The Witching Hour & A Half: Umineko Podcast Episode 1.1+1.2

Off Meta welcomes you to Rokkenjiima with our new Umineko read-along podcast! Each week, self professed Endless Witch/Golden Sorcerer Kyle J will guide first time readers Capelli and Bardic through the highly acclaimed murder mystery visual novel Umineko: When They Cry. Each week we will read about 3 hours of the visual novel and then discuss its plot, themes, and mysteries together with the Off Meta community. To join in on our discussion of this great story, join us in the Off Meta Discord Server and find the "OMineko Podcast" channel. There we will have threads broken out for each podcast episode so that you can have a spoiler free discussion at whatever point in the readthrough you happen to be at. Fun or interesting community theories might just wash ashore to our podcast in the "OM Message Bottle" segment the next week! You can follow along reading the visual novel at home by either purchasing the game on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/406550/Umineko_When_They_Cry__Question_Arcs/), installing the fan made installer Umineko Project (https://umineko-project.org/en/downloads/), or you can read along with the excellent "Umineko - Complete Playthrough (All English Arcs)" YouTube Playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdyU6Nd-103adhYebWb_yha3RNuadQ0Om). If you are using the Steam version, you can use the 07th-mod patcher (https://07th-mod.com/wiki/Umineko/Umineko-Getting-started/) to add the better sprites, voice acting, and improved screen layout that we used in our reading. It is highly recommended over the default version. For this first episode we decided to read a bit more than we plan to for future episodes so that we could jump into the meat of the story. If you are reading along with the visual novel, Its about 5 hours of reading, stopping on the line "Sleep peacefully, my most beloved witch, Beatrice." After which the clock advances from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Or if you are using the YouTube playlist, you just need to watch videos 1 through 6. In this first episode, Kyle J's microphone died on him, so his interactions with Bardic and Capelli have a bit lower audio quality than normal. Hopefully you all are still able to enjoy our discussions regardless. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:11:06 - Summary: Prologue 00:12:07 - Discussion: Prologue, Opening Cutscene 00:14:37 - Summary: Airport, Characters 00:15:43 - Discussion: Characters, Narration 00:24:57 - Summary: Boat 00:26:32 - Discussion: Battler's Maturity 00:31:44 - Summary: Rose Garden and Manor 00:33:31 - Discussion: The Servants, Perspectives, Omens, Genji and Kumasawa, One-Winged Eagle 00:41:35 - Summary and Discussion: Shannon and Battler 00:43:06 - Summary: Genji, The Portrait, The Dining Room 00:44:10 - Discussion: My Ringtone, Seating, Genji and Kumasawa 00:48:11 - Summary: Krauss, Kinzo's Slam Poetry 00:49:31 - Discussion: Maria and Jessica 00:51:05 - Summary and Discussion: Demon's Roulette and Kinzo 00:53:12 - Summary and Discussion: Full Cast, Top 3/Bottom 3 Characters 00:59:24 - Summary and Discussion: Ushiromiya Family History, Rokenjima, Luck vs Magic 01:01:17 - Summary: Lunch, Family Conference Begins, Krauss' Debt, Eva vs Natsuhi 01:04:01 - Discussion: Krauss 01:05:27 - Summary and Discussion: Natsuhi and Eva's History, Battler's Perspective 01:09:13 - Summary and Discussion: The Golden Witch Beatrice, the Gold 01:12:19 - Summary and Discussion: Krauss vs The Siblings 01:15:39 - Summary: The Witch's Epitaph 01:17:26 - Discussion: End of Reading, Epitaph 01:20:17 - Discussion: Mystery vs Fantasy 01:22:00 - Discussion: Theories 01:24:08 - Next Week's Reading, Outro