YMMV / Gosick

• Angst? What Angst?: Kazuya starts the series being ostracized in his own classroom due to his classmates' fear of him, and despite Cecile's intention, he ultimately fails to make any friend aside from Victorique (who is most of the time in her tower) and Avril (whom he actually doesn't hang out with very much) before he leaves the school. However, at least in the anime, he seems bizarrely blasé about this. Even before meeting the two girls, he's only mildly annoyed that the reason for his friendless state is due to an urban legend, and is positively cheerful despite being literally isolated.
• Ass Pull: Crime scene details more or less come and go as the plot demands it. For example, what appears to be one room is actually one room and a massacred replica. And the viewer isn't tipped off one bit until it is shown. Also, the mystery-solving relies on a wholesale rejection of all things supernatural; the typical criminal in-universe is some devious person manipulating the superstitious into believing a falsehood. From this, a person might successfully deduce their way to the water-damaged double room. (It must be noted that the Queen Berry incident was the very first case in the anime, and if one is paying close attention like Victorique is they might be able to notice the difference or figure out how it could be pulled off.)
• Awesome Music: The opening and both ending themes qualify, especially the full versions available on the ED single.
• Complete Monster: Marquis Albert du Blois is the leader of Sauville's Ministry of the Occult. A man obsessed with the supernatural, he viewed his own children as nothing more than tools. After he met a woman who matched the bloodline he was looking for, he kidnapped her and raped her to produce a child before stealing the daughter Victorique from her. Albert apparently manipulated the start of World War II and blackmailed the King into making him the Prime Minister. He also managed to amass a legion of followers by making the people believe that his daughter was a monster.
• Fandom Rivalry: One sparked between this series and The Mystic Archives of Dantalian after the latter's anime started airing two weeks after the last episode of the former. Comparisons were made about which series was more enjoyable (as both light novels and anime adaptations) and which main heroine was better between Victorique and Dalian.
• Friendly Fandoms: That said, some fans enjoy both for filling in the "goth loli mystery" niche.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Quite a few people watch the show because Victorique averts the usual stereotypical combo of Tiny Tyrannical Girl and Tsundere by being just adorable.
• Moe: Admit it, Victorique is the cutest detective ever imagined.
• Moral Event Horizon: Episode 19 makes it quite clear that the Marquis de Blois had crossed it long before the start of the series... and buries any assumption that his relationship with Victorique's mother was in any way consensual.
• Nightmare Retardant: Harminia from the Horovitz arc. Whatever the writers intended with her loony facial expressions and completely over-the-top psychosis, utter hilarity probably wasn't it, and yet...
• Spiritual Adaptation: A male main character who feels all lonely in his boarding school explores the place's old buildings and meets by chance a beautiful, delicate girl with blond hair who spends all her time among books. They later get entangled with a series of ancient mysteries related to the city, one of them connected to her own, traumatic past, which entails her father (a bespectacled gentleman with long, grey hair) and his obscure relationship with her mother. Kazuki Sakuraba's light novel Gosick or Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel Marina?
• Tear Jerker: Take the time period of the series. Add the 20 years foretold to the dutiful third son of an Imperial Army Officer. It makes every episode heartwrenching. Then comes Episode 15...
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Kazuya, a Japanese student living in 1920's Europe, is ostracized by his classmates due to his nationality... but this is only because of the coincidental fact that there's an urban legend about a reaper with black hair and eyes, which Kazuya shares due to being Asian. The premise seems perfect to explore the culture clash and racial environment of The Roaring '20s, but it is instead wasted in a fictitious inside joke, which is played for laughs most of the time given that Kazuya doesn't seem to feel very isolated or bullied despite having been left deliberately friendless.
  • Kazuya's family martial arts training never goes anywhere, and it is only shown in a couple of flashbacks to illustrate his brutal upbringing. Given that Kazuya gets in a handful of fights through the series, this background could have been perfect to make him a physical badass and turn him into a physical counterpart to Victorique's intellect, therefore forming a fully Holmesian dyad between the two. However, he never displays comparable combat ability and often has to be saved by someone else, even if he's fighting women or random people a trained martial artist should have little trouble to defeat.
• The Woobie:
  • Victorique, especially as more details about her past come to light. Let's just say that living alone in a giant library which she needs special permission to leave was a big improvement on her previous situation.
  • Her mother seems to be a good candidate for the trope, as well. She lost her home twice over, as well as her daughter for a crime she did not commit which led to her getting kidnapped and raped.

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