Gosick anime review
When this anime was first added to the winter lineup it received a lot of hype and was the pick to watch for the season. Though, it seems as soon as this hype it began, it already died out. Having stuck with this series till the end, I sometimes wondered why people dropped it and during others times I completely understood. In the end, as you could have expected, this anime was just hit or miss the whole way through.
The story is about a boy named Kujo who studies abroad and finds a girl named Victorique isolated in a library. Together, with her vast knowledge, they solve mysteries. The first half of the series was mostly just divided up into short arcs of individual mysteries. Some were good while some were weak. My favourite episodes were the ones that just took place in the school setting areas where the story wasn’t taking itself too seriously.
The mysteries themselves are not the type where you can really be guessing too. You could still figure out key points, but the important little details are something you have to wait till the end to learn because Victorique is the only one to notice and she likes to tell us later. This aspect takes away a bit of the fun of it, but the format still works and is almost reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, except Victorique is still a loli.
The second half took a different turn to look at “the bigger picture”. The plot development was interesting and it took a good pace as it lead up to the finale, but some of the twists that got thrown along the way were rather lame. The story also seemed to go running around in circles where Kujo would just run after Victorique screaming a lot. Nonetheless, it all came together by the end.
I much preferred the penultimate episode to the finale, but at least we got a proper ending. Even with a proper ending, I don;t think back on this series positively it seems. It has been less than a day since I finished the whole series and it seems to be leaving a bad after taste I have trouble remembering the times where actually enjoyed this anime, and I know those times exist, its just that the bad seem cloud over all other judgment. This anime also doesn’t feel like it created a lasting impression on me and will probably be forgotten soon enough.
I liked the relationship that grew throughout between Kujo and Victorique. It seemed genuine and I would have approved of it even more if Kujo became less of a jerk. He honestly had no consideration for anyone besides Victorique and often made statements that were guaranteed to hurt the others around him that he knew must have had feelings for him. Avril is evidently the biggest victim to his ignorance and I’m still sorry things didn’t go all that well for her.
Victorique was consistently a very intriguing character who got a lot of time to develop and get fleshed out. She ended up having some disturbing back story and I liked how everything we learned about her ended up playing an importance in the long run. I was a bit disappointed how despite her constant strive for freedom she still had a total dependence on Kujo, but I guess that could just be known as true love among some.
Kujo was a character who just brushed off as a one track simpleton. Of course I don’t necessarily agree, but this series really tried to drive that message home how in comparison to Victorique he couldn’t figure out much. He never really thought of plans and in every second episode, as I sort of touched upon, he would go looking for Victorique and we would see him running while screaming her name, “VICTORIQUE!!!”.
Anyone who has seen this anime can easily agree that they probably still hear him ringing in their ears as they think back on his character. He was annoying to put it kindly. Maybe I would have cared for him if they did something more with him rather than just leaving us with the screaming. I also would have liked to have learned more about his family and maybe have met some of them because this anime had the time to do it.
At a glance, the animation seemed well done and the character designs were pretty good too. A few hairstyles were questionable, but some hairstyles even got their own story for our approval. As my first sentence of this paragraph suggests, it was only at a glance that the animation was good because was you started watching you can realize it had quite a few faults. First off, sometimes the clothing was just plain ugly, in particular, I’m talking about Victorique’s dresses who like this whole show were very hit and miss.
Secondly, there were a few inconsistences where you could tell when there was a change in art director or something because everyone looked relatively different from the last episode you saw them. Victorique’s hair length was also always questionable. If you payed attention to it in every episode you can notice how it is always changing lengths and sometimes had disparities from a bit past her waist to all the way to the floor. Lastly, tying in with the last point, size proportions of objects were not consistent either. Necklaces and such looked really small in some scenes and much larger in others. From afar the animation was all good, its just when you started to actually look at the details.
Although I think this series needed all the episodes it got, for what it delivered it is not worth the watch at 24 episodes because it is just an average anime with a few good moments. I think in due time, all the good that I remembered from this anime will dwindle away till I can just see what I don’t like. With that said, this series turned into a big disappointment, especially after all the hype it originally received. If you’re really looking for a good mystery, just stick to the classics instead.