my humble opinion on 'Gosick' ~ really sick

I have seen anime with poor storyline and poor graphics, such as 'Noir' (well yes, despite the common admiration I consider it as such). I have seen anime with poor or at least strange graphics but great plot that made me pay no attention to the visual side, such as 'Final Fantasy Unlimited'. and of course I have seen masterpieces, needless to say the recently discovered by me 'Ikoku Meiro' is one of them. have I ever seen an anime with great graphics and poor story?
after an opening in an 'anime-Art-Nouveau' style

one would expect a really outstanding show but...

plot and characters

this is an anime that fails to capture your attention from the very beginning. after watching the opening I already knew some of the characters, their types and future behaviour. they were so plain and unoriginal I was disappointed by the very first episode. I admit that all the characters in the world belong to some type and those of one type may have something in common, but every_one of them, each of them MUST go beyond the cliche frames and present something new, while being perfectly credible. I am trying to say, nobody among the main characters made me cling to him/her and follow his/her story, and nothing among the developments made me say 'wooow'. in other words, nothing surprised me

I cannot avoid speaking of 'Dantalian' here, because everyone compares 'Gosick' with 'Dantalian' and Victorique with Dalian. from the beginning I could not understand why they could seem alike. the more I watched, the more I understood there were certain points, and I have to admit in general their images were pretty close. they both are clever, know a lot of things and consider this as something natural, and mostly this knowledge comes out of books, as both of them live in a library - though a very different one. they love tasty and sweet things. and oh, they are often throw pretty harsh words at their 'companions'. well, if I speak of Victorique, she is much closer to the general description of a tsundere than Dalian. Victorique was... restrained? adult-like? this is actually hard to compare. Victorique looks younger than she is. Dalian looks younger than Victorique looks, but is actually much older than Victorique is. that's a bit too complicated. maybe there are any words on the Earth I could use to explain the difference between these two, but I cannot find anything except 'cold' and 'warm'. I was perfectly sure that a tsundere is a classmate girl who pretends to be indifferent to the Ordinary Japanese Schoolboy main character, but actually is afraid of her developing feelings towards him. now I see the term has gained a (completely?) different meaning recently. in the end, are we observing a process of the words coined long ago transforming into something new following the trends of the time?

the other side of Victorique was supposed to present the drama aspect of the story. a child with a 'childhood trauma' and tragic past... well, that wasn't actually too touching for me, but after examining this aspect I could draw one conclusion - much more relevant comparison to Victorique should be Mina Tepes, I daresay. the same behaviour, lines, attitude, and seiyuu as well. ok, this is due to be written in the next paragraph

I shouldn't overlook the fact that the general story was a good attempt and the authors obviously wanted to convey something to their audience, but the actual implementation of their ideas is... well... lame. the 'cases', starting with the ghost ship, were more or less neat, but the very beginning with Victorique solving the mystery with Roxanne's death was designed only to fascinate the audience, show how cool Victorique is, and what an incapable poseur her brother is. therefore, her reasoning seemed to be quick, far-fetched and contrived

some of the minor characters impressed me much better. Ambrose, for example, or the Luigi as a pauper boy in the streets of the capital, brilliantly portrayed. I guess this is due to the fact they had only a few minutes of presence on the screens, therefore only a few features of character were enough to create a general image of them, such as Ambrose's interest for the outer world or his unwillingness to kill Harminia, and the ability of the boy to notice and understand everything at an instant. among the main characters, the only one interesting for me was Victorique's brother, for he was adding at least a bit of humour to the story. and of course I became fond of the Glaviel-Jacqueline line, as Jaqueline combined 'good intentions with complete ignorance', and Glaviel was of the type I like - a womanizer who is actually in love with only one person. however, with time I lost my interest in him, after seeing his strange behaviour in the last arc. this is not his fault, this is simply poor character design and directing
however, the anime was also full of cliche characters

I am already tired of those active positive girls interested in the main male character and constantly getting mad at him shouting out loud '...no bakaaaaaaa'

I can't understand why the main villain must be drinking red wine - that was a popular way to show how cool he is long long ago, maybe still popular until the mid 00s, but we are already far from that. what is the meaning of this bottle in his hand apart from what I mentioned? only annoys me 

finally, attempts to make the serious episodes just a bit funnier - a teacher bursting out of a suitcase and shouting at her student - without getting up and leaving the suitcase. the student, who bothered to slightly bend his knees to lower himself to the level of his teacher, but never offered a hand to help her stand up, to say nothing of giving her his coat, as we see 'tis winter with a lot of snow. and the soldiers who are watching the scene, surprised, but never interfere seeing a woman in such circumstances. erm... this was supposed to be funny? I expected this to be just a bit more realistic in this aspect. I mean, I was unprepared for that level of fanservice

the general flow of the plot was not bad in the first half of the series. there were enough risky adventures and different places interesting to see especially when you understand that this is an artificial world and an imaginary country. however, the level of detail was often not very deep. several times I knew what was going to happen, considering some minor events that influenced the story. and at the same time, there were parts where the plot was dragging slowly - probably supposed to make the spectators interested. and in the end, when the most important intrigue comes - the second half of -teenth episodes - everything turns upside down and there is no proper explanation for anything. watching and watching - and the only reaction is 'who are these people?', 'what does he want?', 'why did she do that?', 'why is this character even necessary for the story?', 'what was that for?' and so on. and where did Victorique's great logic go now? constant dragging Victorique away, Kujou chasing and rescuing her - aren't they bored themselves with the repeating scheme? and everything goes so smoothly - they let them escape easily when necessary, introduce new enemies when necessary, deal with them, with a speed of light so that I cannot even recall whom I saw and what happened

seiyuus

moreover, Victorique's seiyuu contributed greatly to my disappointment. if I knew nothing of 'Vampire's Bund' I would probably be less biased, but when Victorique speaks in the same voice, with the same intonations and uses almost the same language as Mina, the personality of Victorique becomes even more boring. 'tis not the question of who was earlier - Victorique or Mina, 'tis the problem of the seiyuu that her intonation sound too boring. after I heard her in 'Ikoku' I am aware of the fact that she can do something different. this time 'twas a failure
of course I recognized Ueda Yuuji-san, but somehow I consider him the opposite - his unchanging intonations and manner of speaking doesn't make the characters boring, it only adds charm to them and makes them memorable. erm... am I biased? oh no, of course I am. let me put this question differently - am I so biased that it doesn't let me judge the seiyuus fairly? well I don't think so. in the end, if I ever hear Aoi-san in another role I may change my mind
and of course, hearing Sawashiro-san's low voice was a good experience, though I actually wish she never agreed to take part in this work

the others were good. I think

music

OP theme. horrible - as a song. so-so - as an OP theme. I mean, perhaps this song is not too bad together with the visual side, but the song is really cheap-sounding and plain J-rock-pops

the 1st ED theme was the first reason for me to pay attention to this anime. Komine-san's voice is great, and the song itself is not less great, combining both touching lyrics and deep composition. the 2nd one is not one of my favourites but I can at least respect it and I do see it makes a very good ending

OSTs were very good. calm when necessary and with a lot of tension when necessary, perfectly matching the scenes they accompanied, and pretty noticeable, though maybe just a little too frequently used - some of them. oh, and several times I noticed there was no music in the background where there might be (and better be)

graphics
finally - something I can praise in this work. wonderful scenery and architecture - thanks to the designers and artists

and interior, too

and I really loved how the aura of the epoch was captured, including watercolour pictures in the book with children in clothes of the time

and a few Art Nouveau items in the plot as well - though this is 1924

and some buildings again

everything looks pretty realistic and captures the eye. of course there were a lot more moments worthy of clicking on 'pause' and looking closely

conclusion
during the last several episodes I was absolutely indifferent to the story. I wasn't touched by anything, I wasn't moved, 'no-reaction'. I didn't care who dies and who lives on, I didn't care how the story ends for any of the characters. I wanted everything to end quickly and I was looking forward to that 'Fin' on a black screen

p. s. in the end, the most surprising thing was Victorique's laugh in the first episodes when she said something like 'I thought this was a joke'