Victorique has been sequestered in a secret underground chamber by her father to solve the infamous murder of Coco Rose. The problem is she has not been given enough evidence to properly solve the case. Will Kazuya be able to step up to the plate and not only be a proper Watson but a gallant protector to the tiny blonde detective?

The Case

That this case involves a mistaken identity becomes very clear early on when we see that Coco Rose happens to be missing her head when murdered. Whoops! The more interesting thing is how the episode, and its previous installment, keep setting up duality to emphasis the point. We have the two actresses playing Coco Rose in the play; Victorique sees a portrait of her mother in her younger days who of course looks like Victorique; and we even have two Brians at the end to round it out. Unfortunately, while this makes it obvious to the audience what has happened, Victorique has yet to figure it out. Because her father is insane and insists she can’t leave the room, which seems kind of random. The purpose eluded me.

Unless there is a major twist it does not seem to difficult to figure out how two people could be murdered in two places at the same time considering we learn that there was an actress who looked exactly like Coco Rose. The Queen was murdered in one location and her double was murdered in the other. The major question is was the King the killer like they have heavily implied or is that a red herring and there was another culprit behind murder. If the King was the killer than how did decapitate the Queen despite having no obvious means of doing so. Surely whatever the answer is the definitive clue is buried in the supposed grave of Nicole Leroux. If nothing else the reason that Albert de Blois seems so keen on solving this case is clear. The Ministry of the Occult is sure they know the killer is and that person is a very important figure. They plan to blackmail the killer once Victorique can find a definitive piece of evidence that makes their accusation more than just finger-pointing. The more interesting question in my mind is who is the 2nd Brian Roscoe. The 2 Brian Roscoes are obviously working together to help Kazuya but the question is who is the 2nd one. There is over a foot difference between Brian and Cordelia therefore she is far too short to pass herself off as him so who is the Brian Roscoe disguise?

Final Thoughts

Kazuya’s commitment to stay by Victorique’s side comes to a dramatic height in this episode. It was good to see him gathering evidence despite not being able to put the clues together. And Victorique is ever more receptive to Kazuya when he appears at the end. The consistent growth between them is very pleasing. The whole ministry fits into their separation again this time but to what ends is unknown. They appear a bunch, do so weird things, and away they go. But also we know they are somehow involved with Coco Rose’s death as well. I am not sure what it has to fully do with Victorique’s fate so I’m ever curious.

It is rather near the end but it was nice to see Kazuya finally settling into his role as an assistant to Victorique more than as just the muscle. He did not mope around when he was separated from Victorique but sprang  into action in gathering the evidence she would need from the outside. It is clear he will never be as great a detective she is but a competent assistant is all you can ask as compared to someone with a Holmes level intellect. Also his attempts to recuse and assist Victorique were extremely heartwarming. I am curious how much Albert de Blois seriously believes in the occult on how much is it just him needing an opposing force to the Science Academy. Most of his supposed magic is clearly just clever tricks but he seemed to honestly think you could create magical homunculi. It is a mostly unimportant question but I can curious to see if they ever answer it.  By the way is Cecile ever actually important or is she just there to have boobs, bottom, and glasses? I am glad to see them continuing with the momentum they have been having these last few arcs. I am curious to see how this arc wraps up and how it leads into the final confrontation.