4.5

Alternate Titles: None

Original Japanese Release Date: Jan 2011

Episode Length/Run-time: 24 Episodes

Summary:

Kazuya Kujo has recently transferred as an international student to a school in the fictional European country of Saubure, located between France, Switzerland and Italy.  Here he meets a mysterious girl who has been given the nickname of the Golden Fairy.  She lives confined to the library on school, loves sweets, and is bored easily, always requiring a puzzle to solve.  As mysteries begin to surround Kujo he becomes central to Victorique’s entertainment, and perhaps more.  Their relationship evolves in the changing setting of a pre-World War 2 Europe still steeped in mystery, fantasy, and old lore.

Review:

Gosick starts out looking like a murder mystery type anime.  Where Victorique is a Sherlock Holms type character, solving mysteries with almost nothing to go on and an astounding success rate and Kujo is her bumbling, yet helpful and well-meaning Watson.  For someone who is a fan of this genre it serves to disappoint, because for one they don’t really give you enough clues to figure out what’s going on yourself, and two, it’s not really about the mysteries.  The murders and mysterious happenings serve to illuminate the larger plot and evolve the relationship between Kujo and Victorique.  The trouble-finding Kujo is just what Victorique is looking for and it evolves the unlikely friendship.

As mentioned, the mysteries serve to bring out the story.  What you think will just be a string of one random mystery after the next evolves into a grater story in which the characters backgrounds are thoroughly fleshed out and a rich world is built.  There are a few instances where they spend some time doing things that could likely be cut but you are so smitten with the characters that this is completely forgivable as it just serves as another step in elaborating relationships.

The story really begins to pick up as they begin to explain some of the lore in the world.  There is an overarching struggle between science and magic and often times you wonder what is real and what is fiction.  For example, one of the main things they begin to elude to is the “gray wolves” specifically around Victorique’s past.  The gray wolves are linked back to Sabure’s ancient history and by my interpretation are known for their intelligence.

There are a lot of things like this throughout the show that leaves the viewer up for interpenetration.  Don’t be fooled by the gothic lolita/moe ness surrounding Victorique.  This is a surprisingly deep show dealing with a lot of mature content.  The animation is good and the music is solid.  Something I HIGHLY recommend.

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