Greywings Anime

If there was just one thing that the anime adaptation was successful in doing, it was to fuel the hype machine for the release of the 6th episode of the VN. And for us non-moon-speakers, the ending of the anime coincided quite nicely with Witch Hunt‘s release of the English patch for Episode 5.

The first in the Chiru arcs has Lambdadelta as the new game master, with Bernkastel temporarily starting the game in Battler’s place. The idea here is to show how the game would be played with new players under the same core set of rules. And ideally, this should help us the readers figure out just what exactly these rules are, and the underlying force that’s behind this series.

I blame Episode 3 for it, but throughout this episode I caught myself being very wary that all of this will be just one big Beatrice troll. It was painful, as I really wanted to sympathize with what was going on with Beato’s character. But there was just something about the one-sidedness of the battles that came across as the game trying to tell me where to focus. It became too easy to place Beatrice on the good guys’ side, because it felt like abandoning a good opportunity to solve the mysteries and get to the truth.

But Erika’s character muddied the waters and made it really difficult to maintain my distrust of Beatrice. I think it’s pretty ironic that she got a lot of flak from readers, when she is essentially a representation of the fan. She cares only about finding out the truth, and we’re shown that that mentality has its consequences, not the least of which is that it ultimately fails. Simply piecing together several processes of elimination will not yield the truth of the Legend of Rokkenjima. As Ronove puts it, her method “lacks love.”

Regarding the actual mystery, I find it highly interesting that the first episode that any of the cousins died during the first twilight had George, Jessica and Maria all taken out in one go. The game sure had quite a different feel with those three gone. And it confused me to no end as the ‘cousins surviving the first twilight’ was a consistency that I had come to depend on. No ‘Uu’s and more suspiciously no despair from the servants Shannon and Kanon at the deaths of their significant others.

And the adults themselves got cast in somewhat different lights than normal. Really felt for Natsuhi’s character being dragged through the mud like that. Kyrie was somewhat suspicious as well with her remarks.

In the end, this Episode confirmed that I do not have a firm grasp of the core truths of the series. I think I’ve been concentrating a little too much on reading in between specific lines, and not trying to figure out the bigger picture. Who is ‘Beatrice’? Who is ‘Battler’? And who is the ‘culprit’? All the necessary clues have been shown by now, it’s just time to put the pieces together. There are a few theories put forth by others (namely Shannon=Beatrice) that I would like to explore more through a re-reading of the previous episodes. I was somewhat hopeful to find some support for my case against Gohda the Rose Killer, but the “how dunnit” and “why dunnit” never really materialized.

I’m guessing in Episode 6, Battler being the game master will certainly reveal big clues to the mystery, if not the whole truth itself. I just hope to start that game with a slightly better idea of events of the Rokkenjima serial murders.