ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Gosick (GOSICK -ゴシック-, Goshikku)

Plot mini summary (wiki)
Gosick takes place in 1924 in a small, made-up European country of Sauville. The story centers on Kazuya Kujo, the third son of a Japanese Imperial soldier, who is a transfer student to St. Marguerite Academy, where urban legends and horror stories are all the rage. There he meets Victorique, a mysterious yet beautiful and brilliant girl who never comes to class and spends her days reading the entire content of the library or solving mysteries that even detectives can't solve. The series mostly focuses on Kazuya and Victorique getting involved in different mystery cases and their struggle to solve them, at the same time forming important bonds with different people.

I am curious if anyone would be able to translate this..It will never see a full english translation otherwise. Its a great story and the 'lincensor' has all but offically dropped it- I can cite an e-mail sent to me stating they have no intent to continue with the series. So It is more or less a plea to at least see if it can be looked into. ~great novel series , which also has a 24 episode anime currently running.

Have you ever read the novel? Cause I did read a few volumes of it, until I got really sick of it and dumped it aside. Personally, its not that great a novel. My friend who did not read the novels, kinda agreed to my comments after watching episode one of the anime.

Gosick is a detective novel, that in order to show Victorique's awesomeness, treats everyone else, including the reader, as idiots. The tricks behind the deaths are usually quite simple, so simple you can figure it out, or be really close to figuring it out. However, even after you guessed so much, half the volume would be her acting arrogant and trying to hide the simple truth(which you probably have figured out) just so she can reveal it as if noone else would ever come close to her wisdom in the end. Furthermore, the stories are based off some historical events, so unless you know history, or else there is no way you can link the events to the story, as such events are never mentioned until she said so, which is near the end. Some of which is next to impossible to even realise.

The good points about the author is probably the descriptions he used is very well done, and it works wonders with the great illustrations that comes with the series. But personally, I don't like how I am being treated as a fool, so I gave up the series, and gave the books away.

What do you guys(People who have read a little or the entire series so far) think about the series?

Well, I am enjoying the anime as it is, partly because Yuuki Aoi is doing a good job with Victorique, and partly because it's a refreshing switch from all the battles and moe. There aren't any active clever works recently aside from Enigma manga. but honestly, I'm not too keen in reading the novels at all. As ShadowZeroHeart mentioned, the tricks even in the first arc, while entertaining, lack depth and appear somewhat inconsistent to me. It's not like I'm expecting Agatha Christie level or even Kindaichi level. But I'm extremely bothered by the fact that Victorique seems so ignorant about the real world and yet she seems to be knowledgeable at the right time when the right knowledge is needed to unravel a trick, or rather in her words, to find coherence in chaos. But anyhow, I'm enjoying the anime as it is.

I have only read , myself the opening two novels- But I found them rather enjoyable. True enough they are not 'Mind F's' like say umineko is/tries to be/was - But for what it is Novel wise I found it enjoyable and quite engaging. And not horribly* cliche either. One can complain about the series I suppose (anime wise for most I assume, though I also agree with the fine job Yuuki Aoi is doing) , but the anime took, changed cut up and rushed the entire first novel. I mean I think perhaps we shouldn't really try to compare the detail level and such of a novel to 3 episodes of animation? Its rather unfair to both.. but more so to the Novel. In comparing the First novel to the Anime? They even Present the opening arc different from the get go.

well no matter what, our comments don't matter as long there is someone willing to translate it. but for new projects normally, it'll be a new translator since everyone is perpetually busy.

larethian wrote:well no matter what, our comments don't matter as long there is someone willing to translate it. but for new projects normally, it'll be a new translator since everyone is perpetually busy.

Well, I might be interested in doing a teaser for it, if you don't mind my poor English translation(started translating only 4 months ago). But it could take a lot of time. Junior High students don't have much of free time.

kira0802 wrote:

larethian wrote:well no matter what, our comments don't matter as long there is someone willing to translate it. but for new projects normally, it'll be a new translator since everyone is perpetually busy.

Well, I might be interested in doing a teaser for it, if you don't mind my poor English translation(started translating only 4 months ago). But it could take a lot of time. Junior High students don't have much of free time.

Don't worry, its fine, anything is always better than nothing. Do give it a try if you want to, there will be those who can read it who can help you confirm your translations should you feel uneasy. We always welcome fresh blood... *Drools*

ShadowZeroHeart wrote:Don't worry, its fine, anything is always better than nothing. Do give it a try if you want to, there will be those who can read it who can help you confirm your translations should you feel uneasy. We always welcome fresh blood... *Drools*

Here is half of the prologue. The other half is a bit hard to understand.

Since I just started translating, these kind of novels are hard to convert it in English. It's better to ask a fluent japanese translator.

Hm, but still I would say that this would be even for a teaser project too few text.

kira0802 wrote:

ShadowZeroHeart wrote:Don't worry, its fine, anything is always better than nothing. Do give it a try if you want to, there will be those who can read it who can help you confirm your translations should you feel uneasy. We always welcome fresh blood... *Drools*

Here is half of the prologue. The other half is a bit hard to understand.

Since I just started translating, these kind of novels are hard to convert it in English. It's better to ask a fluent japanese translator.

Spoiler! :

Prologue
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower in the middle of a forest. The tower had neither stairs nor door, but near the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'

--《Rapunzel》, brothers Grimm.

“That” coherence is in a very little body.

That is for a long time, the country’s people didn’t notice “that” existence.

“That” looked like a petite girl.

That’s why no one noticed.

Beside the lotus leafs, with luxurious dreams in the overlapping layers, deep, deep, deep—

The bizarre darkness is sleeping.

Labyrinth.

Becoming the first step of the Dark Age, a brain that amazed people—

There was a petite girl by the name of Victorique, breathing lightly.

I like the prologue. On the familiar character of Rapunzel is built suspense of a great story... well, how good the story is seems pretty subjective though. I'm not that keen on detective stories but the setting makes it attractive enough for me to wach the anime. Are the novels close to finishing?

I don't know, haven't read the other volumes yet. I've enough with novels like Accel World, SAO, Campione or God's notepad (and trying to understand every sentence of SnS, TRYING).

Hate to rain on the parade but... http://www.tokyopop.com/product/2130/GOSICK/1 Last time I was there, they had a special "Print of Demand" (http://shop.tokyopop.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=gosick) where they'll print a copy when you order it since it did not sell well.

kira0802 wrote:I don't know, haven't read the other volumes yet. I've enough with novels like Accel World, SAO, Campione or God's notepad (and trying to understand every sentence of SnS, TRYING).

You said you have enough of those... does it mean you dislike God's Notepad? (The rest aren't all that brilliant, so no point trying to go against your point for those)

ShadowZeroHeart wrote:You said you have enough of those... does it mean you dislike God's Notepad? (The rest aren't all that brilliant, so no point trying to go against your point for those)

Sorry, sorry, I meant that I had enough to read, not that I dislike them. And I still didn't have time to start God's notepad.

kira0802 wrote:

ShadowZeroHeart wrote:You said you have enough of those... does it mean you dislike God's Notepad? (The rest aren't all that brilliant, so no point trying to go against your point for those)

Sorry, sorry, I meant that I had enough to read, not that I dislike them. And I still didn't have time to start God's notepad.

Haha, if you dislike it, I would like to know why, though I think I can guess the reasons, but its always nice to hear different viewpoints too!

And though i read Champion and Accel World, I find all those action pack novels not half as good as the emotional ones, with the exception of mushi-uta, that did a great job in both. Besides, Accel World is very flawed imo... Though I still continue reading it...