Is the Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Anime Telling The Same Story As The Visual Novel?

While many anime fans are familiar with Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, its siblings series of visual novels, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, did not celebrate the same wild success in terms of its anime adaptation.

In short, the Umineko no Naku Koro Ni anime adaptation is notoriously bad.

So much so, that the story almost doesn’t make sense in the anime due to how many plot holes its left gaping in a story that is also left half-told. However, if the Umineko no Naku Koro Ni anime did intrigue you, there is a legitimately a great story to be enjoyed in visual novel or manga format.

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni – Visual Novel Versus Anime

The Umineko no Naku Koro Ni visual novel is separated into 8 chapters that are packaged in two visual novels – Umineko no Naku Koro Ni: Questions Arc and Umineko no Naku Koro Ni: Answers Arc (Also known as Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Chiru)

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Visual Novels include:

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Questions Arc

• Episode 1 – Legend of the Golden Witch
• Episode 2 – Turn of the Golden Witch
• Episode 3 – Banquet of the Golden Witch
• Episode 4 – Alliance of the Golden Witch

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Answers Arc

• Episode 5 – End of the Golden Witch
• Episode 6 – Dawn of the Golden Witch
• Episode 7 – Requiem of the Golden Witch
• Episode 8 – Twilight of the Golden Witch

The problem with the Umineko anime, fundamentally, is that it only adapts half the story. The Umineko anime adapts the Chapters 1-4 of the Answers arc and never got another series to do the Questions arc.

Furthermore, while the Umineko anime actually adapted Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch fairly well, it made increasingly significant changes in the adaptation of Episodes 2-4.

This means that you can’t actually go play the visual novels for Episode 5-8 to get the rest of the story because the story in the first four visual novels is so different from what the Umineko anime presented.

In short, if you want the full story for Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, you have to play the visual novels from the beginning, though the manga is also a very viable alternative.

Reading Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Manga Instead of the Visual Novels

While the visual novels of Umineko are universally considered the best experience for the story, the Umineko manga adaptation is actually a fairly good way to get a complete version of the story with significantly less reading than the visual novels makes you endure.

The biggest difference in the Umineko manga, aside from a few story changes from the visual novel story that don’t have huge consequences anyway, is that it tells the Umineko story in a more traditional form.

The Umineko manga essentially makes the story easier to understand and somewhat more linear whereas the Umineko visual novel presents the story like a puzzle to be put together over the course of your playthrough, not unlike Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni did.

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni manga series include:

• Episode 1 – Legend of the Golden Witch
• Episode 2 – Turn of the Golden Witch
• Episode 3 – Banquet of the Golden Witch
• Episode 4 – Alliance of the Golden Witch
• Episode 5 – End of the Golden Witch
• Episode 6 – Dawn of the Golden Witch
• Episode 7 – Requiem of the Golden Witch
• Episode 8 – Twilight of the Golden Witch

Umineko Manga Side Stories:

• Umineko Biyori – Cute slice of life 4-koma manga about Shannon befriending Beatrice.
• Umineko no Naku Utage ni: Tea Party of the Witches – 4-koma slice of life manga where Lambdadelta moves in with Battler and Beatrice.
• Umineko no Naku Koro ni Episode X – Higurashi no Naku Koro ni crossover where Hinamizawa merges with Rokkenjima.
• Umineko no Naku Koro ni Tsubasa – Various side stories. Sometimes comical, sometimes serious.
• Ougon Musoukyoku – Tie-in for the Golden Fantasia Umineko fighting game.
• Umineko no Naku Koro ni Shi: Forgery of the Purple Logic – An extra arc for Umineko where Beatrice plays yet another game with Battler.

How are Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Umineko no Naku Koro ni Connected?

Higurashi and Umineko are both visual novel series that were written by Ryukishi07. Higurashi was released first, and following its popularity, Umineko was released.

As they share a similar title, there are many who wonder how these two series are connected.

Umineko is not a sequel to Higurashi. It isn’t even set in the same world. However, both Higurashi and Umineko have supernatural aspects that transcend the physical world, and those are the real ties that these two series share.

Essentially, if you played the Higurashi visual novels, you will see tons of very small, very subtle hints hints about how it is connected to Umineko in the Umineko visual novels. However, if you played Umineko, since Higurashi was created first, you don’t get as many references to Higurashi and Umineko being connected UNLESS you watch the Higurashi Gou and Higurashi Sotsu anime.

Higurashi Gou and Higurashi Sotsu were anime-original sequels to the original Higurashi visual novel story oversaw by Ryukishi07. Those two series, particularly Sotsu, make more firm connections between Higurashi and Umineko.