There are a lot of sweet Christmas anime episodes out there, but the one from pseudo-gothic mystery series Gosick is not one of them. Instead, it’s a bit of a travesty, really, mixing together Christmas and Hallowe’en, with a dash of secular Easter and a pinch of birthday, topped off with a thicker layer of melodrama icing than any episode can comfortably support. What’s more, it’s the first installment of a three-episode finale that jumps more sharks than The Fonz could ever dream of, making it the beginning of the tragic unravelling of an otherwise clever, entertaining series. In short, it’s pretty terrible.
So, why am I bringing it up, then? Well, amid the nonsensicalities and disappointing butchery of Christmas, Gosick gets a few vital things right—things that we can often overlook in our more conventional observation of the season—and they have to do with the heart, the stakes, and the gift.
The episode opens on a giant Christmas tree, decorated to the nines and flanked by students wearing…Hallowe’en costumes? It seems that the citizens of the Central European (fictional) nation of Saubure have a few…interesting holiday traditions—enough so to flummox even Japanese exchange student, Kujo, who doesn’t have much to go on when it comes to celebrating Christmas. But he goes with the flow, and pretty soon, he’s being loaned a giant rabbit costume with a bedazzled heart, and a suitably Victorian fancy dress for his beloved friend (and, let’s face it, mega crush), the diminutive Victorique. This pairing of costumes is significant: they represent the Monstre Charmant (charming monster) and rabbit of the Sauburian folk tale about a mysterious, magical young woman who once blessed humble villagers, and her trusty and devoted rabbit, who never left her side, except to carry out her will. Evil rich men soon heard of her power and sought to kidnap the Monstre for themselves, killing her rabbit in the attempt as he lay down his life to protect her. But when they find the Monstre, she is already dead. The rabbit, you see, was her heart; the two were one.
As the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that the Monstre Charmant and rabbit are more than just a clever costume idea inspired by a fairy tale. (Indeed, in the final two episodes of the series, the allegory takes on more and more of a literal quality.) Victorique is the Monstre Charmant, and Kujo is the rabbit; and what’s more, Victorique knows it.
So when they are separated, at first, almost accidentally (Kujo doesn’t understand the situation at all, bless the naive baka boy!), and then, at the climax of the episode, with violent decisiveness as the plotting of evil rich men unfolds, Victorique is beside herself. Her trademark calm and detached rationality vaporize the instant Kujo is carried off, leaving her frantic in desperation. Victorique knows how fundamental Kujo is to her existence. She knows by now that he is her heart. The separation cuts her deeply, and the episode ends on the steepest cliff to be found in the entire series.
If I’m honest, it’s pretty over the top! The emotions run so high, the stakes are so very dire, and the entire thing is fraught with such urgency. This is no sugar-sweet sentimental bedtime story; in fact, it verges on horror, if we pause to let the implications sink in (or pause on some of the scenes after Kujo is first taken, yikes!). How could Victorique ever live without Kujo? What is left for the Monstre Charmant if she does not have the rabbit? Her good deeds, her popularity with the villagers, and support from her community are not enough to sustain her. Her life is found only in the living relationship with the one who is her heart. It is union with him, or death.
Victorique’s desperation here, and her fundamental reliance on her “rabbit heart,” is a powerful image. And it is herein that the genuine value of this admittedly weird Christmas episode lies.
It’s all too easy these days to lose our sense of the urgency of the Christmas story. Of the high stakes, the deep emotions, the fathomless impact of this wild drama. Instead, we domesticate and even kawaii-fy it into a sweet tale of gentle beasts, humble parents, and a babe born in quirky circumstances, seasoned with a magical gleaming star, angels on high, and gift-bearers from across the sandy sea. But it was actually a bold, outlandish declaration of intent—a cosmic play to remake reality for every single human being and all of creation, from that moment on.
After all, we are all Monstres Charmants, charming monsters (who at times are simply monstrous)—except that our heart, who came into our world to find us that day so long ago, is the Lamb and not a rabbit. He is the One who lived to lay down his life for us, who protects us and connects us to love in its purest form. Without him, we cannot live—quite literally! He is the one who holds our very being together on a subatomic level, enables our lungs to fill with air, and our hearts to beat in synch with life itself. And whether we know it, like Victorique, or not (yet), like Kujo, we are desperate for him. We cannot find the answers to the great questions of life within ourselves alone—much as social media these days would tell us we can and should—nor can we find them in the world; they are found in him, in the One who planted those questions in us to begin with. And so in this sense, he is our heart, since it is in him that we find the fullest possible version of life—nay, the only true one.
There’s something else, beyond the heart and the stakes, that this episode gets right about Christmas, and that is the gift. Kujo’s final act, as he is snatched away by evil men enforcing “the law” of the land (sound familiar?), is to leave behind a gift for Victorique—a pendant he made from a British coin with the head of young Queen Victoria upon it. Its value is far greater than the gold from which it is smelted, though, as it speaks of his intimate knowledge of the strange girl who would appreciate something like this. It is personal, bearing her name, and hinting at the parallel, in his eyes, between the young woman to whom it was gifted, and that noble, most capable of Queens whose likeness it carries.
But there’s more. Years later, as Victorique clings to the pendant, still longing for her lost Kujo, it comes apart in her fingers: It was not a pendant at all, but a locket, and inside the hollow was a picture Kujo had made of the ersatz family that he had drawn her into, years ago. It was through him that Victorique was able to connect to a world that was otherwise only theoretical and political to her. His gift was just for her, but it wasn’t about her alone; his gift was to value her, but not to keep her just for himself; he both loved her, and led her into a life where others, too, would love her, and where she would love them. Wheels within wheels! Layer upon layer. Glory to glory! What a Christ-like gift.
Gosick’s Christmas tale of the Monstre Charmant and her rabbit is not a straightforward allegory for the life of faith; in fact, if we look too closely, especially in subsequent episodes, it’s way off—just like the show’s depiction of the holiday. But the story here does capture something in its telling that I think we often lose in our more strictly accurate recounting of the Christmas story. It captures the drama, the high stakes, the urgency, the life and death nature of our relationship with the One who protects and sustains us, and the way that the gift given to the world that day was both deeply personal and profoundly universal, all at once. Not bad for the weirdest little Christmas episode to be found on our Master List of Christmas Anime Episodes!
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