Umineko no Naku Koro ni (anime)

The Umineko no Naku Koro ni (うみねこのなく頃に) anime adaptation of the visual novel series of the same name was announced by 07th Expansion and animated by Studio DEEN. The series aired in Japan on Chiba TV from July 2, 2009 to December 24, 2009 and has been licensed in the US by NIS America.

Plot
Umineko no Naku Koro ni takes place in the year 1986, during the time frame of October 4 and October 5 on a secluded island named Rokkenjima. The head of a wealthy family named Kinzo Ushiromiya, who lives on and owns Rokkenjima, is near death, and eight of his family members arrive on the island to discuss how Kinzo's assets will be divided once he is dead. Also on the island are three family members who live there, five of Kinzo's servants, and his personal physician. After the eight family members arrive, a typhoon traps them on the island and shortly after people start to get mysteriously murdered.

Episodes

 * Episode 1: I-I Opening
 * Episode 2: I-II First Move
 * Episode 3: I-III Dubious Move
 * Episode 4: I-IV Blunder
 * Episode 5: I-V Fool's Mate
 * Episode 6: II-I Middle Game
 * Episode 7: II-II Early Queen Move
 * Episode 8: II-III Weak Square
 * Episode 9: II-IV Skewer
 * Episode 10: II-V Accept
 * Episode 11: II-VI Back Rank Mate
 * Episode 12: III-I Castling
 * Episode 13: III-II Gambit
 * Episode 14: III-III Positional Play
 * Episode 15: III-IV Isolated Pawn
 * Episode 16: III-V Queening Square
 * Episode 17: III-VI Promotion
 * Episode 18: III-VII Swindles
 * Episode 19: IV-I End Game
 * Episode 20: IV-II Zugzwang
 * Episode 21: IV-III Prophylaxis
 * Episode 22: IV-IV Problem Child
 * Episode 23: IV-V Breakthrough
 * Episode 24: IV-VI Adjourn
 * Episode 25: IV-VII Forced Move
 * Episode 26: IV-VIII Sacrifice

Trivia

 * All of the episodes are named after moves in chess.
 * Sales of the anime adaption were very poor in Japan. There is a rumour it only sold under 500 copies out of all 13 Notes and their Special editions.
 * Part of the fanbase dislikes the anime adaption due the poor quality of animation and lack of certain story elements. It has also created several plot holes due to not having waited for the Chiru to be finished and the answers revealed before animation, leading to major plot inconsistencies and hence the games becoming unsolvable.

Overall

 * Battler and George being approximately the same height, whereas in the visual novel, Battler is 180 cm and George is 170 cm.
 * In several scenes, Shannon and Kanon have been shown together in front of Battler at the same time, which should be impossible, as 'they' only ever appear as different people in front of people who know the truth.
 * In certain scenes and especially merchandise, Shannon has been shown to have real breasts.

Legend of the Golden Witch

 * The cousins saw Natsuhi fall after being shot, which means that they should also have been able to see Sayo.
 * Natsuhi's gun should be unloaded. It would be impossible for Battler to shoot with it.

Turn of the Golden Witch

 * Shannon's corpse is found with the stake in her forehead instead at her side.
 * In the Tea Party, Battler wasn't shown bashing Beatrice's head on the table after asking Beatrice to make him a sandwich.

Banquet of the Golden Witch

 * In Beatrice and Virgilia's fight, Beatrice didn't float in air and even retreated her towers.
 * Before her final attack, Virgilia summoned more than one Smoothed Mate, and impaled Beatrice with them instead of Gungnir. Also, she didn't summon Odin.
 * When Virgilia realized she had been killed, she had two Smoothed Mate pierced through her instead of the lots of magic beams. And during Beatrice's explanation, it was shown that Virgilia was killed right before her final attack, and not before the start of the battle.
 * Eva-Beatrice met Rudolf in a corridor, while she should be in front of Beatrice's portrait.
 * Eva-Beatrice commanded the Chiester Sisters to kill Rudolf and Kyrie and bring their corpses to her. However, when they were killed, she teleported to them.
 * Rudolf and Kyrie were killed in a corridor. But then they and Eva-Beatrice (wanting to "play" with the corpses) were shown in the hall.
 * Eva-Beatrice and Chiester Sisters are less agressive and more respectful with Beatrice when sending her away.
 * Hideyoshi should arrive to scold Eva-Beatrice after she sent Beatrice away and after she "played" with Rudolf and Kyrie countless times. However, that didn't happen. Beatrice appeared right after Hideyoshi was killed.
 * After Chiester Sisters killed Krauss and Natsuhi, it was not shown their corpses being carried out to the outside.

Alliance of the Golden Witch

 * In the first twilight, Chiester 00 kills Rosa by cutting her throat. She was originally killed by having half of her face blasted, which is correct, as Sayo and Genji were using only the rifles in the first twilight.
 * In the final episode, the first half of the Tea Party was completely ommitted when Piece-Battler should have been seen investigating the crime scenes.
 * A significant amount of blue truths and red truths were removed from this arc alone.
 * Also, Kumasawa and Gohda were bloodied when found dead. Originally they were only killed by being shot in the heads. Moreover, the window in the garden shed was big enough to fit a person inside, but in the visual novel, this should be impossible.
 * In the ??? Scene, the red truths that Lambdadelta made to correct Battler's mistakes were completely removed.