Gosick - Episode 12

As Gosick reaches its halfway point, so it also takes a break from solving or relating to any real mysteries of any note, instead choosing to luxuriate in its summer setting for a little while as vacation time hits Kujo's school.

While it initially appears that Kujo is all set for an exotic holiday in the Mediterranean with Avril, his guilt about leaving Victorique on her own (despite her chewing him out necessarily on his last visit to her) leaves him to forgo said holiday in order to spend time with his diminutive friend.  The good news for us is that this offers ample opportunity for the enjoyable character dynamic between the two to spark up as they laze around in the sun reading, sharing candy and cakes (well, trying to) and climbing trees with varying degrees of success.  We also get a little more insight into Kujo's character, although to be honest that aspect of the episode was hardly anything to write home about - unless you're Kujo of course, who seems to be doing rather a lot of writing home about things in this episode.

This light-hearted episode actually works surprisingly well, probably only because Victorique is such an eminently watchable character no matter what she does and even when she is only given the most simple of problems to solve.  That said, I hope we're returning to more serious fare next week, as it feels a little like we've had a couple of episodes that have been light on the show's key tenets now, so we're overdue a bit of proper mystery and suspense... assuming that is that Gosick manages to deliver such things in a more compelling manner than it frequently managed during its first half.