Episode #4 Staff

Finally, It’s Time for Some Gnosia Talk

I’m extremely late to review anything from Gnosia because, for one, I’m moving at the moment, and for two, when this show was coming out, I was very busy with Game Jam-related things. But now I’m finally here to talk about it! I played and finished Gnosia earlier this year, and it was a very unique game. It’s essentially a single-player version of Among Us, or more fittingly, Werewolf. It has a roguelite nature in how the roles change, and the characters have their own AI and are rarely scripted, so the situations and who is Gnosia are almost never the same.

When I heard it was getting an anime, I found it very interesting. Of course, this is an episode 4 review, but since I missed the reviews for the earlier episodes, I wanted to give more of my contextual reaction. Gnosia is a game/visual novel that does have a story, but the story is very segmented between events and chance. The actual debates rarely contain unique dialogue, so the adaptation was very curious to me, and I wondered how it would even become an anime. However, if you look at any official Gnosia promotional, you quickly find out why.

The producer of the anime, Kimura Yoshitaka, requested the adaptation himself after playing the game and falling in love with it. He was completely absorbed by the gameplay and wanted to bring it to life. He even created a blog for the production to personally discuss everything about it, which I will link here. This is very much a passion project for him, and ever since I saw how excited he was and all the extra media he was producing, I felt that this was not typical promotional talk. This guy is genuinely a fan of the game producing the anime, which raised my hopes significantly before the show even premiered, and even before we got a full official trailer. Now that the show has aired a couple of episodes, you can really see the results. Based on interviews about the show, it had a full four-year production, and out of all the Domerica shows I’ve seen, this one probably has some of the best production values. Many of the usual staff shine particularly brightly in this production.

Arisa Matsuura is the character designer and one of the main staff members you’ll often see in Domerica’s works, and her character designs are amazing. Gnosia is a very unusual-looking game with complex character designs, and she honestly brought them to life perfectly. She also directed episodes 1 and 2, both of which had very fun directional styles. The almost over-the-top simulation in terms of camera movement in those episodes, combined with all the cool shots, really gave Gnosia much of its identity.

Long-term Domerica staff, Kazuya Ichikawa, who has directed most of their shows, is heading the whole project as the main director. While he hasn’t appeared as the director on an individual episode yet, his influence is undeniably all over the show. You know, I’ve always had mixed feelings about his direction sometimes; it’s hard for me to explain. Many of his shows tend to have a very “digital” look, very composited to the point where it can feel less natural. But here, I would even dare say that it fits Gnosia very well. Even if it didn’t, his aesthetic feels more cohesively integrated than anything I’ve ever seen from him.

That is to say, visually, I am very impressed with the adaptation so far. There are also a lot of well-animated scenes; the visual side is stacked, and I’m loving it. But now, how is the story? I can share my thoughts on that in general, but I want to segue into talking about episode 4 here, because my thoughts on the story and how it has honestly improved the game’s storytelling carry a lot of weight as we move into episode 4.

No More Plot Armor

For people who are anime onlies, don’t worry I’m not planning to spoiler anything about the game here.

This episode introduces us to Yuriko, who is perhaps the most enigmatic person in the group so far. She does something that seems to harm Yuri in some way, and at first, it is hard to tell what she did. Only in the very next warp do we find out that Yuri was killed by the Gnosia. In the game, this serves as a signal that you are moving out of the tutorial phase and that characters can now be killed, and I really like how the anime conveys this.

Jukki Hanada, who is no stranger to difficult-to-adapt anime, really had his hands full with this adaptation because Gnosia is a very gamey visual novel. But, as I mentioned before, since the game’s story is so segmented, I actually think he has improved the viewing experience, at least in terms of appreciating Gnosia as a story through his script for the anime. Yuriko removing Yuri’s plot armor is just one example, but there are many moments in which he does this effectively. Just to stay on Yuriko for a moment, for example..

In the game, Yuriko has always come off to me as somewhat stoic and very commanding. She has very high influence, making it hard to vote her out. Early in the game, she is a total pain if she dislikes you. You understand this mostly as a game mechanic, but you never really think about why she is so convincing. In the anime, she leans into her status as a shrine maiden and acts quite unexpectedly haughty, watching over the crew almost as if she is observing peasants in a gallery. She can vote people out easily because she is outspoken and exudes an aura of confidence, like, “Yeah, this person knows what she is doing.” She also times her vote well, placing it near the end when they did not know who to vote for, which ended up dooming Shigemichi. It’s a nice way to give more character to Yuriko, and it’s lovely to see all the quirks of the characters, which were not always visible in the game since the original did not have many CG cutscenes. Yuriko’s introduction in the anime is a hit, like most of the introductions so far. The cast is quite large, and not even everyone within the visual novel itself gets the same screen time, but after seeing how they have introduced everyone so far, including Yuriko, I’m feeling very optimistic about the remaining cast having their moment in the anime.

To highlight more of Yuriko’s antics, this anime is mostly just talking, but the show never really fails to show off its quirkiness, which is the best word I could come up with. Yuriko is also using her weird cybernetic fan, waving it around dramatically. Shigemichi is quite animated, and Yuri has little quirks, like constantly grabbing their hair. The animation is very consistent, the framing and shots are excellent, and there is a particular part of the episode I want to discuss, which involves a very important reveal.

The Silver Key

Yuri dies and loops in the same pod they always do and mentions offhandedly that they were killed by the Gnosia, to which Setsu replies nonchalantly, revealing that they have been in a loop with Yuri this whole time. This revelation gets them talking, but they don’t want to converse in this area, so they decide to use this weird sci-fi hologram room that seems to be able to shape things based on what the person wants. I’m going to go back and talk about the story and how they adapted it in a section, but can we just talk about how well-directed, well board, and pretty the art direction for these scenes are?

The storyboarder Yuuki Oonishi and Episode Director Yuuki Iida both did a very good job on this episode, alongside Kamata Mayumi and Takada Mari, the show’s art directors. This is pretty much the first person Yuri has had anyone to confide in, and the way they chose to portray their interaction with Setsu is very interesting. They walk around the ship, and as I say go to this hologram room, which seems to reflect their personalities. Yuri’s hologram room seems to be this desolate, almost liminal place, while Setsu seems to prefer a room full of people. It’s an interesting visual choice to show both of their current thoughts and personalities, and I really enjoyed how Yuri’s room looked. It’s very desolate, but also a bit peaceful. At this point in time, Yuri hasn’t decided to interact with too many people, at least willingly, whereas Setsu, who is already experienced with the loops, is always interacting with people, paying attention to them, collecting information, and more importantly, there’s probably a part of her that doesn’t want to be alone either in general.

The Silver Key, of course, is revealed in this episode as both the way for them to get out of the loop and the cause of the loop itself. TLDR, as you have probably already watched the episode, the key requires knowledge or information about people, and once it is satisfied, the loop will end. The visual for this is symbolized by knowledge being a drop of water, and the key itself needs to be filled.

I find it interesting how this ties into the frequent appearances of the water tank in the anime, where the fish are shown, which sometimes indicate who the Gnosia is. In this episode, from what I can tell, the fish in the tank seem to symbolize Setsu and Yuri, the yellow/red fish and the greener fish. Setsu and Yuri are in the same situation. They are both looping, trapped in the same tank, and caged together in this time loop. The tank in this episode only contains these two fish, which suggests that Yuri and Setsu share a special connection.

In a previous episode, the pink fish, representing SQ, chased the purple and gold fish, and on that day, SQ ended up killing Gina. In contrast, in this tank, the fish are swimming calmly together. They are in this together.

This idea is reinforced when Setsu reveals their identity as a Gnosia in this episode, which Stella overhears. Yet Yuri chooses to send Stella to cold sleep rather than sending Setsu to cold sleep. Yuri recognizes that even as a Gnosia, Setsu cares deeply about them. Therefore, to balance the situation, since Setsu did the wrong thing by revealing they were a Gnosia, Yuri also has to act incorrectly to align themselves with Setsu. They later request Setsu to kill them of course to make up for it. This is almost romantic in some ways of course Setsu is asexual, but I meant in a relationship sense.

While the Silver Keys will continue to get filled with knowledge like drops of water, the reality is that since no one else knows about the loop, Setsu and Yuri are still alone. This is why I think they decided to have the two talk in the liminal space that Yuri seemed to have created with the hologram room. The truth is that even if they collect all these drops of information, the water is not what keeps them thriving; it is what keeps the key moving. They are the fish in the tank, and they are really the only two in there.

As much as helping each other does not benefit them in any way in finishing their respective keys, they both cannot help themselves, because they are the only ones for each other who truly know what the other is going through. Even if they aren’t looping in the same order, they feel a special connection to each other.

The anime adaptation of Gnosia has honestly been a joy to watch so far and has added to my appreciation of the story from the original game. I can’t wait to see our cat boy and tattoo girl next week, and I’ll do my best to be there to write about it.