Anon · 5mo
I read somewhere that "filler" is so important for characterization and the like, and I feel that's displayed the best with umineko. It takes 7 hours for the main plot to roll, but each of those hours counts! I remember jumping in on the 4 hour mark after viewing the first 30 minutes and having no idea who anyone was. Now when watching those 7 hours back to back, I not only know all the characters, but the unique family dynamics/hierarchy
Absolutely. It's good tone-setting, too. It's the reason why, despite having a marginally better adaptation than Umineko's, I'd argue the Higurashi anime is just as bad in some ways. So much of the slice of life and character building is cut, and what people don't realize about why that's so important is that if the story is going to ask you to deeply invest in these characters, enough to care about what happens to them and why, you need to be able to actually invest in them and their relationships. Flat characters do not make for compelling drama.
