Umineko: When They Cry/Trivia

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

 * Relationship Voice Actor - If you hear Ronove and Battler talking, you may be reminded on another well-known story about a quite eccentric "heroine", who can reset the world. Better yet, their roles are more or less reversed.
 * If you listen closely to both Natsuhi and Eva, you might notice how sour they are towards each other. Contrast that with their roles as Youko and Sachiko respectively in Mariasama ga Miteru.
 * What Could Have Been: Land of the Golden Witch. Originally, EP 3 was supposed to be much more difficult than the EP 3 we got (Banquet of the Golden Witch). And by much more difficult, I mean much harder in difficulty than both Legend and Turn. However, because Ryukishi found that many players were having trouble, he decided to lower the difficulty in order to give players more of a helping hand. This was explained in game as Ryukishi has gone on record saying that he doesn't plan to release Land, as he says he incorporated all the clues that were in it into other arcs. But, of course, this doesn't mean that it will never be found...
 * One thing that was added to Banquet that wasn't in Land was the inclusion of Ronove and the inclusion of the Cat Box as hinted by Virgilia. Originally, the Cat Box discussion would've been left for an Answer Arc, which would have made EPs 3 and 4 at the least really hard for Battler to solve. Some of the things that were to be included in Land were apparently a character named "Virgilius" who was to be a guide for Battler (like Virgilia), but who Another is that  It was said to also have had a few clues that were very important for the mystery but, because of Land's exclusion, were introduced as late as EP 5 and 6 canonically. Had Ryukishi kept Land--and thus  and those "vital clues"--he probably could have avoided.


 * In Chapter 4, the name of Rosa's clothing shop, Anti-Rosa, is mentioned, as well as its slogan. A quick google search reveals a blog of the exact same name, although the site's slogan is one word different from the slogan mentioned in Umineko. But it only has one post, translated (roughly) from Portuguese: "Good night. Good night, F&Atilde;¡tima." But otherwise, there seems to be no other connection to Rosa's shop than that.
 * The site can be found here. The title of the article can be translated as "Anti-Laziness x Anti-Boredom".
 * Also, "Our Lady of Fátima" is another name for Mary.
 * "Goodnight, Fátima" is a common joke between brazilians. Fátima Bernardes and William Bonner are the anchormen for the most popular news program in Brazil At the end of every report, both of them say "Good Night." Very often, to express loneliness or boredom, a person can reply to them saying "Good night, Fátima" or "Good night, Bonner.". The text on the blog mirrors this dialog, whih is to say that it has nothing to do with Rosa's shop at all.
 * "Anti-Rosa" may also be a reference to the Brazilian poem "Rose of Hiroshima", that talk about the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. The poem refer to the bomb as "Anti-Rosa Atômica" (Atomic Anti-Rose).

"Guidance System Version 07
 * The magical text that appears in the Visual Novel when the Siestas attack is Japanese transliterated into the Greek alphabet. If you translate it into English, you get:

Firing Guidance System Startup Good morning. Welcome to the Firing Guidance System.

Commence Data Accumulation... Now scanning. Gathering data. Don't shake it. If we screw up now, it won't hit.

Formulating Firing Curve... Formulating Firing Curve. Forming as a Bezier curve. This is filler, so please don't read it, okay? It's random. All this English that I don't really understand sure is cool. Pretty awesome.

Firing Preparations Complete Firing Preparations Complete. If we shoot now, it'll hit. ...Assuming that the measurements are correct. Are we really good to go? It's totally automatic.

Accuracy 97.89% A number that will almost certainly hit."


 * In the anime episode 16, when Siesta 45 prepares to hit, there are a number of Russian phrases of all things, seemingly taken from a Russian-Whateverlanguage phrasebook ("Здравствуйте" - "Hello", "Желаю счастья" - "Wish you luck/happiness", "Жду вашего ответа" - "Waiting for your response", "Как Ваше здоровье" - "How is your health" and a good number of others).
 * The guy who originally did the classification of the seven demons with the seven sins was Peter Binsfeld, a German auxiliary bishop and witch hunter. He was born in the 16th century in the small town of Binsfeld, in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich. He wrote a book, which was very famous at his time, Hexentraktat, in which he argues that witches do exist and explains how to find, interrogate and execute them.
 * Certain "furniture" in Umineko (Ronove, Gaap, Furfur, Zepar) come from the Ars Goetia, a section of The Lesser Key of Solomon.
 * The magic circles used in the series (the third and fifth circle of Mars, the first circle of the moon, and seventh circle of the sun) come from Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers' version of The Key of Solomon (not to be confused with the lesser key). Despite being pretty illegible in game, the originals do have Hebrew written on them. Also, they're called pentacles instead of magic circles.
 * The references to Dante's Divine Comedy are both obvious and subtle. While Beatrice and Virgilia are rather straightforward, more easily missed is that the Stakes of Purgatory's relative ages directly correspond to the order of the terraces in 'Purgatorio' as Dante and Virgil ascend towards the meeting with Beatrice (Pride first, then Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and finally Lust.) Clair Vaux Bernard is also later introduced, whose name refers to Dante's third guide (Saint Bernardus, also known as Bernard of Clairvaux) in the Empyrean Heaven.
 * Interestingly, Clair's name can also be a reference to the wife of the real Willard Huntington Wright, who painted under the name Claire De Lisle, or a reference to Muriel St. Clair, a character from one of Wright's detective novels.
 * Gaap's clothes are said to be from "Devilish pretty". "Angelic pretty" is an extremely popular angelic lolita clothing brand.
 * Sakutaro was orginally going to be named "Sakura" by Maria, after the heroine of the popular TV show Card Master Sakura.
 * According to EP 6, Virgilia's full name is "Publius Virgilia Maro".
 * I was just brushing up on my Christie... And what should I find but this?