The mystery deepens as Victorique and Kazuya are kept apart from each other while other forces are at play.
What They Say:
“The Blue Rose of Saubreme”, a dramatization of the tragic life and death of Queen Coco, is going to be performed at the Phantom Theatre. In order to expose the truth behind the queen’s murder, the Marquis de Blois has Victorique brought to the theater. Why are they after the queen’s killer? Victorique is in imminent danger in the hotbed of the Ministry of the Occult’s ulterior motive!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Events continue to move forward within Gosick as the Ministry of the Occult weaves its plans and that’s only freaking the hell out of Kazuya with how he sees Victorique being used by it all. Seeing the way he reacts when she walks away from him is definitely a difficult moment since he can’t understand why she goes with them or the scale of events that are unfolding around him. Making matters worse is that Blois is standing there watching it all unfold, a participant in his own way as his sister is used by this group. But like many other stories that are dealt with in the larger narrative that is Gosick, it’s all about the past and how its cold, dead hands continue to dig deep into the fleshing of the living in the present.
That past involves the death of Queen Coco, which we’ve seen being dealt with as a play known as “The Blue Rose of Saubreme” within the city. Having seen the events of the past with Cordelia and her time as a dancer and performer is brought into play again since she was such a memorable person, and that’s giving Kazuya more information about all these connections between them, particularly because of the new play. There’s a haunting nature to the story here as he grasps at all these disparate parts and tries to put the picture together. It’s something that Victorique generally does rather easily, since that’s her main skill, The series continues to be frustrating because of this as we get so many different little bits of flashback, memories and so forth spread across the entire run of the story that piecing it all together as an audience member means needing to write it all down and really looking at it in big picture form. In a way, Gosick makes things too complicated but it has the appeal in that it makes you work for it.
As the episode moves forward, more and more is revealed about Nicole La Roux and how she was mistaken for the Queen at one point and how her disappearance doesn’t quite add up all those years ago, giving room to plenty of rumors and innuendo. And mixed into all of this as Kazuya gets all the bits and pieces is that of Brian himself as he seems to be manipulating the situation, nudging Kazuya from place to place in order to achieve whatever results he’s trying to get. There are some beautifully animated scenes throughout this, especially with the occult ceremony, and Gosick continues to build one hell of an impressive atmosphere. But everything continues to be so spread out, so precise in teasing new bits of information for the viewer, that putting it all together continues to be a task. It builds up to some grand moments here in the final part of the episode, but it still lacks a real connection to make it thoroughly engaging.
In Summary:
Gosick continues to weave an interesting tale here as it keeps Kazuya and Victorique apart from each other as they deal with the different aspects of the story. When the two are together, there’s a lot to like as they play well off of each other and she treats him like a proper Watson with her style and attitude. When they’re apart, Victorique comes across as a lifeless girl for the most part, almost as if she’s a doll being taken to and fro even if she does understand the reasons why. She’s more resigned to things. Kazuya is more aggressive in trying to figure things out and works through many clues, talks to a lot of people and has an intensity about him that’s interesting to watch. But as continues to be the case, the actual mysteries and stories themselves lack any real impact or connection for me as they’re too disjointed and spread out, keeping me from actually enjoying them. Gosick continues to be a beautiful show, but one that has less and less of a heart to it for me.
Grade: C+
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
