Anime

Debunking Theory: Gochiusa is set in an alternate reality where Japan has won World War II

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Debunking Theory: Gochiusa is set in an alternate reality where Japan won World War II.

Foreword:

I firstly like to mention that the writer of this theory knows themselves how far-fetched this theory is, I cite:

EDIT 1: No this is not meant to be serious, just a fun exercise exploring a what-if scenario. Taking a plunge down the rabbit hole, if you will.

They simply wrote something amusing for a writing contest and approached a CGDCT series in a different perspective. While I am admittedly tired of seeing everyone talk about this theory that has no weight to it at all, I do like to thank this person for seeing Gochiusa in a different perspective that a lot of people are ignorant about.

The reason I am writing this is because I've seen some people be confused whether this is actually true or not, so I am here to explain this. So what I want to achieve with this post is just so people are informed that this theory is wrong.

I initially also posted this in the latest episode 7 discussion post, but barely anyone in this subreddit actually reads the stuff, so I decided to make a post for it for more visibility.

Gochiusa is set in Europe.

Immediately upon watching episode 1, it is clear that Gochiusa is not set in Japan. So where it is exactly? In the anime, it is referred to as the “wood-framed town”, or simply “the town”. Based on the architecture, we can tell that this place is located in Europe. In fact, it is no secret that this town is directly inspired by Colmar - a real town located in the Northeast of France. Someone else has already made a very detailed comparison so I won't go over it again.

So is Gochiusa set in Colmar, France? Maybe, maybe not. According the various signages around the town, the majority of the text seems to be a mixture of French, German, English and some Eastern European language. It is uncertain which country this is supposed to be, we can only be sure that it is located in Europe.

Now that we have established that Gochiusa is set in an Europe, we can safely assume that the majority of the characters are not Japanese, but European.

The assumption that the town is set in Europe "based on the architecture" and because of "the majority of the text" shown in the series is fine, but there isn't enough proof backing it up. What seems more believable to me is that this town might very well just be a fictional location and the author just used the western architectures as its reference. In fact, I even have proof supporting my assumptions.

As the writer said, we know that a lot of places in Gochiusa are referenced from the city Colmar located in France, here are some recent examples:

Example 1 - Real-life Location "Eguisheim" / In the manga / In the Anime

Example 2 - Real-life Location "La Petite Venise" / In the manga / In the Anime

However, at the same time, there are plenty of locations from other countries other than France in this town as well, for example, Germany and Budapest as well.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany | In the manga

As well as the onsen pool in S1 Ep 8 & 10. There is an excellent write up about it from DokiDokiVisual which you can find here: https://xdeyuix.tumblr.com/post/187347534258/

Believe it or not, but there are some fans who literally go Gochiusa pilgrimaging and there are a lot of places for it. Here's the Twitter from a famous Gochiusa pilgrimage, just scroll through their media and you'll find some spots from all over the world, careful, however, it's manga spoilers. https://twitter.com/gochiyukki/

So how come the assumption that it's somewhere in Europe would make sense when in one street it's in France and then we make another turn down the street and suddenly it's Germany? Then when we go to the onsen we're suddenly in Budapest? The answer is simple:

Conclusion: Gochiusa is not in our world and thus not an alternate reality either. It's a fictional world.

Why do they use Japanese? Why do they use Yen? Why are the addresses in Japanese? Japanese has taken over the Europe?

This brings up a question: If the characters are not Japanese and the town is not in Japan then why is everyone using Japanese? This is not a case of in this world the language barrier doesn’t exist. Otherwise, Cocoa and Chiya would not have to study English.

Japanese influence goes beyond the usage of written and spoken language. As we can see, the main currency is the Yen, not the Euro and the legislation system is using the Six Codes - which is from Japan. Even more puzzling, the town does in fact, has a name - which we can spot on Cocoa’s letters to her family. Ogikubo - Suginami does not sound very European doesn’t it?

What exactly is going on?

Here's my theory: Japan has won the second world war[...]

They speak Japanese and have to learn English. They use Yen and the address is also in Japanese. The writer thus assumes something completely absurd if I may call it like this. I am not criticizing them, just to clarify myself. They already admitted that this is really far fetched and they know how absurd their theory is. Anyways, jumping to the conclusion that thus Japan has won the second world war due to an already wrong assumption through another wrong assumption kind of ends you with something like this.

Isn't the more logical assumption that since the author is Japanese and thus know the Japanese system more, that they would be using Yen, Japanese as well as addresses in Japanese? Everything of this makes way more sense if we were to look at in the perspective that this is just a fictional world that Koi created.

Also the real reason, they used this specific Japanese address, is that it's actually just an easter egg from the animation studio "Kinema Citrus". That address is actually the address for their studio, you can confirm it yourself on their website here. There's nothing more behind it, has nothing to do with the Japanese taking over Europe.

Conclusion: No, it's set in a fictional world and thus since it's written by a Japanese author, logically the infrastructure is in Japanese.

Rize is daughter of a warlord, she is being trained to become an assassin.

Who train their little daughter in using firearms and CQC, drilling into her military discipline at such a young age? While Rize tries to act like an average highschool student as much as she can, at times she displays an alarming level of ruthlessness. Not to mention, no normal teenage girl is such a complete gun nut or possess such incredible physical strength.

Why jump to the conclusion that the father forced her little daughter to learn firearms and CQC? She may have just been fascinated about it and influenced by her father. You can see in S1 Ep 3 that she explained when she was little she liked to shoot those teacups, furthermore from her expression itself you can see she had fun, so that implies she had fun doing so if she was forced and didn't like it, then this entire scene would be different. Furthermore, you said it yourself, she has been learning ever since she was young so why are you now surprised that she is a "teenage girl [who] is such a complete gun nut or possess such incredible physical strength." That happens if you train for most of your life.

The Kafu seems to live on modest mean, yet Rize’s family is really wealthy - living in a huge mansion complete with maids and bodyguards. We never really see police or any kind of crime (except those committed by rabbits) in this peaceful town, so why the heavy focus on security?

Just because the series doesn't show crimes, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Furthermore, it's as the writer claimed still war. So at any point in time, having bodyguards to help you in an emergency situation is always helpful. You're rich anyway, so why not be safe?

The man is ambitious, in training Rize to become some kind of super soldier, he apparently has big plans for his daughter.

If the screenshots used by the writer, would actually prove that Rize's father wants her to be a super-soldier then this claim would be more convincing.

Conclusion: This is completely wrong.

Syaro is a war orphan, and she has amnesia.

This actually has been explained in the manga already and surprise surprise, it's wrong. Manga spoilers ahead.

Syaro's parents work abroad. What happened is they lived together in this town initially, but had to move because of work reasons. However since Syaro was already so attached to Chiya, Rize and the others, she didn't want to move. So what happened is the parents moved for work and Syaro stayed back. For more information about their situation, you may DM me.

Chiya is a foreigner, and the truth behind the rivalry between Ama Usa An vs Rabbit House.

We have other evidences regarding Chiya’s origin as well. When she first came to Rabbit House, it is revealed that Chiya has never seen a Western coffee menu before. While Chiya’s kimono is part of work, her grandmother always wear the kimono although she is never in the front of house. Plus, Ama Usa An is nothing like all the other buildings in town - the place looks like something that belongs in, well Japan. We can safely say that Chiya and her grandmother are foreign to this land. They came from Japan to open a tea house in this European town.

Writer claiming that the building looks different from the others, just because they said so. And now it's clear evidence, yup. If only they knew that well, this building is a reference to Colmar just like many other places in Gochiusa like "Rabbit House", which they talked about a few arguments before. Furthermore, as I already established before, this world is a fictional world and we cannot just randomly assume that countries exist like in our world. None of the characters is assigned a nationality.

As it turns out, the rivalry is only in his mind and Chiya’s grandmother never thought anything about it. [...] He held a grudge against the Japanese for taking over his home, and for marching his son off to war, leaving him a with struggling coffee house and a little girl to take care of.

Or maybe they're just rivals because they both knew each other as they were kids and both ended up opening similar shops? So naturally, they would feel competition between them. This assumption wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the case that it's built upon a really absurd one.

Chino’s grandfather is old, probably old enough that he can remember a time before the Japanese occupied this town. He held a grudge against the Japanese for taking over his home, and for marching his son off to war, leaving him a with struggling coffee house and a little girl to take care of.

At the end of the day, they're claiming that this rivalry ties down because of the world war, which is completely absurd and is also racist. Furthermore, why would a Japanese series written by a Japanese author be racist towards their own country? They would get in trouble for it and it doesn't even make any sense anyway for this assumption to be true at all.

Conclusion: The rivalry isn't because of racism or because of world war, it's because they're old acquaintances rather.

Chino had a lonely childhood and the master’s last wish

This is completely out of place, why is a character analysis doing in a world war II theory? However if it's the character analysis itself, that is mainly correct.

Cocoa is an angel sent by a higher force, her job is to make everyone happy.

This is actually not that wrong either. Like my theory, magic exists in this world, so rather than Cocoa being an angel, but being a magician makes more sense.

But this argument isn't too bad. Remove the higher force and change Angel to magician and we're getting somewhere that may actually be true.

Afterword:

I believe that most people who seriously read through this theory would realize rather quickly how bad the arguments are and how far fetched they are. And also would come to the conclusion that this is just really wrong. I can understand however for those who are interested in history to desperately want it to be true as it's interesting for them, however, this is just straight-up wrong. I can't tell you guys to stop talking about this bad theory, but at least, know that it's wrong. This is all I want from this post. If you want to believe in an interesting theory that actually holds any weight then I recommend reading the theory about magic being real in Gochiusa.

Thank you, everyone, for reading this for a bit, if you have any questions feel free to reply to this question or DM me!