Umineko is different from most cases of my defending a Visual Novel based Anime hated by fans of the source material. Though my basic argument that the Anime needs to be judged as it's own thing first before bringing source material comparison into it (which VN zealots constantly refuse to do) remains.
In those other cases the Anime adaptation doesn't fundamentally change anything about what happens, it's mostly fans being upset about stuff cut that they liked, but all that cut stuff is probably still Canon in the Anime it's just off screen or in most cases literally in a POV character's head. In Umineko however actual changes happen making it so what is happening in the Anime can't be the same as what was happening in the VN.
Before I get into those changes however, I want to describe for you my experience watching the Anime as someone who went in knowing only that it's a spiritual sequel to Higurashi. Because I knew the connection to Higurashi I figured the timeline would restart every 4 to 6 episodes but nothing else.
It starts as an Anime take on a fairly generic murder mystery set up, the first 4 and a half episodes do a good job of establishing the characters and making me interested, and there was definitely a sense that it was being self aware about the clichés it is playing with, I happen to like that style of metafiction. I was having a good time but it was not something I'd recommend outside the specific context of Anime to watch during October.
Then in the midst of episode 5 during what seemed to my Higurashi memory like an Arc's climax the show suddenly cuts to the characters sitting around talking about the "bad end" having a conversation that feels like one of those non canon Meta conversations characters often have over the next episode preview. Then Battler starts questioning things and then stuff starts happening and then the Witch shows up, and he starts arguing that witches don't exist, to the Witch standing in front of him. Then it cuts to Lady Bernkastel and I'm like "she looks and sounds familiar".
Then the show goes off the rails in the best way possible, it gets so absurd and wacky and over the top and I loved every minute of it, the Brass knuckles, the witch battles, the juggling between realities and time periods. But as all that's happening I also start to get genuinely more invested in the characters and before I know it the penultimate episode makes my Cry, something that then still happened to me fairly rarely, this show that I was a few hours ago tweeting about as a show to watch for the absurd ridiculousness now has me in tears.
When a show or movie makes me Cry it's pretty much a guaranteed 10 out of 10, there would have to be some significant problems to cancel that out and Umineko had none. So no matter what the VN differences were gonna turn out to be, the Anime as it's own stand alone piece of art irreversibly earned it's status as an Artistic Masterpiece.
Now as I discus the VN differences I will have to get into spoilers, though I'll try to keep them minimal.
