Umineko Episode 8: Twilight of the Golden Witch is easily one of the greatest story arcs I've ever experienced. It is now my second favorite arc in anything after Chimera Ant and my absolute favorite final arc. There's so much to talk about when it comes to this arc-

but before I dig into any of that, I'd just like to warn you of spoilers. If you're for some reason reading this thread even though you haven't read the entirety of Umineko, STOP NOW, cause I will SPOIL EVERYTHING.

Alright, let's first of all dig into Ange and how her character arc encapsulates the message of the entire series. I think there's a MAL review of this episode that says that it is really all about growing up without losing your magic,

and I think that's a beautiful way to describe this episode and the journey that Ange goes through. Ange learns throughout this arc that hunting down the truth at all costs isn't worth it, not only because the truth was so horrible, she would've just been better off not knowing,

but also because there's no point to it. It won't bring her family back, it won't satisfy her and it won't bring her happiness. But, she's also learned from Sayo and Maria's mistakes, to not run away from the reality of the situation completely and not do anything about it,

but to accept the truth, overcome it, and live on. There's not just one truth, there are many truths from many different perspectives. Yes, Kinzo did awful, disgusting things, but he also deeply regretted them later in life, and wanted nothing more than to make amends with Sayo,

and Ange has some good memories of him as well. Yes, Eva was very unfair to George and tried to force him to live out her dreams, yes, Rosa was abusive to Maria, and yes Kyrie and Rudolf etc.

The point is not to let only the bad parts of her family define their entire being. They were all far more and far better people than they were that day. While they've all committed heavy sins, the love and compassion they felt to each other is no less real because of it.

Eva suffered from the heavy sexism from her family, and then proving herself by forcing George to live out the dream she never could, she imposes a very similar sort of upbringing onto him. Rosa was physically abused doing her childhood, so she does the same thing to Maria

and the cycle of abuse only continues. They do become aware of it in the end, and forgive each other and try to better themselves, though it's too late at that point but oh well, even if everything isn't neatly resolved, you can't fix everything,

but accepting and forgiving is a great start. Everyone involved were flawed, and all of their collective sins brought forth the tragedy, not just one person is the true culprit. Ange accepts the tragedy, she accepts that her family is dead and will never come back,

she understands why they did what they did, but doesn't let the media manipulate her, she remembers the good memories she has as well and starts over, escaping the cycle of abuse and lives a happy life, helping other children keep on to their magic at that orphanage she started.

This is where the whole without love the truth cannot be seen quote comes in. Of course in the most obvious sense that if you approach something with love, with empathy and trust in the goodness of a person, the situation will most likely be better than without love.

This can be seen with Maria for example. From a perspective without love, Maria had to depend on her imaginary friends to even be able to deal with reality, as she had no actually real friends, she was constantly left home alone and her mother verbally and physically abused her.

But, from a perspective with love, Maria was perfectly happy living her life with her mother and imaginary friends. In fact, Rosa's abusive side was just one side of her mother according to Maria, and there were so many other positive aspects to her as well, in fact,

most of Maria's happiest memories involve her mother, who will always be the most important person for her. This all ties back into the catbox, either perspective can't be proven as long as the box is closed, but that's the thing, it's a perspective, you get to choose.

Ofc, Maria's way of living wasn't perfectly healthy, as she did veer too much into escapism and ran away from reality, which the story does criticize, but a healthy balance, growing up and actually facing reality and overcoming the problems without losing that magic,

while still trying to see things with love, is what Ange realized, and what Maria never got the chance to before it was too late. Ofc, Erika is the antithesis to this message, and in the trick ending, this is what Ange becomes, she sees things without love,

becomes obsessed with the truth and becomes very cynical and doesn't care about the emotional health of the people involved as long as it means she can reveal the truth.

This whole without love it cannot be seen also works thematically on a meta level. In the fight of the Golden Land, the goats represent the readers without heart, who see the tale as just a normal mystery, and who doesn't care about respecting the dead or about Ange's feelings

and just want to shove the truth in people's faces and won't accept any other perspective than their own. I talk about this meta aspect to the theme in my EP 7 thread so I won't go into that now.

But I will say that Erika is amazing in EP 8 as well, and her with a pirate hat is the best thing ever.

Next I want to talk about Beatrice. Her character peaked in this episode as well. She's my favorite character in Umineko and I resonate very strongly with her. Confessions did her good, her being bullied by the servants, her promise with Battler, her body complex issues,

her entire life having been a lie, solving the epitaph etc. Reading the darkest parts of her life in such great detail was heartbreaking, but God, that was one of the best character studies ever. And it makes Cage of Obligations hit so much harder.

Her speech to Ange is literally the most emotionally uplifting speech I've ever heard, and the fact that we know the context behind it makes it so emotional. I didn't expect it to, but the magic ending elevated her character even further.

Her jumping into the sea, Battler's soul embracing her, basically telling her that he does completely accept her, won't ever forget here and they'll be together forever. I cried more than I expected to.

And that ties back into how they arrived in the meta world, Purgatory, and how their games began, now where Battler with amnesia in the meta world serve as a great parallel to chick Beato in EP 6,

and Beato plays the games with him to make him remember. It's a really beautiful way to tie it all together. The ending to the arc too, wow. Few moments can match how hard I cried during that. My favorite ending to any story ever.

Now, I do quickly want to talk about the differences between the manga and VN. The VN version of EP 8 wouldn't be a 10, not even a 9.5. The manga does pretty much everything better for me. Battler's way of communicating his message to Ange was more criticized in the manga

and ended up more healthy than in the VN, and the overall message of the story was better explained and explored with more nuance. Halloween Party was better with the hide and seek thing, quiz was a fun celebration of the mindgames, but it was tiring and not that thematically

relevant, the manga does it way better and execute the emotional moments so much better too. Actually exploring the truth in detail instead of leaving it vague made it much more thematically interesting and more emotionally powerful, and the great additions,

from the big stuff like Confessions and Cage to the small stuff like Ange visiting her family's grave at the end just elevated it even further. That on top of it the manga already having some of the most creative and visually experimental artwork and paneling ever?

Yeah, one of the easiest 10/10s ever, I knew it was as soon as I finished the manga. Stuff I haven't mentioned yet? Dlanor and Will team-up was the best thing ever, Eva's character got a ton of further amazing layers in this episode,

Ange's witch costumes in the manga and VN are both great, love the two color spreads, Bern's game was awesome so solve and made me feel like my skills have grown so much alongside Battler's lol, Rosa vs Erika was sick, Battler's punch was awesome, Lambda > Bern,

not really sure what Ikuko is, Featherine is OP as fuck, love how there are many parallels throughout Beato's games and actual reality which is a way of Beato's to make Battler remember the stuff that happened to him so she can get the old him back,

Lastendconductor and Ricordando is peak music, and yeah. I think that is all.

Overall, my second favorite arc in anything, and launched Umineko into my top 4. The greatest love story ever told, a story about mystery, a story about stories. Peak fiction.

Overall series spoiler free thread coming tomorrow.