Take A Pick Tuesday: Detective Conan
When it comes to mystery in anime, Detective Conan should be
first on your lips, if it isn’t than what’s wrong with you. Only kidding but if
you haven’t seen or heard of Detective Conan. Then what’s wrong with you.
Detective Conan or Case Closed as it is called in America has been going with
this year, in serialization for twenty years. Lot’s to catch up on then right?
Not necessarily a bad thing in fact considering it’s still running it might be
the most fun you’ll have, over twenty years has showed how many dimensions this
shows has, how it can defy the problems and slips up in long running titles especially
in mainstream, yes I’m ready to defend that and develop even more dimensions
ever since. The show is a love letter to Mystery but truly it is a love letter
to so much and it’s never something it’s ashamed to show.
Detective Conan
follows Shinichi Kudo son of a world famous mystery writer and world famous
actress and is considered a teenage detective prodigy, a modern day Sherlock
Holmes who happens to be Shinichi’s idol. Taking his best friend and obvious love
interest Ran Mouri to a theme park he witnesses a shady deal going down between
a business man and a man in black. While observing he’s blindsided by a second
man in black he was unaware of, knowing who Shinichi is they decide to feed him
an experimental poison and leave him for dead. What happens instead through
some strange miracle and curse Shinichi’s body shrinks. Distraught by this he
seeks the help of his neighbor Dr. Agasa who explains how important it is for
his identity to be kept secret because if those two men in black and the organization
they are a part of, ever find out he’s still alive they would not only kill him
but no doubt kill everyone around him that he cares about. When Ran who was
left in the theme park comes to Dr Agasa because he disappeared finds what she
thinks is just a boy who hmmm happens to look like Shinichi, one who Clark Kent
style put on his father’s glasses and backed to the bookshelf in fear that Ran
will notice who he is told the combination of two authors names, Arthur Conan
Doyle and Edogawa Ranpo to form Conan Edogawa.
Thanks to some convincing in Agasa’s case and other circumstances later
Conan will stay with his girlfriend and her father, a down in his luck detective
at their home/ agency. A perfect resource
to ride the waves of cases that might come by and hopefully find the organization
and manage to turn back to normal.
It takes a
little time to get use to for Shinichi or now Conan I should say to get used to
his new life, for one thing he has to live as an eight year old again, most won’t
really take what he has to say seriously although they’ll learn how sharp he
is, too sharp sometimes that he has to tone it down a bit or explain he saw it
on TV or somebody told him it like Ran’s father Kogoro Mouri or Shinichi
himself. He’ll gain friends who will come to mean a lot to him including one,
Ayumi the little girl that will take a liking to Conan who obviously can’t
return it and sometimes doesn’t notice it. Yes Conan can be a little oblivious
to things when it comes to love, usually that only pertains to himself he can
notice it in others but not as much as you think, not by a mile most of the
time. It’s also clear why Ran’s father never gets any cases, he was a cop and knows
a bit of Judo but shows himself to be a bit of a bumbling idiot ( a bit?) and a
gambling drunk the majority of the time.
Yet thanks to Dr. Agasa, Conan can use his great deductive skills and helps solve the crimes that they’ll run into every episode. How you say, why gadgets of course. All the short comings of being a child again are made up for by Agasa’s gadgets, a stun gun wrist watch which will put Mori usually although it can be Ran’s friend Sonoko to sleep and a voice modulator bowtie to adjust it to their voice, to make it appear as though their talking and eureka you have a way to solve the crime. But sometimes it’s the pursuit Conan needs help with or a way to defend himself, this is not a children’s manga/anime just because it has the main character as a kid again and he has a group of friends that are in Elementary doesn’t keep it from getting pretty hardcore. We’re talking kidnappings, murder, bomb threats, even assassinations play a role in the show week in and week out and it could get pretty gruesome. So Doc Agasa manages to make some nifty things for Conan so he isn’t chopped into a million pieces along with his friends and Ran, even though she’s a black belt in Judo doesn’t mean she can’t get blindsided are downright scared. She’s only human right.
The gadgets are the powered sneakers he can use with his kicking skills he developed in soccer, his belt that can shoot out a soccer ball that can stay inflated for ten seconds which he gets a little later on, the solar skateboard to chase down a car or get to somewhere fast in an emergency. Something that is shown in the movies and TV show quite a bit but has only been featured in the manga a couple of times and the overalls he can use to lift heavy objects which I’ve really only seen like once maybe more than that. Conan though has his mind which is his most powerful weapon, extremely resourceful and highly intuitive, he is the modern day Sherlock and with his cool under pressure behavior and gadgets a bit like James Bond too, he’s got a bit of a charm without trying when it comes to the ladies.
Yet thanks to Dr. Agasa, Conan can use his great deductive skills and helps solve the crimes that they’ll run into every episode. How you say, why gadgets of course. All the short comings of being a child again are made up for by Agasa’s gadgets, a stun gun wrist watch which will put Mori usually although it can be Ran’s friend Sonoko to sleep and a voice modulator bowtie to adjust it to their voice, to make it appear as though their talking and eureka you have a way to solve the crime. But sometimes it’s the pursuit Conan needs help with or a way to defend himself, this is not a children’s manga/anime just because it has the main character as a kid again and he has a group of friends that are in Elementary doesn’t keep it from getting pretty hardcore. We’re talking kidnappings, murder, bomb threats, even assassinations play a role in the show week in and week out and it could get pretty gruesome. So Doc Agasa manages to make some nifty things for Conan so he isn’t chopped into a million pieces along with his friends and Ran, even though she’s a black belt in Judo doesn’t mean she can’t get blindsided are downright scared. She’s only human right.
The gadgets are the powered sneakers he can use with his kicking skills he developed in soccer, his belt that can shoot out a soccer ball that can stay inflated for ten seconds which he gets a little later on, the solar skateboard to chase down a car or get to somewhere fast in an emergency. Something that is shown in the movies and TV show quite a bit but has only been featured in the manga a couple of times and the overalls he can use to lift heavy objects which I’ve really only seen like once maybe more than that. Conan though has his mind which is his most powerful weapon, extremely resourceful and highly intuitive, he is the modern day Sherlock and with his cool under pressure behavior and gadgets a bit like James Bond too, he’s got a bit of a charm without trying when it comes to the ladies.
What
Detective Conan has in abundance to match the amount of death is heart, never
for a moment will we not be reminded of the fact that Shinichi is so close to
the one he cares about but so far away. Both Ran and Shinichi have a lot to say
to each other but most of the time its damn right impossible. He managed to
convince Ran that he’s got a series of cases that just lead from one to the
other forcing his leave of absence, see thank the voice modulator bowtie, with
his parents overseas there’s no one to really argue his case. But it means
Conan has to watch her loneliness and attempt to cheer it up as well, if you’re
not reminded of it in the show in that particular episode, then there are those
longing feelings that come from the openings and endings. Take heart though
that even though he might drop the ball at times when he needs to get a hint
about their relationship, he is kinda romantic, leaving a piece of him in some
way, in most occasions and it’s pretty obvious he’d jump through a burning ring
of fire for her, not to mention there are times they look back and you can see
how much their meant to be together and how it sucks that he is with her but
not really. It doesn’t end with them, there’s a lot of characters in this show,
lots, and a quite a bit of them have love interest or long hoped for love. It’s
really something the way they manage to incorporate it and I’m happy to say
there is a good amount that does develop.
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There is of
course also heart that drives the motives for the cases, driven for some
reason, some seem downright petty, others seem messed up, yet it’s plausible because well let’s face it
people kill for all kinds of reasons and people die for all kinds of reasons.
Whether they seem petty are have a very large driving force behind them you’ll
see Conan speaking through Mouri are one of the inspectors like Megure speak
out against it, bottom line killing isn’t right. Something that is reinforced episode
after episode. And there lies the value of life in a show where murder happens
almost every episode. You got to respect it for that. The ones that are truly
screwed up are the murders that happen because of a misunderstanding or they
totally misread the situation, there are plenty of those and it only takes a click to see it happens in the real world
too. Some of those can be really harsh and the others are strong lessons on why
killing is not the answer, makes you want to communicate better too.
The show also
makes you wonder if everyone is in debt, blackmailing each other, killing each
other and hiding it for years, taking credit for people’s work and so on because
everyone seems to have this problem and it’s kind of funny when they out their
dirty laundry right in front of Mouri, Ran and Conan, funnier because that too
isn’t something that is completely implausible. Gosho Aoyama the creator of
Detective Conan/Case Closed must read the news every day and see he isn’t too
far off the mark at all. That is the
beauty of the show too for its long length even episodes that aren’t in the
manga are just original cases and they can be just as creative. Each week a new
case helps, especially when you’re wondering if something new will turn up on
the trail for the organization which can have large gaps in between and of
course there’s plenty to come with that, many of the new characters actually
have some kind of role to play in that and that can be pretty exciting. Of
course you have other characters like Heiji Hattori, the Kudo Of The West and Kid
Kaito, his rival and legendary thief, who shows up plenty of times and are in
the movies as well, it’s fun when they all start crossing over and meeting each
other for the first time or better yet when they take part in things involving
Conan’s dealing with the organization.
Nitpickers
beware. Some might say, how can they not
see the little boy running from place to place especially when Mouri is out
cold or when he’s not hiding behind something but has his back turned to them
speaking in the bowtie as Mouri. The honest answer is because he’s a kid, that’s
my deduction on it at least, people tend to not pay attention to kids and it
kind of plays into everything else when it comes to Conan having to be Conan.
Especially when you can crawl in places you normally couldn’t, being a kid you
might reach a place or walk into a room because they think you’re being a kid
but they’d hide that if you’re an adult. It works to your favor and it does for
Conan and his friends too who decide to form the Detective Boys, a little
junior detective group. If you think such a thing went unnoticed by Gosho
Aoyama then read a Sherlock Holmes book, you’ll see a bunch of kids, tramps on
the street who were his information collectors when he needed info without
being seen. The Baker Street Irregulars they were called. It isn't all cotton candy for the Detective Boys either, they'll see the worse of it, the same as any detective and I swear there must be a running joke on Ayumi being the one that some murderer kidnaps or knocks over or puts a knife to as a hostage. How does that girl sleep at night, more importantly how does she still have such a forgiving heart.
Giving Conan its credit there are plenty of times our main character slips up and quite a few times he has to do something to avoid getting discovered, Ran does get her suspicions at certain from time to time and I’m not saying there aren’t people that figure it out. That my reader is something for you to find out, actually even when he is going unnoticed there are plenty of times that he has to go through a lot just not to get noticed if that makes any sense at all. It’s not easy living a duel life are having the ability to prevent a case from going unsolved or a criminal walking away with murder.
Giving Conan its credit there are plenty of times our main character slips up and quite a few times he has to do something to avoid getting discovered, Ran does get her suspicions at certain from time to time and I’m not saying there aren’t people that figure it out. That my reader is something for you to find out, actually even when he is going unnoticed there are plenty of times that he has to go through a lot just not to get noticed if that makes any sense at all. It’s not easy living a duel life are having the ability to prevent a case from going unsolved or a criminal walking away with murder.
If you love mystery
are this makes you love mystery than there is plenty to go on with over 800
episodes, 19 movies plus a crossover and a new movie that comes out every April, OVA’s, spinoffs,
a recent one as we speak and there have been live action adaptions too. Not to
mention the references of the love Gosho Aoyama has for mystery (plenty of his
other passions show up too), plenty of characters are based off of popular detectives, many of these characters being new detectives themselves,
streets, café’s, chase down the references you could be going on forever but that's what makes it so cool, it can turn lots of people on to some great mysteries, novels
and all the sort. If you read the manga in the US, he has his own Gosho Aoyma Mystery
Library in which he chooses a detective and writes a bit about them. It’s cool to
see the detectives drawn in his style and he choose a novel from the series that
he recommends, another way that showcases how Detective Conan has done so much
for the genre and transcended it and become such an important stable in anime
itself. If that isn’t sufficient reason to watch it then do it for Conan’s evil
smiles, I mean look at these:
We’re about
thirty volumes behind in the United States from Japan that broken through the
80’s. As for where to watch the show
well it might not be a mystery but there are plenty of twists and turns. Funimation
had brought it over for a while, they stuck it out for over a hundred episodes
and managed to bring over six of the movies before they found that it didn’t
seem to have the audience they would need to push to get more. It doesn’t stop
a group from being vocal about bringing more over at every convention and
Funimation seems to go back and forth on the idea if they have plans to bring
any over.
As far as a solid answer I’ve seen was no there are no plans and I think until they announce it and it’s listed on Amazon we should just stick with that being the truth. Yet as far as truths going there is a silver lining, there has been of late quite the streaming releases happening for Case Closed, Hulu in particular has acquired both Lupin The III x Detective Conan Crossovers as well as the recent film(s). Then a couple of weeks ago we got the physical releases for them, of course they are subtitled but I think it's wonderful for fans in North America that have held on for so long and it's great to see how dedicated the fan base is. Although I see why it would be so important to own the further episodes of the show physically, to have on your shelf but all in all your still getting the Conan experience.
The dub is a thing of mystery itself, bringing different reactions out of different people, confusing for some at least on boards I tend to hear that.They tried to take Case Closed and make it their own thing which has worked for some shows, I love Yu Yu Hakusho in English period, that’s the way for me and I see how it can kind of give it a American noir feel for Case Closed which is awesome but they are clearly not in America and they do make it a little unclear where there supposed to be at times and while the name changing thing isn’t the worse part ( the main characters names in the manga in the US have English names, Richard Moore, Jimmy Kudo, Rachel Moore, you get the idea) the rest can get confusing for some, especially if you’ve seen it subbed first.
Though if you read the manga and can keep it all in mind than there is a unique charm to the dub and of course it reminds us of the earlier days of Funimation, which can get the blood pumping when you think of how far it's all come. If you like differences than one really interesting thing is that in the dubbed version there are two different voices for Conan, his older voice when he thinks and his Conan voice when he speaks.
So does it mean Conan is dead in the water, of course not, now we know it can be watched plenty of places but now the easiest might just be Cruncyroll that acquired it for streaming, showing the most recent episodes but there seem to be plans to bring the rest of the back catalog, they are answering a demand, so there is a strong fan base at work and what makes it even more likely is that One Piece just got it’s whole catalog ( minus the DBZ crossover for now) and even the recent spinoff adaption currently running from Conan, Kid Kaito 1412 is on there. So the chance for the rest of the episodes going on there is great indeed. Especially since it's just reached it's monumental 800 episodes and has all these 20th anniversary plans. There is a Detective Conan store opening in April in Japan, a 20 part important episode arc coming to the show soon, the 20th movie also in April and several more announcement made and to come soon. So this is a great time to dig in and have a little “ah le le” fun to kick in our new year.
As far as a solid answer I’ve seen was no there are no plans and I think until they announce it and it’s listed on Amazon we should just stick with that being the truth. Yet as far as truths going there is a silver lining, there has been of late quite the streaming releases happening for Case Closed, Hulu in particular has acquired both Lupin The III x Detective Conan Crossovers as well as the recent film(s). Then a couple of weeks ago we got the physical releases for them, of course they are subtitled but I think it's wonderful for fans in North America that have held on for so long and it's great to see how dedicated the fan base is. Although I see why it would be so important to own the further episodes of the show physically, to have on your shelf but all in all your still getting the Conan experience.
The dub is a thing of mystery itself, bringing different reactions out of different people, confusing for some at least on boards I tend to hear that.They tried to take Case Closed and make it their own thing which has worked for some shows, I love Yu Yu Hakusho in English period, that’s the way for me and I see how it can kind of give it a American noir feel for Case Closed which is awesome but they are clearly not in America and they do make it a little unclear where there supposed to be at times and while the name changing thing isn’t the worse part ( the main characters names in the manga in the US have English names, Richard Moore, Jimmy Kudo, Rachel Moore, you get the idea) the rest can get confusing for some, especially if you’ve seen it subbed first.
Though if you read the manga and can keep it all in mind than there is a unique charm to the dub and of course it reminds us of the earlier days of Funimation, which can get the blood pumping when you think of how far it's all come. If you like differences than one really interesting thing is that in the dubbed version there are two different voices for Conan, his older voice when he thinks and his Conan voice when he speaks.
So does it mean Conan is dead in the water, of course not, now we know it can be watched plenty of places but now the easiest might just be Cruncyroll that acquired it for streaming, showing the most recent episodes but there seem to be plans to bring the rest of the back catalog, they are answering a demand, so there is a strong fan base at work and what makes it even more likely is that One Piece just got it’s whole catalog ( minus the DBZ crossover for now) and even the recent spinoff adaption currently running from Conan, Kid Kaito 1412 is on there. So the chance for the rest of the episodes going on there is great indeed. Especially since it's just reached it's monumental 800 episodes and has all these 20th anniversary plans. There is a Detective Conan store opening in April in Japan, a 20 part important episode arc coming to the show soon, the 20th movie also in April and several more announcement made and to come soon. So this is a great time to dig in and have a little “ah le le” fun to kick in our new year.
Need A Little More Otaku Talk and All Around Pop Culture Talk, Come Aboard The Rats On A Plagueship where co-hose Sal Alamraz and myself sift through all the news, thoughts and recommendations in the many realms of geekdom.
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*This one is dedicated to Jacky Pablo Alexander*
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