Detective Conan 27

The delight I take in each chapter of this series probably isn’t going to be shared by most people, because at this point the mysteries aren’t even really solvable by the reader since they tend to rely on one or two facts that are hidden until Conan reveals things at the end.  Two of the cases in this volume involved Japanese language play (particularly the second full case), and those are always a little disappointing since they lose something in translation.  Most of my enjoyment comes from how much I like seeing the characters do what they do, though it’s not very often that they do anything all that notable.  I guess Case Closed is just my perfect sitcom manga.  Cheap thrills with characters I like and all that.

Anyway.  A good example of the current trend in Conan mysteries is the last case in this book.  Someone dies while playing a video game.  You know he was poisoned.  There are four people shown on a security video that are around his body before he starts playing.  If the poison was somehow slow-acting, none of the suspects are ruled out.  The only clue is a metal sound that someone’s shoe makes, which I assumed to be the needle that poisoned the victim stuck to his shoe.  Three of the four people have reasons to kill the victim, and the fact that none of them are really eliminated before the ending makes solving it not very fun.  The method used to pull the murder off is pretty elaborate, but not so elaborate that it didn’t occur to me immediately as soon as Serena started the accusation.  There was also a final clue to serve as the evidence that is always so sorely lacking in these cases, a detail I originally thought was a red herring.

Detective Moore is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.  Here, he opens the book with a scene that is far more creepy/lecherous than it has any right to be.  Sadly, because he gets drunk and is accused of murder, he’s not in the first case that much, and he’s not in either of the other two in the book, either.  To make up for that, there’s a surprisingly touching scene between him and his wife.  It’s ruined in typical shounen manga fashion, but it was nice all the same.  While we don’t have any Shinichi/Ran hints (though I thought there might be complications early in the volume when someone recognizes Conan from an earlier case with his parents), there is a mysterious new character that may signal more movement from the Black Organization.  I liked how they just tossed that in there on the last page, though this new person was exchanging meaningful glances with Conan all the way through the last story.