Backlog Dialogues is a game and game-adjacent media discussion podcast focusing on long serialized narratives. The second series discussion is When They Cry
Reading the feed…
The first twilight has come once again, with all the moms, Maria, and even Battler found dead! Furudo Erika is on the case, but her movements are strange. She's refusing to take the detective proclamation, and is sowing suspicion among the family of the servants. Will Battler's sympathy for his opponent once more cause him trouble? And how will the love battle proceed?
It's time for yet another round of exploration of the moms of Umineko! Whether it's Eva's protectiveness, Kyrie's jealousy, Rosa's cynicism, or Natsuhi's pride, all are on display as they get in to crazy magic fights as part of Zepar and Furfur's Love Battle! Also as a bonus, we get a surprisingly sympathetic look at Erika's own sad past!
Much to Furudo Erika's chagrin, we're in the part of the buildup to the Rokkenjima incident that focuses on the relationships between people on the island, this time with a lot more focus on the servants and cousins. But why is George confessing some rather dark shit about himself? And why does the chick Beatrice exist in the first place? And why is nothing we've seen thus far as weird as the two love demons that have manifested and intend to turn this story in to a strange romantic game show? Once more, we shout - RYUKISHIIIIIIIII!
Okay we started off a little weird, but now that Battler's game is underway surely things will start to make sense. Wait, why are Shannon and Kanon getting confrontational with each other over their relationships with George and Jessica? Wait, why is Furudo Erika arguing about pointless crap with Maria? Where the fuck are you going with this, Ryukishi?
Battler's Game to prove he understand's Beatrice's truth is almost complete. Surely we'll get some answers now! Wait, why is there a wedding? Wait, why is Ange back? Wait, who the hell is Featherine? RYUKISHIIIIIIII!!!!!!
After an Umineko episode all about the relationship between the creator and the reader, what would be a better minilog than Zenshu, the 2025 anime that's all about misunderstood media and the power of love. Natsuko Hirose is a virtuoso animator, but she has never experienced love before and is struggling to bring it to the big screen as part of her first movie directing job! But bad clams contrive to isekai her to the world of her favorite movie, the depressing flop A Tale of Perishing, where she must awaken the power of animation to push back the void and fix the story!
Good to see you again, Child of Man. The story seems to have reached the point where the detective reveals the whole truth - and yet, instead of doing so, the truth is obscured from our eyes. From our vantage in the world of gods, let us consider the how and the why. It's time for the first godcast of the final season of When They Cry.
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 to try to corner the culprit once and for all...
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 the strange man that keeps calling her...
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 pieces start to move in unusual ways.
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 Rika-clone in the prologue?
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 progressively minded mysteries, what we learn about the detective that solves them, and so much more.
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 seven lifetimes ago! Can this Boy meets Girl story reach an outcome other than Girl kills Boy?
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 Battler?
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 Battler really done anything yet?
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 to make her a better offer than Bern! Fun times all around.
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 sense of it all! Let's also try to make sense of why the fuck Okonogi is here!
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 appearing. An immensely quotable and thoughtful adventure, just a few months late for the holiday season! Happy (Belated) Hogswatch, everyone!
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.
