Some anime you actually CAN judge by their cover. Fairy Tail is a generic Shonen Jump title, while Sekirei is an echii harem comedy series. Gosick is not one of these cases. Gosick is a mystery anime set in the 1920s that seems to star a little girl dressed in a Victorian Era maid outfit. Most people would look at the cover and say, "I'm not the damn Subway guy! Why the HELL would I ever want to watch this shit!?" I was originally one of those people, but I kept getting recommendations to watch it and finally I caved. Surprisingly...Gosick is actually pretty damn good!
Plot:
The title "Gosick" is actually a misspelling of the English word "Gothic" and the series supposedly gets its title from being inspired by Victorian Gothic fiction. It does indeed borrow heavily from a famous work of Victorian Gothic fiction: Sherlock Holmes. The main character is a detective named Victorika, who mostly spends her time cooped up in her rooftop apartment complaining of boredom. She solves mysteries far more to alleviate the boredom than from any actual concern for other human beings and displays many sociopath traits. She is completely unfazed by murder and is extremely withdrawn, cold, and calculating. However, she possesses a high genius level intellect and an astounding capacity for deductive/inductive reasoning and reconstructing crime scenes. Her only friend is an extremely loyal companion that comes from a military background and serves as the normal individual that can actually interact with other people. Victorika also suffers from an extreme addiction to a white, powdery stimulant...sugar. You thought I was going to say cocaine didn't you? Although later sub-plots develop involving Victorika's family, the basic premise and characters are directly lifted from Sherlock Holmes. The far more famous mystery anime Detective Conan (Case Closed in the United States) also claims to take inspiration from Sherlock Holmes, but honestly Gosick is MUCH closer to capturing the tone and feel of the original. Detective Conan involves a lot of goofy comedy scenes involving Conan's kindergarten friends that would NOT fit into Gothic Genre novel! Gosick actually keeps its dark tone quite consistently with only Victorika's deadpan sarcasm and endless insults providing comic relief. This relates to the other main reason why Gosick is the more faithful adaptation. Sherlock Holmes was a total dick in the original novels! Shinichi Kudo from Detective Conan is simply far too nice and caring to be an accurate, modern day adaptation of the classic character. Now I should address an important question. If you haven't seen Detective Conan and have never read any Sherlock Homes, why would you want to see Gosick? The mysteries in Gosick are actually quite fun and the overall plot is fast paced and keeps things interesting. The character interactions are hilarious and you want to keep watching to see how your favorite characters will all end up.
Characters:
"I'm NOT a psychopath...I'm actually a high functioning sociopath. Do your research!" - Sherlock Holmes
I've mentioned already that Victorika is a modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation and actually one of the more amusing ones I've seen in recent memory along with Dr. House and BBC Sherlock! However, where does she fit as an anime archetype? People often classify her as a "Tsundere" type character, but that archetype actually has a wide range. Most Tsunderes tend to frequently yell shrilly, boast loudly, slap around the male protagonist, and in general annoy the crap out of me for every second they are onscreen. Examples of this include: Asuka Soryu, Naru Narusegawa, Haruhi Suzumiya, and even Revi from Black Lagoon. The other side of the Tsundere spectrum is the cold and withdrawn extremely"INTJ" type who just seem mildly annoyed at all times, is known for deadpan, biting insults and although extremely intelligent is just kind of a dick. This is almost exclusively reserved in anime for male characters like Paul von Oberstein from LOTGH. However, that is exactly where Victorika falls on the spectrum and this makes her a rather unusual character for an anime. Especially considering she is the main character and not just a minor side character. The other main character is the Watson character named Kazuya Kujo. He is extremely nice, caring, relatable, but isn't afraid to stand up to Victorika when he needs to. He is NOT a complete beta male and in only the 3rd episode is using brass knuckles to save Victorica's ass from an assassin and beating the shit out of him. Kujo's military family background gives him a strong sense of discipline and honor. He wishes to prove himself to his elder siblings and to his father, who has always overlooked him. There are other highly amusing characters as well including Victorika's idiotic half-brother, who takes credit for her work despite being an incredibly inept detective. Overall, these are fun characters that I really enjoyed!
Overall:
I don't feel like going too in depth with the art and sound this time. Neither are particularly amazing, but also not bad by any means. Basically they are pretty average relative to 2011 when this was made. If you like mystery anime with fun characters, this is the anime for you! If you like Victorian Era Gothic fiction and in particular you love Sherlock Holmes, then this is the anime for you! I went in to this anime with virtually no expectations and I came out pleasantly surprised. I award Gosick a very solid 8 out of 10.
