>>198
Well, I'm sure others can explain better than I can, and I imagine they will, but what I recall is that Yasu is the answer regardless of hindrances. Blame Ryu etc.

It falls back on the letters in the bottles. EP1 and 2 were literally written by Yasu, and the others were written with the idea of Shkanon in mind or otherwise a completely different culprit instead. We know the results of the incident(Eva survives, buildings on island destroyed, etc) but can only make guesses based on those, which is what the EP7 teaparty was; a guess.
Nothing in the theory confirms Kyrie and Rudolf being the actual culprits since Bern's red was cut off and could mean anything. It was just a theory that fits with the results and could seem true only if we ignore all the characterization from previous tales, and assuming the first two were written by Yasu then we know they are probably close to what those people really acted like. So yeah a lot of the 'fanbase' did stop thinking, which isn't surprising since quite a few didn't really bother and just enjoyed the 'story'.

Anyway, one reason people accept Shkanon quickly is because has been a theory since EP2 was released. Another is simply because despite the flaws it fits with all the chapters and is quite explicitly 'hinted' throughout chiru.

Recently the skype chat actually addressed the Erika portion that I believe you are referring to so I'll copy paste some things said during that (Name censored in the off chance they don't want me quoting them).:

-

Kinjo: the EP5 thing with shannon and kanon
X: Oh yes
X: That part IS bullshit
X: Erika was in that scene, she should have access to her own independent knowledge of what she saw.
Ozaki: I think I recall that scene
Ozaki: didn't they specifically not mention them as two separate people
Ozaki: so kanon and shannon were there but erika never addressed them

X: In ep5, Battler narrates the scene and outright describes Shannon and Kanon as both being present.
X: The assumption is that since Battler's POV is unreliable then that can happen, the problem is that Erika was also present.
X: So even if Battler's POV is unreliable, Erika ought to be able to say "What did *I* see?"
X: So she either chooses not to (which is bull) or can't (which is also bull)
Ozaki: I think the scene doesn't refer to them
Ozaki: it shows them on screen but erika never actually does anything to say they are two people there
Ozaki: but I could be wrong

X: Erika isn't narrating the ep5 parlor gathering, Battler is
X: So Battler can say anyone he wants was there
Ozaki: Oh I get what you mean now
X: But the point is Erika was in the room.
X: So Erika should be able to go "What'd I see?" and be told, objectively, exactly what she saw.
Voyager: she's not very attentive

X: And if she has to ASK to know what she herself saw, then the entire detective thing is bullshit.
Ozaki: seems like an RP game
Ozaki: Actually, I guess you could argue that it really was an RP game. Since she was reading it like a game from the meta perspective she just took it as the truth and simply missed it, but in truth its probably just ryu giving her a reason not to solve the mystery
X: Erika is magically as competent as the plot requires until it needs her to be dumb again.
Ozaki: basically yeah

-

So basically its something Ryu tried to slip by with convoluted logic. Yasu may or may not be the culprit, but was definitely the "solution". A murder might not have even happened. But it probably did, we only know the results and the theories.

Edit:
The manga, which Ryu has a direct hand in, has been adding stuff the VN didn't have in it. So here are some other screenshots in case you are interested.
http://37.media.tumblr.com/bfaa275e63980d875ab1b60fbd3efe47/tumblr_n4hh87yj511qicpp7o1_1280.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/8bfbf7ba3dc641bafc19be0f4df3d8bd/tumblr_n4hh87yj511qicpp7o7_1280.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/4d1d33f769e8f093387e82e6141daa5f/tumblr_n4hhcneqOd1qicpp7o1_1280.jpg

Last edited at 14/04/23(Wed)22:59:35

>>199
First off, I'd like to say thank you for replying to this and answering my questions.

I see, that does explain the problem with Erika being in the room.

Even if I can't deny Shannon and Kanon being the same person like you said anyone else could have still done it.

I think someone like George had the most potential to kill everyone rather than the adults went "OMG MONEY KILL EVERYONE", after Will had a big chat in ep7 about not forgetting the "heart", the Whydunit so much and that most writers of mystery don't put much thought into(or something to that effect) it would kinda defeat the purpose of point that out.

So the manga has confirmed that Shkannon? I tried looking up on Google image search this picture I found after posting this topic, but had no luck, although it seems it was real and not fanart seeing as you post something that seems to show Yasu as Shannon EP 8's manga if I'm right? Thought it was a troll when I first saw the volume cover.

>>200
The ones I linked in particular just got scanned and put online less than 2-3 days ago, so its rather new. The one I posted came from an early chapter. Apparently the manga has been doing this for a while. Or as someone I know put it "the ep8 manga effectively screaming "THIS IS THE ANSWER OKAY" at everyone".

I found a loose translation for the pages on AS here:
(images) http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=5095358#post5095358
(translation) http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=5095800#post5095800

They have members who are closely following the manga, and they usually translate specifically for their discussion so they seem to be up to date. Most fans don't know the manga has been changing things up, at least I didn't until a month or so ago.
Actually now that I look at it, most manga hosting websites are more than 10 chapters behind the ones that have already been released in Japan. So that explains why these new changes are some what unknown.

Last edited at 14/04/24(Thu)08:11:22

"On that day, what happened on Rokkenjima?"

"...I've"

"this..."

"...somewhere..."

"I've told you over and over again, haven't I? There is no gamemaster."

This is all truth

"I won't accept this truth..."

"I won't accept it...!!"

Whether you accept it or not, the truth doesn't change!!

After all, this is the Single Truth, proven in reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeddd!! (from witch-hunt translation, it's the same line as in the VN)

>>206
>>207
I forgot about these reds, although it doesn't change what has already been said here.
Basically, since that scene is supposed to be Eva's book, then it can be considered Eva's single truth. This solution is the one shown in Ep7 tp, and had Kyrie doing actions that wouldn't make sense without a motive which is why it was disregarded before(such as acting in order to save Battler or something).

This suggests that since Eva was knocked out the whole time, practically half of the fragment could have made up by Bern, or rather Eva could have just thought the events had happened this way and resulted in her "Single Truth". The main point that allows this is that the reds are vague, they don't confirm anything more than the VNs did really.

>>209
All we know about what's in the diary is what's in the images, and none of the images show information that Eva wouldn't know. In fact, everything shown is something we know the tea party Eva saw, aside from Jessica's corpse, and it would make sense for her to have found that after killing Kyrie.

The first red is just Ange's recollection, so it's old information and doesn't prove what Ange is seeing is true if you believe Bern's later explanation. However, since Ange views the diary and the tea party as the same thing, and the rest of the red applies to the context of what Ange is reading, we know those parts of the tea party were true. That's new.

Not to say the rest is false. If Bern made it up, then I don't see how she wouldn't be the gamemaster, since her role would be identical to one; every GM mixes some truth with fiction. But she claims she isn't a gamemaster, and that there is no gamemaster. In retrospect, there's also less reason to believe the rest is Eva's imagination since the images from the diary we're shown contain none of it. If it's not her imagination, it could be false, and lots of peopled believed all of it to be false before the manga. However, some of the worst of what transpires is what Eva witnesses, so you don't to sneak lies in like that to make it bad. What makes her announce she wants to seal the truth in the catbox is what Kyrie says to her face-to-face.

Anyway, all we really know is that the diary is truth, and that Ange apparently sees no contradictions between it and the tea party. If you really wanted to you could say it contains hardly any more detail than the images and deny most of the tea party (it might say stuff like "I met Kyrie in the rose garden and then some stuff happened").

Also, when Eva regains consciousness it doesn't mention Beatrice's body/corpse.

>>198

I am not going to bother citing articles, interviews, the manga or what have you, as I am essentially a French Formalist: What you see is what you get. Instead, I will try my hardest to give you an adequate explanation of what happened.

You are correct, in a sense. People did stop thinking, and the interpretation that it is because of some insanity regarding different Game Masters in the meta-world is nonsensical, however, it is still very likely that Yasu is the culprit because of what is said of the culprit and her means in Our Confession. If you view that Our Confession is as much a part of Umineko as Game 1 or 8, as I do, a view which I will now explain, things should become more clear.

Here's an assumption for you: Umineko is a deconstruction of the mystery genre. More specifically, it is a deconstruction of the Golden Age of Mystery, which features ideas such as the detective proclaiming "A-ha! I have solved the mystery." Reader beware, you're in for a spoiler if you turn that page... and this is a feature of the mystery genre which is mentioned several times throughout Umineko. While we are left without a traditional "answer" in the main bulk of the game, Our Confession provides us an answer that works in every single game board: Yasu is the culprit, and she has the resources to hire accomplices.

I now pose you the following idea: What if Ryukishi decided that while the answer is best left unread (a warning given at the start of Our Confession,) given as this is a mystery, and not a fantasy, he was obligated to provide an answer anyway? Would he not take all possible precautions to separate this answer from the rest of the games? You have to go looking for Our Confession, it isn't just there for you to read, within the bookbinding of the rest of the game. In that sense, Umineko even deconstructs this idea of turning the page and reading the "answer" to solve the culprit.

To cut to the chase, I think the fact that Our Confession is deliberately segregated from the main story legitimizes the answer provided within; it is the "answer" that a person can expect to find within any standard detective novel. If you can buy into this idea, the better question to ask is "Why are other theories even necessary?" Why does it matter if Kanon and Shannon could not be in the same room? This theory can serve as a proper explanation 100% of the time! Truly, it lives up to its reputation as an insidious, gut-splattering work, if one is to read it with this interpretation.

However, if you want a more "in-context" answer to your question, the lines of thinking for why they are able to appear before Erika in Game 5, but refuse to later, should actually be as follows:
- The scenes where they do appear together are a work of fiction and falsehood; they are the Witch Side's attempt at obfuscating the truth from the reader.
- There is some other reason as to why they cannot/ refuse to appear together at the same time.

If you refuse to believe in Shkannon theory, then that latter option might be "Kanon and Shannon simply prefer to avoid each other, and every instance where they appeared to like one another was as fictional as the media's depiction of the Ushiromiya family." A more silly answer might be that Battler made an off-color remark about Shannon's boobs while Kanon was around, but not in earshot of Shannon, and when George turned around to ask him about it, he blamed Kanon, causing Shannon to dislike him. They may very well not even be "brother" and "sister" as they seem to view each other. Perhaps they hated each other. Who can say? There is simply no more evidence to support any such claim.

Lastly: While I do believe that it is very much possible that Our Confession is the be-all-end-all solution to Umineko, I am left so dissatisfied with the taste it leaves in my mouth, that I think it is a legitimate and noble pursuit for the reader to continue solving the mystery irrespective of its declarations, and I encourage you to as well. As another disclaimer, I too loathe the idea of Shkannon, for reasons I shall not delve into here; I have a terrible headache, and I'm sure my writing skills have suffered for it. As a parting note, I advise you never stop thinking, and more importantly, do not lose faith; the loss of faith necessitates that you will stop thinking. Perhaps you have already stopped, having drawn the line at the word "overthinking," and I am simply too late.

>I've been thinking for awhile now, that just because Kanon and Shannon couldn't be in the same room in episode 7, that doesn't mean that they're one and the same, if so then, how were they able to appear in front of Erika(who was the detective in episode 5?

Battler's name is actually Sento, he is the culprit and the killer. This is why Tohya is black battler's alternate costume in the fighting game. This is the first hint the game ever gives, Sento's name is read as Sento but use weird trickery and translations to give him the nickname Battler. The red text about battler not being the culprit is a red herring. Beatrice was going to be the culprit, but people solve the epitah before it has a chance to commmit the atrocity. Will says Battler has no motive, but he remembers his love for Shannon and see's the ring she has from george, this sets him off on a murderous rampage and his parents help because they want the money to themselve. Shannon helps because she loves battler. Genji helps because Kinzo was child fucker pedophile who abused his kids, and the kids abused their kids, like with Rosa and Maria.