Anime Review: Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa
I’ve reviewed several volumes of the long-running Detective Conan (“Case Closed” in the American dub) manga. The “teen genius detective trapped in the body of a pre-teen” premise has remained popular, and the associated anime has run for over twenty years and a thousand episodes. This has caused the series to develop its own list of quirks and in-jokes, such as the use of the “culprit.”
Whenever the series needs to show a reconstruction of a crime, but the perpetrator isn’t revealed yet, the “culprit” is used as a stand-in. It’s drawn as a black silhouette with blue highlights, with no visible hair or gender features. A non-reader just flipping through the pages might think the series has a race of aliens or something that commit crimes.
Thus this comedic spin-off series. Hanzawa has a grudge against a certain person, who is somewhere in the (fictional) Beika neighborhood of Tokyo. Thus he has moved to the big city to track that person down and kill them. He never thought about just how big Tokyo is, or how many people live there. He’s going to have to find a place to live, a job, and settle in for the long haul.
Most of the humor derives from considering what it might be like to live in the world of Detective Conan. Beika Town is the murder capital of Japan, and the general public is aware of this, warning Hanzawa he’s taking his life into his hands by moving there. But like Gotham City or New York City in the 1970s, people still live and work there. (Just don’t try to move out.)
In Japan, if a murder happens in a house or apartment, the real estate agent has to disclose this. Many superstitious Japanese people won’t live in these places, and thus they become “stigmatized property.” Most of the available places to move into in Beika are murder sites, and thus stigmatized property, but at least the rent is low. The rents on non-stigmatized apartments are sky-high.
The insane crime rate in Beika Town comes up repeatedly in different ways. As does the overpopulation of detectives. Hanzawa often runs into members of the Detective Conan supporting cast. And his potential victim may be closer than he thinks!
Otherwise, the plots are fairly generic “naive hick moves to the big city” stories. Hanzawa gets scammed by local crooks, has difficulty finding honest work that pays enough to keep him alive, Is baffled by the shopping experience, and there’s a visit from his embarrassingly countrified mother. Oh, and he winds up with a couple of pets, one of which he’s taking care of for an irresponsible co-worker.
Oh, and the opening animation is a parody of the classic Cats’ Eye opening, so it looks inexplicable if you haven’t seen that other anime.
Content note: murder and attempted murder. We see Hanzawa naked in the shower, the joke being that he looks no different. Police are so busy with the murders that they are neglecting other services they are entrusted with.
The series is only mildly funny if you haven’t seen the thing it’s spoofing, but hilarious if you have, so I would recommend this only to people who are already fans of Case Closed or Detective Conan.
