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So I read Ciconia When They Cry - Phase 1 over the last few days. I know it's kind of a stupid idea to start reading the first episode of a series that's just been delayed until the end of the pandemic (whenever that is supposed to be) for dubious reasons, but I was in the mood for a murder mystery VN without wanting to buy one so I picked the most promising option from by backlog. As it turns out Ciconia isn't a murder mystery, which I could probably have guessed beforehand, given the Sci-Fi military setting. So it's less of a sequel to Umineko in terms of subject matter, but rather tries to develop (and deconstruct, of course) some of Umineko's core ideas and themes. What Ciconia Phase 1 basically does is to put a character who somewhat embodies the "golden" solution Umineko proposes for its central idealism vs. realism conflict into a situation where, despite him being one of the seemingly most important figures, he is powerless to prevent a war that could potentially wipe out mankind. I read somewhere that Phase 1 is supposed to be Ciconia's equivalent of the complete question arcs in Higurashi and Umineko, which would explain its length (~25 hours) and complexity. It is rather heavy on exposition and introduces a lot of characters and factions. As for overall enjoyment, I'm kind of torn. It has enough really strong moments, but it can get pretty cringey at times, especially when Ryukishi07 tries his hands at social and media criticism. Tbf Umineko had its weird/boring moments as well, but at least to me they didn't feel as central to the core of the narrative as they do in Ciconia. Then again Phase 2 is probably going to take the story into a completely different direction than I'm expecting right now, so chances are I'm completely wrong in this regard.