Gosick is an animated mystery series about a boy named Kazuya Kujo who is an exchange student from Japan and is studying in a small fictional European country named Saubure. On his first day his teacher assigns him a project where he has to study famous horror tales as the country of Saubure is completely mad for them. While at the library he notices something at the top of the building and climbs a whole ton of stairs.  After going through all that effort he is welcomed to a lovely site of a very beautiful garden that is on the top floor. While up there he spots a life-sized doll dressed in a very pretty Gothic Victorian dress.  Kujo decides to pick it up only for the doll to start talking to him as it isn't a doll at all but another student named Victorique del Blois who likes skipping class to read and eat sweets. Not too long after we that an old psychic woman has been murdered and Victorique and Kujo figure out the case right away like it was child's play. The two of them end up working together on old unsolved cases based on horror tales... Actually it's the other way around where they are investigating old murders that have inspired the horror tales. Looks like we are going to have fun with this 1920's version of "Cold Case ("2003 - 2010"). (Click "Read More" to read the full review).

You know how you get certain shows that when they start off you love them but when the story kicks in you grow to hate them? Well this is one of those shows where I started off not liking the first few episodes of the show and then I grew to love it very quickly after that (and now I do like those early episodes). The stories found in this show were very well told and quite suspenseful. This show also has a very good ending that wraps everything up leaving you feel very satisfied. If you are familiar with the whole "Mystery" genre or if you have played any of the "Phoenix Wright (2001 - Ongoing)" video games then you will find that all the mysteries in this show to be a tad bit predictable. That doesn't stop this from being an entertaining show though as even though you do know what's going to happen you'll find yourself really getting into the stories nonetheless. For an anime that ran for twenty-two episodes it flew by really fast and it is also a really easy watch.


Characters in this show do start off a little annoying but they quickly improve and you'll grow to enjoy them. I did like the interaction between the characters in this one and I also really liked how the relationship between Kujo and Victorique grew at a natural pace. There are also some really good side-characters that have some interesting back stories and personalities. There is indeed action in this show and it was quite well done with some very exciting stuff. It is also quite different compared to most anime as it relies more on gritty fighting like that you would typically see in mystery series set in the times of classic detectives like "Sherlock Holmes" and it feels quite refreshing seeing action like this in an anime.

Artwork in this show is quite good with some very great looking backgrounds that have some very nice detailing. Characters look pretty good in this show with some very nice designs that have some awesome clothing designs. My main complaint about this show is that some of the characters look overly cute that doesn't always go well with some of the cases they deal with in this show. Animation is decent but nothing good or bad sticks out to warrant saying something interesting about it. This release only has the show with a Japanese dub and English subtitles and it was very good with voices that matched up with the characters really well. If you are also planning into jumping into anime "subbed" instead of "dubbed" then this one is a pretty good title for beginners as it is a pretty easy show to follow and read so you won't feel confused. The soundtrack in this show has a very nice symphony sound that works well with the show and it also helps to build up some atmosphere.

Special features you will find in this set include: Text-less opening and closing credit sequences, a text-less version of the final scenes of the final episode, and television ads that aired on Japanese television. The text-less opening and closing credits weren't bad as they had some very nice music and some very nice visuals that went along with the music. The text-less version of the show's final scene was a bit useless and didn't add anything to the final scene and you might as well just re-watch the final episode. The television ads were interesting to watch and there were quite a bit of them too but there isn't any replay value to them after you have watched them.

Overall this ended up being a really good show and even though it can be a bit predictable I do recommend checking out this show anyway as it is still just as enjoyable as not knowing what the twists were. This is also a great show to get into if you are looking to start watching anime subbed. It's defiantly no mystery to whether or not to watch this show or not as even Sherlock Holmes would say "No shit Sherlock" to watching this. Go out and watch it now!
Title: Gosick Series Collection
Animation Studio: Bones
Genre: Animation/Anime, Mystery, Drama, Action, Comedy, Romance
Running Time: 600 minutes (24 Episodes)
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (www.madman.com.au)
Rating: M15+ (Animated Violence)
Price: $59.95
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