Detective Conan 28
June 10, 2009
Gosho Aoyama draws really cute bear cubs.
Most of the book consisted of a mystery based on one of my favorite Japanese legends. I don’t know if it’s a specific legend or more of a folk tale/folk wisdom, but apparently it states that eating the flesh of a mermaid gives you eternal life. It unfortunately doesn’t come up that often in manga, but Rumiko Takahashi’s excellent Mermaid Saga is the best interpretation I’ve seen.
The Mermaid Island mystery was quite good, but again, part of the conclusion hinges on a detail that doesn’t translate well (dental records attributed to the wrong person for insurance reasons, something that would be insane hard to pull off in the US), so it’s not all that solvable… though I figured out the trick to immortality pretty early on in the story, and as soon as Heiji doubted Conan’s theory, I knew who the culprit was, too, even if the logic wasn’t quite right. It’s about as big and epic as the Moonlight Sonata mystery from the earlier volumes, and there are a lot of similarities story-wise, too. Both take place on islands, both have murders that continue to go on as the plot unfolds, both feature the main characters summoned by a mysterious letter, and both… I don’t know, involve fire. This one was more interesting because of the mermaid legend that serves as a motive, and also because there are never really any suspects besides an old drunk man who is obviously not going to be the one behind everything.
The volume also contains the majority of the case involving the bear hunt and the Junior Detective League from last time, an interesting case that sets up an extremely believable culprit and works backwards, and the beginnings of another story that looks to involve a case from Inspector Megure’s past. The middle case was quite good as well, and would have been my favorite had the volume not contained that excellent mermaid story. There was even a surprise special guest at the end.
Also, at one point while sizing up a nice girl, Detective Moore thinks to himself “Papa like!” which I found more than mildly disturbing. But it’s charming things like that that keep me coming back for more. This series is addictive in a strange way, and I couldn’t care less that it doesn’t really go anywhere, I enjoy everything about it immensely.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
June 11, 2009 at 7:13 am
[...] Adagio (Comics Village) Julie on vol. 3 of Bride of the Water God (Manga Maniac Cafe) Connie on vol. 28 of Detective Conan (Slightly Biased Manga) Julie on vol. 7 of Dragon Eye (Manga Maniac Cafe) Andrew Cunningham on [...]