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「夏至祭に神託はくだされる」 (Geshi-sai ni Shintaku wa Kudasareru)
“A Divine Revelation is Given at the Summer Solstice Festival”
In a village full of blondies with ponytails coupled with having the production of BONES, it felt weird to keep thinking I was seeing the distant cousins of the Elric family. Other than that, the “preparation” development of the mystery intrigues, but it’s certainly going to be lacking compared to the later acts that are sure to follow. Victorique discovers confirmation that the murderer certainly wasn’t her mother, and resolves to find the culprit. The other visitors begin dying for various reasons to make things feel like “chaos,” and Kujou asks if he’ll still be with Victorique in the future. The man knows his priorities, though I’m not sure what that says about the one who only asked about her height.
Assuming these mysteries go with the stereotype of how they’re told, every new character introduced is viable to be the culprit. So we’ve got the old man Sergius (Hori Katsunosuke) running the village, the young man following him around (Ambrose (Atsushi Abe), or Alphonse’s cousin twice removed.), the spunky nun Mildred (Watanabe Akeno) that must have hid all that crazy hair with some kind of magic, and the unintentionally hilarious psychotic maid Harminia (Kuwashima Houko). You’ve got the one guy left from the pool of visitors, but he’s probably going to die soon, so I don’t see him as the one. Well, Mildred, Ambrose, and Harminia were even younger than Cordelia at the time of the murder, so that pretty much just leaves the village elder. A later clue shows that when the clock strikes an hour, it rings, so the old man could have been lying that he checked his gold watch, as there leaves the possibility that he knew the time accurately because he had been in the room himself. He had killed Theodore over a matter of a bag of gold at 12:00 AM, and Cordelia later came after 12, explaining the different times the witnesses had recalled. Why did he kill Theodore over gold? Perhaps because he felt the old village elder was stupid, and he wanted to make the village rich and move on, since he was the next village elder after all. Not really a cold blooded killer, the elder let Cordelia heal and exiled her to retain the image that she was still the culprit. Perhaps he even feels guilty about the whole thing, seeing how he lets her daughter come back into the village. Though if he is killing the other guys, maybe it’s just because he’s pissed that they’re making fun of his village, since hell, he damn sure killed at least one of them.
It goes in line with the sponsorship the village acquired ten years ago, by the name of Brian Roscoe, a descendant of someone who left the village. Roscoe or his descendant could have been the one that came back and left the picture of Cordelia in her house. Maybe it’s even connected to the Marquis, since the picture was of Cordelia in a cell, so it was after her secret was found out. Perhaps it was someone sent in for investigation, I don’t know. Ten years ago doesn’t help since I have no immediate recall of the time-line and would require a search, but there’s no fun in that. My inner Holmes is too lazy to keep going, as any further would just be speculation upon speculation.
The Gray Wolf mythos is touched upon briefly, but it’s not really related to the murder itself. I think the “wolves” are angry at the village because they exiled their “relative” or something. They keep calling it, “The Village of the Gray Wolves,” but they’re really just nearby the surrounding forest that harbors the Gray Wolves. What that is in relation to Cordelia and her secret power “bloodline,” we’ll just have to find out. I’m getting the vibe of a child raised by wolves here, or Cordelia’s just a wolf spiritually turned into human, but there’s just not enough info right now. I think it’s more uncanny that of all the people in the village to have framed, Sergius was stuck with Cordelia, a not so normal girl that now has her wolves terrorizing the village. Choice or coincidence, who knows?
Useless Grevil appears next week and Mildred takes a liking to him (lol). Harminia seems like she’ll be stirring up the pot, though I’m not sure what her reasons are other than mental damage from a misrepresented murder. Maybe she’s had experience with the Gray Wolves and is actually scared of that instead. I could also be wrong about Sergius, but I would be shocked if that wasn’t it. On another note that wouldn’t fit anywhere, Victorique’s shower singing is terribly funny.
Preview
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Of little actual relevance- but I can’t believe that Mildred styles her hair like that…
It looks like some deranged psycho sheep afro that just got zapped by a Zeus-powered Van de Graaff generator or something.
You know, when you’ve got horn haired Grevil, it doesn’t seem that crazy anymore. And she’s into him. 😀
They do have a distinct connection with bad hair lives.
Can’t help to think while watching this episode that this is also this. lol
lol, had the same thought
the two creepiest moments in anime women. add Roberta’s Blood Trail in it and we completed the group.
Have a feeling that maid-san is traumatized and brainwashed to lie. Village elder also seems a ‘lil bit fishy.
The village elder’s prediction was the most lasting impression this episode left on me. World War II created enough atrocities, but now we have to add Kujo and Victorique’s heartbreaking, final and permanent separation to the list.
Thought so too. Sounded to me like WW2 will seperate them forever, maybe Kujo has to join the japanese army. … This makes me feel really sad, but we don’t even know for sure if it’s going to happen. But yeah, most likely. Dorama sucks..
Maybe they can change fate. It would be sad them being forced apart. No more “ho ho ho” moments would kill me.
Nice piece, but one point: as far as I know, Mildred, Ambrose, and Hermione were all alive at the time of the murder. Hermione definitely was, since she herself said the pattern of the hilt of the knife was burned into her eyes.
I’ve enjoyed Yuuki Aoi’s work here from the start (the hollow laugh, various odd noises, some beautifully said lines, and now that singing), but now I am enjoying the show itself more and more.
oops, fix’d
This series is smart. The mysteries and how they are played out is a cut above what we usually see in an anime. The mysteries are even better laid out then what we saw in Yakamo and that was a good series last season. It had some pacing problems but overall was worth watching. This serties is even better!
Victorique is probably the best female main character of this season. She simply owns any scene she is in. Funny by being so serious, intense, mysterious, and moe all wrapped up in a small package. Not to mention she is easily bribable with sweets.
I love this show. After seven weeks, it has secured its spot as my favorite show of the season, certainly the most anticipated each week. I really really enjoyed this episode, and it felt pretty high quality too. The only part that was a little strange for me was Kujou’s question to the scary guy; it just felt like it came out of the blue. I mean, it’s obvious that there is something going on between Kujou and Victorica (and I think it’s quite cute) but it wasn’t made known that Kujou was aware enough of these feelings to ask something like that and blush. Just seemed weird.
And I highly doubt that Victorica really asked about her height, I mean look at this a face! (Dawwwww >.< cutest face ever, don't cry Victoricaaaaaaa). I wonder if she overheard something of Kujou's conversation with scary guy, because they did show her feet near the tent.
Absolutely can't wait for Friday.
And Victorica’s dress is very befitting to her, I must say.
I think she should comfort herself with that while she is short like her mom so did her mom at least have the required curves so she wont look like a kid at least.
Spoilering just in case: Relates to Victorique’s inquiry at the church
Show Spoiler ▼
Guhh I must agree, arrogant guest #3 is not long for this world, especially after his buddies have been knocked out.
It was the village elder. There’s something about that creepy old guy that gets to me.
I kind of agree. From the looks of it, he wants the festival to continue despite the first death. Then he shot and killed the second victim, ignoring Victorique’s warning. His possible motive is that he is angry for all the people, as well as their descendents, to have left the village.
It’s surprising that Victorique wants to know if she can get taller, why does she, she looks too cute to grow taller.
Much to my surprise. The nun hair is so……… puffy. It is really hard to tell if she had all that hair under her nun clothing. Almost like she had short hair one day, then the next it instantly grew.
I would be amused if Edward Elric suddenly makes a cameo appearance
Not my convincing argument? 🙁
The Elder benefits the most from Theodore:
1) He becomes Elder, which is a pretty awesome position in such an obscure village
2) We can assume, as Kiiragi said, that he fought with Theodore over the gold, since it’s contraband AND valuable.
Furthermore, the issue of Cordelia being like Vic as far as height goes rules her out. And it was the Elder who forced her out… rather suspicious, non?
I’m calling him the killer, unless they pull some other player in the mystery out of a hat or something.
I kind of agree. Also, remember when the wolves chased after them and the soon to be dead guy was like “the creepy old man will drive them away, won’t he?” Well, he certainly didn’t for Victorica and Kujou. Something tells me that was a plan gone wrong, but this is just guess work.
Also, I disagree with Theodore being killed over gold. Why would the gold be left on the ground then? Perhaps Theodore was up to no good with the gold and scary old man killed him.
That’s the point, exactly (the gold, I mean). We don’t know WHY that gold was there, so we can make a few assumptions:
1) That was the Elder’s gold
2) Elder wanted gold
3) Theodore was up to no good with that gold
and so on, there being what I can come up with off the top of my head. What I find weird about 3) is that if Theo was really up to something nefarious, the Elder could very well have exposed it to the general public instead of framing Cordelia, thus eliminating the need to kill him at all. Unless the Village Elder is a complete and utter autocrat or something to that effect.
If the elder wanted the gold, it would be gone.
Those eyes!!!
Is the whole village insane? XD
If Sergius does turn out to be the main culprit, I’ll be very disappointed
It all seemed too easy, especially after the preview shots this week.
Let’s hope Gosick surprise us…
I see that people like this show, but i’m seriously disappointed by it. Maybe i was just expecting too much? It does not really give off that mystery feeling for me, i don’t get the whole ‘Chaos’ thingy, the reconstruction abilities seem to me a tad too far-fetched, it’s almost as if this little girl was a psychic of some sort and this really is almost ridiculous sometimes. Besides, what’s the deal with the reoccurring theme of wolves. I hope this is of some importance for the Japanese people, otherwise it’s just kinda hackneyed…
I believe Victorie asked about his height, retrieval whether his mother could be the killer.
About Kujo prophecy, which the wind to separate them, it would be World War II?
But are you sure that the prophecy is about the WW II?
I think it’s to early to speak about that war, because the story is set only in 1924, and the WW will start in 1939 in Europe and in 1941 in Japan, fifteen/seventeen years after our story.
There is a lot of time for Vic and Kujo to make their bond strong and eventually fall in love each other.
Maybe the prophecy will be about another event…
well, for your knowledge, Japanese involvement in the WWII started way earlier than Pearl Harbour:
They invaded north China in 1931, established the Manchuria over the occupied provinces in 1932. They also tried to invade Shanghai in 1932, investing as much as 70 thousand Marines and several naval ships. They got stopped by the westerners when they couldn’t control Shanghai quickly enough and the fight became a standstill. They finally occupied Shanghai in 1937 (though they left the concessions in western hand till after Pearl Harbour) and the notorious Nanjing Massacre (Nanjing was the Chinese Capital) happened in 1938.
The fact that they did not declare war to the old colonial forces till 1941 did not mean that they are not at war before that.
Thanks Horace: I forgot all of these events.
Now the prophecy can have a lot of sense.
Maybe there’s something wrong with the water…
The 2 guys were dead probably bcos they found out something, and the only odd thing I can see from them is the holy water incident.
I have a question, what is the wellspring of wisdom (not sure if that’s the right name), but I find it weird how Victorique always looks into that to solve mysteries. Is it just a way to show that she understands the mystery, or is it actually some kind of power that she has because she’s a “gray wolf”?
I It would be nice if you went over this article specially directing you to the Accuracy Section which deals to a point of what it is. It’s a matter of chaos i suppose 🙂 Hopefully i got it right towards what you wore asking. Though i wouldn’t know if it goes beyond normal, maybe the light novels know.