First Impression – Gosick
All mysteries are required to be homicides.
Are you guys hyped? I hope you guys are hyped. I’m hyped. I’ll probably have to repeat this again and again to remind people, but my two favorite genres are mystery and horror. And guess what genre Gosick is? Mystery, baby. I’m a little familiar with the series since I read a few chapters in the manga and own the first book, but that doesn’t matter at all (I haven’t actually opened the book booo). I live for mystery series. I love it when they give you clues during the story to give you a chance to solve it. I love it even when they don’t, and they just draw us deeper and deeper into a web of lies and conspiracy that must then be untangled. The problem is, they’re too few in number to completely satisfy me. Just the mere fact that Gosick has the mystery tag means that I will unconditionally watch it from beginning to end. Now, are you guys hyped?
After a weird introduction sequence depicting what seems like a cult worshipping a seer named Roxanne, we are thrust into the world of Gosick. The setting is the spring of 1924, after the end of the First World War, in a fictional country named Saubure, nestled between real world France and Italy. Within this country lies the prestigious school St. Marguerite where the aristocracy sends their children for the best education.
Our protagonist, Kujo Kazuya, is a fresh exchange student from the strange and unusual country of Japan. Due to his exotic appearance, the time of his arrival, and the superstition of the springtime shinigami, he’s been christened the “dark reaper” by his classmates and avoided out of fear. Despite this, he works hard in school in order to make his family in Japan proud. Kujo’s teacher, an overly familiar woman named Cecile, suggests to Kazuya to read up on ghost stories so that he can have common topics to make friends with.
The Unicorn requires 24/7 maintenance.
When Kazuya actually takes her suggestion, we meet the second protagonist of the series at the library: a beautiful, doll-like girl with an attitude, Victorique. She spends her days skipping class and reading books in the botanical gardens at the veeery top of the library, at the top of like a million stairs. Even so, she is constantly bored and looks for ways to alleviate her boredom. Her deductive skills seem almost precognitive, so she is often visited by Grevil de Blois, a celebrated police inspector with deadly hair. This hairstyle will be forever known as “The Unicorn.”
Wasting little time, Grevil presents the first mystery of Gosick to Victorique in the ruse of generously sharing it with Kazuya. Victorique replies under the guise of talking to herself. You might almost think they’re siblings who don’t talk to each other, which… is true. Anyway, here are the facts – there are very few. Try to solve the mystery yourself; I thought it was actually quite easy this time around.
Grevil has come across a homicide. Roxanne, the fortune teller from the introduction sequence, has been murdered. The witnesses are her daughter, an Arabian maid, and an Indian manservant. Roxanne liked hiring exotic servants and could speak Arabic and Hindi. A gunshot was heard one night, causing the three to gather in front of Roxanne’s door. The door was locked, so the maid tried yelling something to Roxanne, to which there was no response. The maid eventually brought a gun to shoot the keyhole, forcing the lock open. When they opened it, Roxanne was found shot through her left eye. Easy enough for an ace detective, right? I won’t give you the answer, but if you can’t figure it out and you want to know, just watch the episode!
Victorique immediately solves the case and sends Grevil on his way. Afterwards, Kazuya discovers that Grevil received a kiss from the daughter for promptly catching the culprit. Okay, good for him. Oh yeah, he also received a yacht from the daughter as a reward. What the heck! Kazuya angrily confronts Grevil about taking the credit and, more importantly, taking the yacht, and ends up getting suckered into joining Grevil on his maiden voyage.
The strange year of 1924, when sailor uniforms were worn by actual sailors.
Kazuya, along with Victorique, eventually make it to Grevil’s yacht, where their visit is cut short because the murderer has escaped. Even though the culprit was caught, the mystery is far from over. They still had not addressed the issue of motive, the only insight of which was revealed by the murderer’s words “revenge of the box.” We reach a cliffhanger as the two discover inside the yacht an invitation addressed to Roxanne to a party named the “Miniature Garden Box Evening.” Kazuya and Victorique make the obvious connection and decide to attend the party in Roxanne’s stead.
MORE PICS
I am required by law to reference Holmes here.
The Unicorn’s secret power #1: Drawing attention.
The Unicorn’s secret power #2: Improvised weapon.
END THOUGHTS
Man, I am super excited about this series. It probably won’t be my favorite mystery series, but so far it’s satisfying me well enough. I think it’s always nice to get series that aren’t set in Japan, since those are the majority these days. I’m kind of rusty on my European history since it’s been like 8-10 years since I had to study it, but this is a good thing! It means I’m not going to care the slightest bit about any historical inaccuracies. Don’t point them out to me or I will create a real life mystery, starring you.
I was actually caught a bit off guard here because I had not started reading the first light novel. My only exposure to Gosick so far is the manga, which only has a few chapters and begins with a very different mystery from the anime. The anime seems to be following the material from the first light novel, if you guys are interested in it.
I thought it was neat that they started the series with a quick mystery right away that develops into something bigger. The deal with Roxanne’s murder was pretty simplistic, which I don’t think Victorique should really be given much credit for just yet, but the upcoming arc seems like it’ll be more of a true mystery. The setting of a cruise ship with the obligatory storm really reminds me of Detective Conan, but hopefully they delve deeper into the psychological aspect of a mystery instead of just the “How?” question that Conan is obsessed with addressing. Also, this is because I’m a guy and I like guys to be awesome, but Kazuya needs to kick some ass. But we’ll see where this goes!
PREVIEW
We have the standard crazy adults here, and Victorique and Kazuya are going to unravel this mystery.
About sassy
Follower of both dark and mysterious horrors and funny and pointless comedies. Fascinated with ghosts and the supernatural. Friendly and talkative, but I will kill you if you get between me and Itou Kanae.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 322 comments
oooh!!!
i am definitely excited about this series!! 🙂
keep up the good work, sassy! =D
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Thanks, I have high hopes for this series. Hopefully it does not disappoint!
POWUH: iLurker with 18 comments
I am not too fond of the doll-like girl, she creeps me out, but the mystery genre I do like. The old lady Roxanne’s face was a bit disturbing. And the dude with the weird hairdo is just well… weird. But I still liked it, so I think I’ll be watching it.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Yeah, I actually don’t like Victorique that much either, she is just not very appealing in general. She is the most important character, though, so we’ll just have to bear with it.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 339 comments
The lolita in me is freaking the EFF out over this series! I had it expected it to be a bit ‘all aesthetics and no substance’ from the pictures, but I was pleasently surprised. Looking foward to more and will be reading these posts 😀
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Cool, thanks for reading 🙂
POWUH: Occasional (51-75) with 75 comments
I agree, mystery and horror Are the best genres!
So when I saw the List of 2011 anime, I couldnt felt more dissapointed.
I mean, Come on!
Ecchi here, and Ecchi here, and here and here ¬¬, Ecchi Everywhere!
And if it wasnt Ecchi, the argument wasnt very atractive to me.
The only one that called my atention was Gosick.
So, Here I am.
I didn´t Watch it yet, I was waiting for you and your first impression.
It does not look bad, but then of Shiki or shinrei tantei yakumo from 2010, it does not look very promising.
Thanks for the first impression.
ANd sorry if I wrote something like tarzan.
I speak Spanish :3
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
I speak a little Spanish, but I haven’t spoken it in a long time…
I agree with you on the ecchi part, there is too much of it lately.
I think Gosick’s success as a mystery depends on Victorique’s performance. It will be boring if she always jumps to the solution without any footwork like she did in this episode.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 190 comments
It’s kuroneko with the same black outfit but with blonde hair! :O
Loving this series already xD
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
I didn’t like Kuroneko that much, I watched oreimo solely for Kyousuke hehehehe
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 190 comments
:3
Still even if I didn’t watch oreimou and knew about kuroneko I’d still love this show. I guess it’s the character designs and the mystery tag to it (Recently watched umineko and occult academy and am craving for more mystery >__<)
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 107 comments
I’m not too fond of character design like this one, but the mystery part looks interesting.
Let’s see in a few more episodes whether this deserve to be watched or not 😀
POWUH: Meta Resident and Metanorn's Hime-chan~ with 1758 comments
Well… I was really hyped about this, but the first episode wasn’t all that impressive. But man, that tower….. I’m still in awe from seeing that place! A huge tower, where all the floors are stuffed with countless books, and on the top floor there is a nice garden….. I swear, that image must have been secretly taken from my head~! The art is pretty impressive. There were some mistakes and such, but overall it was pretty good.
They’d better show some action in the next episode, because the first one was almost too slow…
POWUH: Occasional (51-75) with 70 comments
read somewhere that Victorique’s fashion style is not common in 1924 (heck, it might have not been introduced at the time). wonder why that is? or is it just an OP reference to Gosick
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
don’t you think kujo kun reminds u of that guy from eden of the east?
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Critique with 1024 comments
I LOVE the whole period feel to Gosick, all the washed out colours and clothing. At some points I couldn’t help feeling that it was just a shameless rip off of Rozen Maiden though xD The whole mystery of the dead woman was painfully obvious too, I didn’t get ut why they were all so shocked when they went into the room and found her shot, the maid just put a bullet through the keyhole, come on!
Lovely art style, as to be expected of BONES.
I dunno, I wasn’t as wow’d by this as I thought I’d be. I’ll keep watching but if they can’t pull some real exciting mystery off I think I’ll just stick with Detective Conan. xD
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
oh btw, my fan sub came up with the name Sauville which is french for “From the willow farm”
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
The Professor Layton-like mini mystery was a cute idea, if the mystery wasn’t so obvious. Still, I like where things are going. They wasted no time getting the characters wrapped up in a mystery
POWUH: 400-499 with 406 comments
So does this mean I’m a genius too? I basically solved the mystery of the death in the first seconds of showing the scenes. :I Anyhow, Victorique annoys me.
However, I do like my mystery anime, so I’ll keep watching.
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
I wished they could follow the novel at bit more than they did in the anime adaption. It’s a bit more fast-paced than i hoped i would be.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 93 comments
Ehhh this reminded me of a Rozen Maiden meets Sherlock Holmes cross-over kinda thing. But I love the clothing and colors of Gosick, so I’ll just keep watching for that.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 222 comments
Sadly, this is going to be the first Bones animation that I’m not going to watch. I just can’t stand how the Lolita’s drawn. But I’ve read the manga, anyway, sooo..
..Rozen Maiden rip-off? WHO ELSE THINKS SO?
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Critique with 1024 comments
Definately. Shinku would be most displeased.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 88 comments
I was expecting more detail and such, but honestly I’m not that disappointed in regards to the outfits, since they’re more old-fashioned outfits rather than actual lolita.
btw, have you seen the GOSICK x Innocent World collab? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazing
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 88 comments
Unless you meant the main character, then yes I agree, she isn’t drawn as nicely as in the manga XD
POWUH: iLurker with 14 comments
….nice anime but the cases are too damn simple, maybe is coz i saw all the eps of detective conan Lol, where the crimes are a LOT harder, in this anime i guessed them correct in a instant with ease…they should raise the dificulty level
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 83 comments
That guy looks like he’s a human unicorn with that hairdo.
The plot sounds interesting..I was just hooked.
The suspense, the mysteries, all soo good 😀