Category: Detectives

So You Want to Watch Detective Conan: A Beginner’s Guide

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narutaki Detective Conan is one of the premiere detective series in Japan with a long legacy of entertaining kids and adults. It is a wonderful combination of mystery, humor, suspense, action, and even a little sweet romance. After so many years it has a robust and colorful cast of characters who rarely wear out their welcome. But Conan isn’t changing the face of anime, it isn’t deep, and it won’t make you contemplate the meaning of life however it will entertaining you. I find it easy to fall in love with if you let yourself.

hisuiconWith any long running series it can be extremely intimidating to try to decide how to jump into the franchise. With over 60 manga volumes, 500 anime episodes, 14 movies, OVAs, specials, and a live action spin-off as of when this article is being posted it might seem impossible to casually start watching the adventures of Japan’s favorite animated detective. Do you just start from the beginning when the series might be rough? Do you pick a movie and hope it is self-contained and representative of the work as a whole? Do you watch the latest offering and hope you are not totally lost? Don’t panic. We are going to offer you the basics to let anyone with even a casual interest jump into the franchise.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #086

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Detective Conan: Countdown to Heaven (movie 5) is the first to involve the Black Organization. I always enjoy their appearances and they add a level of danger so it’s a nice addition to this very tense film. This is also the first film that actually requires you to see some previous amount of Conan to fully grasp it, it ties into the first film. And actually if you haven’t seen the first movie I think it takes away some of speculation on who is the culprit. This time around a new hi-rise and hotel is about to open, but before it does one of the contributors is murdered in the new hotel section. Subsequent people involved with the new building lose their lives as well and it all culminates at the opening party where chaos ensues as the power goes out which is only the beginning. How the Black Organization fits in Conan is determined to figure out. I really liked this movie, but I almost always find when the Black Organization is involved things are more complicated and the outcome is more unknown. The killer was hard to determine plus the little details to the case were well put together. As always the ending sequence is pretty much amazing, though even more tense because of the kids’ involvement. I would rank this one high for the movies!

hisuiconHaving gone back and done things in the proper order we were finally able to watch the fifth Detective Conan movie. While this seems to be a “normal” Detective Conan murder mystery going on, the shadowy Black Organization also seems to have a hand in the proceedings. In a way this is like two separate Conan stories in one movie. There is the very standard but solid murder mystery like you expect and then a high tension Black Organization episode as well. Conan and the viewers know that the plots are somehow connected but how they are connected is just as much a mystery as everything else. But everything comes together in the end quite nicely with both stories being good and crisscrossing without tripping over each other. As with most Conan movies the action sequences at the end are nicely done and benefit from the theatrical budget. Since the movies have been mostly filler it’s easy to make them disposable but I feel this movie gave you the impression of having some weight to it while not disturbing the main storyline. You could watch Countdown to Heaven without seeing The Timebombed Skyscraper but you have to watch this one after the first movie because it gives away the solution to the first film.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #085

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hisuicon In the Reverse Thieves time-honored tradition we watched Detective Conan Movie 1: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper out of order. Actually we were going to watch the 5th movie but then about 10 minuets into it realized that it was making reference to the first movie. In a somewhat Encyclopedia Brown-style moment the movie begins with Conan solving a case unrelated to the main story. After this intro we soon discover that a good deal of explosives were stolen recently and several acts of arson have been committed. The person behind both crimes tries to contact Shinichi to challenge him to find the bombs he has placed around the city. This felt like a standard episode that was forced to be a movie’s length. The whole affair with the criminal giving Conan clues to where the bombs are mostly seemed there just to stretch the length of the premise. It was an entertaining movie but so far the weakest of the movies we have seen.

The first Detective Conan movie feels like the first. You can tell they don’t quite know what to spend the hour and a half on, the pacing is a bit off, there aren’t enough suspects, and the climatic action happens after the culprit is caught. I find this only a little odd because they had produced very good one hour specials prior to this feature. Though I did find the ending scenes in the skyscraper with Ran and Shinichi (Conan behind a wall using his bowtie voice changer) properly tense and sweet. Since we accidentally knew the identity of the bomber thanks to starting the 5th movie, it is hard to assess whether this mystery was properly difficult to solve. But I think it is one of the few that you can really grasp who it is as well as their motive long before Conan cracks it. There are still a few twists like how the bomber knows Shinichi and what he learns about him and uses in his scheme. This movie isn’t bad by any means but it isn’t especially memorable.

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