Let's Play Umineko, Episode 1 Scene 5: The Treasure

[prof]

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Ushiromiya George

Eva and Hideyoshi's son. An affable young man liked by everyone in the family. He is currently studying as an assistant for his father's company, and it seems he dreams of making it on his own one day.

As the oldest of the four cousins, he acts as their leader and arbitrator.

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We've been introduced to the whole family at this point. If you're confused, click here for a family tree outline. Branches on the left are older than branches to their right.



With or without Kinzo, the lunch must go on.

Considering that the family came all the way here just for this meeting, some feathers are ruffled by the news.



According to Nanjo's diagnosis, Kinzo should have died months ago. He's stayed alive this long through sheer bloody-mindedness.



October 4th, 1986, 1:30 PM



The Ushiromiya family conference is very serious business. The family considers those who are unsuccessful in business to be less than nothing, and enormous amounts of money are being passed around. It's less a family gathering and more a business convention.

Or at least, that's how it used to be. It's calmed down a lot over the years.



With Kinzo refusing to show himself, everyone can relax a bit and treat this like a proper vacation.



Krauss is something of a powerful figure in the family, what with how he's Kinzo's firstborn. His interactions with the younger generation are limited.

Among his siblings, he is hated for being domineering, spiteful and vindictive. However, today he seems to be getting along with them pretty well.



Nanjo is a new face to Battler. He used to run a large clinic, but has since passed it on to his son to live a life of leisure. Here, he acts as Kinzo's friend of several decades, doctor, and chess partner.



With Kinzo's condition degrading, it's very important that his sons and daughters come to an agreement about how to divide his fortune.



The Ushiromiya family was very wealthy in the early part of the 20th century. However, in 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake annihilated the Ushiromiya mansion in Odawara. The mills that were the source of their income burned down, and the wealthy family lost everything.

With most of the family legacy in ruins, it fell to a young man named Kinzo from a branch family to revive it.



Kinzo's amassing of wealth remains one of the family's greatest mysteries. With incredible luck and tenacity, he was able to bring the Ushiromiya family back from rags to riches.

Some say he had connections within the western occupying forces that allowed him to act with secret knowledge. Whatever the reason, by 1950, Kinzo has raised the family to a level even higher than it had been before its fall.



Nobody is sure why he built the new mansion on Rokkenjima, either. Through cleverness, legal loopholes, economics and bribery, Kinzo was able to purchase a huge amount of offshore land.



And that's where this mansion came from. The testament fo Kinzo's vast fortune.



Of course, maybe it wasn't just luck and cleverness. Maybe it was the blessing of the Golden Witch.

Who knows?



There are more important things happening here!



Gohda is a former high-end hotel chef. Everyone is summarily impressed by his food.



Kumasawa really, really likes mackerel, but she actually lies about the content of the desert, which contains no mackerel at all.



The reason for this was that Shannon didn't know what was in it, so Kumasawa made a joke about mackerel to cover for her. Just a little camaraderie between servants.

Shannon doesn't tend to do well when put on the spot.



While the adults all retire for tea, the children are sent to go play outside.

At Maria's request, a trip to the beach is arranged.



With the youngsters gone, the nostalgic talk only lasts for a short while.

The time has come for the Ushiromiya siblings to talk business. The true agenda of the family conference.



What Rudolf says is undeniably true. Kinzo could die at any moment.



By Nanjo's explanation, Kinzo has lived longer than expected because his mind is still strong. Sheer force of will has kept him out of the grave for the past nine months.

His condition might become more stable if he could be moved to a hospital off-island, but since that's clearly impossible, it's not likely that he'll live to the next family conference.



So the problem is one of inheritance.

Kinzo never wrote a will, so the task of distributing his fortune goes to his children.



Nanjo quietly takes his leave. It's now down to the four successors to Ushiromiya Kinzo.



Krauss doesn't see any particular reason to discuss the inheritance, but the younger three seem intent on forcing the issue.



The 1980s were the middle of a boom in the value of the yen and Japan's economy. Krauss tried to invest on this with a number of ambitious projects... but he timed the investment wrong.

One of them is the guest house on Rokkenjima - the original plan was for it to become a hotel, bringing some business to the island, but the hotel never materialized.



In other words, Krauss's business sense isn't as great as he might have you think. However, he remains confident that all of the liabilities he had accrued will eventually turn into a magical mountain of financial success.

So then, the question is: Where does that confidence come from?



The younger siblings have done their research. Krauss has no more external sources of money. Nobody is willing to lend him anything.

Which leads us to one conclusion.



In other words, embezzlement.



Throughout all of this, Natsuhi is getting more and more furious at the accusations being slung at her husband. She demands that Eva stand down at once.



Eva is having none of that shit.

The One-Winged Eagle is a golden emblem visible somewhere on the outfit of every member of the family. The only exceptions are those who married into the family - Natsuhi, Hideyoshi, and Kyrie.

In other words, they are beneath the concern of the true family.



Even Krauss doesn't come to her defense. This is a battlefield, and Krauss only has the willpower to defend himself right now.



Natsuhi leaves the room in tears and disgrace.



By all logic, Hideyoshi should be dismissed just as readily as Natsuhi. However, the Ushiromiya family is a world run by men, where a wife is regarded as little more than a way to produce an heir.

For a long time, Krauss and Natsuhi were unable to bear children. Eva used this time to curry favor with the head of the family. What's more, she gave him a grandson, whereas Natsuhi gave him a granddaughter. The difference is unfair, but significant.



October 4th, 1986, 1:30 PM



Maria is immediately furious that Battler might question whether or not the mighty Beatrice exists!

As a response, she bangs on a plate beneath the portrait, bearing an inscription.



The inscription is long. Too long to be a title.



And here's ANOTHER secret legend of Rokkenjima!

Rumor has it that, beyond his declared wealth, Kinzo has an immense sum of gold hidden somewhere on the island, and the epitaph beneath the portrait of Beatrice is its treasure map. If anyone can solve the riddle, then all of Kinzo's inheritance would go to them.

That gold is what Kinzo gained from a contract with Beatrice herself. It was how he began his rise to power.



But in all the decades this story has been known, none have ever found the missing gold.



Of course, it could all be nonsense. Or the gold could be in a Swiss bank account.

Then again, if the gold is real, it would be very hard to move it without anyone knowing. Most likely, if it exists at all, it's here on Rokkenjima.



The epitaph was added two years ago, to motivate people to try and find the gold.



At a haphazard guess, George puts the value of ten kilograms of gold at 20 million yen. At a thousand times that (these tons are metric, I guess), the total 10 ton pile would be 20 billion yen.

Accounting for inflation, that would be about 250 million dollars.



It's the amount of money a hundred average people could make by working hard for their entire lives. It's 4,000 years of paychecks.

It's also the most obviously fake story ever, when you get down to it. "10 tons of gold" is probably a metaphor.



The real witch is someone who saw the potential for greatness in Kinzo and took a risk lending him a huge sum of money. Their identity is lost to time. "Beatrice" is probably a fake alias, too.



Somebody here doesn't like all this witch dismissal!



Witches exist, insists Maria. This is very important to her.

In school, she said she wants to be a witch when she grows up.

To such a child, Battler's cavalier dismissal is like saying that Santa Claus is fake on Christmas Eve.



He can be a jerk, but Battler at least knows when he's being a jerk. For Maria's sake, he does a hasty 180, once again believing in witches.



Our little existential witch crisis is interrupted! We were going to go to the beach, after all.

Shannon has come for us, bearing cookies. We can't exactly eat them under the gaze of the Golden Witch, so it's off to the beach the cousins go.



A story of a man who borrowed money to create an empire.

A story of a man who fell in love with the witch who blessed him with great fortune.

Picking between the two, the second one's much more interesting, isn't it? So why not just believe in it?


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