When Anime Past Meets Present

Behind this weird and obscure title (if we don’t take the last part of it in consideration) lies one of the most glorious and morale boosting (who am I kidding? More OVERLOAD) event we could ever had.

After so many unanswered days, we, Witch Hunt, finally got the epiphany of our god to hunt down the damn witch, and we are about to rock everything with a BLAST!

*cough*
Well, let’s be more prompt: remember when we took down the episode 2 scripts in september?
To refresh a bit your memories, I and chronotrig decided that we should take down the scripts we got from theacefrehley for episode 2, for various reasons, such like preventing people reading in a unconvenient way an unpolished wall of text etc.
But the main priority was to get Ryukishi’s attention and approval for our project. Not being “official” or licensor by any mean, but a recognization that would help us for support (such like some special character reading etc) in order to provide for all of you, the best of Umineko no Naku Koro ni.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, as you probably figured out with my lunatic prologue, the creator itself payed heed to our message and answered! (Original post)
There is a TINY spoiler from episode 4,  nothing that troublesome I would say.

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07th Expansionの竜騎士07と申します。

新年、明けましておめでとうございます。
また、この度はメールを誠にありがとうございます。

（日本語でお返事してしまうことをお許し下さい）

当方の『うみねこのなく頃に』が、外国の皆さんにまで遊んでいただけるとは思わず、とても驚い ております。
また、あれほどの長文の物語を、英語に翻訳されたという情熱に、深い感動を覚えました。

これほどまでに『うみねこのなく頃に』を愛して下さり、本当にありがとうございます！

皆さんの英語翻訳パッチによって、英語圏の皆さんにも作品を楽しんでいただけるならば、とても嬉しいことで す。

今後の皆さんの活動を、温かく見守っていけたらと思っております。
そしてどうか、引き続き『うみねこのなく頃に』を、楽しんでいただけたなら幸いです。

余談になりますが、
皆さんのサイト、“THE WITCH HUNT”は、少し前から存じ上げておりました。

熱心な翻訳活動を行なわれていると知り、とても喜びました。

（そして、過去に一度メールをいただいてもおりました。ところがその時期に、生憎、原稿の忙しい時期であっ たため、お返事が出来ず今日に至ってしまったことを深くお詫びいたします……）

実は、先日発表したばかりの新作、『うみねこのなく頃に　EP4 Alliance of the Golden Witch』の物語内に、六軒島魔女伝説に挑む大学教授たち文化人が、「ウィッチハンター」と自称している シーンが登場します。

これは、皆さんのサイト名、“THE WITCH HUNT”に敬意を表して拝借させていただいた名称です。

どうか、このことを、サイトにかかわられている皆さんにお伝えいただければ幸いです。

東洋と西洋の世界観が入り混じり、
現実と幻想が入り混じった世界観。

『うみねこのなく頃に』

私も執筆者という立場から、皆さんと一緒に楽しみながら、今後の執筆を全うしていきたいと思い ます。

この度はメールを本当にありがとうございました。
皆さんに、今後も作品をお届けできるよう、一層がんばりたいと思います！

以上、ご連絡させていただきます。

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And here is the translation provided by chronotrig

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I am Ryuukishi07 of 07th Expansion.

Happy New Year.
Thank you for your e-mail.

I did not think that our “Umineko no Naku Koro ni” would be played even by all of you in foreign countries, and I am very surprised.
Also, I am deeply moved by the passion which drove you to translate a tale that long into English.

Thank you for loving “Umineko no Naku Koro ni” so much!

If by your English translation patch, English-speaking people can also enjoy this work, it would make me very pleased.

I believe I will warmly watch over your actions hereafter.
And I would appreciate it if you would continue to enjoy “Umineko no Naku Koro ni”.

This is a bit of a digression.
I have known of your website, “THE WITCH HUNT”, for a short while.

I knew that you were carrying out an enthusiastic translation, and was very delighted.

Actually, in the new work that was only recently published, “Umineko no Naku Koro ni EP4 Alliance of the Golden Witch”, there is a scene where a cultured college professor challenging the Legend of the Rokkenjima Witch calls himself a “Witch Hunter”.

We borrowed this name out of respect for the name of your website, “THE WITCH HUNT”.

Please, I would appreciate it if you would tell this to everyone involved with your website.

Eastern and Western world-views mix together,
a world-view where reality and illusions are mixed together.

“Umineko no Naku Koro ni”

From the position as the writer, I also wish to enjoy it with everyone as I carry out my writing in the future.

Thank you very much for this e-mail.
I will try even harder so that I can continue to deliver this work to all of you!

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Believe me, I got like a stroke of hysteria when I was reading this, this very morning, quite not motivated due to my exam today. I can assure you that euphoric was an euphemism to my state, and I got a Morale Booster (EX Rank, yeah… Enuma Elish in a BETTER way!).
I didn’t expect that much and what really went that insane was the easter egg he gave us with “Witch Hunt”.

To be honest, when I and chronotrig were reading episode 4 last week, Professor Otsuki’s mention of “Witch hunter” was like a red herring random mention: “was it THAT much of a coincidence?”.
We didn’t pay much attention to this, but it was hell troubling.

And now, we got this confirmation.
Honestly, that is a given: we won’t betray either Ryukishi07-sama’s expectations nor yours.
So, I will take this as an opportunity for update: As stated before in Animesuki, Episode 3 is almost done. Everything but Chapter 17 is finished, and the said insane long chapter (worth 15% of the whole Episode 3) is half done. So I can tell thee with confidence: you can expect the next release for this month (leeway to the end of January, but we will certainly make it for mid january).
Oh yeah, and some trivia:
Why Witch Hunt to begin with?

Actually, I came up with this name when I and Sterling01 were about to start the “real” project in March/April (the project itself was born in January, but originally, it was in order to create a makeshift patch for Theacefrehley public scripts (as he was translating episode 1 and episode 2 with drafts, as a pass time).
Sterling  wasn’t exactly coming with anything much, and I rather wanted something related to Umineko. And then, I got a “genius’ stroke” or rather convenient idea with Beato and the witch stuff.
Considering we aimed to deliver the game in English for the western audience, I felt that providing such thing was like “helping them to figure the truth”, hence chasing and “proving” the witch doesn’t exist.
However, as you can see in Umineko, Beatrice DOES exist in some way (granted, it is a given she doesn’t in the “in world” of Umineko… supposedly) hence, it is rather to defeat her and the possible proxies and the like.

From there, I had “la chasse aux sorcières” in my head (my apologies for being a french native speaker) and Witch Hunt was quite a nice and concise english word (literal equivalent).
Of course, I won’t deny the fact the witch hunt was also a tragedy during the old times due to an astonishing amount of innocent victims being killed due to paranoid beliefs back there.
Obviously, this name was used for its literal meaning and its legacy is purely used for reference.

This is how I found this name, and we all rejoined under this name for Umineko.
Conveniently, this name was quite relevant, and is even more with Ryukishi’s easter egg. Good grief, as a random name would be difficult for him ^^”.

As an ending note, I have no damn idea if Ryukishi is lurking everywhere that is related to us, but to put emphasis on our aim, either for him or for you all:

YES WE LOVE UMINEKO NO NAKU KORO NI!

Ladies and gentlemen, please look forward to our next (and later future) releases!