After an underwhelming announcement for something not anime related that I was following, I was hoping for something, anything, to make my Tuesday better. Remembering that Tuesdays are also the days that episodes of Victoria of Many Faces simulcast, and that the Tuesday I’m talking about was the debut of the series, I had the feeling that this was going to be the thing I was looking for.
Proud to say I was right.
The story begins with our protagonist, Chloe, talking how she wants to be free of the spy organization she’s a part of, and does so by going up to her favorite cliff without a fence, removing her hat, and throwing her shoes and necklace off of that cliff, effectively faking her death. She then uses the time she’s opened up to run away from her kingdom, utilizing some hard booze she has to has some men who see her on her way get drunk enough to remember barely anything about her appearance.
She crosses two borders, as well as burns an outfit, and ends up in the kingdom of Ashbury. She decides to take on the identity of actual missing person Victoria Sellars. Though now I’m wondering: is Victoria Sellars dead, thus giving Chloe the confidence to wear that identity, or is she still alive out there and could eventually return to reclaim her identity? The only things we know about the actual Victoria Sellars is that she’s a real missing person from a kingdom next to Ashbury, she’s the same age as Chloe, she doesn’t have any distinguishing features, she’s been missing for years, and her family is dead.
Though, for clarity’s sake, I will say that all references to Victoria starting after this sentence are referring to Chloe using Victoria’s identity, just so that we all can be on the same page when it comes to what’s happening in this episode.
After Victoria stops by what appears to be a hotel building, she goes out shopping. During that shopping trip, Victoria sees a young girl sitting alone on a bench. She continues her shopping trip, but when she comes back once she’s done shopping only to see that the girl still hasn’t been picked up. She decides to sit with the girl and share food with her while talking to her. It’s from this that Victoria manages to conclude that the girl, Nonna, was abandoned by her mother, and thus looks for a station to take her to.
On the way to the station, however, a purse snatcher runs by. Victoria manages to stop the guy by tripping him, with another guy being the one to apprehend him. Victoria ends up going with him because she believes that he has the knowledge of where the station is.
Well, he does.
Because he works there.
Victoria initially just opts to leave Nonna at the station overnight, but later decides to take Nonna back to her hotel. There’s also talk about how she doesn’t have a guarantor, which I’m guessing is just meant to be a less obvious way to say that she isn’t married? Sorry, it’s just that this is my first time really interacting with that word.
The next day, Victoria does buy Nonna a dress and a ribbon, and is about to let Nonna get taken to a children’s home. However, she does step up to take Nonna in, which I find to be really sweet.
Anyway, the guy that helped out, Asher, decides both to become Victoria’s guarantor and to take the two out to dinner once he’s done with work. They do enjoy the dinner, though, and after finding out that Victoria plans on going shopping for a place to stay, he comes along because he thinks it’s dangerous for a woman and a child to go out alone. Justified, because he didn’t see her expertly take down the thief.
The episode does end with Asher finding out that Victoria has left her hotel and that she left a letter to state that she’ll see him again in a month to provide a necessary report to her guarantor, with Asher being like “if fate allows it, I’ll see her again.”
Little does Asher know, this is anime land, so it’s guaranteed that he’ll see her again.
But woo, this was a fun episode! It has me hyped for how the series is going to continue from here. Unfortunately, I don’t have any idea where the series will go from here because the Crunchyroll simulcast doesn’t include episode previews or the title of the next episode. With the ending of the episode, however, really the only thread there is to pull at the moment is “Asher and Victoria run into each other again”, which is likely what the next episode would’ve focused on anyway, so there’s really nothing for me to pull for speculation.
But will I be continuing to follow this series? Yes! It’s so sweet, and I’m genuinely interested in seeing where the story goes from here!
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