Characters / Umineko: When They Cry - Meta

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In Umineko: When They Cry, the characters of the Meta-World are those who have the privilege to fight the Game Master in order to figure out the truth. Other characters who can ascend to this level are the pieces introduced to the game board by the witches.

Major spoilers for the Core Arcs ahead.

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Erika Furudo

Voiced by: Natsuko Kuwatani (JP)

"...Without love, it cannot be seen? ...Hah. That's backwards. Because of love, you end up seeing things that don't even exist."

A cute young detective who fell from the pleasure boat Eternal Maid II and happens to wash up on the shore of an island with an impending murder mystery. She calls herself an "Intellectual Rapist". She is the piece set by Bernkastel on the board of Rokkenjima.

At the end of Episode 5, she was named the "Witch of Truth" by Bernkastel.

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• Adaptational Badass: Not that she isn't already dangerous in the Episode 8 VN, but the manga has her demolish Battler thoroughly, over 3 chapters, while it was just a quick closed room duel without much flourish in the VN.
• Alas, Poor Villain: How her send-off in EP6 is played, although it ends up not sticking in EP8.
• Amateur Sleuth: Actually a deconstruction of this character type, created by Bernkastel as her Author Avatar to screw with Beato's murder mystery. Imagine what type of personality someone normally harmless would develop if, everywhere they went, someone always kills another human being, it takes the flimsiest and occasionally technically wrong reasoning to cause the killer to break down into a Motive Rant, and everyone praises her for it, so this person came to enjoy her life. She has never been wrong, ever, even when actual facts didn't match up. The above description should sound very, very, familiar. This is possibly a Flanderization or Satire, but given Poe's Law it is hard to tell.
• Ambiguous Innocence: There's a heavy implication that Erika does not fully understand just how malicious she can be, because she's only acting the way Bern wants and expects her to act in a desperate effort to please her "master" and win her appraisal. She seems to embrace Then Let Me Be Evil in EP8, at least momentarily.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Taking advantage that he's trapped in a logic error, Erika tries to force Battler to marry her so she can take control of the game board. Just when it seems she's going to get away with it, Beatrice blows the doors down.
• Animal Motifs: At one point in EP5, she's compared to a spider. She does crawl along the walls placing her duct tape seals like a spider laying a web. EP6 compares her to predatory insects such as a wasp that paralyzes its prey to eat them alive later when talking about how she's going to marry, rape and defile Battler and there's nothing he can do about it.
• Anti-Hero: In EP5 and EP6, she is by designation the protagonist on the gameboards, the detective who has to get to the truth behind the murders and catch the culprit. Borders on Designated Hero for much of these games and reaches full Villain Protagonist status when she willingly becomes the culprit in the latter.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In the EP8 Manga, she throws several Battler's way after delivering a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle to him, questioning why he's against Ange finding the truth of Rokkenjima when he started out the same way, why he doesn't just go back to Ange if he cares about her happiness, and if he can't go back, then why he can't just invite her to the Golden Land.
• Attention Whore: She is more cultured, more intelligent and just better than you, and she won't allow you to ignore it.
• Back from the Dead: After her defeat and banishment to oblivion in EP6, she comes back in EP8.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: She actually gets a moment of this with Ange in Last Note of the Golden Witch as they face off against Piece.
• Bad Boss: After her defeat in EP5, she takes out her frustrations on Cornelia by making her stand on one leg so she can push her and make her fall, then telling her to get up and stand on one leg again to repeat the process over and over. She is also herself the victim of this from her superiors.
• Bait the Dog: She's a very friendly, polite, good-humored and all around pleasant girl whose presence in the mansion actually gets the Ushiromiya family getting along and working together the solve the riddle of the ephitat along with her. And then she starts showing her true colors. See below.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Initially she comes across as polite and soft-spoken, but it's soon revealed that she's quite a nasty piece of work. This is especially evident when she helps Battler solve the puzzle of the epitaph for no reward at all, and then cracks up about the chaos it unleashes in the family.
• Blasphemous Boast: Claims that, just like Lambdadelta and Bernkastel, she was trapped in a personal hell that she could only escape from by being able to withstand the truth, no matter how cruel. From all that we know of Erika, this "truth" that she had to endure was most likely her boyfriend cheating on her and cruelly rejecting her when she confronted him about it. When Erika insinuates that she has an Enlightenment Superpower that Lambdadelta and Bernkastel lack, Lambda flashes her a Death Glare and tells Erika that she's only letting it slide as a congradulatory present for trapping Battler in a logic error.
• Brought Down to Badass: Even when she's forfeited the power of the Detective's Authority and can't compell the Ushiromiyas to let her investigate and command them as she pleases, she can still take control of the situation by gently suggesting ideas and tricking them into letting her run around the island unsupervised. The narration says that the Detective's Authority is a formality that boosts her effectiveness from 99% to 100%, but it's that one percent that she lacks that leaves her unable to create vital Red Truths and puts her at a crippling disadvantage. And Erika gets around this disadvantage by creating Red Truths as a murderer, instead.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite her competence, she's probably the most unlucky and mishap-prone of all the villains in Umineko. It doesn't help that Bernkastel and Lambdadelta find her humiliation and suffering to be amusing.
• Came Back Strong: She was a formidable foe to start with, but when she comes back in Episode 8 her power is far beyond what it was previously.
• Catchphrase: "<GOOD!>" and "Simply by XX, this level of reasoning is possible for Erika Furudo. What do you think, everyone?"
• Chewing the Scenery: When she's really hungry, a large ham is not enough.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Thought to be this sometime before the story, if the story about her ex-boyfriend is to be believed. Erika apparently inspected her boyfriend's entire house like it was a crime scene when she suspected he was seeing another woman. She took it very badly when she found tons of evidence that proved she was right.
  • And, surprisingly (or not), she seems to be this for her master in the eighth Tea Party. When Bern says that Lambda is the only one she loves, Erika does not take it well.
• Common Mary Sue Traits: invoked In-Universe, as a self-insert of Bernkastel, she has quite a few, mostly Played for Drama:
  • She's immediately loved and trusted by most of the Ushiromiya family immediately after washing up on Rokkenjima.
  • She wears Impractically Fancy Outfit with frills and a flowery hat (overlaps with the above point since the Ushiromiyas immediately trust and love her enough to just give her Jessica's old clothes like it's nothing).
  • She just happens to be a skilled detective in the middle of a serial killing.
  • Her name is a modified version of her "author", Frederika Bernkastel's, original name (Rika Furude).
• Contractual Immortality: In-Universe, she knows full well that she has this due to being the detective and she won't hesitate to exploit it.
• Contrived Coincidence: She benefits an awful lot from being in the right place when bodies are discovered. Even her entry is as plausible as a third-rate novel. Her pleasure cruise happened to maintain its course along the rim of typhoon winds, she happened to be out on the deck during said typhoon wearing a swimsuit and, for some reason, also a life jacket. Makes sense since on a meta level the Witch Hunters are more or less shoehorning her into the existing story.
• The Corpse Stops Here: Her attitude towards Natsuhi after Hideyoshi's death.
• Covert Pervert: Funny when it involves chopsticks. When it involves trapping Battler's mind and promising to rape his helpless body forever… not so much.
• Crazy-Prepared: Despite nearly drowning in a stormy ocean before washing up on Rokkenjima, Erika is focused enough to stick pieces of duct tape with her signiture on several doors and windows, even if she has to climb around on the walls outside in the middle of a storm to place them. Then instead of going to bed like a normal person, she stays up all night long with her ear pressed to the wall so she can listen to the sounds of Battler's breathing in the next room over. She does this just in case a crime happens during her stay.
  • Standing on the deck of a luxury liner during a tsunami in a swimsuit and a floatation vest. Apparently she expected a more turbulent swim than the onboard pool.
• Creator's Pet: invoked In-Universe; Bernkastel, the one who created her and added her to the story in-universe, can't stop pouring praise on her. All the human characters, of course, loathe her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers one to Battler in the Episode 8 manga, by explaining the 5th and 6th games.
• Curtains Match the Window: Blue eyes and hair.
• Cute Little Fangs: Some of her sprites have these in the original VN.
• Dead All Along: One theory about her is that in the real world, she did wash up on Rokkenjima after falling from the boat… but as a corpse. Like so many other theories, it's hard to deny or confirm and depends greatly on whether you consider the meta-world and witches to exist or not.
• Defective Detective: You don't see that many mysteries where the Detective is the villain.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: As part of her enormous pride.
• The Dragon: To Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, though more so to Bernkastel since she made Erika her piece in the fifth and sixth games.
• Driven to Suicide: Episode 8's manga heavily implies the human Erika might have willingly jumped off the boat in Prime, as Ange believes Erika also "threw her life away to become a witch".
• Duct Tape for Everything: Especially for creating closed rooms. In fact Erika is so good at solving everything with duct tape that in her second game, she was forbidden from using it and had to haggle just to get enough duct tape to cover three rooms.
• Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: She plays this role in Episode 5, where she's actually the Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend's Subject.
• Easily Forgiven: Battler eulogizes her and ultimately convinces Bernkastel to bring her back in Episode 8, in spite of all of the absolutely horrible, unatoned-for deeds she committed upon Battler, Beatrice and the Ushiromiya family in episodes 5 and 6. Doesn't help that Erika then proceeds to screw with the game again once brought back, after which Battler is still easily forgiving towards her.
  • Despite fighting against her in the battle for the Golden Land, Dlanor still renews her friendship with Erika after the battle is over.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In Episode 5, "You are the culprit, Ms. Natsuhi Ushiromiya." Except Natsuhi was denied as the culprit in red. Not that it stopped her.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Not moral standards, but Erika has a serious problem with people denying and running away from the truth. Tellingly, realizing that Bernkastel is constantly running away from the truth of her past is described as the only time Erika feels any sort of contempt for her master.
• Evil Counterpart: Could be considered this to Ange. Both are obsessed with the truth, both passed a contract with Bernkastel just before falling to their death, and both will effectively die once Bern has no longer any use for them. And both have girlish pigtails. But contrary to Ange, Erika is enjoying her role as a piece of a sadistic witch very much. The different and not so different qualities between them are even acknowledged by Erika herself.
• Evil Is Hammy: Natsuko Kuwatani gives her a very sober and quiet voice in normal situations, but when Erika is allowed to cut loose...
• Evil Is Petty: After Battler derails her theory regarding Kinzo's study closed room, she punishes Cornelia by asking her to clasp her arms together behind her back and standing on one leg so she could push her from behind onto the floor and repeating the process multiple times so she could vent all her frustrations at her and even cruelly demoralising Maria in EP6 by proving that there's no such thing as 'magic' to the latter's protest.
  • After pinning the murders on Natsuhi in Episode 5, Erika uses the Detective's Authority to investigate the entire island for proof of Kinzo's existence, but specifically refuses to investigate Natsuhi's bed. She does this so she can accuse Natsuhi of not only murdering several people including her own husband and daughter, but also having a secret affair with Kinzo too.
• Fatal Flaw: Erika cannot see the "heart" of the mysteries that Beatrice has set up, meaning no matter how hard she tries, she will never find the truth. As a result, Erika often gets really damn close to figuring everything out, but repeatedly stumbles at the last second due to refusing to take motives into account. For example, in her battle with Beatrice at the climax of Episode 6, she correctly guesses that someone in both of the locked rooms shares a "name" with another, and even correctly guesses that one of them is Kanon. Because she doesn't understand the relationship between the characters well enough however, she fumbles and assumes as an example that it's George that Kanon shares a name with, instead of the more obvious pick of Shannon. Had she correctly guessed this, she would have stumbled onto the solution to the mystery and even bagged the real culprit instead of continuing to slander Natsuhi.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: She is banished to oblivion by Bernkastel after she loses to Beatrice in EP6. Bernkastel does let her come back in EP8, though.
• Faux Affably Evil: Very polite, and very psychotic. By EP6 she all but ceases to be polite.
• Fetish: She likes chopsticks a tad bit too much.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: In her backstory, Erika grew suspicious that her boyfriend was cheating on her and kept investigating him for evidence, which lead her boyfriend to dump her. Because of this, Erika says love is nothing but an illusion that distracts from the truth.
• Flash Step: In EP8's battle for the Golden Land, she's fast enough to leave afterimages as she dodges the Seven Sisters in their stake forms and gunfire.
• Flung Clothing: She wears her regular clothes under her wedding dress! Yes, there's no way her normal clothes would have fit. Magic.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: Her speech patterns are extremely formal, highlighting her sophisticated behavior.
• Freudian Excuse: Touched on in Dawn; the failure of her romantic relationship gives her a fanatical obsession with the truth and the need to utterly defile anything that might obscure it, be it magic or love.
• Friendly Enemy: She actually becomes like this to Battler in the rare instances she's not being an insufferable jerk to him. Their last interaction in Ep 8 shows this well, with Battler giving Erika words of comfort and motivation out of her brief Villainous BSoD, both of them leaving each other with mutual respect for a Worthy Opponent.
  • To Beatrice as well, who seems to relish the opportunity to engage in her in Ham-to-Ham Combat.
  Beatrice: There can be no game without a rival. She remains our enemy, but she's also an important friend to us.
• From a Certain Point of View: The reason why she failed to resolve the contradiction at the end of Episode 6. She is indeed the 18th person in we go by the number of "names", but the 17th person if we go by the number of "bodies", as explained in the manga.
• Game-Breaker: The Detective authority is an in-universe example, given to her by her master. She has the power to perfectly investigate a crime scene, use any means necessary to do so without being hindered, force everyone to listen to her when she calls for attention, and cannot be suspected by anyone. She can also confirm with 100% accuracy whether a corpse is dead… provided that she actually bothers to look at the corpse, that is.
  • It does have one limit. Knox's 7th: It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit.
• Genre Savvy: Deconstructed, as her analysis of the deaths as if they were from a novel is used to make her come off as evil and insane. You just don't tell a mother her child died in a way that sounds like from a third-rate mystery.
• Girlish Pigtails: She wears her hair in pigtails which contributes to her young and girly appearance.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: A giant scythe.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Quite fond of these in the manga, though in a less hammy fashion as Battler.
• Go-Go Enslavement: Inverted: Erika may be the one wearing the wedding dress, but she's the one enslaving Battler by forcing him into marriage and outright threatening to rape him.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Wandering the realms of nothingness doesn't stop Battler from wanting to invite her to his party in EP8.
• Great Detective: Actually tries to refer to herself as such, and if you look at the description, she does match. Although the description doesn't necessarily include being, you know, right all the time.
• Happiness in Slavery: It's never really explained how she became Bernkastel’s piece, but she really loves her master a lot.
• Hate Sink: Take a character who arrives out of nowhere to disturb the story, make her irritatingly perfect via Character Shilling and then make it clear that she's a complete narcissist whose pastimes are licking her boss’s feet and desecrating beloved characters, and you have a perfect scumbag ready to hate. Many fans still love to hate her though, especially since she proves to be a little more complex than she initially appears and a legitimately formidable villain.
• Heel Realization: Near the end of EP6. Unfortunately, when she comes back in EP8, it's clear that it hasn't stuck; in fact she instead tries to become the best villain she can be, and still sticks with Bern and Lambda all the way to the end.
• Hime Cut: She has blunt bangs, waist length sidelocks, and hip length Girlish Pigtails to go with her Elegant Gothic Lolita dress and to make her look like her master.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: In Episode 6, after checking that Hideyoshi, Shannon, George, Kumasawa and Nanjō are in the room she just left, she demands to repeat that "everyone else" is in the cousins' room. This is presented as a clever move to prevent any trick with the number of people like at the end of Episode 3. Too bad for her, that also means Battler didn't say in red that "Kanon" was in the cousins' room − which was, of course, impossible. Beatrice later uses exactly that to solve the logic error and defeat Erika.
  • In Episode 5, Erika pushes forward with a culprit theory that names Kinzo as an accomplice, despite being fully aware that he's Dead All Along. She's relying on Knox's 2nd, which demands that all Red Truths, including Kinzo's death, have evidence to back them up, and it backfires when Battler declares Kinzo's death using the Gold Truth instead.
• Honor Before Reason: Beatrice crashes her wedding in EP6 to challenge her to a locked-room mystery she proclaims is unsolvable. Erika had already gotten what she wanted, and could just have Beatrice killed by ignoring the challenge, but she just can't resist it because she's a detective before anything else.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: To Battler in EP6.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Seemed this way at the end of EP6 when she declares to Dlanor that she is happy that someone finally protected her. Though Erika herself would insist this is not the case, it's pretty that at most she really wants to be well-liked.
• Ignored Epiphany: She seems to have a Heel Realization over how awful she's been as she faces a horrible fate, only to willfully double down on being awful when she's resurrected in EP8.
• Image Song: "Intellectual Rapist", which has two versions.
• Imaginary Friend: To Ange of all people in the Trick Ending. Or is she?
  • Last Note of the Golden Witch suggests that even outside the Trick Ending, Erika is basically connected to Ange forever as a follower due to their shared Witch of Truth position, with Ange likening it to how Featherine has her cats, Lambdadelta has her monster friends and Bernkastel has...Lambdadelta.
• Insufferable Genius: She's highly intelligent and doesn't hesitate to use it to lord herself over others.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: There's some pretty heavy sadomasochistic subtext between her and her boss (it's more apparent in the manga). And let's not get into her "wedding" with Battler...
• Jerkass: She cares about three things: solving mysteries, being smug about solving mysteries, and serving her beloved master. She also enjoys to break and humiliate people by exposing terrible truths about them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Overlaps with Villain Has a Point; as a Great Detective, Erika is prone to making very astute observations and points that can be really hard to argue with or refute.
• Karma Houdini: While she is defeated by Beatrice (in tactics, not in combat), she escapes with Bern and Lambda to cause more havoc in the future.
• Kick the Dog: In case you hadn't noticed she is a complete bitch, her arguing with the nine-year-old Maria to the point of making her cry while laughing with delight drives the point home. It's not enough to tell Maria that magic doesn't exist, she systematically goes through Maria's entire argument on how she saw Beatrice do 'real magic' and refutes it all step-by-step.
• Lack of Empathy: And how… though given that she serves and was possibly taught by Bernkastel, it's probably not surprising.
  Battler: … Do you even have a heart?
  Erika: A heart? What is that, I wonder?
• Large Ham: Oh yes, when she acts completely smug during investigation scenes, especially in Ep 6.
  Erika: Bwaattleeer-shwaaaaaann!!
• Leitmotif: The great detective knows and Smileless Soiree.
  • As well as Patchwork Chimera, shared with Bernkastel.
• Little Miss Badass: During fights in the Meta World, especially the ones she's winning.
• Logic Bomb: The end of Episode 6, which meaning was subject to intense debate (since the two red truths seem to contradict each other). So much that the author apparently felt the need to clarify it in the manga.
  Erika: "Hi, pleased to meet you! I am Furudo Erika, the detective! I may be an uninvited guest, but please, welcome me!! I am the visitor, the 18th human on Rokkenjima!!"
  Battler: "......Sorry, but…"
  Beatrice: "Even if you do join us-"
  Both: "There are 17 people."
• Mad Love: No matter how much she is abused, ignored or thrown into oblivion by her master, she will continue to admire and serve her. Granted, a piece cannot disobey its master, but she seems to do her job very eagerly nonetheless.
• Meaningful Name: Unsurprisingly, her name is very similar to "Rika Furude". Both, when said aloud in the Japanese naming order, can sound a bit like "Frederica (Bernkastel)."
• Meta Girl: She tends to lampshade the mystery genre tropes and expectations, mainly the bad clichés found in "third-rate mysteries".
• Munchkin: Of the Metagamer variety. She knows she's playing in a murder mystery game, so she does things that would be insane and illogical if she didn't know she was in a murder mystery.
• Mundane Made Awesome: "I, Furudo Erika, have duct tape!!"
• My Master, Right or Wrong: She doesn't really care about morality, she's just happy to serve Bernkastel.
• My Nayme Is: The "E" in "Erika" uses ヱ, the archaic katakana "we", that apparently makes it look cooler (as opposed to the orthodox エ). Call it another Sue trait.
• Narcissist: As befitting a Parody Sue, everything she does is for the sake of stroking her own ego. And she reflects Bern's narcissism as well, given her obsessively loyal and sycophantic attitude toward her.
• Never Found the Body: In the real world, it's implied that she did wash up on Rokkenjima...as a corpse, which would have then been destroyed during the explosion from the bombs Sayo Yasuda set.
• Obvious Rule Patch: After Erika dominates Episode 5 with her duct tape seals, Episode 6 has Rokkenjima modified so all the duct tape on the island has lost its stickiness, and Erika's bedroom location has been changed so she can't hear the cousins' room through the walls.
• Off the Rails: Attempts to destroy Battler as the Game Master by not solving his mystery, but secretly becoming the culprit and murdering people who were supposed to have only been playing dead. This makes Battler's escape from a Locked Room Mystery impossible and traps him in a Logic Error, where his two choices are to either remain trapped in his story for eternity until he finds a solution, or admit defeat and let the entire storyboard of Rokkenjima be destroyed.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Erika gets a pretty understandable one in EP6 when Beatrice crashes the wedding. She's fine at first when it appears to just be the Chick Beatrice, but when she realizes it's the actual Beatrice, she starts panicking.
  • She experiences it again during the battle of the Golden Land when she realizes that Rosa is more than capable of not only matching her in a single fight but even overpowering her and nearly killing her despite Erika's use of magic Flash Step. And according to Rosa, the only reason Erika even survives at all is because she was holding back.
• Ojou: Implied to have been one, as she fell from a pleasure boat and has a perfect knowledge of upper class manners.
• Older Than She Looks: Implied. Her middle schooler's physique goes commented upon, but Genji claims she's around Jessica's age, and her backstory suggests she lived with a boyfriend. Ambiguous commentary from Bernkastel also teases the possibility that Erika's appearance was altered to more closely resemble her master's on the game board.
• One-Woman Army: Following her Took a Level in Badass in the eighth arc after her return, Erika first proves capable of literally mowing down a whole horde of goats along with Eva-Beatrice, then she manages to fight evenly against Battler until she is able to subdue him. Finally, during the battle in the Golden Land, she dodges and skillfully counteracts all the attacks of most of the characters (with only Krauss and Rosa being the only ones to effectively deal a blow on her, especially with the latter being also the one that most of all, including Dlanor and Beatrice, coming closest to almost kill her several times) and in the end she and her army of goats manage effectively to destroy the Golden Land and make all its inhabitants disappear (even if it doesn't last long).
• Parody Sue: She's a messy Deconstruction of Mary Sues. At first she seems to come across as a Purity Sue, though she's really a Black Hole Fixer Sue of an Amateur Sleuth who just so happens to wash up on Rokkenjima so Bernkastel has her own piece when she takes over the anti-fantasy side of the game. She proceeds to wander around being an insufferable Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, attempts to supplant the protagonist, helps Battler find the gold just to make the chaos worse, and frames Natsuhi for the murders. She's basically Bern’s self-insert Sue, and she's virulently loathed by both many of the other characters and a good chunk of the fanbase.
• Photographic Memory: Proclaims herself to have one. After all, have you ever seen a detective not remembering the crucial clue at the crucial moment?
• Pet the Dog: Her Villainous Rescue of Ange in EP8, as well as her friendly interaction with her in the Trick Ending and Last Note of the Golden Witch due to the two of them being quite similar. Her friendship with Dlanor following the ending of EP5 also qualifies, as do her Worthy Opponent moments with Battler.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Which was originally Jessica's when she was younger. Natsuhi lends it to Erika since she had nothing else to wear aside from a School Swimsuit when she washed up on Rokkenjima. The additional embellishments of lace choker and rose bonnet with trailing ribbons probably weren't strictly necessary.
• Playful Cat Smile: Along with more malicious variations.
• Puff of Logic: Disappeared at the end of Dawn because she couldn't figure out how she could be the 18th human on the island if, including herself, there are only 17 people on the island.
  • Alternatively, she did figure it out, but since she was dying anyway, demonstrated her final understanding of the mystery as a way to go out with a bang. That would at least explain why she chose to "attack" with that particular red truth.
• Pyrrhic Victory: She views her confrontation with her ex-lover over suspicion of cheating as if it were a game, and at least comforts herself by taking pride in 'winning' it.
• Redemption Equals Death: Inverted by EP8, where she comes back meaner than ever.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Uses this against piece!Beatrice in Episode 5.
  Beatrice: You didn't follow Battler in the cousins' room after 3AM, so you can't prove his alibi! Or are you going to tell me you spent the whole night by his side, listening to his breathing?
  Erika: Yes, I spent the whole night listening to his breathing.
  Beatrice: … What?!
• School Swimsuit: She was wearing this along with a life jacket when she washed up on the island. Though we don't actually see her wearing it in the visual novel, it's quite common for her to wear one in fanart. The manga shows it as well as the fighting game too.
• Self-Insert Fic: The entire concept of her is basically a parody of these. Bernkastel actually states that she used Erika to "insert herself into the game".
• Serious Business: Not that her boyfriend cheating on her wouldn't be serious business in Real Life, but investigating it like a criminal case is a bit over-the-top…
• Sinister Scythe: Her weapon is a blueish-colored scythe made of light.
• Smug Snake: She revels in dismantling the theories of others and substituting what she believes is the one true truth. She also goes into meltdown whenever her "truth" gets a hole punched through it. Erika even considers herself more powerful than Bernkastel and Lambdadelta in a way, because they'd rather distract themselves from their past miseries with other people's suffering than face those memories (and thus the truth) head-on.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: A good half of her dialogue with Ange in Episode 8 consists of this.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: She speaks in a soft, polite, and composed manner most of the time. She also defines herself as an "intellectual rapist" who loves to unveil people's secrets against their will and utterly lacks anything resembling human empathy. Even when she snaps and screams, she keeps using polite forms.
• Sore Loser: She's not Bern’s piece for nothing…
• The Summation: The Episode 8 manga dedicates no less than three chapters to her extensive explanation of Episode 5 and 6, the two games where she was defeated.
• Sycophantic Servant: She's loyal to her master to a fault, even after Bern throws her into Oblivion for her loss to Beatrice.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Technically she can't leave as long as the storm is going, but the way she turns into one of these within only a few hours really speaks for the depth of her self-entitlement.
  She was no longer a guest who would stay until the typhoon passed. She had become an annoying guest who would not leave until the typhoon passed.
• Took a Level in Badass: When she comes Back for the Finale in EP8, she's able to stand equally with Battler and even defeats Beatrice, both people who used to be able to hand her hat to her with relative ease.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Unpleasant as she always was, she gets a lot worse in EP6 when she willingly becomes the murderer just to win against Battler and then when offered the mentally enslaved Battler's hand in marriage by Bern, plans on keeping his body as a trophy she can regularly sexually assault and violate just to further humiliate him. When she comes Back for the Finale in EP8, now fully comprehending of her villainous status, she embraces it wholeheartedly. She goes back to her original level of jerkassery at the end, though, thanks in part to Battler reminding her of her Great Detective roots.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Subverted at first at the end of EP5 where she is named the Game Master, but is very quickly dethroned by the rightful Game Master Battler. Then Double Subverted in the following episode where she traps Battler in a Logic Error and usurps his position until she is defeated at the end.
• Unusual Dysphemism: She refers to herself as being an "intellectual rapist", which has nothing to do with sexual assault, and just means she likes to solve mysteries even if it's at the expense of others.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: She was a normal, nice teenage girl once upon a time. But then she was Driven to Suicide and resurrected as a piece / body double of Bernkastel, meaning all sweetness she displays afterward is purely for show.
• Villain Ball: Erika has for all means won in EP6, but she stops her wedding and willingly enters a duel with Beatrice to satisfy her pride.
• Villain Decay: Defied. She never stops being a danger as long as she's around, she never shows any genuine redemption moments, and her threat to the protagonists continually escalates.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • In EP6 she mocks the story's main Arc Words ("Without love, it cannot be seen"), and says that love can make people see things that don't exist. Later on, the story delves into the more negative aspects of The Power of Love, such as Kinzo deluding himself into believing his daughter Beatrice Ushiromiya was the reincarnation of her mother and the tragic results.
  • She has one in EP8 as well, where after she stalls/curbstomps Battler in a logic game, she points out that instead of hiding his messages of "the One Truth is not important and what is important is how you live your life and finds happiness" towards Ange behind riddles for her to figure out herself, he could've just directly told her that so she'd know what he was trying to say and things wouldn't have ended up as badly as they did. But because he didn't do that, Ange felt like Battler was trying to keep her down and thus started the destruction of the Golden Land.
    Erika: "If only you'd put your arm around her shoulder and told her that directly, you might not have lost."
• Villain Protagonist: On the gameboards for EP5 and EP6, and in the spinoff manga Forgery of the Purple Logic.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Battler breaks her locked room theory, then again during the climax of EP5 where he steals the role of Gamemaster from her after she supposedly won. And a third time during EP8 when she fled the island after being beaten back by the family, deciding to blow the entire place to smithereens!
• Villainous Valor: As opposed to the Villainous Breakdown she had upon being defeated in the previous EP5, Erika decides to Face Death with Dignity in EP6, to the point that even Battler and Beato are touched and ensure she gets a dignified send-off.
• Villainous Rescue: She rescues Ange from a horde of goats who taunt her over her parents and brother being the culprits.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: She's desperate for her master's approval and tries her best to live up to her expectations. While it's somewhat justified because Erika knows very well that her master won't hesitate to throw her into oblivion if she fails her, she gets a little too happy in the rare occasions where she does get her master's praise.
• Worthy Opponent: Her ultimate impression of Battler by the end of the series, and the feeling is mutual for Battler, and for Beato as well.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: While it's arguable how much of it was intentional, this is how she manages to get 3 rooms worth of duct tape. After she refuses the invoke the Detective's Authority and comes up with a fairly weak theory as a result, Bernkastel chews her out to the point of tears, causing Battler (and Dlanor for that matter) to feel bad enough for her to give duct tape. Big mistake.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: According to Knox's 7th, the Detective cannot be the culprit of the murders. This doesn't mean that the Detective can't still be a villain of another sort, which Erika discovers at the end of EP 6.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: She gets a variation of this speech from Battler in their last encounter. Erika is upset at having been a total failure as a witch, especially when compared to Ange. Battler's retort is that she was never meant to be a witch - she's a Great Detective, and she can always be relied upon to fill that role when it's needed.

Willard H. Wright

Voiced by: Hiroki Takahashi (JP)

"We are Inquisitors of Heresy. Felling evil witches is our job. However, we must not risk hurting the innocent. We must not suspect them...!"

The detective of EP7. He is the former head of the SSVD, the 8th District Repentance Agency. He is first mentioned in EP5 in the TIPS, where he is referred to as "Wizard-hunting Wright". He has since then resigned from his post. He is called to Rokkenjima by Bernkastel in order to solve a mystery.

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• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Aside from a mention in a TIP in EP5, Will is not in the story until out of nowhere in EP7, he's selected to play Bernkastel's gameboard and serves as the protagonist in place of Battler or Ange.
• Always Someone Better: He is this to Dlanor, being not only competent at using his own rules, but also a mighty detective himself. Adding that he has twice the amount of rules she has to that result… Subverted that when they do meet, she seems to regard him with respect and a hint of admiration.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With Dlanor in the Last Stand.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a long blue coat.
• Berserk Button: Do not, DO NOT insult the mystery genre. You'll get HEADBUTTED TO DEATH IF YOU DO.
• BFS: The manga shows that his sword is actually pretty damn huge.◊
• Black Swords Are Better: His weapon is a black sword.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He tends to come across as rather apathetic towards the task he's been given, but he still knows a great deal about the gameboard after only skimming the information on it beforehand, as well as proving to be very intelligent and insightful overall. On the other hand, he lets his cat Diana scratch and shed all over his furniture at home, and an in-character comment as Lion on Ryukishi's Twitter implies that he's too lazy to even do his own laundry properly.
• Brought Down to Badass: In EP8, he and Dlanor face a gigantic goat who nullifies their rules. As they are both without any power to face the goat, he proceeds to do the next logical thing and defeat him with a HEADBUTT because that's what he does.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He has shades of this, since while he is genuinely smart and was good at his job at the SSVD (despite growing to hate it), he's also lazy, doesn't have much of a brain-to-mouth filter and is somewhat obsessed with his cat.
  Lion: That person is seriously useless at anything other than mystery.
• But Thou Must!: He initially attempts to refuse to play along with Bernkastel's game; she promptly responds by trapping he and everyone else in the chapel until he cooperates.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Don't think too hard about it. You'll get a headache."
  • "Don't ignore the heart". Pretty ironic when you know the mark of the real Willard H. Wright's novels was exactly that.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He got a mention in the TIPS section of EP5.
• Cool Sword: Will's weapon, which he uses to separate truth from fiction.
• Deadpan Snarker: Very sarcastic, and the expression on his face is usually pretty deadpan. This leads to quite a bit of Snark-to-Snark Combat with Lion.
• Determinator: Loses an arm fighting Bern, still thinks he has a chance of winning and saving Lion. Made it all the more surprising by the fact that he does win and save Lion in EP8.
• Establishing Character Moment: His introduction has him kicking down doors to rescue an innocent maid from a sham trial run by his own SSVD. Talk about leaving a first impression.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: When facing Bernkastel in the EP7 Tea Party:
  It's about time someone trimmed your claws! My name is Willard H. Wright, this will be the last time I will draw my sword!
• The Fettered: In spite of his irritability, Will is probably the most unabashed example of Neutral Good in the series.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: His answers to Clair's riddles at the end of Episode 7 are given in form of Classical Japanese, in half-cryptic sentences. Presumably to make Clair's "burial" as gentle as possible, while just saying enough to show he understood the answers.
• Foil: Battler is a mystery lover thrown in a mystery situation against his will. Willard has spent his entire life working in such situations, and it shows.
• Great Detective: The smartest character in the series by far, and a much more genuine example of this trope than Erika. He solved all of Beato's games and riddles, as well as her true identity without breaking a sweat.
• Heel–Face Turn: His profile states that he used to be utterly cold-hearted, cruel, and ruthless in his job as a witch-hunter, but something happened that drastically changed his attitude, sending him into a disillusioned downward spiral until he resigned from the court of heaven altogether.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Barely averted in that he survives while succeeding at doing what he tried to sacrifice himself for.
• Image Song: One in 2.57 Million, which is shared with Lion.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's got a gruff demeanor, but he's actually an incredibly good person, becoming disgusted with his own inquisition agency for their brutality, being really kind to Rosa, and eventually turning against Bernkastel for Lion's sake. Not exactly what you'd expect from the guy who banned love from his detective novels.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Dotes on his pet cat, Diana, to the point that he goes on "dates" with her (whatever that means).
• Major Injury Underreaction: "My left arm? Ah yeah, I must have forgotten it there."
• Mysterious Middle Initial: Though if we go by his namesake, the H could be for "Huntington".
• No Social Skills: Will often needs Lion's intervention in order to communicate with the Ushiromiyas, since he tends to be rather blunt.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Referred to almost exclusively as Will by both the characters and the narrative.
• Rage Against the Author: He eventually explains that his reason for quitting the SSVD was due to becoming sick of dealing with nothing but tragic mysteries, which seems to partially fuel his impassioned defiance of the idea that a happy ending is impossible for Beatrice.
• Retired Badass: Pointed out in his description.
• Retirony: Subverted by EP8, where it's shown that he survived.
• Screw Destiny: He has a massive contempt for Bernkastel's deterministic proclamations that no miracles or happy endings exist, and puts his life on the line to ensure that Lion can find a way out of the nasty fate Bernkastel has revealed for him. Somehow, it all works out.
• Sherlock Homage: He's an extremely intelligent, yet blunt and socially awkward Great Detective. He even has his partner Lion as the Watson homage.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Revealed to be the reason why he got disillusioned with the Court of Heaven. While fighting back against Bernkastel in the EP7 Tea Party, he shows a clear disdain for depressing mysteries that seek only to highlight the worst aspects of their characters, which was basically what Bern had attempted to do with Rudolf and Kyrie. This carries over to his appearance in EP8, where he's completely loyal to Battler and his objective of redeeming the Ushiromiya family's honor.
• Unwitting Pawn: Was driven by understanding and compassion when he agreed to put down the last traces of the witch Beatrice in the form of Clair. This is, of course, exactly what Bernkastel was counting on.
• Use Your Head: Does this to a goat in EP8 when it insults the mystery genre, and he does it hard enough to kill it in the VN. It's No Selled in the manga though.
• Willfully Weak: One of the most widely accepted theories about his duel against Bern is that he didn't use all of his twenty wedges, as Umineko clearly violates some and he refused to destroy the gameboard, as it would be the same as denying Lion a happy ending. This makes him unusually weak from a meta-perspective, as he doesn't have access to any reds the other detectives have, and can only use around 3 or 4 rules from his arsenal. This makes him understanding the truth behind Sayo Yasuda and the four games, something that even Erika couldn't do, that much more impressive. The heartwarming part comes from him putting that handicap on himself.
• Would Hit a Girl: He claims to be in favor of gender equality, so he can punch useless people equally.

Lion Ushiromiya

Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (JP)

"I'm the embodiment of the one hope held by the Beatrices of a million worlds... So, even at times like this, I have to be everyone's hope. I'm not giving up on this game yet."

A piece of unclear gender first seen in EP7. Lion comes from a world in which they are first in line for the headship of the Ushiromiya family, Krauss and Natsuhi's first child and Jessica's older sibling. Lion teams up with Willard H. Wright in his investigation of "Beatrice's murder". Lion also has a rather odd habit of giving people's butts a nasty pinch whenever they're being rude or perverted.

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• Academic Athlete: Both a top student and a star badminton player in high school.
• The Ace: When in school, Lion was an excellent student, the Student Council President and even captain of the badminton team. The TIPs note that aside from being viewed by the rest of the family as still being too young (Lion is 19, and will become head of the family after turning 20), Lion is more suited to be the next head than anyone else. Naturally, Lion's many achievements put quite a bit of pressure on Jessica, and they tend to argue as a result.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the manga, Lion's eyes are blue instead of gray.
• Alternate Self: Lion is a version of Sayo Yasuda in a world where they weren't thrown off the cliff by Natsuhi and grew up as the future head of the Ushiromiya family.
• Ambiguous Gender: Very intentionally; the narration refers to them very gender-neutrally, they have an androgynous appearance, and none of the other characters give any indication what their gender actually is. When Will directly asks Lion which gender they are, Lion gets annoyed and refuses to tell him. This is justified by Bernkastel deliberately designing the game so to keep Lion's gender obscured, probably just to mess with Will.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While the whole "pinching people's butts for being rude" thing is mainly for mild annoyances, what really seems to make Lion angry is insulting or making fun of Natsuhi. Lion continues to be protective of her even after finding out that in almost every other world, Natsuhi is responsible for Lion's suffering as Sayo Yasuda by rejecting them.
• Break the Cutie: Though luckily Will is there to provide encouragement, and Lion ultimately survives Bernkastel's attempts at breaking them to become a stronger person.
• But Not Too Foreign: Lion is of mostly Japanese heritage, but has some Italian blood due to being Beatrice Castiglioni's grandchild.
• Catchphrase: When asked about their gender, Lion will always respond "Which do you think I look like?"
• Child by Rape: Lion is the result of Kinzo forcing himself on his illegitimate daughter, Beatrice Ushiromiya.
• Classy Cravat: Wears a pink cravat as an indicator of being part of the wealthy Ushiromiya family.
• Deadpan Snarker: When around Will, which leads to quite a bit of Snark-to-Snark Combat between the two.
• Determinator: Has definitely become this by the end of the EP7 Tea Party.
  "I'll definitely survive... and so will you...!"
• Don't Call Me "Sir": Lion rather dislikes being called "Successor-sama" by the rest of the family, especially Jessica. Of course, the reason Jessica does so is so the narrative doesn't give away Lion's gender by having her use any gendered sibling terminology.
• Etiquette Nazi: Woe betide anyone who doesn't act politely enough in front of Lion's relatives.
• Expository Pronoun: Lion uses the gender-neutral pronoun "watashi", which is what they're expected to use as the successor to the headship. It also serves to obscure Lion's gender.
• Expy: Of Saber. Similar hair and manner of speech, inherited an important leadership role at a young age and voiced by Ayako Kawasumi.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Lion thinks they're Krauss' child and Jessica's older sibling. In reality, Krauss is their half-brother/uncle and Jessica is their niece/cousin.
• Flower Motifs: Fandom often associates Lion with roses, since Lion is seen holding one in Will and Lion's shared official portrait.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible sibling to Jessica's foolish. Lion is a model student and works very hard to be the future head of the Ushiromiya family, while Jessica is rebellious and free-spirited, preferring to play music with her band instead of focusing on her studies.
• For Want Of A Nail: As previously stated, Lion is Natsuhi's first child if they weren't thrown off the cliff by her. Bernkastel actually states that the probability of that was 1/2578917. It's also interesting to note that in the world where they exist the epitaph and ghost stories about Beatrice do not exist, and Battler does not go back to the island.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: Due to holding the position of the next family head, Lion always speaks very politely.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Lion has blonde hair and they're a very polite and nice person.
• Happily Adopted: Once Lion gets over the shock of finding out their true parentage and resolves to live a happy life for Clair's sake.
• Hope Spot: Serves as an embodiment of this for Sayo Yasuda. Unfortunately, Bernkastel has other ideas… However with the help of Will, Lion does manage to avoid their own fate predicted by Bernkastel.
• Image Song: One in 2.57 Million, which is shared with Will.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even in the world where they exist Sayo Yasuda can't find a happy ending since, even though the reasons are different, the murders still occur with Lion as one of the victims. Bernkastel takes great delight in revealing this just before enacting it, causing Willard to step in and fight back in order to prevent Lion from giving in.
• Leitmotif: Le 4 octobre. Kind of goes with the generally peaceful and nostalgic feel of Episode 7.
• Nice Guy: Lion is very polite and well-adjusted.
• Non-Action Snarker: Not a fighter, but Lion nevertheless has a witty tongue at the right moment, even in the fighting game.
• Oblivious Adoption: For most of their life, Lion had no idea they weren't really Krauss and Natsuhi's child.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Lion points out that their name is pronounced "Lee-on", not "Lie-on", and that it's spelled with the kanji for "science" and "control".
• Pronoun Trouble: You might have guessed the issue by just reading a few lines of this character sheet. While in Japanese it goes unnoticed for a while, translators all over the world have wracked their brains to find a natural way to refer to Lion.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Can be considered the blue to Jessica's red.
• Royal Bastard: Lion, like their Alternate Self Sayo Yasuda, is the illegitimate child of the family head Kinzo and Beatrice II, Kinzo's daughter. However, unlike Sayo, Lion comes from a world where Natsuhi accepted to raise Lion as her child and therefore, Lion is accepted by the family as the rightful successor.
• Running Gag: Has quite the reputation as a butt-pincher in the Ushiromiya family, and winds up doing this to Will whenever he gets out of hand.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Jessica; she's rebellious, free-spirited and not very formal, while Lion is calm, polite and dedicated to being Kinzo's successor.
• Student Council President: Was this in middle school and high school.
• Supreme Chef: Lion is skilled at cooking according to Ryukishi.
• Temporal Paradox: The gameboard of Episode 7 is made of contradictory fragments mashed together; as a result, not only is Lion put in the same room as their alternate selves Shannon and Kanon, their family's memories contradict themselves (like the seat arrangement in the dining hall not including them). All this serves as a hint for Will.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Lion is quite appalled to learn that they aren't Krauss and Natsuhi's biological child, but Kinzo's with his illegitimate daughter. Willard believes that compared to most other worlds where Natsuhi rejects them, they should be grateful to her for receiving so much love that their biological relationship never came into question sooner.
• Tsundere: Sweet type. Lion is very hospitable and friendly among everyone in the family but won't tolerate anyone acting very rude, pinching their butt in retaliation. Lion especially gets irritated around Will who tends to be rather blunt, but they form a close friendship with each other.
• Walking Spoiler: It's difficult to talk about Lion without revealing their connection to Sayo Yasuda and the real Beatrices.
• The Watson: Will calls them this. Lion even turns it back on him at one point by calling him "Willard Holmes". Will and Lion's dynamic is actually quite similar to that of the original Holmes and Watson; though Lion is out of the loop at first in regards to Bernkastel's game and has to have some things explained by Will, Lion is still intelligent, more down-to-earth and has better social skills while Will is also intelligent but has some notable quirks.

Black Battler

Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (JP)

"Battler Ushiromiya. That's supposed to be my name. I've been called that many times... I guess it's obvious, since it is my name. But me and the Battler Ushiromiya I know... sad to say, we're pretty different."

A version of Battler that appears only in the All There in the Manual short story "Forgery no.XXX". He represents the idea that Battler is responsible for the Rokkenjima murders.

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• Anthropomorphic Personification: Of the belief that Battler is the culprit.
• Ascended Extra: He was originally just a character in a side story, but later he became playable in the fighting game.
• Ax-Crazy: He loves to inflict death and suffering on others.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's very proud of his evil deeds.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The story where he appears in basically says he's powered by in-universe Wild Mass Guessing and Fan Fiction.
• Creepy Monotone: When he's not hamming it up.
• Dark Is Evil: His palette is darker than regular Battler, and naturally, he is evil as heck.
• Dissonant Serenity: His default expression.
• Double Entendre: Most of his victory lines are these, although some have some plot-relevant hidden meanings beyond invoking the Primal Fears mentioned below.
• Enemy Without: For Battler.
• Evil Counterpart: To Battler.
• Evil Is Hammy: He has his moments.
• Evil Laugh: He spends a good portion of Forgery XXX doing this.
• Evil Redhead: Like Battler, he has red hair, but he's completely evil.
• Expy: He is very similar to Shiki Nanaya in Tsukihime/Melty Blood in that he's the Evil Counterpart to the protagonist, created through rumours and suspicion that the Hero was actually the culprit all along.
• Fangs Are Evil: He has vampire-like canines in the VN version of Forgery XXX, along with Hellish Pupils.
• Faux Affably Evil: He has all of Battler's charm, but none of his morals.
• For the Evulz: His primary motivation to be the culprit and commit atrocities? "Because I'm the culprit".
• Glass Cannon: Is capable of doing crazy amounts of damage but has the lowest health in the game.
• Godzilla Threshold: He IS one for the Manga's Episode 8, when Erika starts tearing up the Golden Land with cannon fire and concept negation rounds. This does get subverted however, as Beatrice kills him with a single Red Truth.

  Beatrice: USHIROMIYA BATTLER IS NOT THE CULPRIT!

• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Along with Dark Is Evil palette, his narrow eyes distinguish him as the evil clone.
• Lack of Empathy: He feels no regard for others, who he sees as merely playthings that he can throw away once he's decided to take their life.
• Laughing Mad: Many, many times.
• Noodle Incident: He appeared in Land of the Golden Witch and Trinity of the Golden Witch (stories we know nothing about) according to Ronove in Forgery No. XXX.
• Obviously Evil: Dissonant Serenity? Negative palette swap of Battler? His name is "Black Battler"? He's obviously the most trustworthy person on the island!
• Practically Joker: The purple suit, sadistic cruelty, and Evil Laughter are a dead giveaway.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": When he goes all out, he is prone to crazed Evil Laughter.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He looks the same to Battler in every way aside from the color palette swap. The major difference is that his eyes are red with slitted pupils.
• Slasher Smile: He wears one a good majority of the time in Forgery XXX. Even if he's killed and dying.
• SNK Boss: Just watch.
• Softspoken Sadist: He is often kindly whispering words of, err, "affection" to his victims. By affection, read "how beautiful the sound of their bones breaking is", and such.

Virgilius

Voiced by: Kyousuke Kitayama (JP)

A human who was to play an important role in Land of the Golden Witch, the story that should have been Episode 3 but became one of Beatrice's lost "message bottles". The Witch Piece briefly brings him back into existence in the epilogue of Last Note of the Golden Witch.

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• Decomposite Character: His role was divided between Erika (the super detective opposing Battler) and The Man from Nineteen Years Ago (someone claiming to be Natsuhi's secret child who comes uninvited to the island) in Episode 5. As well as the name source for Virgilia (aside from Dante's Inferno, of course).
• The Rival: He was supposed to be an enemy detective opposing Battler throughout several games.

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