Backlog Dialogues

It's time once more to let our theater kid energy flow, because the Episode 5 Tea Parties are too important to cut anything. This one has it all - a defeated hero rising to claim victory, discussions on the relationship of trust between an author and a reader, and the most epic yap battle of mystery yet. We'll discuss it all next week in the godcast!

After Hideyoshi is murdered, Erika declares an early checkmate on Natsuhi and initiates a trial! The first part of the End of the Golden Witch finale contains a full court proceeding and lots and lots of trauma. It's the beginning of the end, so buckle in!

Oh shit the murders are still happening what the fuck! Battler wakes up to find everyone else in the cousin room dead, but that's the least of Natsuhi's worries as she learns Genji was also murdered and Krauss was kidnapped! As the rest of the family forces their way in to Kinzo's empty study, Erika turns to divine knowledge in the form of a small girl personifying the rules of Detective Fiction t...

Furudo Erika and Battler have solved the Epitaph! As they discover the hidden gold, Battler learns just how awful Erika's personality is as she describes herself as something that we are not keen to repeat in polite company. But strange things are still afoot on the island, as Natsuhi finds herself cornered both by the relatives trying to gain access to Kinzo now that Battler is the new head, and...

Lambdadelta's game reaches October 4th, 1986, and what starts as a fairly normal game is swiftly diverted when Bernkastel drops a completely new piece on to the board - Furudo Erika, her arrogant jerk Detectivesona! And if that's not strange enough, Natsuhi is getting unusual phone calls from a young man claiming to be a child she murdered 19 years ago! As Battler can do nothing but observe, the p...

We're back, and it's time to start unraveling this big mystery by working from the one answer we have - Kinzo is already dead and Natsuhi and Krauss are trying to hide it! Unfortunately, Beatrice is not able to game master, having become a silent captive of Bernkastel and Lambdadelta's treachery. What can we learn from this new game that Ronove describes as without love? And who the heck was that...

We're bringing a second minilog to you this week, because before we go in to the part of Umineko focused on rolling out answers to the mystery, we wanted to have some fun discussing Rian Johnson's take on Cozy Mysteries, the Benoit Blanc Trilogy! (Netflix calls it the Knives Out Trilogy but that's silly, only one movie is called Knives Out.) We talk about the themes and structures of three very pr...

Our final minilog of the season is John's favorite manga and the second minilog covering a Satoshi Mizukami work, Spirit Circle! We go in to this short but poignant, melancholy, and ultimately optimistic work about spirits locked in a perpetual battle through reincarnation. Fuuta just wants to get to know Kouko, the cute new girl in his class, but Kouko hates him due to the actions of his spirit s...

We've reached the end of another tale, so it's time for more TIPS, Adaptation Discussion, and special spoiler discussions! We make sense of where we go from here, and also John celebrates finally being free of the hell that is watching When They Cry anime!

At last, we have reached the end of the games. Of the Questions. At long last, in a fierce storm of red and blue, Fantasy and Mystery clash. Only one can win. But what fate awaits the one that began this tragic tale? The end is here. But the story is just beginning. Welcome to Rokkenjima. Do you have an answer yet?

It's time for part two of the Question Arc finale, with the emotional resolution of the story of Ushiromiya Ange! In 1998, Ange arrives at Rokkenjima, where she confronts the Black Witch that creates the cycle of hatred consuming the world. Then, she heads to the Golden Land to start the game back up and return Sakutaro to Maria. But what will she sacrifice to see this story reach its conclusion?

It's time for the action packed first part of the finale of the question arcs! The surviving humans mount a resistance against Beatrice, but will they be able to leverage their magic-like powers and the rules of narrative irony well enough to defeat the demons consuming the island? And what is with this test that Beatrice is putting the cousins through? And most importantly, is Battler even Battle...

Finally, FINALLY the game has begun, and it has begun with a bang! Kinzo reveals himself to the family conference and immediately things go off the rails. We also get to see just what Beatrice has been teaching Maria about coping with sadness, a glimpse of what Shannon and Kanon think about the golden land, and Ange being frustratingly vague about seeing something that spooks her! But why hasn't B...

It's time to get sad in two of the saddest chapters in all of Umineko! First, Ange kills her imaginary friends and everything that can possibly bring her joy in her high school life. Then, Rosa goes to unthinkable new lows in her treatment of Maria. It's time for another scene heavy episode, so get some tissues ready!

On the board, Kyrie proposes a stunning theory - Kinzo is already dead! But Battler is not able to fully capitalize on that, as Beatrice has changed her strategies and is refusing to use the red, meaning it's time to introduce a new rule! But enough about those losers, it's time for even more of Ange's sad life and how she views Maria! At least there are stuffed animals. Oh, and Lambdadelta wants...

It's almost time to start a new game, but before we can do any of that, we need to learn all about Ange! Her story is one of the most complex of any Ryukishi has written, taking place along a winding path through narrative time weaving between the space above the game board, her life at St Lucia Academy, and her life in 1998 after miraculously surviving her leap off a skyscraper. Let's try to make...

It's the belated Backlog Dialogues holiday minilog, covering Terry Pratchett's Hogfather novel. Our first but probably not last peek at the Discworld covers the time the titular jolly fat man got inhumed by a deranged assassin, and so Death has to step in to fill his job while Death's granddaughter Susan tries to figure out what happened to the Hogfather and why all these other innocuous gods keep...

God dammit we got got again! Join us as we discuss everything that happened on the last episode, as well as adaptations and our usual special black tea for those who have seen to the end.

It's time for a showdown as Battler and Beatrice face off against the demented witch EVA-Beatrice! Beatrice's noble turn and Battler's valiant deductions lead to a mind bending conclusion and some of the craziest turns yet! Wait, Beato, why are you making that face? And... who is that?

The rampage of the new Golden Witch Eva-Beatrice cannot be stopped! The childish and brutal witch becomes increasingly deranged as she loses all sense of what it means to respect life thanks to the endless magic. As Battler suspends the game to let Beato go on a journey of self discovery, massive battles break out which reveal hidden sides of characters and unleash terrifying new magic on to the b...

Schools out, it's party time! Now that we know how to deal with magic, it's time for everything to get crazier! Ushiromiya Eva solves the epitaph and becomes the new Golden Witch! It's just like in that one movie, you know, where a guy has to become Santa. It's legally binding! And it leads to some really violent stuff.

The First Twilight is here early, and Beatrice has turned her sights on the servants this time! Battler is increasingly flummoxed by the rapidly escalating scale and spectacle of the Golden Witch's magic, but finds an unlikely ally in another Witch, who takes on the name Virgilia. Now that Battler knows how to argue against magic, surely things will start to get more sane.

How many people are on Rokkenjima, really? This seemingly obvious and straightforward question leads us down a rather strange rabbit hole as Ushiromiya Rosa tells us a story about how she met Beatrice almost twenty years before the event of this story. Plus, we get to learn about Contrapositives thanks to Beatrice's favorite countermove to the Devil's Proof, Hempel's Raven!

A new game is about to begin, but before we do, we have to confront the cringe of our past! Beatrice, Eva, and Battler are all asked to think about their younger selves, and even talk to one in one case. Then, as the game begins, a demonic butler named Ronove pops in to let us know that things are only going to get wilder from here.

For our Minilog this week, we're covering a truly strange Weird Japanese Thing series, Migi and Dali! We follow the Titular Twins as they pretend to be the same person while investigating the death of their mother in a tale about revenge, forgiveness, individuality, and some extremely strange methods of child rearing. It's got everything you could want - strange maybe demon children, strange maybe...