It has been a long, long time since TokyoPop released some (nearly all of it actually, 22 volumes worth out of 27) of the original Kindaichi Case Files by Youzaburou Kanari and Fumiya Satou manga stateside. This was in their early days, with 100% Authentic emblazing the covers. In Japan, long has Kindaichi reigned alongside Detective Conan as an institution.
Still, in the last year it feels as though there has been an extra resurgence for the Kindaichi franchise. A new anime has premiered, more live action has been announced, and two spin-off manga series have debuted. In a shocking twist, those spin-off manga have been made available for English-speaking fans via Kodansha’s MangaBox App.
I always felt like Kindaichi Case Files was Green Arrow to Detective Conan‘s Batman. Batman and Green Arrow are similar enough that they get constantly compared to each other but different enough that you can’t call them carbon copies of each other. The thing is Batman has always just been a major tier above his fellow billionaire superhero. As the current Arrow TV show proves the Green Arrow character is hardly forgotten but at the same time he is just always one step behind the more popular character. But let’s make it clear: Kindaichi is still a popular manga detective character. It is not like Detective Conan is Transformers and Kindaichi is Gobots. That is just an insulting comparison. It is just that any big anime fan has probably heard of Detective Conan but you would not be super surprised if American fans were unaware of Kindaichi.
So this Kindaichi renaissance is a bit unexpected but not utterly surprising. The main benefit of this recent surge is that we are now getting a lot of this new material in this era of simulcasts and simulpubs. When Crunchyroll picked up The File of Young Kindaichi Returns it was pretty hard to miss the announcement if you watching anything streaming but MangaBox is not anywhere near as high-profile. So as manga bloggers and detective aficionados we felt it was our duty to talk about these two titles that you can read for free.
Reverse Thieves 