# うみねこのなく頃に
warning:
I have been told that spoilers matter for this thing. I'm taking that semi-seriously; I saw a couple things about it in a review, but I do not know much right now.
don't read this file unless you have at least watched a video playlist of the game.
hmm... the kanji are way too hard to read on this screen. and none of this line is being read. I think I am looking at the english playlist first and coming back to the Japanese text for reference. the Japanese voice acting may be enough to put things into context.
we've got. a mansion.
the house doctor?
this conversation about Ushiromiya dying from alcohol feels... irrelevant. it's here to be interrupted isn't it
or maybe we're setting up a theme of denial.
> as though it melted the soul
they're playing a chess game each time. so, the theme is that this man's life is an antagonism? between the two players? but what are the sides?
Ushiromiya is gross about his control over the mansion. that's pretty funny. so... what does he want to do instead of write a will?
oh man he's pulling a Dinesh D'Souza. yeah, the mood is set here
not one thing to tell people or leave behind! - oh really. that must be the big thing he's wrong about
"I created everything" - this means something else. like... the entire world he lives in? who knows.
- no tomb, no coffin! those were the witch's terms!
Ushiromiya is annoyed at the butler for not understanding that the contract is actually contradictory with the concept of a will, entirely
it's possible I can guess some of this story having seen Touhou stuff and Deltarune but, no, there's definitely a lot of uncertainty left here, there are definitely going to be things for me to find that haven't been spoiled. I'm excited.
- show yourself to me, Beatrice, before I disappear to the demons
is Beatrice... the witch?
- Beatrice is hidden watching everything. wow, that's familiar
October 4th, 1986 - the first day
another ushiromiya bragging about starting from nothing
and a consistent pattern of them having odd names.
- Grandfather's own name is perfectly normal
- keep her away from the head household
- I have no dreams for the future
why is Maria's name spelled like it refers to reality somehow. the other names are kind of normal, spelled in arbitrary kanji. but this one is not.
## Legend of the Golden Witch
- the island wasn't on any map. only the Ushiromiya family came here
- maria frightened by missing torii and cloudy sky
- missing seagulls.
- the plane will fall over, the boat will fall over.
- the wheelbarrow fell over.
it took me a bit to fully catch this. this is a weird word. it can mean to fall off or to crumble inward depending on what it's used for. I guess you could compare it to the English phrase "fall in": you'd say that at the railing of a boat, although you'd say it about the ocean rather than the boat.
Battler picks up the bags before the servant, wanting to be normal. or at least as normal as capitalists are, anyway — there has been ample setup here that George's uncle building up a corporation is what the main characters consider normal. there is some very evident subtext in this first stretch of the story that it might be based on the concept of the aristocracy vanishing or fading into obscurity and giving way to capitalism, but making that weirdly literal. which I love; fiction is great for its ability to create surreal scenarios.
- grandpa still has three months.
- shattered glass moment.
ok I really do not understand the Battler and breasts thing. it doesn't even really make sense as a character trait. when the characters were going on saying dumb things about men and women at the beginning... okay. it's like, you have to set up what the characters think is normal, even if it's a little concerning, even if it's one of those moments of 'are straight people okay?'. when the characters establish that that's what their normal is like, the character designs being rather stylized and having these conspicuous breast shapes to where the silhouettes look a bit weird just feels like it embodies the setting's culture, even if that culture is tacky. if there's the tiniest bit of irony in it, it flies. I really could have overlooked all of it until this moment where it didn't even make sense. that said...
> we are furniture
- Battler questions the deep subservience of the servants and implicitly raises question of whether they're real or actually fabricated
is... ralsei a maid joke, like, actually?
