Author: Gosho Aoyama
Case Closed, AKA Detective Conan, AKA Meitantei Konan is a manga with a bit of an identity problem. Created in the mid-1990’s when there was a weird push to westernize anime and manga. Case Closed is weird even by manga standards.
Case Closed never really caught on here in the United States like Inuyasha or Attack on Titian. I blame the weird westernization of the series. The characters are clearly in modern day Tokyo, but the names and places are westernized, except when they aren’t. It’s especially annoying since many of the cyphers that crop up in the series involve kanji. Still, I love this manga and all it’s craziness.
Note: I will be using the original Japanese names for these characters because that’s what makes the most sense to me. So if you pick up the translated manga, be prepared for name changes.
17-year-old Shinichi Kudo is already a brilliant detective. While on “not a date” with his “not girlfriend” Ran Mori. Shinichi stumbles onto some mysterious men. Following them, Shinichi gets in way over his head. The mysterious men poison Shinichi with a mysterious drug.
Shinichi manages to survive, with one notable side affect.
He now looks like a seven-year-old kid!
Realizing he’s in over his head, Shinichi decides to lay low. He adopts the name Conan Edogawa, and moves in with Ran and her dad, local private detective Kogoro Mori PI. Posing as a little kid, Shinichi helps Kogoro solve crimes while trying to find out more about these mysterious men and he still has to solve the toughest case of all: the emotions of teenage girls!
This is a really fun manga. it’s an episodic ‘who done it?’ style mystery series, which is fun. plots range from Hardy Boys style capers, to Parry Mason style court room dramas and everything in between.
. . . and if you like love triangle subplots, good grief there’s like 50 of them! My favorite is the Takagi, Sato, and Shiratori triangle!
Odd Librarian Out 