>>495>Gou has failed as a newcomer-friendly anime regarding the Higurashi partsWell to their credit, R07 lied through their teeth when they claimed this was a remake for the purpose of surprising viewers and it was a resounding success. It was never meant to be newcomer-friendly, and anyone that believed it to be was fooled by the early marketing. As for the Umineko connection, the stuff that connects Higurashi to Umineko is not at all relevant to the plot of Umineko. All it does is add more to certain meta characters and create a shared universe between R07's works like with the shared characters in CLAMP's works. You wouldn't tell somebody that it's necessary to watch Rayearth to understand Card Captor Sakura, XXXHolic, or vice versa, but it adds a bit to those stories/characters knowing that connection.