English Dub Review: Gnosia “Guard Duty; World of Gnosia; Citizen Slime”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yuri finds themselves in new loops, the first involving every previous crew member and leading to drastic choices with tragic results, the second where they are put in the Gnosia role for the first time, and a third where they wake up in a female body.

OUR TAKE

We’re back to Gnosia as my first review of the new year, and it’s a whopping triple feature to make up for all of the English Dub delays over the holidays. On top of that, each of these episodes is a considerable departure from the formula we’ve seen in the previous ones in some significant way. First off, while there aren’t any new crew members left to introduce, we do get one more job mechanic in the form of Guard Duty, where two of the crew are confirmed to be human from the start, in this case Remnan and Kukrushka, as well as four Gnosia to weed out. After some mishaps, the crew eventually agree to all go into cold sleep, so problem solved, right? Well, as Yuri wakes up to, not so much, as Kukrushka has, for whatever reason, decided to go on a murderous rampage and slaughters everyone on the ship, which at the very least confirms there are definitely threats to worry about besides the Gnosia. Speaking of, the next loop puts Yuri in another new position, being one of the Gnosia, alongside Comet and Sha-ming. This is something I’ve been anticipating for awhile, though I honestly didn’t think it would happen until some time near the end of the series.

And as it turns out, being a Gnosia doesn’t alter your personality all that much, but more just puts you on the defensive since now you know you’re the target. I mean, you still have to kill everyone by the end if you manage to not be found out, though as we’ve seen, Yuri has a bit of a loose view on life and death after looping over and over again, though being a Gnosia most definitely added a bit of spice to it because WHY are they making those faces. Lastly, Yuri enters the next loop in a female body and possibly a new voice, and it’s back to business as usual, so they use this chance to try and learn more about the crew for the Silver Key, which apparently sent Yuri to a timeline where they are a woman in order to get more info from Jonas and Sha-ming…which mainly is used to put them in intimate situations and borderline harassment, so that kinda sours things. And just like in the first of these three, the unexpected threat turns out to not be a Gnosia, but Comet’s slime mold, which assumed she was dead after cold sleep and attacked the crew. So, just like with Kukrushka, some things about a specific crewmember could lead to a bad end if not handled properly. We’re hopefully back to regular releases next week, which is good, because we’re not even half way through the series yet, but it’s safe to say, at least based on the new and darker ED, we’re in a much more complicated chapter of the story now.