Plot

A mysterious book with a coveted postcard. A haunted storeroom. The legend of a soul-stealing fairy. The cursed 13th Step to Heaven. An infamous phantom thief. These are all pieces of chaos that have to be reconstructed by Victorique’s fountain of wisdom. But now someone is targeting Kazuya for knowing too much. Plus, how does the seemingly innocent Avril Bradley tie into events of the day?

The Case

This mystery contains a lot of different elements and the seemingly disparate clues all come together at least in the mind of genius like Victorique. Going in we all know that Avril is pretty suspicious, but whether it’s a red herring or not is of course a big part of the mystery. She is totally creepy in that scene after Kazuya gets whacked over the head. I was pleased to once again see some classic mystery elements but woven into something not as simple to figure out. There is also that vibe of supernatural which characters like to attribute to things, but each has a logical explanation. It was odd in this episode to see Kazuya doubting the existence of Victorique, after all they have traveled together and solved a previous mystery. But once he gets over this nonsensical notion, the ending of this episode is magic between Victorique and Kazuya.

So we finally got to part of the series I had not experienced before this point. We are introduced to the natural enemy of the great detective, the phantom thief. So the question becomes how is the Phantom Thief Kuiaran involved and which cases is he involved with and which are red herrings. The puzzle of the hidden treasure and the secret of the book is sort of classic of the genre with Narutaki figured out instantly being an experienced mystery reader. Kazuya does stumble around a bit but at least he is cautious when he should be cautious. But in an unusual twist while Victorique does all the heavy lifting with the puzzle-solving she does a bit of combat as well. I think the best part was the secret of Victorique’s little disappearing act and the cute conversation the ensued in its explanation.

Final Thoughts

Since I had only read the first half of this mystery, there were some surprises in store. Biggest of those was the first mystery of the motorcyclist didn’t tie in. Also because I have previous knowledge of other stories, I was really stumped by Avril since I know she is in later books as a friend to Kazuya. But probably if you didn’t have that expectation it wasn’t so hard to decipher. On another note, last week I said the last mystery of the series would be the second book and looks like I was way off the mark as the next episode starts that story. So looks like I won’t be getting a new story I know nothing about for at least another 4 episodes (I think 4 episodes because the second book is almost twice as long as the first). This coming mystery has ties to who Victorique’s and her past which are very enticing.

Hitoshi Nanba! Again you have failed me. Two of the major tricks of this story completely don’t work in the adaption. Both of them are a result of the bizarre decision to make the first book the first story. Firstly it makes no sense why Kazuya would suddenly think that Victorique in not real just because Avril says so. In the book, it makes sense because it is the first time he has ever met Victorique and before that no one has spoken of her. But in the anime they have traveled together, interacted with people, and gone through at least one major life and death situation. There would have to be some major Tyler Durden stuff going on for her not to be real. The second problem is a meta trick. In the original book the reader knows that Kazuya’s only friend at the school besides Victorique past this story is Avril. So the reader will naturally come up with explanations for who else it could be because you assume it can’t be Avril or why would they be so close in later books. But if we have no reason to think well of Avril she is instantly the first and strongest suspect. I just don’t understand the director decision to move things around the way he did. This story was interesting enough to be the first story and moving it to be the second story was just a useless change in my opinion that only served to ruin parts of the original story. Thankfully the next story returns the time line of both version of Gosick to the same place as they are adapting the second book, The Crime That Has No Name. We had mixed opinions of this book so hopefully Nanba can improve this story as opposed to hurting it.