Umineko no Naku Koro ni episode 5 review; Now, the real game begins.

 

     The episode begins with Battler confronting Maria about the three deaths, and he gets pissed off when she says she didn’t see anything, he demands answers. But, George is the one who gets Maria to talk, she tells him that Beatrice slipped inside the room as a butterfly and told Maria to look at the wall and sing a song. Maria goes on to tell them that Beatrice couldn’t get into Kinzo’s study because of the seal on the door knob, and the reason Beatrice didn’t kill her was because Battler gave Maria the charm back.

         A few seconds later, Jessica notices her mother is missing, and the group finds out that Natsuhi has locked them in the room. Natsuhi goes to the room with the Beatrice painting and as head of the Ushiromiya family she calls out to Beatrice to show herself, and a golden butterfly appears, Natsuhi shoots at the butterfly. That very second, the group manages to breakdown the door to see Natsuhi fall to the ground from a gunshot wound to the head. As Jessica rushes to her dead mother’s side, Maria goes into her weird little girl mode and tells the group it’s all over, Beatrice will return. Battler grabs Natsuhi’s gun and tells them the he won’t die and he’ll make it until the seagulls return.

     Just then, Maria points at the clock as it strikes midnight and a golden butterfly appears. Maria says that Beatrice will grant four things to the wise; the golden land’s gold, bring back all the dead souls, resurrection of a lost love, and the ability to put the witch to sleep forever. Battler gets really pissed off and shots the butterfly but it just splits into several butterflies, and Maria tells him that bullets don’t affect Beatrice.

      Battler still denies the existence of Beatrice; he says he refuses to accept her existence. Then the scene switches to some fisherman finding a floating bottle with a message in it, and the message is from Maria that says that by the time you read this I’ll probably be dead, and maybe not even a corpse will remain, so please reveal the truth.

      Then the scene switches to George, Battler, Jessica, and Maria discussing how even though they never solved the riddles everyone ends up back alive. We can see them discussing this turn of events with Shannon and Kanon, and they all say that Maria was right that Beatrice did all this, after all only a creature with supernatural powers could have done this. After a few moments Battler starts asking them when did they stop thinking and just settle on blaming it on Beatrice. They all try to convince Battler that Beatrice did it but he still refuses to believe; Maria asks him if it wasn’t the witch then who was it?

      So, Battler assumes that the deal with their situation is that if he agrees to believe in Beatrice that this reality will come true, and he accuses the others of giving into Beatrice because they can’t understand the situation. He tells them if they want him to believe in Beatrice to have her appear before him. Well, Battler gets his wish, a butterfly appears and changes into Beatrice, and she tells him its been a long time since she met such a charming human. All the rest of the group apologises for Battler’s attitude, but Battler says that Beatrice only exists as a illusion in the minds of the others, and unless she/they can convince Battler that she really does exist Beatrice will only be an illusion. Well, Beatrice does compliment Battler for his knowledge of the situation even though he knows nothing of magic.

     Basically, Battler and Beatrice face off with Battler telling Beatrice that he’ll explain how each event was caused by a human, and Beatrice telling Battler that she’ll love breaking him and having him kiss her toes. Beatrice tells Battler to explain this; she mentions all the strange events and takes back the magic that brought everyone back to life, Kanon and Shannon dies before his eyes, Maria also dissolves, and Battler is left standing in a blood splattered room.

     Then the scene switches to Beatrice appearing in front of another witch who’s drinking tea and she asks her what business the legendary witch Bernkastel has with her? The other witch says that she’s merely a traveling witch, but Beatrice says her powers include the possibility of creating a miracle as long as the probability isn’t zero. No, Bernkastel says that she’s just traveling around to escape boredom and she’d heard that Beatrice started something interesting. Bernkastel tells Beatrice that the only thing that can kill a witch is boredom, so please don’t kill me. When Beatrice leaves the room we hear the witch Bernkastel talking to someone or pledging to someone (I assume it’s Battler)  that she’ll lend them/you some of her power, but not become an ally, she says she has the power to make anyone give up, even the endless witch Beatrice, so don’t bore me. Well, that’s all for this episode.

       Well, finally the game’s afoot, and Beatrice has shown herself. After the first few episodes I was beginning to wonder if Battler was right about there being no witch Beatrice and the murderer was one of the original 18. But, in my mind, Beatrice does exist as a magical force of some sort. It was quite interesting watching Battler going through his “Last Temptation of Christ” moment where he had his chance to give in to the illusion of everything being alright and believing in Beatrice. So, it looks like that Beatrice can’t kill everyone, she’s has to get a certain number of living people to accept her as fact and praise her name for her to be fully brought back to life. It quite understandable why George, Shannon, and Maria are willing to accept Beatrice, both George and Jessica get their lovers back, and Maria if she’s even real has met Beatrice in-person several times. So, now, it’ll be a battle of wills between Battler and Beatrice to see who gives in first, will Battler give up and kiss Beatrice’s toes and praise her, or will Beatrice give up on trying to convince Battler that she exists? The stakes? Beatrice’s existence, or Battler life and sanity.

       The appearance of the witch Bernkastel does really make this match a more even contest. If we assume that Beatrice does exist in some form or another it would only be a matter of time before she crushes Battler with her little game, but with another witch giving him a little aid it sort of evens out the contest a little. I also found the Maria “message in a bottle” story very intriguing, did Maria die and when did she die, if so, was it before getting to the island, or was it before or after Maria gave Battler and Jessica the charms? Overall, I’m really looking forward to watching Beatrice’s and Battler’s little dance of death, five stars for this episode.