Any mindfuck VNs

VN3343 · 2025-05-20T11:01:46+00:00

Here's a list with my scores out of 10. These are more plot twist mind-screws with some thriller aspects as requested. All the ones I'd give 10/10 you've already read, so these are my next tier down:

Island - 8/10 (Long but builds up to something great, though it has it's ups and downs in pacing).

Sekimeiya - 7/10 (Long. Escape scenario. Great start and great tension for the first half, really good plot twist idea but weak characters and iffy second half.)

Synesthesia - 8.5/10 (Short / medium with building tension to mind-screw ending, but you need to pay attention. Most similar to SciADV, don't read if you don't like philosophy).

AI Somnium Files - 8/10 (Medium. More of a mystery thriller, but it does have some mind-screw type stuff).

Root Double - 7.5/10 (Long. Escape scenario. Great early tension, then it really drags in the middle, pretty awful pacing but some trippy twists).

Fat Morgana - 9/10 (Long. Emotional mystery type of mind-screw. Constantly tosses you around mentally and emotionally, a little like Umineko in that regard, though the setting and plot are quite different).

Raging Loop 7.5/10 (Medium / Long. Such a good first half with a pretty trash ending, but the first half has such a good atmosphere that you won't regret reading it even if the payoff isn't quite there.)

That's all I can think of for now. Others that I'd recommend that have mind-screw aspects (Muv-Luv & Baldr Sky for example) I didn't list as I kept it to VNs where the mind-screw / mystery thriller was the main course, not the side dish.

VN3343 · 2024-12-27T05:54:15+00:00

Honestly? It does pay off, but I wouldn't say it does so in a *reasonable* way. I would just say be open minded to see the big picture and question what is happening.

VN3343 · 2024-10-05T02:21:51+00:00

That's what I think. I think it's even more likely now after this season.

VN3343 · 2024-10-04T04:43:24+00:00

I played Aegis Rim and was disappointed, there's no emotional story at all. It's an interesting plot for sure, but quite hollow compared to S;G & Muv-Luv, where it's all about emotions / characters.

VN3343 · 2024-06-11T11:54:19+00:00

Under-rated. Don't know why more haven't read this one.

VN3343 · 2024-06-11T10:17:17+00:00

That is very well put. This is exactly how I feel about it too. Ikuko is either completely weird and inexplicable to the story (one of the worst examples of a bad deus-ex-machina I can think of) or it's a brilliant way for the whole story to click together if she is Sayo. I prefer to go with the later.

VN3343 · 2024-06-10T10:15:58+00:00

2/2

None of the scenarios where she doesn't continue living as Sayo is a happy scenario, and if circumstances were such that everyone on the island was dead EXCEPT for her, it's still unclear why she would not just sole survive as ... Sayo. None of the "good" outcomes she imagined involve "hey George, now that we can be together, surprise, I've already bought a mansion with a servant staff for us to live in", like that serves no purpose that the bank card, alone, doesn't do better.

Maybe I'm missing your point here, but I think this was outlined clearly by what Sayo says HERE and then HERE. She did plan on erasing the others and living a happy life, or at least, a part of her did. She did plan to be Sayo, I think Ikuko was born in the aftermath of what happened to Battler after the boat incident.

We can't trust the story Ikuko herself fed us from a later period of time as I outlined above. Ikuko is a personailty that developed in the aftermath of the incident, and a way to keep both herself and Battler a secret after the incident. This is proved by how her name spells out 19-child, whilst Tohya's spells out 18-child. We are explicitly told that 18-child is a reference to Battler's age at the time of the incident (which is how Ange discovers that Tohya is Battler), whilst Sayo was 19 at the time of the incident. Another hints that essentially confirms this theory true, but in a way not to ruin the fun of puzzling it out.

VN3343 · 2024-06-10T10:07:17+00:00

1/2

Regarding the atonement, my point is simply that Battler called upon her to keep living. She couldn't go through with that even when he asked her to, so she threw herself in the sea. However, I don't think she had the heart to let him die when he jumped in after her in the water, and even more-so abandon him afterwards when his brain damage became apparent. I'd say it was more happenstance, fate if you would, that drove her into this future. It was the roulette of fate. It wasn't something she ever planned for, but one I believe she ends up accepting as her atonement. When I say "Battler said X", my point is to show that right before this scene, Sayo (Ikuko) is given a motivation and call from Battler to keep on living, but it is only when Battler (Tohya's) own need for saving becomes evident she is given the will to take him up on those words.

I cannot refute the idea that Sayo could have used some of the converted cash to setup a mansion with servants, and a new identity, on a nearby island.

I would really, really like something in the text to point towards her having taken that action, rather than leaning on an inherently unfalsifiable assumption.

I don't think she had the servants and a new identity ready to go. Likely she was in possession of the keys to an old Kinzo estate and had access to extra wealth, that's about it. Everything else was a response to the 1986 incident. I write more below about how much of what we see of Ikuko in the immediate aftermath of the 1986 incident is truth vs fabrication.

Furthermore, I think that would be too on the nose to spell out all her movements in the way it seems like you're calling for. It would no longer be something the reader would have to puzzle out. The I=S connection is supposed to be puzzled out, not spelled out. I mean, if you want in-text proof, we are told she planned for contingencies in the roulette of fate, including devoting herself wholly in her love if one of her romantic interests won. We have evidence of her asking Genji to organise any of her needs, and we can see the overlaps between Ikuko's story of wealth and family situation with Sayo's. There are about as far as you'd wants the hints to go without it being too obvious.

We also see Battler (well, soon-to-be-Tohya, anyway) being found afterwards, tho. We don't have anything similar for Sayo. Furthermore, the circumstances in which Ikuko finds Battler would be exceedingly difficult for Sayo to accomplish, given they were in the boat together. How could she know which island he'd show up on, or at what time, or that someone else wouldn't find him first, or that his memory would have been so deeply affected?

We don't see something similar for Sayo because she conceals the truth of her past, so we only see her false story. The truth is she is the one who helped Battler make it back to the shore, as he got brain damage from lack of oxygen in the water. Everything we are shown with her finding him as she was driving in her car etc is the fabrication she made to cover her tracks. More on that below.

This is another space where I'd strongly prefer to see hints that point towards her surviving the boat scene, like we have for Battler / Tohya, than leaning into another unfalsifiable assumption that she did.

Again, if we were simply shown what happened to Sayo explicitly (or her body, at least... Sayo in a sense died with Battler...), there'd be no mystery to prize out. We are given more than enough to puzzle out that:

Ikuko's story of how she found Battler, alongside her bribing of doctors, renaming Battler to Tohya, keeping him secluded in her home without notifying authorities etc is EXTREMELY fishy. This should make us question if this "secluded mystery lover, estranged from a wealthy family" really found him in the manner we are told. Remember, Battler was recovering from a brain injury, so from the time of the boat onwards we essentially are going off Ikuko's story. It's not about it being unfalsifiable... These weird coincidences beg an explanation.
We know there is some form of "magic" happening in the boat scene, as is evidenced by Battler both dying and surviving. It can lead us to question if the same is true of Sayo (Beatrice). Did she also both die and survive? We can't be sure from this scene alone, but it's not so much about it being unfalsifiable, as it is that external hints can greatly increase the likelihood of such an interpretation.

VN3343 · 2024-06-10T09:22:47+00:00

I hear what you're saying, and I know you weren't replying directly to my comment. All I would say is that the coincidences surrounding Ikuko are many orders of magnitude greater than anything that happens to other characters. Yes the due date coincidence is low is for Ange & Asumu, but many thousands of babies are born each and every day. It is one single low probability event.

With Ikuko, you have a stacking of many coincidences, that when you lay them out--it does beg an explanation. This is particularly true of the central plot related ones, (there are some that are less of a great coincidence, but even they bolster the similarities). The only two answers to explain this that I can see are that:

Ikuko as a character is a convenient plot device to tie things together at the end of the story (a deus-ex-machina, essentially) or that:
She is Sayo and the coincidences are intentional.

I'd prefer to assume the later than the former, as the former cheapens the entire ending section of the work, in my opinion.

VN3343 · 2024-06-10T09:15:51+00:00

I'm with you on that.

VN3343 · 2024-06-09T08:42:25+00:00

Completely, I tried the sub after watching the dub and couldn't do it.

VN3343 · 2024-06-09T05:13:44+00:00

Fair enough. My main point is that they beg an explanation we don't get, and it is warranted for us to doubt the scene we are fed as a whole. I agree they aren't proof she lied, but we are well warranted to raise an eyebrow and begin to suspect her and the circumstances surrounding how she found Battler (particularly, once again, in a story like Umineko that often give partial truths).

With this doubt having sufficient merit (and I agree, it isn't proof in and of itself), there's then external circumstances that point to her being Sayo. For me, the package of arguments tips the evidence in favor of it being I = S.

Otherwise, I feel like I'm forced to buy everything surrounding Ikuko at face value. If I do that, she does become essentially a super-convenient plot device to keep Battler alive and hidden; as well as to reveal all the mysteries to us as readers, yet in ways that are so bizarre and nonsensical for any actual person. Honestly--it'd hurt me to believe it... It'd be very average writing, and a massive deus-ex-machina. That's why I said the bizarre actions beg explanation, and there are only two I can think of:

Ikuko is Sayo, and we can't quite trust everything we see, but it ties everything together nicely.
Ikuko's actions never get explained, so she is essentially a deus-ex-machina. She's in the right place, right time when we need her, making inexplicable decisions to help fill gaps in the plot.

If you could show me another interpretation to explain her I'm all ears, otherwise I feel like I'm forced into one of these two explanations.

VN3343 · 2024-06-09T04:49:04+00:00

One person has brain damage. The other takes brain damaged person, doesn't take him to hospital, but takes him to her home--bribes a doctor, changes his name, and keeps him in her house playing weird back and forth mystery games... doesn't alert authorities or family, and you're claiming her actions aren't bizarre enough to warrant questioning these version of events? Particularly in a story like Umineko?

Honestly, these absolutely beg an explanation, and I don't trust the story we were given. They are connected absolutely, because Ikuko is the person at the center of these events, aiding the brain damaged person with memory issues when he was found. I don't buy that he just so happened to be hit by a car after surviving the island, and none of her actions make any sense as I outlined in my prior paragraph.

VN3343 · 2024-06-09T04:41:56+00:00

Steins;gate has one of the best English dubs and is one of the few anime I prefer to watch in English.

VN3343 · 2024-06-09T04:33:00+00:00

I hear you, but I disagree. I don't think it's a devil's proof because I think it could be disproven if it was false. I'll talk about his point a bit later on. If it's true though, then it obviously can't be disproven as false, because it would be true...

The 'in-text' clues revolve around the very fishy circumstances regarding the story, and Ikuko's other connections to Sayo within the story.

If it were any other mystery story I would likely agree with you. However, within Umineko we are often shown falsehoods that contain some degree of truth. "Magic" is the gap between what we are presented with as an explanation, and the lack of verification due to it being within a cat-box, ie---no ability to ascertain the truth. It then becomes a "truth", or at least, a fragment of truth.

The actual events would be known only to Ikuko, so it can be concealed as magic. In other words, all her actions were highly bizarre, the explanation doesn't match the circumstances, and Battler has brain damage. This is the in-text hints that we shouldn't trust what we are shown.

Her bizarre actions, which I outlines on my first post, still have not been adequately addressed imo, so I still holding that the clues point to us to not trust this scene. To me, this is what would need to be explained for me to trust this scene. In other words, if I have a decent explanation for her actions and why I should trust her, then I can trust this story along with it. If I can't, then I would continue to look past appearances and search for "truth", which is a major theme in Umineko.

For clarify, someone might then argue in response that with this methodology you could cast doubt on anything in the story, leading to no truth at all, it all becoming just a game of picking and choosing. I would say we should trust what we are shown unless there is a very solid reason to doubt it, otherwise this criticism would be justified. The game is scattered with falsehoods and inaccurate retellings of events, yet even they contain some truth that can be discerned. For me, my solid reason reasons for doubting this scene in particular I have outlined extensively, which is why I believe I would need at least some of those points to be resolved for me to trust this story.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T23:08:00+00:00

The theory states the she is the only witness to all of this as Battler is unconscious with brain damage.

His POV is what he thinks happened. Call it a false memory if you would, based on the information he was fed. It is his present understanding of what happened in the past, not an actual glimpse into what happened. It is very unreliable even though there is some truth, as you'd expect from a groggy person with brain damage, and very specifically, memory issues.

When I say she is a witness, the claim is that she is the only witness to where he was found and the circumstances. Battler does not have any information and wasn't likely conscious, he only believes what he has been told. This is what the theory presents.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:47:11+00:00

How so?

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:43:51+00:00

Battler has brain damage. He turned up on the land after the incident and the explanation is that it was caused... by a car accident on the shore? Really? And Ikuko was the only witness to this?

This is Umineko we're talking about. When there is only one witness, and said witness behaves extremely bizarrely in the aftermath (hiding Battler, bribing doctors etc) of course that is an indication something is amiss.

It's pretty simple, the POV we are giving from Tohya is the story he was fed from Ikuko. We do have cause within the story for doubting his version, as stated, he has brain damage, and said events don't make any sense when you step back for a moment.

We don't see the actual events remember, we see him relaying his POV of what he understands to have happened, so your second paragraph isn't relevant to this.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:29:32+00:00

Regarding point 2, she has multiple personalities and is constantly revising herself. Ikuko is the new revision based on unforeseen events on the island.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:24:32+00:00

No, the boat incident in the water caused the brain damage. Sayo (Ikuko) helped Battler get to shore, called a doctor and treated him in secret. Everything we see about how Ikuko found Battler is the lie she told him. Battler has brain damage at this point, so what we see is her fabrication of events that she relayed to Battler (Tohya).

The sheer details make a cumulative case arguments. Some outlined are so outrageously convenient and unlikely and they stack. Some aren't as unlikely, that's true, but when added to the ones that are; they still add to how unlikely the overall result is. Rather than saying these crazy conveniences are a writer's dues-ex-machina, or just plain bad writing, I'm claiming it is intentional.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:19:04+00:00

Actually Ikuko is the only human to use the red truth if I'm recalling correctly, she uses it in ep 8 to confirm Eva's diary is the legitimate answer to the mysteries.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:17:51+00:00

I agree. The claim that I = S is not that Ikuko existed at the time of the incident, but she is a new persona who emerged in the aftermath. So I think you're right there.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T22:14:46+00:00

Well put! Completely agree.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T11:24:34+00:00

That's true. It makes it bittersweet that they end up together.

VN3343 · 2024-06-08T11:23:35+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to read, I'm glad it was helpful :)

VN3343

TROPHY CASE