Gnosia

Episodes 1-2

Gnosia's premiere was a wonderful last-minute surprise entry for this fall's Preview Guide. I'd already heard great things about the visual novel that the anime is based on (which has regrettably been sitting in my Steam Backlog for over a decade, now), and the first episode managed to deliver on all of the cool alien-invasion thrills and twists that I was hoping to see. Not only did the entire four-person crew of the D.Q.O. get iced or murdered by the elusive Gnosia body-snatcher, but the finale thrust our hero Yuri back in time thanks to Setsu's reality-warping “gift.” Like I said in the Preview Guide, if there's anything I enjoy more than a ludicrous science-fiction murder mystery, it's a ludicrous science-fiction murder mystery where everyone is stuck in a time loop.

Fittingly, “Loops” brings Yuri back to the start of this maddening game of Space Werewolf aboard the D.Q.O., and their sights are set on SQ, the too-quirky-4-U psycho who revealed herself to be the Gnosia at the end of the premiere. She's acting no less insane or suspicious this time around, clearly, so it seems like Yuri's got a cut-and-dry job ahead of them. Or, rather, it would if we didn't already know that this show is going to last for nearly two-dozen episodes. It couldn't possibly be so simple.

That actually ends up working in “Loops'” favor, though, since half of the suspense comes from figuring out just how things are going to go sideways for Yuri and the other real humans on the ship. There's the usual conflict that comes from characters simply distrusting each other, of course. Yuri still hasn't earned the trust of anybody outside of Setsu for obvious, time-travel-related reasons, and Racio continues to be an obstinate dick to everybody else, because these kinds of whodunits always need at least one person to act like the most obvious bastard in the room and serve as the Easy Mode red-herring.

Then we get to the really messy complications, which arrive the moment that Racio brings up “world lines.” For anyone who hasn't gone back for a Steins;Gate rewatch in a while, “world line theory” is a popular science-fiction trope that posits a sort of variation on the classic multiverse model of time travel - at least, so far as I understand it. In short, the idea is that the different branches of the space-time tree that are created by messing with variables throughout history can be accessed by figuring out which changes lead to what world line, but it isn't like every single universe exists at the same moment across every plane of existence. You can't just open up a Doctor Strange portal and step on through to whatever random universe you want; instead, you have to use your knowledge of the timeline and all of its many variables to try and hop around the different world-lines one act of chronological jiggery-pokery after another.

Again, that's just how I've seen it done in the past with stories like Steins;Gate. It's a perfect setup for mysteries like Gnosia, too, since they introduce an element of narrative chaos that keeps the trials and reveals more unpredictable. The fundamental rule that Gnosia will need to keep in mind, however, is that you have to have some core bedrock of consistent logic that keeps all of the world-line shenanigans in check. If the audience isn't allowed to try and piece together what differences are occurring and why, then the story runs the risk of devolving into a nonsensical soup of anything-goes ass-pulls.

Given how wild things end up getting in the final moments of this episode, it is still possible that Gnosia could trip over its own ambitions in the long run, but the show's confident direction and excellent pacing are signs that we're in good hands. Given how much screen time she was getting after Setsu very plainly told Yuri not to trust anyone, I wasn't exactly surprised to see her turn out to be the Gnosia instead of SQ, but the reveal is still an effective climax. It tells the audience that, whatever the Gnosia is, it can either hop around between hosts at will, or whatever infection point that got the D.Q.O. crew trapped in this situation is being altered by Yuri's jumps, even though it happened before they woke up in the med bay. There's also the presence of completely new characters in Yuri's third loop to contend with, including a literal grey alien who looks like he could have been plucked straight from the ship that crashed in Roswell. I don't have any idea where this story is going just yet, but it's entertaining as all get out so far, and I can't wait to see what wild twists are waiting for us next week.

Episode 1 Rating:

Episode 2 Rating:

Gnosia is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.