The plot:
Umineko no Naku Koro ni takes place primarily in the year 1986, during the time frame of October 4 and October 5 on a small, secluded island named Rokkenjima (六軒島) 10 km around owned and lived on by Kinzo, the head of the wealthy Ushiromiya family. Kinzo is near death, and eight of his family members arrive on the island for the annual family conference, where the adults plan to discuss how Kinzo's assets will be divided once he is dead. Also on the island are three family members who live there, five of Kinzo's servants, and his personal physician. After the eight family members arrive, a typhoon traps them on the island, and shortly after, strange things start to happen and people start dying.
(Small extract from Wiki to avoid any spoilers ^^)
The game:
Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a murder mystery game and unlike many other visual novels, the drawings are rather poorly drawn, this actually deterred me from playing it at the start. But I was positive it would live up to the reputation of Higurashi so I played on. The game is described as a sound novel by 07th Expansion. A sound novel generates an atmosphere from the music, sound effects, and of course the story itself to instill fear and excitement into the reader. The game itself contains 4 story arcs and each arc last around 4-10 hours depending on your reading speed/how much you skip.
The anime:
As you can see from the picture above, the drawing is very solid and i expect great animation throughout the series especially when I had to imagine all the action and scenes in my head when I was playing the game. What I love so far is the opening theme by Akiko Shikata. I don't really know how to discribe it but it has latin and japanese mixed in it and i was entranced by it. I will post a link to the OP at the end of the post later on. The anime also has a pretty impressive cast list. Main lead Battler Ushiromiya Battler is voiced by none other than Daisuke Ono(Koizumi Itsuki from Haruhi no Yuutsu). Not to mention Horie Yui as Ushiromiya Maria. For as long as I played the game, I have always wondered how the "uu" sounds like and noone can potray it better than Horie Yui. Other notable Voice Actors includes: Marina Inoue, Kenichi Suzumura,Sayaka Ohara, Yū Kobayashi and Rie Kugimiya(Tsundere Queen). The anime does follow the story closely and so far I have not noticed any changes.
General comparison:
Well in conclusion, at this point in time, I cannot say which is better as the anime is still at episode 6 as of now. But I am really happy to see the game being animated nicely and the anime is as perfect as it can get. However, one major downside is that the anime is going too fast. And when I say fast, I mean REALLY fast. Even when watching the first episode, I was surprised how much ground it was covering. By episode 5, the anime finished the first arc. 2 hours of animation compared to 4-10 hours of reading. That's one major gap! Many scenes was rushed and many actions were cut (to my disappointment T.T). But in any case, I'm still enjoying the anime and hope it can be as great as the game by the end of the series.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni OP-"Katayoku no Tori"
EDIT: If anyone is interested in playing the game and is unable to read japanese, you can download the fan translation by Witch Hunt. However, you still need to buy/download the full japanese before applying the patch. I would not say where you can download it as I do not wish to promote piracy for such a great game.
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