Umineko: When They Cry/Characters/1998 Humans

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Starting from the end of the third arc, Umineko introduces characters from the year 1998 which are observing the game board of Rokkenjima, 1986. These characters cannot interfere directly with the game board, but help put into perspective the effects of the events on the island on the future. Naturally, major spoilers for the third arc onward.

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Ange Ushiromiya

Ange Ushiromiya/Ange-Beatrice (Gretel)

Voiced by: Rina Sato

"Leave the jokes to your hairstyle."

Battler's half-sister. She was only six in 1986, and didn't go to Rokkenjima with the rest of her family due to flu. The one we see has grown up in the world that stems from the third arc. She started to learn some magic from Maria. After the third arc, she becomes Ange-Beatrice and in a deal with Bernkastel, agrees to travel back to 1986 Rokkenjima in order to change the events to make it so that everyone does make it back. She later on serves as Featherine's miko, which for the most part consists of reading Featherine the stories of Rokkenjima.

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• Abusive Substitute Parent: Eva, driven mad by grief for her son and husband, is neglectful, and emotionally and (it is implied) physically abusive. Well, kind of. It's mostly Bern's fault.
• Action Girl: Heck, she doesn't even need her magic to beat down a horde of Mooks in EP 3, and that's just her introduction.
• Ambition Is Evil: Specifically, her ambition to literally exchange her life for learning the cold, hard truth of Rokkenjima causes her to reject the happiness she had before her family's deaths as an illusion. At least at first.
  • Heel Realization
• Angst Coma: After denying the Stakes of Purgatory.
• Anti-Magic
• Badass: Plain and simple.
• Big No: Cuts off Bernkastel's declaration of "This is the truth--" regarding the play that was just shown to both Ange and Lion.
• Biting the Handkerchief: In one of the endings of Golden Fantasia.
• Break the Cutie
• Broken Bird
• Brother-Sister Incest: Some fans interpret her affection for Battler this way.
  • Flanderization: The manga.
• Car Cushion: During her escape from Okonogi's office.
• Character Name Alias: Gretel
• Chekhov's Gunman
• Deadpan Snarker
  • "Leave the jokes to your hairstyle."
• Deceased Parents Are the Best
  • Subverted to the maximum in EP 7.
• Driven to Suicide: She attempts to throw herself off a building at the end of EP3 to be with her dead parents and brother, but Bernkastel stops her. She jumps anyway, but survives instead.
• Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs: Ange's pink double-orbs which aren't just for show and supposedly hold her magical power which is, of course, just a delusion. They were given to her by Battler.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her entrance at end of EP3 ????, and later jumping out of the skyscraper and surviving or so it seems.
• Face Heel Turn: Has a brief one in EP8.
  • Evil Costume Switch: The Play Station 3 version gives her a dress fitting the name "Beatrice" during her little rampage.
• Fountain of Youth: She spends a good chunk of the eighth arc as her six-year-old self, symbolically representing her lack of ability to move on from the Rokkenjima murders.
• Future Badass: The cute little six-year old grows up to be Ange-Beatrice, the Witch of Resurrection.
• Girlish Pigtails: The variation mentioned on the page.
• Go Mad From the Revelation: Upon learning the one and only truth of the Rokkenjima incident.
  • Laughing Mad
• Gratuitous English: Have a nice dream. See You in Hell.
• Greek Chorus: With Featherine in EP6.
• Heroic Sacrifice: As a last-ditch effort to snap Battler out of the funk caused by him finding out that Asumu isn't his mother in EP4.
  • Go Out with a Smile
• Heroic BSOD: In EP7 when she finds out that, according to Bernkastel, her parents are heartless, greedy murderers, her mother doesn't care about her and only saw her as a way to keep Rudolf in line and also that Eva, who she had despised for twelve years because of the neglect and abuse she was put through, only acted cruelly to keep her from finding out this truth.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Ange really seems to hang out with the wrong crowd. First Bern and then Featherine. Not to mention, apparently Amakusa. And according to EP7, even her own parents. She also terribly misjudged Eva, it would seem. Finally in EP8, she teams up with all the established metaworld villains, if only to fulfill her own needs. Needless to say, she is wary of them this time around.
• Ill Girl: When she was younger.
• Interrupted Suicide: Her first meeting with Bern.
• Kick Chick: Ange almost exclusively uses kicks on Ougon Musoukyouku, somewhat justified in that her hands are occupied with Maria's diary, which doesn't really makes a good weapon.
• Kuudere
• Lonely Rich Kid
• Long-Lost Relative: Although The Reveal is suitably shocking to Battler, the audience knows it from the outset.
• Memento MacGuffin: Her barrettes, which were a prize Battler won for her.
• Mysterious Protector: An oddball female, non-romantic example.
• Off to Boarding School
  • Boarding School of Horrors
• Orphan's Ordeal
• Parental Abandonment
• Perpetual Frowner
  • When She Smiles: Noted by Amakusa in the sixth arc.
• Plot Coupon: The key Battler gives her in the eighth arc.
• Psychic Powers: Ange communicated with pre-Rokkenjima Maria through Maria's diary.
• Redemption Quest: Ange eventually decides that this is her purpose for going back to Rokkenjima.
• Replacement Goldfish: It seems that Eva to a certain extent tried to use Ange as a replacement for George, but when Ange couldn't measure up, she got hit with Eva's frustration from that.
  • Not true. From the beginning, Eva acknowledged that she couldn't be a replacement for Ange's parents to her anymore than Ange could be a replacement for George, but that they should try to be happy regardless. And then Bernkastel came into the picture...
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In EP8, she pulls a Face Heel Turn and nearly destroys the Golden Land that Battler and Beatrice created together in order to obtain the truth. However, she eventually realizes the damage she is causing by throwing away her only chance at happiness, and teams up with Battler and Lambdadelta to keep Bernkastel from completing that damage.
• Significant Anagram: In the hidden Tea Party of Episode 8, decades later, she becomes a famous fantasy author, "Yukari Kotobuki" (寿 ゆかり). Considering "Yukari" can also be spelled as 縁, if you do that and switch it around with 寿, you get "Ange" (縁寿).
• Spell My Name with an "S": Ange, Anje, Anju, Enje, Enjye, it's all been seen. In addition, the translators had a debate on how to spell her alias "Yukari Kotobuki", debating on whether to preserve the wordplay in the original Japanese in the translation or keep it as it is without an explanation.
• Strange Girl: Considered this way by her class.
• Summon Magic: Ange can summon the 7 stakes and Sakutarou to fight for her on Ougon Musoukyouku.
• Survivor Guilt
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
• The Watcher: Featherine delays Ange's arrival on Rokkenjima (and eventual real-world death) so that she could observe Battler's game and read it to her.
• Time Travel
• Try and Follow: Ange appears to have a penchant for this. She does it on at least two separate occasions, although on the first one, she really was, initially, Driven to Suicide.
• Unexplained Recovery: Three times, as a matter of fact.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Bernkastel in EP4 and EP8.
• 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.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Played for laughs (hopefully) in her and Virgilia's ending in Ougon Musou Kyoku CROSS where she gets really excited about a Battler/Ronove doujinshi...
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As of EP6, a large conspiracy has been revealed that places Ange in the middle of this: Okonogi is working for the main Sumadera family and had been tasked to eliminate Kasumi and her branch, and hired Amakusa for this job specifically. Ange was to only be protected until Kasumi could be brought out into the open and eliminated. Amakusa killed everyone present when Ange went to Rokkenjima, killing Ange last as she had been regarded as a liability if she were to live any longer.
  • Even in the meta-world, she gets this.

Bernkastel: Go back to being scrap meat.

• Zettai Ryouiki

Juza Amakusa

Voiced by Koji Yusa

Ange's bodyguard in 1998. He was assigned to guard Ange by Eva, but was later fired because he was flirting with her. He is apparently blacklisted in France.

In Episode 6, he apparently betrays Ange. It seems that Ange was a "liability" and he doesn't really care about what happens to her. The only order given to him was to dispose of Kasumi.

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• Badass Long Hair
• Bishounen
• Bodyguard Betrayal
• Chivalrous Pervert: He was initially fired by Eva because even though he was instructed not to talk to Ange, he not just talked, but tried to flirt with her.
• Creepy Cool Crosses: He wears one conspicuously as a fastener for his coat. There are also some on the soles of his boots in the anime design.
• Drives Like Crazy: In his defense, it was in a Chase Scene.
• Expy: Some Epileptic Trees have popped up that he's supposed to be a redoing of one of the Yamainu named Hibari 13 (An odd one, as in the game, he was a character without a sprite), due to his name, which is made with the kanji for "Thirteen."
  • Heck, Hibari13's appearance has been confirmed in Matsuribayashi-hen Manga volume 7. And guess who....
• Hot-Blooded: According to his character notes.
• Koji Yusa
• Leitmotif: Monochrome Clock
  • Left the Background Music On
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy
• Noodle Incident: Whatever got him banned from France.
• Peek-a-Bangs
• Persona Non Grata: According to Ange, if he's caught back in France, he'll be arrested.
• Private Military Contractors: Supposedly, his job before Okonogi hired him was training Blackwater troops.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy

Kasumi Sumadera

Voiced by: Atsuko Tanaka (anime), Sumi Shimamoto (Play Station 3)

Kyrie's younger sister. She was forced to marry Kyrie's previous fiancee when Kyrie ran away and married Rudolf, so Kasumi has never forgiven Kyrie for it. After Kyrie dies, Kasumi takes out her frustrations on Ange, since she's Kyrie's daughter.

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• Arranged Marriage
• Atsuko Tanaka: Anime only. Also voices Kyrie.
• Axe Crazy
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Kyrie's Abel.
• Evil Aunt
• The Other Darrin
• Sins of Our Fathers: Mercilessly beats up Ange due to a grudge over how Kyrie treated her.
• Stepford Smiler: Type C.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Fourth arc
• Unusual Euphemism: If she says she wants to make you some matcha, then (a.) she does not mean that literally, and (b) you might want to run in the other direction.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Well she definitely looks the part...but you know the rest by now.

Tetsuro Okonogi

Voiced by: Jurota Kosugi (anime), Ken Narita (Play Station 3)

An old business partner of Hideyoshi's. After the Rokkenjima incident, he was one of the few people Eva still trusted (although the term "trust" is being generous). After she died, he was put in charge of her company until Ange could take the reigns on her own. Ange approaches him in order to learn more about Eva, whom he says he does not think is the Rokkenjima murderer. He hired Amakusa, who was indebted to him for undisclosed reasons, to serve as Ange's bodyguard and protect her from the Sumadera family.

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• Expy: Of the other Okonogi from Higurashi.
  • Homage/Mythology Gag
• The Other Darrin: Odd considering his first voice actor from the anime voiced Okonogi from Higurashi
  • That's because in the Play Station 2 version of Higurashi (which came out before Higurashi Kai's anime version), Okonogi was voiced by Ken Narita, but the anime used Jurota Kosugi. As a result, a strange situation occured where Kosugi voiced Okonogi in animated productions, while Narita voiced Okonogi in all game productions.
• Pointy Ears: For some reason.
• You Owe Me: Okonogi is evidently pretty good at this. It's part of the reason Amakusa is rehired to help Ange, and Amakusa speculates that the reason for his being hired for this was in order for Okonogi to later be able to get some favors from Ange.
  • Also supports the idea that he is the same Okonogi from the Hinamizawa incident and Amakusa was one of the men that worked for him.

Professor Otsuki

Voiced by: Takayuki Kondo

A college professor who is a member of the Rokkenjima Witch Hunt, a group of occult enthusiasts who attempt to look at the Rokkenjima murders from an occult perspective. Ange interviews him in order to learn more about the Rokkenjima incident.

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• Gentleman and a Scholar
• Mr. Exposition
• Occult Detective
• Shout-Out: His group, the Witch Hunt, is a shout out to the group of fansubbers who translate the VN series into English.

Masayuki Nanjo

Voiced by: Akihiko Ishizumi

Doctor Nanjo's son. A rather reclusive person who has tried to move on with his life after the Rokkenjima incident, but who has had trouble doing that thanks to a badgering news media that he believes has dragged his father's reputation through the dirt. He had a daughter, but she was terminally ill and died at a young age. It's from him that Ange learns about the mysterious letters that were sent to surviving relatives of the Rokkenjima victims.

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• The Caretaker: To his daughter while she was still alive.
• Dead Little Sister: His daughter.
• Paparazzi: Is particularly angry with them (similar to Eva)

Sabakichi Kumasawa

Voiced by: Hideyuki Umezu

Chiyo Kumasawa's son. He is a fisherman who fishes off the coast of Niijima. He is another one of the people Ange talks to in order to try to understand what happened on Rokkenjima.

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• Big Fun
• Eyes Always Shut
• Meaningful Name: A "saba" is a type of mackerel.

Captain Kawabata

Voiced by: Daisuke Matsuoka

The captain of the speedboat that went to and from Rokkenjima. He is the one who takes Ange to Rokkenjima.

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• Ascended Extra: Kawabata actually appears since EP1, has the captain of the boat that takes the family to Rokkenjima, but it was not until EP4 that he got an actual portrait and a name. Subsequent appearances of him use his actual portrait.
• The Mole: Ange accuses of him being this in the Trick Ending. Then she shoots him.
• Punny Name: His name contains the kanji for "river".
• Redemption Quest: Seems to consider taking Ange to and from Rokkenjima as a type of this as atonement for what had happened there 12 years prior.
  • Unless you go with the trick ending, that is.