Alright, so it’s been awhile since the last time I did this, and I’ll admit I might have to cut some shows off just because of time, not because they are bad. Though before I made that decision I watched these, Gosick and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica so let’s get to it shall we?
Starting off with this I had 2 different expectations for Gosick, one good and one bad. The bad one was just something I heard through word of mouth, things along the lines of “Bones failed us” and so forth all of which translates to “Gosick is shit”, however the second expectation that I had was through personal experience. Bones always used to have seemingly bottomless pockets of money with which to work off of and I have yet to be disappointed enough with any of their work to discredit it, though A) I have not watched everything they have produced and B) Wolf’s Rain just confused the hell out of me but it was still a great show. (See review)
Anyways, my first thought on Gosick based on the few images I saw before watching reminded me of something like Rozen Maiden, and that we were going to be dealing with dolls in a Victorian setting. This proved false however. What we are dealing with is a Sherlock Holmes moe character (complete with pipe) who acts like Ciel Phantomhive from Kuroshitsuji, while solving mysteries for a local detective with one of the most ridiculous hairdos I’ve seen as of late (I would say of all time but this is anime we’re talking about here). She’s followed by our actual protagonist Kazuya Kujo who gets the nickname of “Dark Shinigami” for reasons that escape me at this moment. He got transferred to a private school in the European country of Sauville (which doesn’t actually exist), and it is there that he meets Victorique the aforementioned doll Phantomhive character. (Which is an interesting description since the Phantomhives ran a toy company.) And together they presumably solve mysteries together, as they are in the process of doing so as the ending credits for this episode start to roll. It’s certainly set up for such a storyline as they mention several times about how the made up country that they live in is famous for occult stories and the like.
As long as it doesn’t swing into a high school comedy like I was fearing it would for the first several minutes, Gosick looks to be doing fine. I’ll continue my thoughts as we progress through the next 2 weeks.
Moving on.
Holy crap, where do I start? Alright how about this……*Deep breath* THIS IS AWESOME. Ok maybe that was too enthusiastic and a bit over the top but it puts things into a good set of mind. So as some people know already I have nothing against slice of life anime such as Lucky Star and K-ON. In fact there are several that I enjoy quite heavily, including a show known as Hidimari Sketch, the creators of which have come up with this beauty. What looks like a slice of life high school drama crossed with the Magical Girl genre on the outside has very deep roots in someone that was probably on narcotics when they wrote this, although that is just speculation. In reality Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is the result of combining the creator of Requiem of the Phantom, and the director of mainly loli anime (Hidimari, Negima!, Petite Cossette, etc) Though he also directed “Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei”, which helps add to the WTF that happens in this show.
So as I said, on the surface the show seems like a casual Magical Girl anime. Yes there are magical girls in it, and yes the animation and character designs are heavily reminiscent of slice of life shows done by the same studio. The characters go to school for the majority of the episode leading one to believe that there is where most of everything is going to take place. There’s a talking cat, which if you’re a Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura fan is a dead giveaway to the show’s genre. But then you have two points in the show that takes what you think you know about this show and then smokes it away while drinking heavy amounts of sake. As everything changes, instead of being bright and colourful is dark and dangerous, instead of light piano background music, you have hard J-rock composed by the lovely Yuki Kajiura. And you might think that such a thing would be jarring because of the cute characters in a screwed up universe, however it’s really not the case. It’s like the characters are an anchor to the real world, and soften the blow that more serious designs might have in the same situation.
Overall, I’m obviously not going to judge the show just yet however with the way it’s going not only do I think that I’m going to be watching this show to completion instead of stopping at Ep3, but I think we have a good contender for my favourite show of the season.
Then again I’m not through yet.
Pingback: Cardcaptor Sakura OST 1 – Gumi – 10 – Hitorijime | Web Visitors Today