[Black Goat][Serious Spoilers] My Understanding of Kinzo Ushiromiya
I noticed that many people online believed Kinzo did deliberately provoke the conflict between Japan and Italy soldiers in order to seize the gold and Beatrice. But after reading Umineko myself, I’ve always leaned toward the idea that Kinzo wasn’t like that.
That said, honestly, it could be possible… Because Kinzo started with nothing, not even the power of making his own life decisions. And people like that often become obsessive when faced with opportunity—or with something they desperately want. So when he encountered a foreign woman who seemed to like him (supposedly), a woman so dreamlike and unreal, his decision to use the language barrier and sow discord in order to manipulate Beatrice and the gold suddenly feels… disturbingly reasonable.
After all, the fact remains that even after having children, Kinzo never loved them, he only wanted to clutch his gold and his beautiful Italian lover tightly in his hands—almost like imprisoning her in Kuwatorian. Connecting all these pieces is chilling: his obsessive passion for Beatrice may not have been love at all, but the desire to possess Beatrice, the Italian “trophy.”
That’s where Yasu’s conflict lies, as one point in the story she said that she would rather this truth about her be better left unsaid—because it was too painful for her. That explains why Battler and she hid the truth of The Rokkenjima Mass Murders from Ange for Ange’s sake. And at the same time, Kinzo, until the very end of his life, acted only for himself—because he wanted to die peacefully. Other than the gold and the estate he couldn’t take to the grave, he left Yasu nothing but a bloody truth. That is it. Then he just went off to die, pretending to feel guilt, but in reality showing complete selfishness.
That makes the story of first Beatrice trapped in Kuwatorian, giving birth and dying in childbirth, horrifying in a whole new way. Because it was essentially an act of confinement from the start. Giving birth at home with only the family doctor there—how dangerous that was for a woman. Kinzo didn’t care about Beatrice as a person; what mattered was whether he could control his own life. Beatrice’s existence, and all the romantic imagery surrounding her, was simply proof to him that he had control over his destiny—a rebellion against his arranged marriage and his life in general.
Of course, you could also say that his obsession with gold was because he loved Beatrice—or that it was partly both: love and obsession. Maybe he thought Yasu deserved to know the truth because, in the worldview he grew up in, money and power meant love. At least that’s how Ryukishi frames a more sympathetic reading of Kinzo—seeing his actions as driven by love.
But honestly, when you connect all these points, I lean more toward thinking he loved himself most. That’s why he kept exercising his patriarchal power over his children. From beginning to end, he clung tightly to control, choosing the social systems that benefited him most to rule his household. The first Beatrice was his trophy, not an independent, beautiful, clever, or brave woman. To him, he was the tragic hero who risked everything “for love”—a narrative he fully indulged in. But in that story, Beatrice had no right to even handle the gold; she was trapped on the island until her death. Eva’s intelligence went unrecognized and she was treated unfairly. The bird Beatrice was a second trophy, who lost her life before she could even find who she was. And Yasu—standing so close to him—he still couldn't recognize her. Even the epitaph about returning Beatrice’s gold begins with “a familiar homeland.” It’s like—wait, isn’t this story supposed to be about Beatrice? Why are we suddenly talking about your homeland? Why do we need to know you that well? (Maybe I’m overreacting here, haha.) But really, how could he ever claim to “love” the women around him? He ignored their suffering and drowned himself in his own tragic-romantic fantasy.
P.S.
Even Battler and bird Beatrice’s story feels like a different pathway that Kinzo could have chosen—or maybe Ryukishi intended Battler to mirror Kinzo’s emotional journey, showing how he finally accepted that the newborn Beatrice was his daughter. But you can also read it like Battler did what Maria did—responding to generational trauma with an embrace, choosing to end it by himself. Battler became the one who changed Beatrice’s tragic "rebirth" cycle.