Overall Rating 9.5 - Near Masterpiece (Code Geass already has Masterpiece)
I whole heartedly recommend if you are smart enough to understand it.
This is the most '7-dimensional chess' type of show out there. Can also be described with 2deep4u and similar expressions.
Ryukishi07 is the most successful IRL troll. Almost a testament of true might of Anon of /b.
<If you understand what is going on, you laugh with the witches.> - ThorLL
"Black tea is best enjoyed with your fellow monsters." May be that is why I am here.
I, as a sorcerer of theatergoing, demand blood. In my other capacities I demand other things.
I will review and analyze the anime together with visual novels without making comparison between two.
This is a very unconventional show, that makes you not only think outside of the box, but even outside of the box in which the original box is located. If such stretches of intellect are too hard for you, you should probably turn back now while you still can, before I started turning chessboard around and twisting it allover the place.
For the rest of you, you are in for a rare treat. You will hardly find anything this deep elsewhere, even if you search for it eternally like Bern for the fragments.
On the surface it is a mystery novel, just like Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. However this one does not have a detective who will give you a straightforward answer of who killed them. There are just hits, many. However you have to figure it out yourself.
I will rule out the so called ShKanonTrice theory from VN Ep7 since it is an obvious lie. Even short story about maid at the very beginning of episode 7 hints to that conclusion. Decalogue of Knox and 20 wedges also forbid the culprit to be a servant.
The tea party at the end of ep 7 tells you what really happened.
Despite many fans writing plenty of their own theories on culprit, as far as I seen and remember none of them manage to arrive to this rather obvious answer: Eva.
You can figure it out right after the first twilight in the first episode. After 6 people were just killed most of those who remained are concerned about safety as they try to pull out guns to defend themselves. Even if you are seasoned killer you would be concerned if something like 6 simultaneous murders happened on the cut-off island with just 18 people on it.
There was just one person who was more concerned with not being blamed for the whole thing then with her own safety. Cousins talked to her in the parlor. I mean how much more obvious you need this game to spell this out for you.
Most importantly, Eva pretty much the only one who had motivation to do it. 'Why do it' thing. Krauss and Natsuhi already have control of the island, there was no reason for them to do anything since they already have everything and nothing to gain from mass murder. Rudolf and Rosa did not want to be a successor ot Kinzo. They just needed money. Kyrie is also not too aggressive or ambitious to pull anything on her own. Same with Natsuhi, even if she despised Krauss she did not have enough guts or ability to slaughter everyone. Both she and Kyrie are outsiders in the family so it would be double hard for them to pull anything out without husbands support.
So Krauss could easily cut a deal that all of them would be happy with. Kraus will be the successor and keep the island, money will be split. Everyone would be happy, except for Eva.
Eva always wanted to supplant Krauss and be named successor. She married early, got Hideyoshi into Ushiromia family rather than join his family, the way women normally should do. She gave birth to George earlier than Natsuhi to Jessika and put a lot of effort into raising him a worthy successor. Finally she trained heavily in marital arts, not a suitable hobby for a woman tbh. All to no effect. Krauss was still successor.
So when Kinzo died, gold was found everyone else agreed to the final settlement that put final nail int the coffin of Eva's mad dream, she snapped, gone berserk and killed them all. Because that was the only way for her to be Kinzo's only successor. She succeeded, see episode 4 of VN to see how it all went. How no one believed she did not killed them, because she did.
This is the only theory that holds water, other then the one where it was done by Battler, Ryukishi07 or the one where aliens from Trafalmador kidnapped them all to display them in their zoo together with protagonist of Slaughterhouse 5 and that fashion model.
That leads us to the second truth of this sojourn. There is no truth at all. Like a Schrodinger cat: you cannot know if it is dead or alive without opening the box. Since island is destroyed by explosion and all the evidence is buried by this explosion there is no longer any way to find out what happened there. From there on any theory is as good as any other and nothing can ever be proven. Red truth is impossible. Period.
Then the third truth. If author of the story does not give the answer, and sometimes even if he gives, then the story ends up just like a Schrodinger cat's box, there will never be an answer. There can only be a subjective truth from there on, or an infinite multitude of truths if you look at it from a different angle. Ryukishi07 made just that and now enjoys looking at how you all try to discern what a truth is when there is no one single truth here at all.
By now it is no longer a story but a gameboard to flex logical muscles, just like these debates between Beato and Battler in metaworld. Any story can become something like that but this is probably the first time when someone done it deliberately, and then illustrated the whole process within the same story.
In fact the story even depicts the whole process: characters in the Meta World take turns in making up their own stories in Chiru. Episode 5 told by Lambda, 7 by Bern, 6 and 8 by Battler. All of them just make up their own stuff, often not compliant with original story.
Forth truth: the whole thing is a made up story and did not happen at all. No one killed anyone and Ryukishi07 just made the whole thing up. Then he is the only culprit. He also got away with so many murders. That makes him a golden which or a golden sorcerer. That also leads us to the question of Ryukishi07 gender. After all how you can reasonably expect someone who writes this king of out of the box stories and uses pseudonym Ryukishi07 to be 100% honest about own identity.
Epilogue. There is one other kind of story in there. Beato's love story. Beato's long and futile attempts to make Battler love her. She even asked Virgilia for help. May be it is a metaphor of a story trying to appeal to reader. Or, may be, an author hope for someone to understand and love him/her. Beato even let him destroy herself in the end of episode 4, to satisfy him, his views. She is very accommodating in that regard.
I do wonder if answering 'What do I think of Beato after it all' question from a personal perspective matters in any way in particular or not. What such an answer could lead to... I can somehow tell that author wants to know but they should not be expecting a simple answer for something like thaaaaat from someone like me. Whahahaha...
Final Epilogue. Somehow I can relate to this family a lot more than to other families in fiction, not in the good way though. Does that mean that my relatives are as upper class as Ushiromiyas or that they are as insane and cruel as them. Probably both. I wonder if this family is relatable for anyone else.
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