Gosick Collections 1 & 2 – Review

Storyline

While the North American license to GOSICK was originally held by Bandai Entertainment, given events that took place earlier this year there is currently no North American licensor for this title at the moment. Down here in Australia however, anime publisher Madman Entertainment retained the rights and between July and August released the complete series of the show over two collections. Similar to series such as Black Butler and Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth, Gosick takes the storyline from the hustle and bustle of modern day life into the fictional European country of Sauville in the 1920s – and bringing with it one of the most appropriate genres for such a setting…. mystery.

The storyline follows Kazuya Kujo, the youngest son of a soldier who left Japan to study at the St. Marguerite Academy – only to be dubbed the “Dark Reaper” due to his appearance, time of arrival and some of the events that are shown during the storyline. While visiting the academy’s library he comes across a mysterious girl by the name of Victorique who has an air of mystery around her and more than a few secrets that are progressively revealed during the story. The series contains a balance of (sometimes multiple) episode mysteries that while holding little relevance to the overarching plot at the time, serve towards the personal development of the characters and contribution to the setting (These are as early as episode 2) and episodes / mysteries which tie into the overall plotline.

To be fair, both types of storylines are pretty good, but especially in the early episodes do not deviate from the same structure: Kazuya (and sometimes Victorique along with him) come across a mystery, it is played out often with Kazuya being blamed as a target, uncovering some secret or something along those lines, Victorique assembling the “fragments of chaos” and uncovers the truth to the viewer, Kazuya and at times her detective half-brother who claims credit for her own work. The mysteries are often not run of the mill ones and are pretty interesting to watch play out – but perhaps provided the viewer with too much information allowing the guessing of the culprit/suspect to be too easy at times. Deviating from the general mysteries and more on the plot surrounding Victorique and to a lesser extent – Kazuya, it proves to be pretty interesting with enough secrets, school life, “family issues” and struggles of multiple natures to go around.

The character cast is solid, and offers small set of main and recurring characters that are fleshed out during the series and a slightly larger set of secondary characters that contribute to the individual plots one way or another – whether alive or murdered. Kazuya is your general run of the mill main protagonist who despite the occasional abuse is loyal and sometimes dependent on the female protagonist.  Victorique serves as the tsundere gothic loli you may expect from the cover and while her personality alone is nothing all too unique her backstory is immersible and detailed. Also added to the mix characters such as Grevil – an aristocrat detective who serves as comic relief at times and Avril Bradley who serves as another exchange student and competing love interest, both of which while not necessarily being plot critical play their roles well. The inclusion of Victorique’s mother “Cordelia” plays an interesting role and has some interesting backstory but never really shines throughout the 24 episodes.

While the storyline never truly reaches a level of perfection, both its mystery elements and main storyline work well with the setting and was a great watch.

Design

If I were to name a single highlight of the series it would be the visuals. Gosick is a series I would have loved to see on Blu-ray as both the character and world designs. Most of the characters in the series are designed well, the highlight of which was Victorique. Granted they were after a tsundere gothic loli – the design, expressions and  animation of her character fit perfectly. There were no real issues when it came to character designs, most characters suited their roles and the era well. The series did have some potential to showcase its animation capabilities – eg. something as cute as in the earlier episode when Victorique rolls around on the floor out of boredom. But it never really had the option to shine due to the lack of action for the most of the series… this may deter people who were expecting more than mystery solving.

The development of the actual world proved even more aesthetically pleasing, with everything from the greenhouse at the peak of the library to a dark and dank ship being well detailed and helped to set the mood.

Audio

While it is not a soundtrack I would personally listen to outside of this anime, GOSICK has an enjoyable and sizable soundtrack that suits the setting of the series well. There is a single opening sequence through all 24-episodes “Destin Histoire by yoshiki*lisa” which is an enjoyable song coupled with well animated and fairly cute animation. In addition, there are two ending sequences “Resuscitated Hope” and “unity” both by Lisa Komine, both of which were solid songs – the first being the stronger of the two.

The voice acting also remains solid with both Aoi Yuuki (Dance in the Vampire Bund, Puella Magi Madoka Magica) and Takuya Eguchi (Eden of the East) suiting the main character roles well. As I have said before, I primarily review English dubbed anime so since the last few years I don’t have an extensive repertoire of series to compare Japanese dubbed anime releases such as this to. I had no issue with the voice acting and thought they worked well.

Extra Content

Unfortunately Madman Entertainment’s release of GOSICK does not contain all that much in terms of extra content. Over the two collections, the extra content consists of:

• Promotional Videos (Collection 1)
• Textless Songs (Collection 1 / 2)
• Trailers for Madman Titles (Collection 1 / 2)

Final Word

While it cannot compete with other series on the market when it comes to intellectually-stimulating mysteries alone, GOSICK builds upon what it offers with great visuals and solid world building. Gosick didn’t seem to be the safest option for Madman when it came to being one of their first Japanese-subbed currently Australian-exclusive English releases to distribute in a fair while, but I think it worked in their favor, proved to be a solid release and I hope it paid off.

While there is no word on just when those outside Australia can expect to see a release of this series – for those who can pick this up… I could happily recommend the show to anyone after an all-around strong performing anime that strays away from fanservice or a modern-day plotline.

Final Score
Storyline / Character Development: B+
Design: A
Music/Voice Acting: A-
Extra Content: C
Personal Preference: B+
Overall Score: A-