Detective Conan 28

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.

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.

Detective Conan 26

Since I’ve had Mune ga Doki Doki lodged firmly in my head for days, I jumped right into the next volume of this.  I’m glad I did.

WHAT?!  I was totally not expecting the treat in this volume.  It’s rare for the series to address its plot, and to address it so aggressively… well, I was expecting another cop-out where everyone fools Ran when she starts guessing the truth about Conan.  The wool was pulled over her eyes once again, to be sure, but there was no elaborate hoax this time.  This time, it was the real deal working the cover-up, and I was so surprised and pleased to see him.

It’s about 1,000 times better than the last time he appeared.  He sticks around.  He lives a normal life.  He hangs out with friends.  There are some nice scenes with Ran.  It’s everything I hope for and more in every single volume of this series.

I was horribly depressed when it was cruelly taken away.  I almost couldn’t finish the volume because I felt like not enough was done with it.  It could have stayed that way for a few volumes!  It would have been great!  I wouldn’t have minded!  Now I’m going to have to wait another 15 volumes to be treated again.

Bonus points for the heavy hints between Shinichi and Anita.  I doubt anything other than hints will be given, because Anita seems too serious-minded for a little crush, but… well, she knows he’s Shinichi, and someone might as well take advantage.

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I always enjoy the detective profiles in the back of the volumes.  Detective Samejima is profiled in the back of this volume.  There’s been a few based in Japanese literature that have flown over my head (and others that I recognized when I ran across them later elsewhere from Detective Conan), but it’s worth noting that Vertical publishes the English translations of the Detective Samejima novels, in case you thought he sounded cool.

Detective Conan 25

George was singing “Mune ga Doki Doki” at one point during a car ride, and now I’m going to have that song stuck in my head for, like, a week.  Thanks, Case Closed.

Otherwise, this volume was surprisingly good.  The second case was a little weak, unfortunately.  It was about a puppetmaker, but all the awesome situations I imagined that involved puppets were unfortunately not to be.  There was a weird drug angle that not much was made of.  The end was really, really creepy in that everyone was sort of smiling and joking in the last panel.  I liked the way the grandma stepped in to save the feelings of the two little girls, but the light mood was sort of… not a good fit, even though I know that’s how all the cases end, and almost all the other cases involve murder, too.  For some reason, I wasn’t having the logic of the way the murders were committed, either.  That stuff is always over-the-top, but… yeah, I don’t know why it bothered me a little this time.  This one also had Harley in it, and I still don’t really like him.

What else… the first case was a pretty cut-and-dry murder at an ice skating rink.  You could see the motive a mile away, and it wasn’t all that surprising when the murderer was revealed at the end, but it had all those things that make a Case Closed mystery, etc.  It had Sonoko in it, but for once I didn’t actually mind her that much.

The last story is the best, and is one of those rare stories that has a little bit of plot.  Conan starts to suspect that Ran knows his identity (once again), but before he has time to think very much about it, he goes on a camping trip with his friends, runs across some murdering bank robbers, and is shot.  There is a cliffhanger.  Spoiler – I think he makes it.  I also think that Ran doesn’t find out he’s Shinichi.

Yeah.  I still like it.  I’ll probably like it for as long as it feels like running, which may be indefinitely.

Case Closed 24

This made my day, if only because the phrase “what the sam hill is going on” was used not once, but twice in this volume.  The first time gave me pause, the second time I just laughed.

Has it been awhile since we’ve had any plot?  I don’t know, I can’t remember, but probably.  This volume is one of those rare scraps of plot we get thrown every now and again, this time a pretty significant story about the Organization. Conan and Ai basically happen into Gin, and they find out the Organization is planning on killing someone at a party being held in a certain hotel at a certain time.  Gin doesn’t realize what’s happened to Shiho/Ai/Sherry, but he does know she’ll be there thanks to a hair she left in his car.  Some… tiptoeing around this delicate plot point is done, and in addition, at one point Ai is locked in a wine cellar, which gives her access to the alcohol Conan had earlier in the series.  Yeah.  There was more action than usual though, even down to some of the characters taking bullets, and as a result the mystery is somewhat downplayed.  I liked it a lot, though.

Also, I couldn’t get over the self-referential joke that Conan made.  When Ai worries about being recognized by members of the Organization at the party, Conan gives her his glasses and says “For some reason, nobody can tell who you are when you wear these!  Superman would kill for a pair like this!”  It made me laugh pretty hard for no real reason.

What else… well, we get the wrap-up from the mystery at the end of last volume.  It gets a bit more exciting when we find out that the building the detective and suspect are locked in is scheduled to blow up around the same time the other detective is due back, but other than that, I wasn’t really all that impressed with this one.  Despite the fact I have to abandon all logic for a lot of other things in this series, for some reason I couldn’t let go of how unprofessional it was for that one detective to run around with five children trying to sove a murder case by himself without telling anyone, while leaving one of his colleagues handcuffed in an abandoned building to the suspect.  That even trumps Clarice Starling wandering into Buffalo Bill’s hands by herself at the end of Silence of the Lambs.

There was one other case where the theme of the episode was whether or not Rachael had a crush on one of the doctor characters.  The mystery itself was pretty classic, and I liked the way it worked itself out once again, but I have to admit the way they built up the possibility of Rachael having a crush on this guy, and the way they explained it away at the end just didn’t match.  That’s okay, though.

I have a bad habit of referring to “they” when talking about any given artist or manga series.  I realize how wrong this is, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling right to me.

I just got the next volume in this week, but I’m not sure how soon I’m going to tackle it.  I really like this series, and I genuinely enjoy reading it, but unless the next volume has a mystery that really knocks my socks off, there’s a good chance I’ll just wear myself out on it.

Detective Conan 23

It’s a real shame that I’m still running a volume behind on this series.  I still like it a lot, but I’m definitely a lot less enamored with it than I was initially, and I’m just sort of settling into a comfortable routine with things.

There’s one case that takes up most of the volume, and it takes up six chapters, which is sort of unusually long.  Unfortunately, it was hard to follow, and the logic at the end didn’t really make that much sense to me since too many elements were drawn in and it quite literally could have been anybody.  I mean, everything at the end made sense… but I don’t know, it just didn’t feel quite like a Detective Conan case.  Plus, Heiji showed up again, and I don’t really care for him that much.  It’s one thing to accept that Ran, Kogoro, and Conan are always at the scene of the crime, it’s another thing entirely to accept that someone from across the country happens to be there about half the time, too.

The plot of the case isn’t bad, though.  On a private liner, there are ten people who are let onto the boat.  Very quickly, a link between the one of the passengers and the ringleader of an old robbery/murder is established.  Just as quickly, he’s eliminated, and it becomes clear that someone else on board the boat was also in on the old robbery.  Heiji is taken out in spectacular fashion at one point.

The first case was a much simpler Detective Boys mystery that I wound up liking a lot.  While the kids are watching a movie in a theater scheduled to be torn down the next day, the new owner, who’d been bullying the staff, seems to hang himself in front of the projector in the middle of the movie.  Conan basically has to prove that the man didn’t commit suicide.

The third story starts out with a much-appreciated self-referential joke, then goes on to become a race against time for a man who’s chained to a toilet with a police officer.

It was an okay volume.  I’ve had better, and I definitely could have used… I don’t know, a few more references to the plot, or maybe even some Shinichi/Ran, but such is the nature of the series.

Detective Conan 22

I received the next volume in the mail before I realized I still hadn’t read this one. That’s a shame, because I still really like this series. One thing I always neglect to mention but I appreciate every volume are the little bits at the end. Gosho Aoyama draws himself dying in a different way in his author talks in the back of every volume (this time it’s death by shark attack) and he also takes the time to profile a famous fictional detective, and the people he covers really do run the gamut, Colombo being my favorite so far. I also really like the spine illustrations. Conan’s head appears on every volume, and at first he was just making random faces, but after 10 or so volumes they’ve formed sequential action sequences of him getting slapped around, taking notice of things, etc. Not as cool as the Dragonball spine, but notable.

The middle case was the most notable in this volume. The criminals take a page from an unpublished and unfinished Booker Kudo story that got stolen years ago, so Conan has to stay one step ahead of them based on his faulty memory of the story. Of course his parents play parts as well. I was a little disappointed when I correctly guessed one character was his mother, but otherwise I was quite pleased with the story. It’s one of those mysteries where you can’t quite figure out how things are possible since… you don’t hear about things like a metal latch until Conan goes through the explanation at the end, but I could pretty well see what was going on through the whole thing, even if I couldn’t quite explain it.

The first case was okay, but I’d read the volume before so long ago that I had a hard time remembering the introduction chapter and had to put the pieces together while reading through it. I liked the use of the culprit’s fear of heights, though.

Was there a last case? Yes! I also liked it. A killer targets Sabrina and a red herring makes things a little more exciting and confusing. The killer goes after girls with bleached hair, and lots of things wind up happening to Sabrina before all is said and done.

Detective Conan 21

Um.  Gosho Aoyama said something in his author notes in the last volume that made me think that Shinichi would once again be himself, at least for a little bit, in this volume.  I was very disappointed, though yes, he does “appear” in this volume.  You cheated, Gosho Aoyama.

Aside from that case, we get two other sort of long cases.  The one at the end of the last volume continues to this one and winds up being pretty long.  It gets pretty good as Conan, Professor Agasa, and the Detective Boys are sort of picked off one by one by whoever is crazily stalking the mansion looking for treasure.

The second major case in the volume is another of the type I like, which means that you sort of know who the killer is right away (in this case, you don’t see him commit the crime, but he’s fairly obvious about things) and the rest of the case is spent trying to pin it on him through a series of mistakes the person made.

The last chapter is a case with Heiji that carries over into the next volume.

Detective Conan 20

I forgot Ai had joined up with the group of mini-detectives.  I was all excited about her finally appearing, too.  The first chapter is a wrap-up of what was going on in the stadium in the last volume, as per usual.

I always read the detective profile in the back and Gosho Aoyama’s author notes first, and Aoyama had mentioned a character reappearing in celebration of the 20th volume.  I was really, REALLY excited, but I apparently read his note wrong.  He says something about how he miscalculated.  Maybe Shinichi will show up next time.

Nothing terribly significant plot-wise happens here, not even any teases between Shinichi and Ran.  It’s just straight detective cases, which I still appreciate.  They’re still really fun to guess at too, even after all this time.

The highlight of the volume for me was yet another case where we saw the culprit clearly committed the crime right in the beginning, and the rest of the case was just trying to connect them to the death.  It was a really odd one involving what appeared to be suicide, and I kind of like these because I love seeing how the criminals get nailed in the end.

Not much else to report on, unfortunately, and if you’re not reading the series by now, there’s not much I can say to convince you.  I think this is definitely a case of… well, you have to really be into it in order to stomach 50 volumes of this sort of thing, and I am.

Detective Conan 19

A quick update tonight.  I would have liked to do three entries, but I only have time to do a short one for Case Closed.  I’m a little behind, I just got the newest volume last week.

We get the wrapup of the case from last volume in one chapter, which wasn’t too spectacular, unfortunately. The case immediately afterwards is of the style where readers can kind of figure things out, but unfortunately the clues are all in the kanji characters in a mystery novel, so it’s not something I personally would have been able to solve.  The mystery is left in Japanese, so the characters puzzle it out, then explain to you what they just did, which is awkward, but handled well.

There’s a case which brings Heiji back in grand style by having him take the three main characters on a tour of Osaka.  It actually reads like a tour of Osaka for awhile, it takes a few pages for the mystery to kick in.  People are being stabbed through their wallet into their heart, and the characters are brought into the fray when one of the victims hits the hood of their car.  Shinichi and Heiji work together, and there’s actually some really nice scenes of them being buddy-buddy which I’m sure spawned hundreds of doujinshi in Japan.

The last story is a Detective Boys mystery, so I’m not pleased with that, but it’s a pretty good one so far.  A soccer stadium full of people is being held hostage by a man with a gun, and Conan, the Detective Boys (including Ai), and the police do their best to flush the terrorist out of the crowd, who turns out to be two men, actually.

I liked the Osaka case a lot, actually, though it’s not the kind of thing readers could easily figure out.   The character stuff in it was good.  The one with the Japanese wordplay was probably the best in the volume, but as I said, it was a bit lost on me because of the very Japanese-language riddle.

So yes, more Detective Conan for anyone who’s plugging away at it like I am.  I still like it, and that’s good enough for me.