 The Detectable ROSSMAN Public
Service Announcement: Never
piss off manga artist and writer Gosho Aoyama. He knows
over 300 ways to kill
a person and get away with it (well, "get away with
it"
if the police detectives in charge of the investigation
have never read or watched all of his series, Detective
Conan).
Now on with the review. Never
before have I reviewed something that I haven't watched in
its entirety, let alone something I've only seen about 1/2
of its full run (at the time of publication). But Detective
Conan is
different than most of the shows I've covered here. As opposed
to most anime
that has a single plot running through the length of its
broadcast life, Conan is all about
the individual cases in each of the stand alone episodes. Well,
not all about,
but the main plot is pretty lame. Here, let me explain.
Detective Conan starts off with
high school student Kudo Shinichi (a modern, Japanese Sherlock
Holmes... go with me here) and his
lifelong friend Ran (the girl to whom Shinichi also kinda
loves) solving difficult cases while trying to enjoy their
youths.
Well, Shinichi does all the solving, and this really only lasts
for one full episode. See, Shinichi accidentally stumbled into
a transaction between two men in black (Gin and Vodka) and
some nameless baddie, and he gets himself knocked out
and all set up to be killed. The two black-dressed evil
assholes then drug poor Shinichi with a new poison that their
organization has developed (the APTX-4869 pill) and run away
while they let him slowly die. But, instead of killing him,
the poison actually makes Shinichi's body revert to that of
his 7 year-old self! Now he must live with Ran and her alcoholic,
retarded and rorikon of a P.I. father (Kogoro Mouri), and keep
his identity as Shinichi a secret so that
he can track down the black-clad crime organization
that did the shrinking to him and hopefully find a cure. See,
that set up is kind of lame, but what the writers do with
it is ingenious!
Shinichi (now known as Edogawa Conan in order
to hide who he is) sticks with Mouri when he goes out
on cases (and when cases find him. Honestly, it's like Murder
She Wrote or Hart to Hart:
Mouri and Conan are murder-magnets!), and since Mouri is so
incompetent, Conan is forced to figure out
the mysteries himself and let Mouri take all the credit. It's
all for the greater good, and Conan is smart enough to never
let Mouri's bragging and egotistical ego ruin his plans. What's
funny about Conan's deductions and crime solving at first (though
it gets
a bit old after a few episodes) is how the kid has to make
people believe that "Uncle Mouri" is actually solving
the murders. At first, Conan tried to leave the goober hints
lying around,
or he tried to point the poor slob in the right direction.
But this got old fast and got him nowhere. So then he began
using his mini-tranquilizer darts hidden in his watch (that
his scientist neighbor friend created for him) to knock Mouri
out,
and
then
explain everything to the police and onlookers himself by using
a voice-changing bowtie (also courtesy of wacky neighbor Dr.
Asaga). Thus Mouri Kogoro got the nickname of "The Sleeping
Mouri",
since the fucker always looked like he was asleep to everybody
when he was talking them through the crime... Cause he really
was. See, sounds cute at first, but nothing ever really comes
of it. I mean, sometimes Conan will get so into talking through
Mouri's voice that he won't notice that somebody sees him doing
it, but those instances never really go anywhere anyway.
So, if all that's retarded, you ask, why
should I invest any time into such a 3,000 episode, 60 movie
and 500
television-specialed series? Well, because the way the
crimes (99.87% of the time, the crime is a grisly murder)
are committed
and covered up is ingenious (and get ready for me to use that
word a bunch more times before this review is over). It seems
that every horrible killing in Japan is done by people with
IQs higher than Urkel's. All the criminals in the Land of the
Rising Sun are Super Geniuses. But
that's okay, 'cause Conan is even smarter than they are. Even
when the criminals think
they got every piece of evidence cleaned up, and they even
have perfect alibis (some crims even try to use the Great Mouri
and Conan as their alibis), Conan can see right through them
like a grease-covered napkin. He's solved more closed-door
murders in his show than I've even heard of
happening in the real world (which would be none actually).
And he's a bit conceited about his brainiac capabilities too
(which
is
cool,
mostly because it would have been hyper boring and lame if
he was nothing but a goody goody).
Now, despite its incredible and violent crimes
(seriously, Tokyo has got to have the largest number
of disturbing murders in the world!) and its even more incredible
resolutions, Detective Conan has one major
flaw that haunts a good 1/4th of all of its episodes: those
fucking annoying
kids that Conan is forced to hang out with in order to bring
in the 5-12 year-old Nielson (or would that be Yamamoto)
Ratings. GYAAAAAH! I hate those moronic kids! See,
once Conan moves in with Ran and her dad, he starts going to
elementary
school to keep up his charade. There he somehow gets involved
with 3 of the most vexatious turds you'd ever want to slap
around like red-headed stepchildren. The little girl is okay,
but fatty and horse-face could have been shot in the back of
their heads and I wouldn't have shed any tears. I actually
would have applauded. Soon those little wankers see how smart
Conan truly is, and then
try to
grab on to some of his grade school notoriety by starting up
their own "Youth Detective Squad" or something just as gay.
The crimes
that they
stumble into are just as horrendous as the ones that Conan
detects his way through at Mouri's side, but the kids always
try to
ruin things by stepping in the evidence, pissing off Conan,
or getting caught by the perpetrator of the misdeed. That gets
old reaaaaaally fast.
But, there's one shining star that just about
makes up for the kids' stupidity-filled chapters: the great
Sonoko. God do I love her! Sonoko Suzuki is Ran's and Shinichi's
rich friend who thinks that she's all that, mainly because
she is. Whenever Conan and Ran fall knee-deep into a mystery
and
Sonoko is around, good things are bound to happen. It's always
hilarious when Conan has to knock Sonoko out and solve the
crime for everybody in her voice. I don't know why that tickles
me like it does, but it does. I'm so simple to please. My favorite
episode so far is the one where both Sonoko had to be used
to solve the episode's crime, and the Kaito Kid showed up.
My God, was it glorious!!!
Oh, and we mustn't forget about Ai Haibara and
Shinichi/Conan's parents. Firstly, Ai is a mysterious 7 year-old
girl who mysteriously shows up at around episode 130 and totally
fubars Conan's world. How she got there and who she really
is is one of the greatest plot twists in the show, so I won't
ruin it for you. I will talk about Shinichi's parents though.
His dad is a world renowned mystery novelist (where Shinichi
got his love of all things Sir Arthur Conan Doyley), and his
mom is an ex-model or movie star or something. Well, Shinichi/Conan's
parents (along with Dr. Asaga) are among the handful of people
who actually know what happened to the boy, and whenever mom
and dad come into town (i.e. whenever they're not book signing
around the world, which is of course like always) they
screw with their kid's mind something fierce. I love those
episodes (although they are few and far between).
Either
Shinichi's dad will wait until his son explains away a whole
mystery and then step forward with a crucial piece of information
that totally negate's his heir's claim, or the two 'rents will
costume themselves up and test their son's detective skillz
with a madcap made-up crime of their own. Ingenious!!
Throw into the whole mix lots of Japanese pop
star cameos and a bunch of special guest spots including the
previously mentioned Kaito Kid and Shinichi's equivalent from
Osaka, Heiji Hattori, and you have a pretty good anime stew.
Plus,
it is
beyond amazing
that with each crime you have anywhere between 3 to 10
new characters, each with a unique character design and you
have one giant and impressive roster of people to keep straight
in your head. Honestly, I can't think back to the first 50+
episodes and remember who did the crimes! I can still remember
how they were done, just not who. That just adds to
the replay value... If I ever find the time to rewatch this
whole thing
once I eventually do get through it.
*Deep breath... Almost done* Now
on to the crimes themselves. Detective Conan has
two main kinds of wrongdoings that need to be dealt with:
First, there
are the
"who-dunnit"
crimes; Then there are the "how-the-hell-did-they-do-it" crimes.
The who-dunnits have a pretty big sized cast of prospective
baddies (where the evilest-looking one is not usually the perp),
and Conan has to solve the whys, the hows and the whos before
the wrong person is dragged down or before Mouri makes a total
ass of himself. The how-the-hell-did-they-do-its are pretty
fun to figure out too. These are crimes in which we know from
the beginning who did the misdeed, but they have great alibis
that Conan must crack. Sometimes it's just amazing to see how
that kid thinks. I wish that I was that bright when I was his
age... Or now. Man, I would have found out who's been stealing
my PB&J
sandwiches out of the office fridge long before I had to resort
to filling
one up with a heavy laxative and locking up the restrooms (turned
out it was Carl, and yes, he did beat the shit out of me for
that when he deductively figured out that it was me who laced
the sandwich with poop powder... By reading the name on the
lunchbag).
Anyway, it's all good.
In the
end I find that I must give Detective Conan 35.777231 Points
of Sherlocktitude out of 39.000001. It was (actually,
"is" should be the correct word seeing as I've still
got over 140 episodes and 4 movies to go before I'm done with
it. And
for all I know it may still be running on Japanese TV!) a fun
show that really made me think, but they never did kill any
of those dicky little kids..... Yet. Christ!!! Why won't they
kill off those snot nosed punks?!?! I highly doubt that annoying
snot
nosed Japanese kids would even like them! And, come to think
of it, isn't Detective Conan a bit too bloody
for kids anyway?! A good
percentage of the murders consist of beheadings, shootings, stabbings
or other bodily manglements. Why even cater to the kiddy crowd?
Ergh!!
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