Mayank

I've been watching Gosick for months. To put it clearly, it's such a drag that I haven't been able to finish it despite trying very hard. That should probably give the reader an idea of what I think of this anime. Mild spoilers ahead.

It's a boredom fest. I am a serious sucker for mysteries, mind you. So of course when I discovered Gosick on Netflix, I was very eager to explore the show. Yet it falls on its face. The first few episodes were quite okay. The case where Kujo and Victorique visit the town was pretty meh. Avril's impersonation had a good momentum but in the end it fell flat. Then came the Levaithan case. I think this was the best part of Gosick as far as plot goes. Everything else is very forgettable. 

Loli Detectives doing Detecting is such a fun concept. But it only works if the Loli isn't annoying as hell or if everyone else isn't annoying as hell too. What Gosick suffers from the most is the curse of useless, loser MC syndrome that most anime with female counterparts leading the MC into a mess suffer from. Other characters are barely any less unbearable. 

I'm pretty sure most of Kujo's dialogue is literally just one word and that's "Victorikaaaa". His character is as bland and lacking in any originality as most isekai anime. Moreover, his constant screaming of Victorikaaaa keeps annoying you to wit's ends. Probably the easiest job his Voice actor has had. They really replaced all the elements that make up "drama" with him crying out her name and always being too late to be useful. I'm guessing the screenwriter was just a newbie or an intern at Bones. Ceclile is another stupid character who is also canonically stupid. I still can't figure out if she's supposed to be a caring mother figure or a comic relief. She does an awfully terrible job of doing both of those. Hair Drill inspector was meant to be actually annoying so he gets a pass from being labelled as a bad character. He seems to have a well functioning moral compass but is still controlled by his father. The real Avril was sweet but kind of irrelevant in the whole picture. She could've had more screentime. Her purpose being only to bring out the "human" nature in Victorique felt like an injustice to the character.

Now after three (or maybe five) months of starting this anime I am at episode 20 and wondering if I should finally drop it. At this moment, I'm not sure. But I might. The Beelzebub arc felt like a hamfisted attempt at having an adventure in the narrative. Shooting a bomb attached to one of the dozens of structural arches of a bridge from the front a train going full speed while never having used a gun before? Seriously? Get Out lol! It really doesn't sit well with the rather calm and un-happening tone of the show. Victorique's mother showing up was just interesting enough to keep me continue watching. The Coco Rose mystery is just kind of a mindless closing act that will try to incorporate suspense and comedy to ease the tension that the show fails to establish in the first place. 

The animation is quite decent, as you'd expect from Bones. And the background sound is quite average. Nothing bad in those areas. Apart from the B grade mysteries, the story is very lackluster and doesn't do much in sense of character development (what it does right, is being predictable).

Looking back in the past, these moe, loli Detectives, SoL or isekai type of trends in anime really do a great job of trying to make me not like anime. If only studios stopped copying the first successful anime of its type to make a trillion trash tier revisions... But alas, that's just wishful thinking. 

Final score: VICTORIKAAAA/10