Manga Review: Case Closed (Detective Conan) by Gosho Aoyama
Shin’ichi Kudou (Jimmy Kudo) is a teen genius detective, well known for solving cases that baffle the police. One day while visiting an amusement park with his female friend Ran Mouri (Rachel Moore), he witnesses a murder by two men in black. They catch him, and one of the men decides to try a new poison their organization has developed.
Shin’ichi vanishes, initially presumed dead by the assassins. But in fact the poison has caused him to physically regress to about six years old. He contacts Dr. Agasa, an eccentric scientist of his acquaintance, who isn’t a biochemist and has no idea how to reverse the effect. Ran appears, looking for Shin’ichi, and the boy comes up with a name based on the spines of detective story books he was looking at, Conan Edogawa. (From Arthur Conan Doyle and Rampo Edogawa, the latter being best known in Japan and having taken his pen name from Edgar Allen Poe.)
Ran is told that Conan’s parents are out of the country, and Dr. Agasa asks her to look after him until they’re back. Ran’s father, inept private eye Kougoro Mouri (Richard Moore) is not happy about this, but is soon distracted by a murder case. Conan figures out whodunnit, but has to use Kougoro as a mouthpiece to avoid blowing his cover, so the older detective gets the credit.
After that, Conan continues to solve cases, mostly murders, while looking for clues to track down the Black Organization. This requires a lot of subterfuge, as he supposedly cannot tell Ran or Kougoro the truth, lest they also be targeted by the Organization (this has become increasingly hypocritical over the years as they come into dangerous unknowing contact with the Black agents repeatedly) and thus cannot let the police or other responsible adults in on it either.
This is a very long running series, up to 51 volumes in North America, which is several years behind the Japanese releases. That creates some weirdness as it’s all supposed to be taking place in one year after Shin’ichi is shrunk. (An early case had a cell phone that could fit in a lunchbox as a cool new gadget; a more recent case has the absence of cell phones in a writer’s story as evidence he had been housebound for years.)
Due to marketing concerns, the title of the series and some of the names were altered for the North American market to get the anime version on television. This didn’t work out as well as hoped; while the main character looks like a child and thus the U.S, networks expected a kid-friendly show, the manga is actually shounen (aimed at junior high boys and up) and features gruesome murders and some other violence. There’s also some mild fanservice.
Over the course of the series, it’s accumulated loads of characters; Conan’s first grade classmates, Shin’ichi and Ran’s friends, rival detectives, many police officers, recurring criminals, members of the Black Organization and of course a whole new cast of murder suspects in most stories. Most of them are pretty self-evident, or re-introduced when they show up, but I should mention Ai Haibara (Anita), the scientist who developed the experimental poison for the Black Organization. She later took it herself to escape them, and poses as Dr. Agasa’s ward.
The cases are usually enjoyable, if sometimes a bit repetitive when a few volumes are read in a row. And it is always a delight when there is actual movement on the Black Organization plotline. (This won’t actually be resolved until the manga ends, of course.) Once familiar with the basic premise, a reader should be able to pick up any volume and have a good read.
The volume to hand, #51 is typical. First, the flashback Snow Maiden case is wrapped up. Then a waitress at Cafe Poirot slowly realizes that texts she’s getting from a little boy mean he’s trapped alone in a car…somewhere (this one has a happy ending.) The Detective Kids (Conan’s classmates who enjoy mysteries) help our hero solve the murder of a clamdigger.
After that, Kougoro finds himself catsitting a Russian Blue (based on the author’s real life new cat, see the cover illustration) while tackling a difficult cipher. The volume wraps up with Ran’s rich but airheaded friend Sonoko (Serena) inviting her, Conan and a new classmate named Eisuke to her country home. On the way there, they stumble on a locked room mystery…complicated by Conan’s suspicions of Eisuke. Is the new fellow really as clumsy and unlucky as he appears? There’s circumstantial evidence that he’s sharper than he looks.
This volume ought to go over especially well with cat lovers.
