Umineko: When They Cry/Narm

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Whether it's the anime, VN, or manga, even Umineko can unfortunately have a few unintentionally hilarious moments.

  • One scene in Umineko no Naku Koro ni was, in the original game, incredibly tense. After all sorts of murders have taken place and the remaining characters have found and locked themselves into what they think is a safe haven, they receive another letter from "Beatrice" and, to protect the apparently innocent characters' safety, shove the four who were near the table where the letter appeared out the door. Great drama, right? Yeah, but the anime has a giant mackerel can staring you in the face next to the letter for most of the scene.
  • The demonic witch familiars who can kill without fail take the form of... girls and bunny-girls wearing fanserving outfits. What the?
  • During the anime, there was a note left by Beatrice to taunt the family. It could have been chilling, but the viewers were shown a downright hilarious picture of Beatrice laughing at them. All tension was ruined.
  • At the end of the second arc, Beatrice force-feeds Rosa her siblings' body parts to drive her to accept that Beatrice is a witch and that magic exists. This goes from Krauss' blood, to Eva's tongue, to a fish that was stuffed into the hollowed-out skin of Rudolf's face. After that, she reveals the last dish: Rosa's daughter Maria's decapitated head. The whole scene is horrifying. But then Maria's head starts dancing around on the plate and talking.... The Drama is killed off for good when Meta-Battler arrives and says he'd like to have Beatrice's "Cow-tits" in a sandwich; that, however, might have been intentional.
  • Then there's Maria's ridiculously exaggerated Creepy Child traits. In the original sound novels, her devotion to Beatrice and minimal reaction to her mother Rosa's death slowly build up to something scary. In the anime, the producers apparently decided that this would be too subtle. Far more slasher smiles are added than strictly necessary. They might have been scary if they were tuned down a bit; but when she grins like Medusa over everything? Every time she reacts in a weird way, it quickly becomes both stupid and hilarious.
  • At the end of the fourth arc, Battler confronts Beato with theories about how the murders could be committed. The first problem is his infamously silly explanation for the "human pinatas" in EP2. But the anime adds an extra layer of accidental hilarity shortly afterward: Battler's blue truth has been basically beating Beato around like a ragdoll, and when he gives explanations for all four arcs so far, a giant spike comes out of the ground and impales her. Unfortunately, the drama is killed because the bow on the neckline of her Pimped-Out Dress is pinned neatly on the end of the spike.
    • Also at the end of the fourth arc in the anime comes Ange's death, which could've been the moving scene it was originally intended to be... had the director not chosen to focus on blood running down her thighs. Others noticed the implications.
  • The narm moments aren't exclusive to the anime. Many scenes where characters are killed off and where they find bodies are corny as hell in the Visual Novel as well.

BEATORIIICEEEEE!!!

  • The anime's ending theme is a textbook case of drama ruined by Engrish. It starts out with ominous chanting and foreboding lyrics. Then Kinzo starts laughing, which damages the drama but doesn't break it. But then comes Mugihito's strained and awkward Engrish, crooning lines like "OH DESIRE", "OH MY PRAYER", and "SACRIFICE SHEEP TO A GOD". You can't help laughing at that.
  • In the fourth arc of the anime, George and Jessica are each facing their respective tests to see if they're worthy to be the family head. They both challenge the demons/furniture/whatever that are administering their tests while they are being teleported around with some sort of black hole things. In the end, the two are teleported to a point where their attacks would hit each other, but Jessica punches through George. As if that wasn't over the top, George's kick rips off half of Jessica's face.
    • The amount of focus on the chests of the female cast in the first arc of the anime during serious scenes, such as death scenes.
  • Even the manga can fall victim to this, with its...interesting depictions of Beatrice's facial expressions.
  • This troper can hardly take the VN's character designs seriously, especially compared to the anime.
    • Funny, it was actually the other way around for me.
    • As someone who came to the anime first, I think I can safely say, "The fuck?" That kind of character design in the VN harkens back to Lupin III or something, only... weirder.
  • In The Fourth arc of the VN, as Rosa admits she hates Maria: "I hate you, loathe you...!!! And until now, I've never really loved you even once!!! Whhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!" Way to ruin one of the most intense moments of the entire series.
    • Actually, any time crying is written out has a strong chance of being this. As early as the first arc. Natsuhi is getting a cruel verbal smackdown from Eva, and then "Waaa-AAAAAAA-aa-AAAAAA-h". Sigh.
    • Similarly, the huge Tear Jerker of a scene where Ange breaks down and denies the Stakes, Witch!Maria and Sakutaro, killing them as a side effect is ruined in the manga when her "closes friend" Mammon's Famous Last Words are "Your first and last FRIEEEEEEND!". What kills it is the extremely long "frieeeeeeeeeend!"; when the scalators have to break it into paragraphs due to how exaggerated it is, you know it's not gonna work as dramatically as it should have.
  • I may be alone, but during some of the more "horrific" scenes of the anime, the expressions of the dead and/or horrified characters were just so exaggerated that I couldn't help laughing.
    • No, you're not alone. It may not be as ridiculous as Higurashi, but it's still funny as Hell.
  • Witch Hunt, I will forever be grateful for your superb Fan Translation of the sound novels, but did you have to refer to the theoretical construct within which Schrödinger's Cat resides as a "cat box"? Schrodinger's cat box - completely eliminates odors, because you don't know whether you have to clean it until you open it! It's a testament to the power of Ryukishi's writing that such an incongruous phrase doesn't kill all drama every time it crops up.
  • This troper found Rosa's reaction to Maria making Sakutaro 'talk' hilarious... it looks like she's having a seizure.
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