I don't know if I'm ever actually going to review either half of Umineko in here, so for the moment, just consider this at best a placeholder, at worst, just my personal check-point. It's been almost three months since my friends and I finished playing Umineko. Anyone who's read my pieces on Higurashi knows what that game was to me. Umineko sits at the top of it all for me. It's just at the top of everything I've spent my 20-odd years experiencing, the culmination of so much personal journeying, growing and experiencing. I sincerely doubt anything will knock it from its pillar anytime in any near future. What this means to me on an intimate level is something that ultimately right now belongs to my friends and I intimately. I don't know if and when I'll be comfortable sharing beyond that. That is our small world which we inhabit together. Some cat boxes are best left alone, and I think any of you would understand and respect that.

If anything, I want to really extend a lot of gratitude to Ryukishi07, to 07th Expansion and Witch Hunt, especially to the late BT, whose death and more importantly his lifelong friendship with Ryukishi clearly affected how the game evolved into what it became, to the voice cast, and to my friends for all of this. Genuinely a reason to live some days. A reason to create and imagine, every single day.

愛がなければ視えない。