Gosick

Kazuya Kujou is a foreign student at Saint Marguerite Academy, a luxurious boarding school in the Southern European country of Sauville. Originally from Japan, his jet-black hair and dark brown eyes cause his peers to shun him and give him the nickname "Black Reaper," based on a popular urban legend about the traveler who brings death in the spring.

On a day like any other, Kujou visits the school's extravagant library in search of ghost stories. However, his focus soon changes as he becomes curious about a golden strand of hair on the stairs. The steps lead him to a large garden and a beautiful doll-like girl known as Victorique de Blois, whose complex and imaginative foresight allows her to predict their futures, now intertwined.

With more mysteries quickly developing—including the appearance of a ghost ship and an alchemist with the power of transmutation—Victorique and Kujou, bound by fate and their unique skills, have no choice but to rely on each other.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

de Blois, Victorique Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kujou, Kazuya Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Gallo, Cordelia Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Roscoe, Brian Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

de Blois, Grevil Supporting

Kiuchi, Hidenobu Japanese

Lafitte, Cecile Supporting

Kano, Yui Japanese

Bradley, Avril Supporting

Shitaya, Noriko Japanese

Leviathan Supporting

Hayami, Show Japanese

The Orphan Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Ambrose Supporting

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Amano, Naoki Producer

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Kobayashi, Junka Producer

Reviews

Jul 6, 2011

Archaeon

Recommended

Detective stories never go out of fashion, but finding a way to make them interesting is another matter entirely. Some leave things open to interpretation, whilst others rely on convoluted mysteries that are more difficult to follow than a city street map. There are also whole bodies of work dedicated to the exploits of well known sleuths like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse and more.

So what was the great innovation brought forth by the anime industry? Why loli detectives of course!

Originally a light novel series by Sakuraba Kazuki, Gosick (which may be a play on the word "Gothic"), is set in the ... fictional European country of Sauville where Kujo Kazuya, the third son of a high ranking officer in the Japanese Imperial Army, begins attending the prestigious St. Marguerite Academy. He quickly discovers that almost everybody in the country is enamoured with tales of the supernatural, and one of the strangest tells of a golden fairy who lives at the top of a tower ...

The plot is generally well constructed and the basic premise is actually quite interesting, so it's unfortunate that the narrative is a bit too linear for the majority of the series. In addition to this there are several rather blatant attempts at moving the story forward by inserting some obvious tokens into specific episodes, many of which could have been handled in a far more subtle manner.

A major issue when adapting a written work into a visual form is that it will undoubtedly lose something in the process, and that seems to be the case here. Part of the problem stems from the fact that certain aspects of a given story will lose a degree of mystery once they're converted into an image, and this is even more prevalent in animation. While experienced authors are able to hide certain clues or foreshadowing elements in a body of text, once the story is adapted for anime the differentiation between foreground and background becomes far more pronounced. This has the effect of "highlighting" the more important parts of certain scenes, and when taken in conjunction with the linear plot, it makes several of the seemingly impossible to solve mysteries relatively easy to deduce.

That said, there is quite a bit of sleuthing going on, and the variety of cases on offer should tickle the fancy of many a mystery buff.

Because the series is set in 1920's Europe, Gosick has a very continental look to it that's reflected in the clothing, buildings, and even modes of transportation, and the majority of the background artwork is implemented rather well. There has also been a decent attempt at giving the majority of the characters a vaguely European caste to their features, and this can sometimes contrast nicely with the somewhat stereotypical design used for Kujo. The one oddity is Victorique as everything from her height to her clothing is very different to that of everyone around her, which raises an interesting thought. Gosick is, at heart, a detective drama, and in the spirit of tradition the leading sleuth must have something that visibly sets them apart from everyone else. In this case, it's a loli wearing ruffles, lace, and a charming array of bonnets.

The animation is pretty decent for the most part, and the majority of character movements have been implemented rather well. Unfortunately Bones haven't really pushed the boat out with this anime so there are a few telltale signs of inattention here and there.

Gosick features a variety of classically themed background music, and while the majority of the tracks reflect the serious tone of the show, there are a few lighthearted pieces scattered here and there. The opening theme, Destin Histoire by Yoshiki☆Lisa, is a J-pop/rock song that seems a bit too action oriented for a series that relies more on utilising the character's brains instead of their brawn. In addition to this the stylised montage that accompanies it drops a few too many hints about events that occur in the story, which is unfortunate as otherwise it's a well made and choreographed piece of work. As for the two ending themes by Komine Lisa, Resuscitated Hope (episodes 1 to 12), is a pop ballad that seems to fit better with the tone of Gosick, both musically and in terms of the visuals used for the end sequence. The second song, Unity, is the one that stands out the most as it's far more melancholy and dramatic than the other two tracks, and the accompanying imagery reflects the darker turn the series takes after the halfway point.

The acting is pretty decent for the most part, with Yuuki Aoi and Eguchi Takuya performing rather well in the roles of Victorique and Kujo (and it's actually surprising to find a tsundere loli that isn't being played by Kugumiya Rie). The rest of the cast also handle their roles passing well, but like so many other titles out there, the script could have been done better. The dialogue is sometimes childish or stunted, and there's a lack of cohesiveness that appears during several conversations which can make the characters seem ... lacking.

Possibly the biggest surprise in Gosick is that there's actually a fair degree of justification for Victorique being not only a loli, but also tsundere. Kujo is the typical "blank canvas" used in so many anime to highlight just how much he develops by the end of the series, but in all honesty neither of the leads is anything really special. The fun actually starts when one looks at the supporting characters as there's literally a wealth of personalities and ambitions on display. While there is some growth to be found for both Victorique and Kujo, it's the amount of characterisation that has gone into the minor roles that makes this series interesting to watch.

That said, the show does sometimes play fast and loose with certain events, and there are several occasions where the situation has clearly been contrived to develop a particular character in a certain way.

Gosick may have its flaws, but that doesn't mean it's a terrible show. There's a decent amount of detective work in the series that raises it above the likes of Tantei Opera Milky Holmes and Hidan No Aria, and while the mysteries on offer can sometimes be easy to deduce, there are also a few that contains some interesting twists on the stories that they've inspired. That said, this isn't an anime for everyone, mainly because it relies more on the characters using their heads rather than the usual shounen tactic of solving problems by hitting them until they've gone away. In addition to this the element of romance in the story can often feel more like an afterthought, something added to give the characters a bit of added dimension.

Somewhat surprisingly, I found that I enjoyed this anime a lot more than I thought I would. The idea of loli detectives is no more laughable than that of a little old lady, an author of crime fiction, or even a mouse, and once I got over my initial aversion I found a show that was interesting at the very least. That doesn't mean I'm sold on the idea though, but that's mainly because of shows like Milky Holmes and Hidan No Aria, which really haven't done the concept any favours.

If nothing else, at least Gosick tries to redress the balance.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 20, 2015

theweegee

Mixed Feelings

Are you looking for a subpar mystery anime where the main character manages to solve the mystery without much rhyme or reason, done so in a fashion that is nothing like Death Note, Sherlock Holmes, or any other mystery medium where the viewer tries to solve the puzzle as the anime moves along? Are you looking for a detective character with god-like deductive powers not acquired through hard work or training? Are you looking for the blandest lead male character that has little character development throughout the series, and gets obnoxiously annoying as he constantly screams the female lead's name? Are you looking for a ... mediocre romance that concludes in a happy ending? Look no further! This is the anime for you!

For a deeper in-depth review, read further. Be warned, there are spoilers.

Mystery. To start, the mystery is horrible. I picked this anime up hoping to find a nice mystery anime. Technically it is a mystery anime. But it's executed in such a fashion that it doesn't at all feel like a mystery anime. When you watch a movie like Se7en, you're really engaged because you really want to know who did it. When you watch Sherlock Holmes, you find yourself drawn i, despite the fact that you know the bad guy is Moriarty, because you want to know how Sherlock solves the challenges thrown at him. Gosick offers none of these. Any plot twists it "purports" to have is easily deduced. I could see who the villain was coming a mile away. Everything was so blatantly obvious. Granted, I didn't always see how the "villain" executed his or her plan, but that's because Gosick doesn't offer clues here or there. The main female character jumps in like 10-15 minutes before the episode ends, spoon feeds you the solution, without really explaining how she managed to deduce such a solution, using clues that seem nonexistent or clearly bullshit (please see motorcycle incident with blood girl for an example). I guess my biggest grip is yes, technically, Gosick does offer these elements. It just executes it in such a poor fashion it's like you're NOT watching a mystery anime.

Male Lead Character. This guy is annoying, horrible, does not grow at all, and is as flat as a cardboard. By the end of the show you'll want to punch him in the face. He incessantly screams out the female lead's name to the point where it's like the creators are purposefully trying to tick you off. He's also very unrealistic. I understand he's like around the age of 18, a high schooler, but are you really to expect us to believe that he doesn't know what love, or at the very least, what liking someone is? He constantly refers to the female lead as his "friend" and justifies why he does what he does because she's his friend. Except he has other friends, and he doesn't risk his life for them. Either make it so he's all shy and can't confront his feelings, or make it so that he acknowledges it but he can't confess to her, and or make it so that he knows he likes her and he tells her about it. None of this "I totally risk my life for you, I think about you all the time, I love hanging out with you, and there's obviously chemistry between us, but we're totally just friends."

Female Lead Character. She's mediocre. To say she's bad would be a slight overstatement. My biggest gripe with her is her "deductive" abilities, but I think that's more a flaw of the plot and story than the character herself. She does show growth, and she is cute. But that's about it.

Music. Didn't really stand out, and not even in a way where the music is so good it allows you to really sink into the anime, not realizing you're watching an anime. Long story short, the music is average. It's like elevator music that you don't enjoy, but don't hate.

That Guy with the Pointy Hair. A slightly below average character. His change is gradual, and you start to see it, but then it's like the creators realized they only have 5 episodes left, so they put his character growth in overdrive and suddenly he's changed too much, too quickly. I see where they were going with him, and I appreciate it, but they executed it in a poor fashion. Either initiate the change earlier, spread the pace of the change so its slightly quickened across the show, or make the season longer. His change came too quickly, too abruptly, and you know it all happened because the show was ending soon and they needed his character to perform some task for the show to end the way it ended.

That Really Annoying High School Teacher. The high school teacher is 110% extra and useless. I understand she's comic relief, and sometimes we include comic relief characters that really don't offer anything. They don't move the plot forward, they don't stimulate character growth, they really don't do anything but offer the occasional laugh. And while that isn't ideal, that's okay and still acceptable. But the high school teacher wasn't funny. She never was. She was actually annoying.

Other characters. Everyone else was okay, but no one stood out. Gun to my head, the short haired blonde girl was the best character. But even she had a flaw, namely that it was implicated that she was the perpetrator of a certain murder, except the show never followed up on that, and just pretended like it never happened. It's one thing to find out she wasn't the murderer, and that all the signs were just a coincidence. It's another thing to drop the matter entirely like it never happened. Either don't give signs implying she's the murderer, or at least conclude the matter.

Ending. The ending was overly dramatic and quite bad. The whole point of the prophecy was that... get ready for it... it's a prophecy of the future, an inevitable fate that cannot be avoided without some significant fight-back. But nope, they just drop the prophecy like it's nothing, and then prove it wrong with little to no effort. You can tell they threw the ending in just because they wanted to end the season on a dramatic and epic note. Except it felt quite out of place. The ending wasn't that bad (except it was executed poorly), it's just that it came too quickly. Once again, it's as if the creators realized they only had 3 episodes left to conclude the show, and thus put everything into hyper drive.

Verdict. Unless you've depleted all other mystery/romance anime, I don't see why you would ever want to pick this up. It's a mediocre anime flirting on the skirts of "bad anime."

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 6, 2011

Detective

Not Recommended

Review contains possible spoilers.

I find that GOSICK is flawed and weak in every way, and to summon up a commonly used cliche to describe an undesirable mystery,"it's like watching Scooby-Doo."

So my first comparison will be how Scooby-Doo is, in fact, superior to GOSICK in terms of mystery. Scooby-Doo is an episodic mystery show (similar to GOSICK in this regard) in which a cast of bumbling characters winds up with a mysterious case on their hands, that is always solved (similar to GOSICK). Unlike GOSICK though, Scooby-Doo always introduces it's culprits prior to the solution, and presents CLUES as to HOW the mystery is solved along ... the way. GOSICK has no development in regards to it's mysteries. They are solved *magically* and I mean, without any clues or evidence nearly every time by a "Fifteen" YEAR OLD GIRL. She can spot who the cuplrit is by the way he or she holds a gun, for example. She knew that the culprit of murder must be blonde because it was sunny out, for another. Or how about the ever so flattering "the culprit is black because it was dark out." Are you kidding!? So in short, Scooby-Doo is a better mystery because GOSICK is not a mystery. GOSICK is a fantasy anime in which little girls can outwit their older brothers who have detective's licenses.

As every review has said, Kujo is a garbage character. Even the reviews attempting to explain how wonderful GOSICK is mention that Kujo was a generic protagonist. The story is that he is a highly intelligent Japanese student who is transferred to an imaginary European country. So we have the Japanese highschool student cliche with legs as our lead. How creative. This cliche would have worked if the setting was Japan in the 1920s. I am not willing to embrace this cliche if the setting is supposed to be in Europe though. Just so the teenage Japanese audience could relate to the story, they forcibly needed to add a poorly written Japanese boy as the lead? Kujo is so pointless as a character and shows so little development that I doubt he was necessary to any point of the story except to add a filter for the audience to see through and to stir some "romantic scenes" with Victorique.

Except GOSICK is not a romance. There's twenty-two episodes of light banter between two archetypal characters, and then two episodes of reversal, and we're supposed to believe GOSICK is a romance? Unless you are easily deceived by crying and enormously blatant drama then you might. This kind of finish can be termed as "wrap up drama," in which the story lacks development for eleven episodes or so and then in the final two or so episodes a dramatic plot is concocted to give the show lasting appeal, a technique commonly used in slice of life anime as a way to finish a show.

My favorite (sarcasm incoming) part of said ending though, was when about half way through the series a "super serious ultra scary dramatic prophecy of great mysteriousness" was directly told (in a supernatural manner, once again GOSICK would've sat far better as a fantasy) to Kujo by an old dude that he and Victorique would travel far apart and that they would face grave misfortune for the rest of their lives. [[[[SPOILER:]]]] Of course, GOSICK has a happy end. There's no point in introducing this concept of great loss and permanent misfortune if it /does not happen/. Adding in uselessly "epic" scenarios and scenes into an anime does not actually make it an epic.

Now a lot of reviews criticize Kujo, but not Victorique. Victorique is a by the book tsundere character. That's about the level of depth she has other than (once again, unrealistically) her incredibly mature voice. The show actually tried to explain her mannerisms in one episode by delving into her "dark and mysterious and emotional and begrudged" past. Oh my goodness, laugh out loud for real. Oh sure, a little girl can change the tone and pitch of her voice as well as the way she acts by being locked in a prison... her whole life. Is that scientific? No. Is that possible? Well without any facts, statistics, charts, studies, or maybe even imaginary facts, statistics, charts, and studies I would have to say, no! There is no logic behind her behavior other than "uh well she was alone for a while and then she completely changed forever." Reasonable logic, I think not.

Beyond that her character is loved by many for doing pointlessly childish things and puffing out her cheeks much like every tsundere. And she isn't even voiced by Rie, so like, what the point is, I don't know. She's just another piece of bait to attract fans.

What GOSICK really attracts people with is though, is it's Victorian setting (well, and having a small blonde girl as it's cover piece). A few anime share a similar setting in a similar time period - Chrno Crusade, Victorian Romance Emma, and Kuroshitsuji to name a few. The mysteries in this series are so convoluted that this setting isn't even necessary. It's definitely not needed for the mystery, because there is nothing Victorique can't solve, essentially making her solutions as inconceivable as having a futuristic computer solve the mysteries. It also isn't needed for the "romance" because it could have been set in any wartime period (or more exact inter-wartime period, or post-wartime period, or whenever more exactly). So what's it needed for? It's needed for an audience is what I draw from this. It's needed so it can be slightly different, but exactly the same. Anime has only scratched the surface of the Victorian setting, and people are highly interested in such a time, so it draws in viewers. I'm not trying to be a cynic here and tell you that it did all this to draw in fanbase but... I actually think that's why GOSICK has the Victorian setting as it's time period because I logically can't think of any other reason.

Now if you're still reading, I must thank you, because I'm about to get into the muckiest part of this piece - the side characters. To begin unfurling this mess, I have to bring out the ditzy teacher. She does nothing except comic relief and drool over the other comic relief guy (whose hair is a drill, ha ha). The second comic relief character, Grevil, Victorique's older brother earlier in the series is portrayed in every episode as an ignoramus. Yet he's the detective and his little sister solves all his mysteries. (What a fantastical fantasy anime this is!) Then in the final arc, much like the two main characters, instead of getting development throughout this 24 episode series, his character suddenly goes grim and serious. This is not character development. This is a re-write. There is no character development in GOSICK, there is only a re-writing of the whole cast in the last few episodes, that is just too unbelievable even for my willing suspension of disbelief to hold. Another character is Avril, a classic dope supplying comic relief (but like the aforementioned two isn't funny either). So the recurring cast are all dopes with the exception of supercomputer Victorique. Single arc characters are the tritest of the bunch though. The antagonists have their flimsy motive or mysterious prophecy (most arcs tend to center more around supernatural beliefs and occurances, despite the mystery tag) and all the side characters are one-dimension at best. Victorique's mom and the Roscoe twins are actually hilarious though, because they create such a crudely dramatic and painfully bad allusion to Alice in Wonderland. I didn't even know that the whole cast was essentially a poor parody until the ending when Kujo was holding a book with a white rabbit and little girl together. So apparently, their obnoxious roles as characters was to simply imply a better work! How classic! GOSICK wishes it could be Heart no kuni no Alice, which is already a fangirl's rendition and (somewhat of an enjoyable butcher) of the original Lewis Caroll staple, forget Alice in Wonderland itself!

Touching on music is almost always subjective in a way, but I just wasn't impressed. There were no tracks that caught my interest, the openings weren't particularly enjoyable, nor were the endings. The voicing as I mentioned earlier felt unbelievable, too, because Victorique has the voice of a forty-year-old woman. So I can't really complain about the sound beyond how average I found it to be.

I'll end with the art and animation. BONES I've seen better from you. The background art was actually pretty nice, but was far too often engulfed by the ridiculous character designs. The animation in my opinion, was rather poor by BONES standards and the awkward positions characters managed to wind up in often amazed me, as well as the messy looking faces of the side characters. I did not find any character enjoyable to look at, and I feel that Bones just had way too much fun with the bold line tool. Also Victorique has a mishapen and malformed Uguu~ face.

So yeah, I didn't like GOSICK. It was a waste of time to anyone who pays attention to detail and/or wants a mystery anime. And yes, I can say that going into GOSICK I expected a mystery and in every way I was let down. Because this is not a mystery anime, it is a fantasy anime, and I am quite upset that the database won't let me fix this misnomer.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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