Detective Conan 31

Gosho Aoyama – Viz – 2009 – 66+ volumes
Detective Conan=Case Closed, I just like the way Detective Conan sounds a little better

Ehh… meh. I like this series an awful lot, but this volume didn’t stand out too much.

There were two okay cases.  The best case was probably the murder case at Harley’s kendo tournament, where he has to rush around in order to solve it before Conan arrives so he can take the credit.  I just like the fact he turns solving a murder into a game of pride.  The other was a rather clever case at a beach that I actually figured out right away for a change (which is probably why I think it’s clever, but still, I never figure them out).  This chapter dealt a little with Anita and her jealousy towards Rachael.  I like her little crush on Conan, but it’s sort of sad considering how tight he and Rachael are.

The rest were kinda… yeah.  There’s the very end of the potter case from last volume that’s unremarkable, a case where a man impersonates Detective Moore and is killed while interfering with an investigation from an apparent suicide from several years ago (in Kashiragami Forest, which has appeared in Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and elsewhere as a famous suicide location), and the beginning of another case in Osaka that sort of carries over from the kendo tournament and has Harley and his girlfriend investigating some history nerds and what is likely a dead friend of theirs.

Some volumes are better than others.  I’m still not tired of the series, and thoroughly enjoy every volume the same way I would enjoy a favorite TV show.  It’s hard to hold an interest in really episodic series like this, but when the chapters are as interesting and clever plot-wise as they are in Case Closed, or the characters are as good as they are here or in Oh My Goddess.  It takes a special kind of bravery to admit that about either of those two series, but I’ve read both from the beginning and grown quite attached to the characters.  It’s just the truth.

This… may have been a review copy provided by Viz.  I can’t remember anymore, this is the only series I shelve immediately since I like the running story on the spines.  The next one was definitely one I bought, for my reference.