Xebek’s Blog

Less than 24 hours later and I’m already talking about the end of the first arc. Obviously this one didn’t work out for Battler and the others. They couldn’t even survive against the onslaught that they were faced with. One by one and sometimes in groups they fell and soon Beatrice won. It’s not often that I feel sorry for rich people, but in this case I did.

Impressions:

Battler was pretty impressive through this event. Even though some pretty incredible things were happening he managed to keep his stance intact at the end. He just could not accept that a witch was responsible for the killings and that humans couldn’t have committed the acts. Even at the end which I assumed was some kind of afterlife moment he would not change his view. Beatrice appearing shook him, but he would not accept her existence and role as the culprit in the killings.

I personally stand between Battler and Maria who was the witch supporter from the start. Now I do believe that humans could and probably are responsible for this. As of yet I haven’t seen Beatrice magically make weapons appear and kill people. Let’s face it people can do some pretty cruel things and magicians have fooled people for years into thinking something magical has been going on. I’m not saying every magician doesn’t have magical powers, just that there are some that just use tricks. There could be more than just the 18 people on that island. I mean it’s an island so I can’t believe they have every single access point under observation. Couldn’t people have been snuck onto the island and started picking people off according to the epitaph? Maybe a family that hated the Ushiromiya’s hired people to kill them? In terms of Kanon’s death couldn’t a trap have been set up to kill him? Now I’m not sure how it would be triggered, but it’s possible.

On the other hand I’m not saying the witches don’t exist here. Beatrice and Bernkastel do exist as far as I can tell. I’m also willing to say they have magical abilities. That doesn’t mean I think Beatrice actually killed everyone herself. We need to look for clues and think about this more deeply before we can make any certain opinions.

So right now I just don’t know what’s really going on. But considering this is the first arc I’m probably not supposed to know. We also got to meet two witches and hear about a third. It’ll probably be important to recap their abilities at this stage. Beatrice was called the Endless Witch who can kill an individual endlessly. I’m assuming this means she can kill a person and bring them back to kill them again since it’s hard to kill someone that’s dead. Bernkastel has the power to create a miracle without fail long as the probability isn’t zero. Finally the third mentioned witch who was Lambdadelta with the ability to kill an individual without fail. Luckily for the viewers Bernkastel has taken an interest in this and will lend her powers. So if there is a chance for the group to survive and win she can make a miracle happen.

It should be interesting to see how the next arc unfolds. Witches, people, and murder will once again come together for hopefully a better result.

Higurashi Connection:

Now anyone that hasn’t followed Higurashi should just step away at this point and go watch the series. I felt there were enough connections to talk about at this point. If you haven’t seen the entire show then you can consider this post complete.
There was the minor one with Higurashi appearing on the t.v. that Maria was watching a couple times during the first arc. But that’s less a serious connection than something for fans to notice.

The arrival of Bern however does allow some discussion. Rika did mention the witch of Bernkastel during the Rei OVA. Unless the appearance and name is a coincidence we can say that Furude Rika and Bernkastel are connected. Now I know there is a known relationship, but only following the anime my knowledge of their connection is much more limited.

The powers of Bernkastel and Lambdadelta really do hint toward the Higurashi situation. I mean the powers to kill an individual without fail against the powers to create a miracle if the possibility is above zero. That matchup would normally lead toward the killer winning most of the time since without fail would hit the miracle power down to zero. Considering Bern called it an endurance contest this really does seem to link to Higurashi. I mean Rika was in a long battle against her death which always happened no matter what she did. Miracles definitely played a role in that as well.

Anyways I just had those thoughts while watching and thought I’d mention them.