bernkastel and Lambdadelta successfully usurped the villain's role and are aiming for the role of the hero as well too by means of invoking Decoy Protagonist.
  • Hit Me, Dammit! - Battler's reaction when Shannon almost does let her feel him up on the basis that she's not supposed to refuse any request from a guest.

Battler: Crap, I wasn't planning on this! P-please, hit me right now! At this rate, I'm seriously gonna-*thwack*' Guaah...oww. Thank you, Jessica.
 Jessica: Why the hell are you thanking me?

  • Homage - To Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Many occurrences. For instance, Maria is shown watching clips from the show, and Kanon uses Rena's cleaver.
  • Hope Spot - Pretty much everyone who faces off with the killer gets one.
    • EP7's main story ending is a big one for Clair and Lion. Did you really think Bernkastel will give everyone a happy ending?
  • Hostile Show Takeover - Played for drama in EP 5.
    • And for laughs in the preview for episode 17 of the anime where Eva-Beatrice tries to rename the show to Magical Girl Pretty Evatrice.
  • Hot-Blooded - Kinzo's legacy.
  • Hot Shounen Mom - Although all the aunts are noticeably attractive, Rosa probably fits the description best. But it's subverted pretty early on, when it's revealed what a facade it is.
    • As standard Ryu07. All young moms have to be hot.
  • A House Divided - Particularly strong in the first arc.
  • How Dare You Die on Me! - Battler to Beatrice during the fifth tea party.
  • How We Got Here - The very first scene in EP5 is the last scene on that world's gameboard. This was the first scene for meta-Battler, as well, before the Bern and Lambda rewound the story for him. EP6 does this as well, starting with Battler's horrific defeat and a closed room prison that is revisited multiple times before it finally makes sense.
  • Human Chess - Deliberately invoked by pretty much the whole plot.
  • Human Sacrifice
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate - Beatrice begging Battler to kill her in EP4.
  • If I Wanted You Dead... - How Rosa argues her innocence in EP2: She's been carrying around a loaded rifle since the first Twilight. If she wanted anyone dead, they would be dead.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty - A rare Gender Flipped version of this occurs in EP6 when Erika forces Battler into marrying her after she has effectively locked his mind inside his own closed room.
  • I Kiss Your Foot - Kanon does this to Beatrice so Shannon might not be chosen as a sacrifice in episode 2.
  • Identification by Dental Records - At the end of EP1 Maria's jawbone is identified this way.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming - All the anime episode titles are taken from chess terminology.
    • Also, all of the episodes of the visual novel are named "_____ of the Golden Witch".
  • I'm a Humanitarian - Characters occasionally get ripped to shreds and eaten by the goat people. Rosa gets force-fed parts from her siblings and her daughter at the end of the second arc; Crosses the Line Twice in the anime when Maria's severed head starts talking and happily tries to shove itself down her throat.
  • Imaginary Friend - Sakutaro is given this treatment, although he's actually a stuffed animal.
    • Also, Eva has her teenaged younger self as an imaginary friend in the third Episode. Too bad Eva-Beatrice is even more nuts than Eva has ever been.
    • In EP5, Beato and Kinzo's phantom can be thought of as imaginary friends to Natsuhi.
    • A recurring theme in the story is how the creation of one or more of these is actually a perfectly healthy way of coping with psychological stress. Maria's case especially is discussed in detail by Ange in EP4, and aside from Eva and Natsuhi, this is eventually revealed to be how Yasu, the real Beatrice, dealt with his/her orphan's ordeal and the injuries to his/her body..
    • In EP6 when Battler as the Game Master creates a piece version of Beato that acts like old Beato due to his distress over the chick version of Beato. It gets even sadder when you realize that he's talking to himself through her.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice - Beatrice during the EP4 tea party. And Battler during EP5, complete with Ironic Echo.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes - All of the Ushiromiyas have utterly impeccable fashion sense, as do the witches and demons. Justified in that the former are all fabulously wealthy, while the latter have magic.
    • This looks rather strange in some flashbacks. Victorian dresses of the Ushiromiyas next to the T-shirts of pedestrians?
    • The creator can't be bothered with drawing new sprites every time someone changes an outfit. It's also shown that some characters have street clothes (George's alternate sprite has him wearing jeans and a "Tomitake Flash" t-shirt, along with a dogtag), while others seem to only have 2 outfits. Maria is seen in either pajamas or her white dress before going crazy. The anime, manga, and PS3 remake all give characters casual clothes when needed, however.
  • Inadequate Inheritor - Kinzo feels this way about his whole family. The "real" successor, Krauss, seems to show this as well.
  • Incest Is Relative - In EP7 it is implicitly revealed that Shannon and Kanon are George and Jessica's aunt (or uncle) AND half-cousin. Simultaneously.
    • Also, in the end of the second arc, when Maria's disembodied head tells Rosa to eat her Battler tells Maria to "It's ten years too early for you to tell someone to eat you. But make sure you tell me that ten years from now, okay? It's a promise."
  • Incredible Shrinking Man - Jessica in Umineko no Naku Koro ni X. See also Baleful Polymorph, above.
  • Indecisive Medium - The anime keeps the use of colored text so vital to the original Visual Novel, despite the fact that the dialogue in the anime is audio-based rather than text-based.
    • In some instances for the final episode of the anime, the text does not appear in the form of text, though the sound effects (a slashing noise for red and a booming noise for blue) remain to imply that what they say is "colored."
  • Inter Class Romance - George, a member of the obscenely wealthy Ushiromiya family falls in love with Shannon, one of the servants at the main house.
  • Invisible to Normals - Witches, although who qualifies as "normal" seems to shift between arcs.
  • Ironic Echo - If you hear echoes in your head of Beato's and Virgilia's exchange when you start reading exchanges between Beato and Eva-Beatrice later on in that arc, you aren't the first.
    • Bernkastel's spin on the Arc Words "Without love, it cannot be seen".
  • Innocent Inaccurate - As Ange points out, the "happy memories" in Maria's diary are a lot less happy when one reads between the lines.
  • Jesus Taboo - Played straight, barely: in the anime, Beatrice makes reference to "a single man" who "appeared thanks to a star's guidance and finally explained the single element (love) that makes up the world." She then asks Shannon if she knows who the man is, but the question is rhetorical. The TIPS section for EP4 mentions a magical grimoire that has "a history of over 2000 years, is currently still in circulation, and continues to acquire new alliance members even now."
    • Averted in EP7 when Maria tells Will about her belief that she was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, since Rosa kept telling her that she didn't have a father. To back this up, she quotes from the Book of Matthew (1:23) and states that since Jesus was born from the virgin Mary, she may have been born the same way.
  • Kangaroo Court - The Rosa torture scene has more than a few elements of this, especially in the visual novel. Also played terribly straight with Natsuhi's trial at the end of EP5.
  • Kansas City Shuffle - Right from the first arc, Battler deconstructs exactly why the chessboard thinking he tries to use isn't going to work - because he doesn't know the rules of the game. Because he doesn't know the rules of the game, he has no idea which moves will result in which pieces being taken.
  • Karma Houdini - The third arc casts Eva as one responsible for most of the deaths, and she shoots Battler when he confronts her over this. Then in the Bad Future we learn that the subsequent police investigation cleared her completely, leaving her with the entire family fortune. She is still considered the villain by the general public, though, and spends the rest of her life in torment.
    • According to the Tanabata side story, Eva was willing to care for and love little Ange as her own daughter, but Bernkastel poisoned their relationship for her own amusement.
    • Then the seventh and eight arcs pretty much confirm that Eva is, in fact, a Silent Scapegoat, hiding the truth of Rokkenjima to keep the public from desecrating it, as well as to protect Ange, who she fears would Go Mad from the Revelation.
  • Kick the Dog - When Rosa tears up Sakutaro.
    • Bernkastel has a lot of them. In the VN, there are multiple troll sprites for this character.
  • Kids Are Cruel - Rosa's justification for her treatment of Maria (or the one she tells people anyway; in Maria's backstory we find out that Rosa hates her a good deal for just being). Basically, "All the children make fun of her! Don't you see?! Beating her will obviously make her stop whining!"
    • Bern and Lambda as well.
    • Not to mention Ange's classmates.
  • Killed Off for Real - The following is said in gold text: "I guarantee that this corpse is Kinzo Ushiromiya's corpse!"
    • Everyone except Eva, Ange, and Battler. Eva and Battler die later anyway, so it's technically everyone except Ange.
  • Kill'Em All - "When the seagulls cried, no one had been left alive."
  • Lamarck Was Right - Being a descendent of Kinzo evidently allows you to be able to use magic. Made even more odd by Beatrice's admission that Kinzo himself was never very talented.
    • Descendants of Kinzo almost universally inherit the key elements of his 'magic', pure blind determination and an idiot's understanding of chance and probability. This clan of human lemmings would be marked for mass extinction in the real world, and indeed are, in the world of Umineko.
    • This goes even further. Apparently, Kinzo(and thus, Battler) are not only untalented in magic, but have a supernatural resistance to it. And yet....
  • Lampshade Hanging - In Episode 3 of the sound novels, Beatrice puts a massive lampshade on her own Tsundere behavior in that arc, even mentioning anime and dating sims.
  • Language of Truth - Anything spoken in red text is true. If it isn't true, it can't be spoken in red text and may be subject to Unreliable Narration. (And if you actually try to state an untruth in red text, you will come to physical harm.) For whatever reason, this doesn't stop people from throwing around red statements frivolously (Beatrice cackles on two separate occasions in red, and a few characters deliver death threats in red, as if there were doubt about it or something). In EP5, Gold Text is introduced out of nowhere, which is sometimes somehow better than Red Text.
  • Large Ham: A special one goes out to Jimang, the guy who sang the show's ending theme. It's so over-the-top that it's nearly impossible to see something involving the show without "OH DESIRE." See the character sheet for in-show examples.
    • In-story, there's Beatrice, Erika and Kinzo.
  • Laser Blade - Kanon's and the Stakes' swords are very elaborate versions.
  • Last Kiss - Not quite a kiss, but to similar effect, in the second arc when Beatrice has broken through Shannon's shield, Shannon turns to George and asks him to tell her one last time how much he loves her. He starts, but is cut off.
  • Last Stand - EP8. Ange-Beatrice crashes the afterparty, summons Eva-Beatrice, who in turn summons an infinite horde of goats that begin devouring the game board, forcing the fantasy characters to fight for their lives until the Golden Land opens up.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility - Partially fed into issues between Natsuhi (unable to conceive for 12 years) and Eva (who gives birth earlier and thinks her son should be the heir).
  • Left the Background Music On - Two scenes in EP4 in the novel open with an upbeat jazzy soundtrack, but Ange complains and has Amakusa turn it off.
  • Legacy Immortality - Battler's hypothesis as to how the figure known as Kinzo Ushiromiya could take so much hands-on action in the fourth game despite dying before the start of any game is that someone took on his name and that the rest of the family acknowledged this.
  • Legions of Hell - Beatrice's furniture.
  • Lethal Chef - Beatrice, if the "Beatrice's White Day" side story is any indication.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers
  • Lemony Narrator - The narration of the first tea party has an mild, very tongue-in-cheek example.
  • Letting Her Hair Down - Beatrice in EP5.
  • Library of Babel - "The City of Books" in Episode 8, owned by Featherine, where most of the Episode's climax occurs.
  • Light Is Not Good - The main antagonist, Beatrice, is nicknamed "The Golden Witch" and is said to appear as a flock of golden butterflies. So what does she do the every arc? Oh, only sadistically kill off the entire cast.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters - Starts off with the Ushiromiya family, their servants, and Kinzo's physician for a total of eighteen people trapped on an island during a storm and goes up from there as Beatrice starts bringing in more of her associates (justifying it as the magical world gaining influence over the game). All the new witches, demons, servants, and Bad Future characters bring the count to about 40.
  • Locked Room Mystery - Invoked many times and taken by some characters as evidence that murders were committed by the Golden Witch rather than by a human.
  • Limited Wardrobe - With Kanon and Shannon exempted, most of the characters in the VN are only ever seen in one outfit, even in flashbacks, when it is also noted that these are their formal clothes that they're wearing for the family conference. The anime largely averts this trope in the flashbacks, but it still keeps them in the same outfits through multiple days, even though, logically, everyone should have known that they would be staying more than one day and packed a change of clothes.
  • Logical Fallacies - When Battler accuses Eva of lying in red her response is to say "The red only tells the truth." and to accuse Battler of insulting Beato's honor. This is intentional given that "Anti-Mystery vs. Anti-Fantasy" points out that the red truth relies on you trusting Beato. Furthermore, actual evidence supporting the validity of the red truth is presented later on.
  • Lonely Piano Piece - "Fortitude" is the most common one, although "Wingless" and "Umarete Kite Kurete Arigatou" ("Thank you for being born") also deserve a mention.
    • A good part of the music could be considered for this. Dai is really fond of using pianos.
  • Long-Lost Relative - Although the moment was suitably surprising for Battler, the audience is set up to have already known "Gretel"'s true identity.
  • The Lost Woods - The rest of Rokkenjima besides the main mansion is uncultivated forest, and Kinzo's favorite legend involves telling his children that the witch Beatrice lives within the woods, so it's a very dangerous place. He isn't lying, since Rosa stumbles across her hidden mansion after running blindly into the forest.
  • Lotus Eater Machine - Beatrice creates her own perfect world with just her and Maria. Also, the Golden Land in the first arc functions this way.
  • Love Epiphany - Kanon in EP6.
  • Love Imbues Life
  • Love Makes You Crazy - Kinzo, who became obsessed with the occult as a way to revive Beatrice and happily watches over the start of a ceremony to sacrifice his children. Nevermind about that second point, though, as he eventually turns out to have died over a year ago.
    • However, Kinzo really was deeply in love with Beatrice Castiglioni, and she with him. Unfortunately, she died in childbirth, with their daughter surviving, and as she grew older her uncanny resemblance to her mother led to Kinzo doing something he'd regret for the rest of his life.
    • In EP6, Battler also demonstrates this in his desperation to revive Beatrice and his bitter disappointment when the new Beatrice has no memory or personality of the old; he eventually gets over it.
  • Love Martyr - Maria's relationship with Rosa is treated in this way until the fourth arc.
  • Love Triangle - The cause of the entire tragedy. To elaborate, the cousin-servant couples are Jessica/Kanon, and George/Shannon. However, Battler and Shannon were formerly couples (see Childhood Marriage Promise), and Shannon and Kanon are the same person.
  • Lyrical Dissonance - The character songs for Beatrice and Maria. Beatrice's character song starts out as an upbeat rock/pop song, but the lyrics are about Beatrice wondering who she lives for and beginning to doubt if she will ever find true happiness; after the first couple verses establish this, the melody gradually becomes more fitting for the song in a case of partially averted Lyrical Dissonance. The case with Maria's character song is not immediately obvious because it has an upbeat tune with upbeat lyrics...until you stop to think about what the lyrics really mean, which is when this trope kicks in full force and turns the song into a Tear Jerker. The comments made by vidread, XanthsAMV, and littlexscreamer explain perfectly why this is a case of Lyrical Dissonance.
    • The Stakes' image song definitely qualifies. The song contains a cutesy, energetic and upbeat music about how the stakes want to gouge and kill your body.
  • Magic Versus Science - Magic versus logic. Anti-mystery versus anti-fantasy.
    • As time goes on, things get more complicated. The game continues to go on, but considering that they're by then well-developed characters, are the witches so easy to brush off as non-existent? One could argue that the witches being real or not doesn't change whether the murders are magic or mundane--and if they are mundane, would that really cast doubt on the existence of ageless, extradimensional beings like witches?
  • Mama Bear - Rosa. Her last act in the second arc is to mow down goat-headed butlers with a rifle and Maria at her side.
    • Also Natsuhi. Kumasawa actually says in regard to her, "They always say that the most frightening bears are those that have children." It doesn't work, though.
  • Man Behind the Man - The third tea party has Lambdadelta state that she gave Beatrice her powers in order to create a board to beat Bernkastel in. Made even odder by the apparent alliance of Bernkastel and Lamdadelta against Beatrice in the fourth tea party.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane - The point of the entire series.
  • Meaningful Funeral - To Beatrice in Requiem. Of course, Bernkastel finds a way to ruin it...
  • Meaningful Name - Several. Beatrice and Virgilia both derive their names from Dante's Divine Comedy. The "Stakes of Purgatory" have the names of demons corresponding to the Seven Deadly Sins. The "Chiester" bunny girls are named after Winchester shotguns. Finally, Lambdadelta's name is Greek for "34", which may hold some significance for those who saw Higurashi.
    • Also, Maria's name is one that is a common translation of Mary - a reference to the woman from the New Testament who gave birth to Jesus Christ. In the fourth arc, one of the TIPS speculates that Maria is one of the Creator witches, who can create something where there was previously nothing.
    • The significance of Maria's name is further explored in EP7, and Maria even says that if she had been born a boy, she would have been named Emmanuel, one of the names for Jesus, meaning "God is with us" in Hebrew.
  • Mental Story: Combined with a Show Within a Show Reveal in Episode 8 -- most of the plot is Toya Hachijo attempting to recreate the events of Rokkenjima 1986 as mystery novels in order to speculate on what happened on the island.
  • Mercy Kill - Ange did one to Eva near the end of the fourth arc. Also, Beato gave one to Maria and Rosa in the third arc.
  • Message in a Bottle - The ending of "Legend of the Golden Witch."
  • Mind Control Eyes - In EP6, Jessica takes on these, though they're really just an indication of how she's hardening her heart.
  • Mind Screw - Ryuukishi07 is a master of this.
    • Wait, what? Everybody's alive again? What do you mean, "wrap party"? So, what, everybody dying was some TV show we were all watching or something? Beatrice!? What are you doing here?!...Wait, none of this was some weird meta gag?!
      • Of course, if you played Higurashi, it's a double-whammy of a Mind Screw, since Higurashi had wrap parties too. It's just that those ones were non-canon. Thus, when Umineko pulls out the first tea party, the results were a subversion of their use in the previous games.
    • This goes to new levels in EP5, where depending on how you look at it, there can be 3 or 4 levels of Meta-Worlds.
    • Episode 6 has another massive one: Ange is reading the part of Dawn to Featherine where Beato asks about information of "old" Beato, in which Featherine opens a door to bring Virgilia and Beato to look through her library. Then later, while Ange is still reading she stops and asks Beato, who was still in the library, a question. MY BRAIN CANNOT FULLY PROCESS THIS.
  • Missing Mom - Battler's mother Asumu died, and it's stated outright that Kyrie is more of an older sister than a mom to him. In fact, Battler is distanced from Rudolf because he married Kyrie Too Soon for Battler's taste. Of course, it turns out Asumu wasn't his real mother, and Battler has a HUGE Heroic BSOD when he finds out.
  • Mobile Shrubbery - One of Battler's more ridiculous theories in Episode 2 involves Piece Beato sneaking into Maria's bedroom and stealing the chapel key while hiding in a cardboard box.
  • Mood Whiplash - A pretty strong element all throughout the series.
  • Mooks - All the goats, who are also Faceless Goons
  • Multigenerational Household - The main house.
  • Multiple Endings - There's the usual When They Cry stuff with the multiple endings playing into a larger ending, but the last arc itself can also end multiple ways.
  • Mundane Made Awesome - It's kinda hard to remember with all of the sound effects and shiny slashes that when characters use red text, blue text, and gold text, they're really only rebutting each other's arguments. It's like the most shiny debate club competition EVAR.
    • Remove the color tints and special effects at the end of EP4 and you get Battler trying to speak but choking halfway. How Narm.
    • Dawn has a particularly interesting case and even lampshades it. Erika picks a fight with Maria over the fact that Maria claims Beatrice made candy appear from an empty cup. It escalates to the point where Maria and Erika have a Truth battle to determine whether or not this candy trick was an act of magic. It's a Wizard Duel meets bickering over candy with a 9 year old.

Cornelia: Let it be known that this fight has no point...

  • Mythology Gag - 34 sympathizes with Eva's "unfortunate childhood a bit".
    • Maria's letter to whoever discovers the bodies at the end of EP1 is nearly identical to the one Keiichi wrote in Higurashi's Onikakushi-hen.
    • Unimpressed by his hypotheses at the end of EP4, Lambdadelta suggest that Battler's next crazy theory should be that everyone on the island is infected with Hinamizawa Rokkenjima Syndrome.
    • Nearly 90% of the attacks in Ougon Musou Kyoku are these, in fact, the game itself is full of this.
  • Nested Story Reveal - Episode 8 reveals that the entire plot is Toya Hachijo's attempt to recreate what happened in Rokkenjima by writing mystery novels ("Forgeries") based on the original two message bottles that washed up on the shores of Japan.
  • Never Found the Body - Anyone who survives until the end of the arc tends to die in this manner. However, even during the arcs, Kanon seems to have these sorts of deaths a lot.
  • Never Trust a Trailer - The anime's next-episode trailers are full of blatant lies and out-of-character behavior. They're hilarious. Except the last one.
    • The trailer before the release of the first game opened with the words "No Knox, No Dine, No Fair". Episodes 5 and 7 introduce incarnations of the Knox and Van Dine rules respectively.
    • A website version. Alchemist announced a Umineko project, but used different characters drawn in the Umineko portrait style. This all turned out to be a joke and the characters were for their new game Galgun, but at the same time they announced Rondo of the Witch and Reasoning
  • Nightmare Face: Really gets ramped up in the Play Station 3 remake; they generally involve shadowy brows, extremely wide grins and bugged-out eyes. Beatrice provides a comparison the PC and Play Station 3 sprites.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh - Beatrice is prone to these, and Maria's giggling sometimes morphs into it as well. Lambda has her "O-ho-ho-ho-ho!" in the Visual Novel as well.
  • No Body Left Behind - The Stakes are some of the few characters NOT to leave gruesome corpses. Unless they're the ones doing the killing, but that's another matter...
  • Not with the Safety On, You Won't: Amakusa tries to pull this on Ange in the Trick ending, upon which she calmly replies that her revolver does not have a safety and shoots him to death.
  • Occult Detective - The Witch Hunters in Episode 4.
  • Of Corpse He's Alive - Kinzo. for a YEAR; you've gotta give Natsuhi credit.
  • Official Couple - Tons. George/Shannon, Jessica/Kanon, Rudolf/Kyrie, Eva/Hideyoshi, Krauss/Natsuhi, Beatrice/Battler, Lambdadelta/Bernkastel.
  • Off-Model - There's a bit of a joke among the fandom that the animation is so bad because they blew the budget on the voice actors.
  • Ominous Italian Chanting - The anime's opening.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ - Odds are, if you're magical, your theme tune hits this trope. For some examples, we have "Organ Opusculum No. 600,000,000 in C Minor" (Beatrice), "happiness of marionette" (Eva-Beatrice), and "Dance of the Moon Rabbit" (the Chiester).
  • On One Condition - If you find the gold before midnight of the second night, you win! If not, "The witch shall be revived. None shall survive."
    • And even when someone DID find it, "When the seagulls cried, there was but one survivor."
    • In EP5 the gold was found and a murder occured anyway. Furthermore, while the game ended before everyone died, the author implied in an interview that more people die anyways.
    • Not to mention EP7: Everyone works together to find the gold... and promptly turn on each other.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname - Beatrice's name is treated as a title, and indeed, when Eva-Beatrice becomes the new Endless Witch, Beatrice claims that she is now "nameless." Battler then gives her the nickname "Beato" to use, which has been used for her more often than not since.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You - Lambdadelta toward Bernkastel. Beato toward Battler and vice versa.
  • Ontological Mystery - How part of EP6 is played out.
  • Otaku O'Clock
  • Our Hero Is Dead - Towards the end of EP5. Crowning Moment of Awesome later ensues.
  • Our Homunculi Are Different - Beato's explanation of 1967 Beatrice's existence is that Kinzo created a homunculus of her and trapped her soul in it.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall - The aforementioned red truth and Battler's blue truth. Battler has to state his hypotheses for mysteries in blue text during Episode 4 of the VN. As if that wasn't enough, Episode 5 introduces a new color.
    • Red text has appeared in the anime as the visual gaining a red tint with the significant sentence being both said aloud and zooming around the scene in white font with butterflies circling it.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise - Erika Furudo in EP5. I totally have no clue who she is.
  • Parents as People - A pretty sharp contrast to Higurashi, where you don't even see the protagonist's parents' faces.
  • Parental Incest - Kinzo fathered a child with the daughter he had with the original Beatrice.
  • Parent with New Paramour - Battler took very poorly to the fact that Rudolf remarried so quickly after Asumu's death.
  • Pastel-Chalked Freeze-Frame - Each member of the cast gets an introductory one in the first episode of the anime.
    • The Anime's depiction of the meta-world may qualify for this as well.
  • Pater Familicide - Essentially, Kinzo's plan is this plus spouses and grandkids. Subverted, since Kinzo's dead before it all happens..
  • Pensieve Flashback - Ange with Maria's diary.
    • The anime adaptation also uses this for the the meta-scenes.
  • Pimped-Out Dress
  • Pixellation - It's used a few different times in the anime, although it's removed on the DVDs.
  • Posthumous Character - Asumu as well as Kinzo and Beatrice. On the magical side, we have Chiester 556.
  • Post Modernism - And how. The series uses so many tropes from the Metafiction Index that the truth loops around itself and reality becomes unstable. Between deep discussions of what consists mysteries, implications that some of the narrative is untrustable, lampshades of Invoked Tropes, and the entirety of the Meta-World, the viewer is left to guess wildly about what is going on.
  • The Power of Legacy - An ongoing theme throughout the series and is pretty much the point of the ending theme "Ricordando il Pasato" ("Remembering the Past")
  • The Power of Love - According to Episodes 3 and 4, magic was originally intended to bring about happiness and gained its powers through the efforts of love. Knowing Ryukishi, this was completely intentional.
  • Psychic Powers - How some believe Ange is able to "talk" with pre-Rokkenjima Maria through Maria's diary.
  • Psychological Thriller
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad - The Stakes of Purgatory.
  • Readings Are Off the Scale - "H-His anti-magic resistance level is at Endless Nine!"
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old - Both Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, as well as Beatrice. From a mundane perspective, however, this is not actually the case with Beatrice.
  • Recurring Riff - The major composers each have a prominent one:
  • Recursive Canon - Revealed to be the case in EP8.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning - Both the Stakes and Chiesters, as well as Lambdadelta (but only in the anime and Play Station 3 remake).
  • Redheaded Hero - Battler and Ange later on.
  • Relationship Upgrade - Jessica and Kanon in EP6.
  • Retcon - An integral part of the plot. If I mention quantum post-selection paradoxes, would you understand..?
    • In EP6 this concept is weaponized to force Battler to make a Logic Error
  • Rivals Team Up - In VN Episode 5, Battler, Ronove, Virgilia, Gaap, and the Seven Sisters of Purgatory all band together to give Erika and the Eiserne Jungefrau (particularly Dlanor) a serious beatdown.
    • In EP 6, Gaap and George and Ronove and Jessica in the first twilight. Kyrie and Leviathan also
    • In EP 8, Will and Dlanor team up to fight the goats.
  • Romantic Two-Girl Friendship - Erika and Dlanor in EP6 most likely qualify for this.
  • Room Full of Crazy - Kinzo's room.
  • Rogue Protagonist - Actually, it's more of a Rogue Narrator.
  • Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts - A few of the Battler's theories to solve the murders involve this trope.
  • Sacrificial Lamb - Subverted in the same way as Higurashi, but slightly more ironic, as those who die first do so as sacrifices to summon Beatrice.
  • Sadistic Choice - Episode 4. In order to gain two, sacrifice one: Your life. Your loved one's life. Everyone else's lives. Amusingly, everyone shown indicates one of the choices, then goes on to Take a Fourth Option anyways.
    • The entire plot is a sort of variation. Battler must accept magic's existence or blame one of his close relatives. As Beatrice gleefully points out several times. He has big qualms with both.
  • Sawed Off Rifle - The Weapon of Choice for most of the adults.
  • Say My Name - All the time. (Beeeeeeeeeeaaatriiiiiiiiiiice!)
  • Scare Chord - A rather terrifying one.
  • Scenery Porn - Ougon Musou Kyoku has most possibly the most detailed and beautiful battle backgrounds EVER, especially the Meta World ones.
  • Schrodingers Cat - A recurring motif. Used by Virgilia and Battler to explain why the fantasy scenes happen: as long as the detective can't see them, there's a possibility that it either happened, or it didn't happen. And that in a Closed Circle, two theories (or more) have the same weight of truth until the closed circle is broken.
    • Catbox is also used as a metaphor for what really happened on Rokkenjima. The only one said to be able to open it is Eva, since she was present. She however chose not do so for the sake of Ange.
  • Science Destroys Magic - This is the witch's defense for why they don't use magic openly: People don't believe in it anymore which undermines its effectiveness. The validity of the argument is intentionally ambiguous.
  • Secret Underground Passage - Rokkenjima used to be a military base, so now it gets used for the passage to Kuwadorian.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong - Ange's goal in going back to 1986.
  • Shaggy Dog Story - Though the phrase is never used, some characters discuss whether the story itself should be this in Ep8. Whether the story itself was this is a frequent bone of contention for the fandom.
  • Shameful Strip - After Battler surrenders to Beatrice in the second arc, he is stripped completely except for a chain around his neck that Beatrice uses as a leash.
  • Shout-Out - Once again, too many to list, so please don't try here.
  • Simple Score of Sadness - "Moon" and "Fortitude".
  • Slasher Smile - Everyone who is involved with the murders of family (Eva, Eva-Beatrice, Kinzo/"Goldsmith" come to mind) has one.
  • Social Services Does Not Exist - Averted. It does exist... Rosa just doesn't care. Well, she also threw them out.
  • So Happy Together - In the first arc, George proposes to Shannon in a gazebo with all sorts of pretty music playing in the background. Guess who's one of the people found dead the next morning, with the engagement ring on her finger?
  • The Soulless - From an anti-mystery perspective, furniture.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance - Episode 3. People getting killed with this music in the background.
    • That's nothing compared to Eva-Beatrice's theme song: It's even called Happiness of Marionette. So when does this play? Whenever the villain of this arc is contemplating how she'll torture people, of course!
    • Note: if, when playing Umineko, a piece of music is played containing either a pipe organ or a harpsichord (unless it is in the beginning, setting up the Rokenjima family gathering), NOTHING positive is going to happen in that scene. No matter how happy, fun, pleasant, or uplifting it my sound, some serious shit is going down. Someone is either going to: A) Die horribly, B) Have their perception of reality shattered, C) Get trapped in a horrific logic error, D) Have their argument torn to shreds, E) THINK that they are going to win, then get completely and utterly beaten, or F) All of the above!
  • Split Personality - Eva and Eva-Beatrice.
  • Spoiler Opening - In each arc the opening animations change, most notably the portrait. The second animation set shows Beatrice's Human Form, and the third set shows Eva-Beatrice, Virgilia, and the Siestas. The fourth one shows all three portraits, another Siesta, and Maria's witch outfit.
    • The opening of the Play Station 3 port is very bad with it. Showing quickly important scenes without context may not be bad enough, but showing characters whose very existence are a big surprise for first time players make sure a good part of the mood of the first few episodes are completely changed.
  • Spoiler Title - End and Requiem.
  • Spooky Painting - Beatrice's portrait.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers
  • Stay in the Kitchen - While growing up, Eva was repeatedly told by her family that she fails as a woman because she didn't know how to do feminine things. The creation of EVA-Beatrice largely stems from her resentment of this.
    • Also, Krauss repeatedly shuts Natsuhi up. Unfortunately this isn't to his benefit, since she basically runs the house and has much more common sense than he does while he squanders their money on poorly thought-out business ventures.
  • Stealth Pun - Why is Leviathan's hair an odd shade of green? She's green with Envy.
  • Succession Crisis - There were all sorts of tensions laid about. Then Beatrice's letter shows up (effectively forcing the current heir, Krauss, to fight for his position), and all hell breaks loose.
    • According to Battler's final game, this is apparently subverted, since Kinzo makes an official succession ceremony and distributes the inheritance to the family.
  • Summon Magic - Just about all furniture requires this.
  • Switched At Birth - Battler is implied to be Kyrie's son.
  • Take That, Audience! - A rather unsubtle one in EP8 towards the readers. A seemingly endless bunch of goat-headed creatures making hilariously stupid theories and demanding answers from the creators. Some even took this quite offensive. Lampshaded in-story.

The enjoyment comes from sorting and thinking to reach the truth, and not demanding it.

  • Take Up My Sword - In EP5, Battler becomes the Endless Sorcerer after Beatrice is killed by Erika
  • Taking the Bullet - In the third arc, Belphegor does this to protect Eva-Beatrice.
    • In the second arc, Jessica takes a Stake for Kanon. It doesn't really accomplish much, since Beato has 6 more.
  • Talking Is a Free Action - Gleefully averted. In the first arc, Kanon has a long rant about how he's going to kill himself and ruin Beatrice's plans, but she sics a Stake on him before he gets around to acting on it. There's also an awful lot of people dying in the middle of trying to say something important. The anime, on the other hand, fell a victim to this trope with a Jessica falling to the ground in a bullet time and talking at the same time.
    • Played straight later in the novels, Battler's debate with Beato at the end of the fourth arc and the trial at the end of the fifth arc last a minute each.
  • Talking to Themself/Acting for Two - It takes more than half the series for the readers to realize that these tropes are in effect whenever Shannon talks to Kanon, but in Episode 7 this fact becomes obvious. Also, no matter how you look at it Beatrice is Acting For Many in both the Meta-World and the piece-world.
  • Tangled Family Tree - And how. It's revealed in EP7 that Kinzo had a daughter with Beatrice I, and then had another daughter/son with that daughter. Said second daughter/son is in a relationship with at least two of Kinzo's grandchildren. Gender ambiguity actually being a plot point here. You do the math.
  • Tempting Fate - "Unless messing up sets off a trap that blows up the island, of course." You just had to say it, Beato.
  • Ten Little Murder Victims- The Trope Namer is even named in End of the Golden Witch and parallels are drawn.
  • The Game Come to Life - Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan
  • Theme Naming - With the exception of Kinzo, the blood members of the Ushiromiya family all have Western(-ish... "Battler"?) names transliterated as kanji. A few others follow this trend as well, like Shannon the maid. All the women related to Battler also are named from Christian mythos (Kyrie Eleison = The Kyrie Prayer, Assum = Assumption into heaven, and Ange = Angel).
    • Not to mention a number of magical beings are named after characters appearing in Dante's Divine Comedy (Beatrice, Virgil (Virgilia), and Bernard of Clairvaux (Clair Vaux Bernand) are all Dante's guides).
  • The Summation - repeatedly subverted to leave it up to the viewer to solve the mystery.
  • They Killed Kenny - Every. Single. Character.
  • Time Travel - Ange is an interesting case. It is not clear when or where the Meta-World is, but Battler and Beatrice's fight takes place in 1986; Ange lives in 1998 and with Bernkastel's assistance reaches the Meta-World. One way of explaining this is that since Episodes 1 and 2 (sans Meta-World sequences) were found as message bottles after 1986, all Ange is doing is metaphorically going back to 1986 and trying to find out what really happened. In such a case, this probably counts as a subversion.
  • Title Drop - Over and over again by Battler. "When the seagulls cry" refers to when the typhoon is over and everything's safe. It's also used at the very end to give the body count. Er... perhaps "survivor count" might be a better description.
  • Took a Level in Badass - In EP 4, both Jessica and George - formerly damsels in distress give Ronove and Gaap a run for their money.
    • In EP 2, there's Shannon. In the first arc she seems to be a generic shy Moe Meido archetype who becomes cannon fodder early on. Cue the second arc when she stands up to the witch who's supposedly killing everyone and basically tells her that because she gets enjoyment from seeing them squirm, she's not going to react to give her the satisfaction. Not to mention the barrier powers...
    • Battler, who was level grinding throughout the entire series so far, and boy does it show in the later ones.
  • The Tragic Rose - The rose garden in front of the Ushiromiya mansion, and Maria's search for her marked rose.
  • The Treachery of Images - A plot point actually. Battler is nearly won over in the third arc when Beatrice starts showing him visually spectacular witch battles, but Virgilia reminds him that this is still a narrative being told by Beatrice, so he should take the visuals with a few cellars of salt. By the time the 7th arc rolls around it's blatantly obvious in regards to at least 3 characters, if not more. Those who want to solve the mystery by then should take to heart the fact that the story is basically lying to the readers as much as it can without distorting the truth.
  • Troll: The witches in general. Special nod goes to Bernkastel. She ain't called Trollkastel for nothing you know.
  • Trope Overdosed - Ain't it just.
  • Tsundere - Jessica and Beato towards Battler.
    • In Beato and Battler's case, this is subverted massively in Episode 3, but appears to be true in Episode 4 anyway..
    • Battler even talks about it in EP5.

Battler: When she comes back again, I'm going to tell her "You're such a tsundora."

  • Umbrella of Togetherness - George and Shannon do this in the first arc when the typhoon hits.
  • Understatement - Episode 22's title in the anime, "Problem Child". In regards to Maria. For some context, that's the one where she kills her mother over and over and over. Hard not to cheer for her though, considering that Rosa is the BEST MOM EVER.
  • Unexpected Successor - Kinzo, actually. The Ushiromiya family used to be very powerful, and Kinzo was a member of "a branch of the branch family." Then, an earthquake took out just about everything, and it was up to Kinzo to restore the family to its former glory.
    • Not even that. The elders of the family were still alive and intended to use Kinzo as a figurehead, and he even knew that they were going to make a puppet out of him. Somewhere along the lines, he decided to take matters into his own hands, presumably with the help of Beatrice I.
  • The Un-Reveal - The reader never learns what really happened on Rokkenjima. They are only ever given hints to reason the answer for themselves. The reason given in-game is that by never revealing the truth, Ange's hope for a miracle that everyone survived can never be denied.
  • Unexplained Recovery - What happens when a new game begins after the last, in which Everybody Dies. Or at least a majority of the cast.
  • Updated Rerelease - Like Higurashi, it has a remake on a Sony console.
  • Unreliable Narrator - A key part of the plot. It's explicitly stated that anything not in red text is liable to be false. What is in red text? ...Not very much...
    • Episode 5 spells out what can and can't be taken as reliable - For episodes 1-4, only scenes that piece Battler narrates, For episode 5, only scenes that Erika narrates (which are very few).
  • The Ending Changes Everything - It's fair to say that at least a few arcs end this way.
    • So does the ending of the series. You'll never look at it the same way again.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means - Battler speculates that the reason Maria is so calm about everyone dying is the promise at the tenth twilight that she'll reach the Golden Land and everything will be restored - and her mother will be nicer to her to boot.
  • Verbal Tic - U~~. This is later shown to be not just a random noise.
  • Villain Based Franchise - Subverted in that Bernkastel wasn't a villain in Higurashi.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential - The original V Ns allow you to "execute" characters to see how they died.
  • Viewers Are Geniuses - In order to understand what the show really is about, you need to pay attention to a lot of small details such as where the characters get hurt (in different places in the fantasy and real scenes), where do they die, who talked about fantasy, etc.
  • Wasted Song - Ougon Musoukyoku uses songs directly taken out of the game, like goldenslaughterer or haze and worldend dominator, which usually last for about at least five minutes, on a game where the average match doesn't lasts more that 3 minutes, which means you won't hear all of the song unless you deliberately pause the game.
  • Weirdness Censor - In the anime, almost no attention is drawn to Maria's cackling, odd foreknowledge, and general sociopathy by other characters (the biggest example is probably the Mood Whiplash above). In the manga, Battler reacts with proper dread at her mysterious statements most of the time, and while he tries to laugh it off in the visual novels, he does find it troubling.
  • Well Done Daughter Girl - Natsuhi has this to Kinzo, her father-in-law, as she loves him very much and desperately wants his approval. And she wants it so bad that she is driven to psychosis after he dies, imagining his ghost is praising and reassuring her. Bernkastel later makes a point of telling her in the red that he never thought she was good enough.
  • Wham! Episode - The anime's episode 18. This is partly due to Compressed Adaptation.
  • Wham! Line:
    • Episode 6:

Dlanor: Kyrie Ushiromiya cannot save you.

    • Episode 7:

Bernkastel: This game will not have a happy ending.

  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - Rosa's daughter, Maria. One of the kanji in her name is essentially a cross, she's known as the Witch of Origins (who, according to the visual novel, "holds the motherly magical power to give birth to 1 from the sea of zero"), and is usually the first one to know exactly what's going to happen before everybody else.
  • Which Me? - There are about twelve different versions and variations of the Beatrices. Eleven if Shannon and Kanon are separate people, but that's still one hell of a lot. Some of them have their own names (Ange-Beatrice is usually known simply as "Ange", unless some distinction between 1998 and meta-1986 needs to be made), some have last names that are applicable (Beatrice Castiglioni), and some of them simply have fan-created names, because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to figure out who someone was referring to (Moetrice, suit![or sometimes, piece!]Beatrice, Beatroll, etc.).
  • White Magic - According to Virgilia, this was initially the purpose of Endless Magic. However, the magic itself can be used for either this or Black Magic depending upon the intentions of the user.
  • Who Dunnit to Me? - "Battler Ushiromiya, at this time, I will kill you. And right now, there is no one on the island other than you. The only one alive on this island is you. Nothing outside the island can interfere in any way. And of course, I am not you. However, I am here now and will kill you."
  • Why Couldn't You Be Different? - Rosa toward Maria.
  • Wife Husbandry - Kinzo to Beatrice Ushiromiya/Beatrice II. Yes, the one he fathered.
  • Wimpification - Good lord, Battler gets this a lot in both fandoms on either side of the ocean.
  • Witch Species - The fourth arc's TIPS describes three different types described in ascending power: Witches, who can possess immense power in one world that is considered to be its dominion; Voyagers, who can travel freely in between the different fragments; and Creators, who can "create a one in a world of nothingness."
    • The Fair Folk - The concept of witches used here actually has more in common with a lot of the older stereotypes of fairies than witches.
  • World of Ham - Virtually every single argument in the series, even the most mundane ones, is undeniable Ham-to-Ham Combat. Then the colored texts and magic weapons come into play, and the scenery is literally torn to pieces.
  • Worthy Opponent - Battler and Beatrice refer to each other as this constantly.
  • Wrestler in All of Us - In the fighting game, Ange with her DABURU JAAMAN
  • Wrong Genre Savvy - Battler doesn't believe in the supernatural and tries to find mundane explanations for everything bizarre happening on the island. Oddly enough, Beatrice seems amused by his denial and traps him in a time loop, challenging him to find a mundane explanation each time. Or something. He eventually realizes by EP5 that he must change his priorities, and becomes one of the most appropriately Genre Savvy characters in the series.
    • Also, it may be Erika and Dlanor case in EP5. They use the "fact" that they are in a mystery to use Knox's Decalogue as basis of most of their deductions. However, it was never stated that the Decalogue is really valid (Dlanor even acknowledges this).
  • Xanatos Gambit
  • Xanatos Roulette - Episode 3, where Beatrice's strategy hinges upon Eva-Beatrice, Battler, and Eva all taking a very specific set of actions.
    • Bernkastel was probably The Man Behind the Man on this very one, adding yet another layer to the entire thing: Beatrice had to take a very specific action at the end for Bern's own plans to work out.
    • If Episode 8 is to be trusted, Battler pulls one off in Episode 6. His humiliating defeat at the hands of Erika, threatening to forever trap his mind in a logic error, was so that Beatrice could be revived and come to his rescue.
  • Yellow Brick Road - Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan
  • You Are Worth Hell - The fantasy ending of the series has Battler declare this for Beatrice.
  • You Bastard - In the Tanabata side story, Bern addresses the reader several times during her section, repeatedly asking, implying, and outright stating that they prefer seeing the sort of twisted 'wish-granting' she indulges in.
  • You Can't Fight Fate - Ange helps even knowing that going back in time to help Battler won't fix her own timeline: just the one that Battler will now go to which makes her a Future Badass.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real - Pretty strongly implied in every arc after the first as a sort of extension of the Literary Agent Hypothesis with a touch of The Treachery of Images tossed in for good measure. Did you notice that this is labelled "Mind Screw"?
  • Zettai Ryouiki - Beatrice in her suit and Ange in particular.

When the seagulls cry, none are left alive.

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