This is why this series originally caught my attention: its creativity. This episode was full of it. It successfully created an entire small culture, with its own rituals, traits and habits. It created a wide variety of characters and a very imaginative back-story that for once actually kept me guessing, instead of just waiting for Victorique to grab the script again. Finally there’s some actual build-up in the way she comes to the answer!
It’s a shame that this series leaves so much to be desired in the character department. If it had compelling and deep characters it really would have been an interesting series here. Instead, the only interesting character in this series at this point is Victorique: the past two episodes gave a lot of depth to her with her background and her antics are also starting to get quite colorful. The rest of the cast though… they’re not portrayed well.
Most of the characters here suffered from bad acting and strange behaviors. Especially those three male guests suffered from this: they were stereotypical assholes. I know that this series is deliberately withholding their backgrounds, but in doing so it also forgets to flesh them out and give them decent personalities. We never even get to know who they are. The maid in this episode as well: I’m sure that she’s a nice girl and all, but this episode portrayed her as totally deranged. Oh, and we also have Kujou. I still can’t get over the fact that the lead character of a detective series has such a poor sense of observation. First there is a box with a piece of paper in it, and he says that nothing is in it. Then he promises to protect Victorique, only for her to run off while he’s dozing off. Or take the scene in which we get a surprisingly cheerful Victorique singing from out of nowhere… and he just remarks that she’s back to her usual self. When did we ever hear her sing so cheerfully like that!? (No offence to Victorique about that, by the way. It’s really good to see more sides of her).
And don’t get me wrong, though: this episode was wonderfully told. The atmosphere it built up was excellent and the dialogue blended in really well with the music. It was well paced and packed a number of great and hard hitting plot twists. It’s because of that that it’s such a shame that this show is a waste of this potential due to the really poor attention to detail. I’ve said this before: this show is great in the big picture, but not so great in the small picture.
Rating: * (Good)
“I’m sure that she’s a nice girl and all, but this episode portrayed her as totally deranged.”
I think she’s supposed to be totally deranged and not a nice girl at all.
“also forgets to flesh them out and give them decent personalities”
Um, why? Two of them already died, there was no need to flesh them out
tomo: that’s my point: who were they? Why were they even in this story?
Detective series rarely develop more than a few characters from the main cast. The cast often is a revolving door for series like these so good character development is not something you should normally expect from side-characters.
However, we’ll probably get to see something on Kujo in the series or Victorique’s brother. It would be a letdown if we didn’t.
Mystery buildup, however, is exactly what you should expect and it was done wonderfully this time around. Gosick had a lot trouble with its “script-based” approach earlier. Here’s to hoping it continues to do so.
Btw, I hope they don’t go with the “Old man” as the killer. It would be way too obvious. I’d rather see this “wise guy” fess up to being such an incompetent bastard and apologize to Victorique. What kind of leader banishes someone for discovering a body (and evidence that she was innocent), ignores a suspicious death in the village and then shoots like an idiot at the first thing that moves?
@psgels
Maybe the remaining one will tell them something, but I think they are just a wandering curious bunch, nothing more.
Oh yes. Another interesting theory is that the “separation” thing could be related to WW2.
>Detective series rarely develop more than a few characters from the main cast.
Yes, if this was really just a dectective story. I’m starting thinking we approached it on false premises. This is a love story with background mysteries.
As it was easily predicted before, now’s the time to flesh out Victorica, and i guess next one is Kujo.
PS: I also think WW2 has a lot to do with the separation.
This show is so much better when they keep Kujo quiet and move things along at a good clip. I do wish it would dial down the overacting, though. It’s fine to point out who the bad guys are, but over-doing it doesn’t make me think “red herring” it makes me think “cheesy”. And the Asian-styled background music and dancing made the festival feel a bit absurd.