The Case of the Silver Bullet

この真相、最高機密（トップシークレット）

「永遠の不在証明」（東京事変）

 

This truth is top secret

"The Eternal Alibi" (Tokyo Jihen)

Two weeks ago I discussed a book on the earliest trains in Japan, today a film focusing on a very modern train.

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~100 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20), The Crimson Love Letter (21), Zero the Enforcer (22), The Fist of Blue Sapphire (23) in the library)

The biggest international sports event, the World Sports Games, are held every four years and this year, Japan's capital Tokyo will host the prestigious games. The opening ceremony will be viewed across the world, so it's also decided that the Hyperlinear bullet train, the pinnacle of Japanese technology, will commence operation on the same day. The Hyperlinear runs between Nagoya and the new Shibahama Station in Tokyo, connnected to the stadium where the WSG opening ceremony will be held, and the Maglev train can reach speeds up to 1000 km/h, meaning the trip between Nagoya and Tokyo won't even take thirty minutes! VIPs for the opening ceremony of the WSG will arrive by Hyperlinear from Nagoya to Tokyo. The Suzuki Zaibatsu is one of the sponsors of WSG Tokyo, allowing Sonoko to bring her friend Ran, and of course Conan and the other kids to an early reception for sponsors and other related parties to the upcoming festivities. During the party however, Sonoko's father (the president of the conglomerate) is abducted, but thanks to the Detective Boys, he's quickly found in relatively good health. It turns out that a similar incident occured 15 years ago too, in the run-up to the WSG in Boston. The directors of three major companies sponsoring WSG Boston had been kidnapped one after another. One of three was even killed by the kidnapper when the industralist was trying to run away. It appears that the same serial sponsor kidnapping case is repeating itself now in Japan with WSG Tokyo, but why? Conan of course has an interest in the case, as does the Sleeping Detective Kogorou, who is hired by automobile industrialist John Voit, fearing he may be the next victim. But there are more interested parties: high school student detective Sera Masumi and her "extraterritorial sister" seem to be involved too, much to Conan's surprise, but more dangerous are the FBI agents active in Japan right now under command of James Black, because they consider this a continuation of "their" case 15 years ago and they're determined to "clean up" themselves. When all of these interested parties learn that the likely targets will be riding the Hyperlinear on its maiden voyage from Nagoya to Tokyo to attend to the opening ceremony of the WSG, they realize that the kidnapper will likely try to strike on the "Japanese Bullet" but can they prevent a repetition of the tragedy of 15 years ago in the 2021 theatrical release Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet?

When I described Detective Conan as one of the biggest detective franchises ever, I honestly wasn't exaggerating. As a multimedia franchise, few mystery-related franchises can even come close to how absolutely massive the machine has become in over twenty-five years and one of the most obvious markers are of course the annual animated theatrical releases. Since 1997's The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, a new film has been released each year in April, and it's become a tradition of Japanese popular culture in general. Everyone just knows there'll be a new Conan movie out in April and over two decades later, they're still drawing massive audience numbers, with the movies usually ending up high on the list of best-grossing Japanese-produced movies each year. But even traditions and set plans can't stop a pandemic, so 2020 was the first year since 1997 that did not see a new Detective Conan movie released. The marketing campaign was already working full power, but due to the state of emergency declared in Japan just two before Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet was supposed to premiere, the twenty-fourth film in the franchise was first postponed, and later that summer it was officially announced the movie would be pushed back to April 2021, leaving 2020 Conan-less. I bought the home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way, which was released last week, and you can find traces of the "pandemic delay" in various ways by the way, with artwork, trailer and promotion material for both 2020 and 2021. So for fans, the wait for The Scarlet Bullet was certainly not short, though the push back to 2021 did make sense, because as you can guess from the summary above, the film was also created to coincide with the Summer Olympics of Tokyo, which were of course also delayed to 2021. The World Sports Games are the Olympics in all but name, though I guess it'd be hard to get official branding for a detective story about sponsors being kidnapped and killed and the FBI involved and operating in Japan and all of that! 

In the article celebrating the release of volume 100 of the Detective Conan comic, I also talked about the movies, and how the tone and atmosphere has changed in these two decades, partially because different directors with their own styles would take over. The earlier movies were basically like the original comic, with some added spectacle in the form of action scenes (explosions!). Then we got a few movies that seemed to focus more on the action, taking inspiration from panic action films and recently we had a few Detective Conan movies that seemed more inspired by political thrillers. Things come in waves though, and for example 2017's The Crimson Love Letter felt in my view a lot more like the earliest films, focusing more on a robust puzzler plot despite also featuring the bombastic action scenes of the movies we had become used to by then. In that sense, I think The Scarlet Bullet can also be described as a throwback to earlier Conan films, with the latter half of the story focusing on the Hyperlinear bullet train, the latest Conan movie reminds of the tone of the entries over a decade ago, like Magician of the Silver Sky (2004), Strategy Above the Depths (2005) and Lost Ship in the Sky (2010), but with current director Nagaoka's own touch.

Sadly enough, The Silver Bullet also seems inspired by those movies in terms of mystery plot, because it's rather light this time. The movie has a few minor mystery moments that are solved in a swift way with pretty good presentation too, preserving good pacing throughout these scenes: we already saw this technique in storytelling in the previous movie The Fist of Blue Sapphire, which had some fantastic scenes planned out to quickly show how KID would prepare a theft and then act, while also being clear to the viewer. The Scarlet Bullet has a few of these well-paced moments too, like the Detective Boys locating Sonoko's kidnapped father in the prologue and a few other moments, but the big storyline, regarding the series of kidnappings of the sponsors and the identity of the culprit, isn't really interesting at all. There are barely any suspects, so the moment when Conan and Sera figure out who did it doesn't even feel clever. It's basically a shrug moment, and at the same time, I can't say I was really surprised by this disappointing climax of the mystery, because throughout the film, the "overall" mystery plot just felt underwhelming, even if at specific, select moments, the film does have nice and even memorable scenes that involve some kind of mystery for the viewer to solve, like a certain chase scene at the end of the film and of course the part that actually involves the bullet. The action and explosions in this movie seem toned down compared to previous entries by the way, so for some it might might feel a bit disappointing, but after a pirate war fought out in Singapore previously and explosions and more that could wipe out whole city blocks or valleys a few movies back, I'm okay with them dialling back the chaos a bit. 

But while The Scarlet Bullet feels a bit like an "old" Conan film because it returns to the "panic on a moving vehicle" pattern, it also feels very like a modern Detective Conan film due to its character focus. Ever since The Darkest Nightmare, the spotlight of these films have been aimed at different specific persons or groups from the original comic besides protagonist Conan, allowing select members of the secondary cast a chance to shine or to show a different side to them we usually don't see in the main series. This is also the case with The Scarlet Bullet, which naturally kinda expects you to be somewhat aware of, and up to date with the storyline of the main series. But that also means that this film will casually spoil some plot elements of the main story if you're still at like volume 70, as this film basically assumes you're up to date with the latest release at the time of the (original planned) premiere (so around 98). If you don't know who Sera and her "extraterritorial sister" are, you'll understand next to nothing about their actions in this film and the appearance of shogi player Haneda Shuukichi will also be a complete enigma if you haven't read or watched Detective Conan the last few years, but for fans, The Scarlet Bullet is a pretty awesome showcase showing these fan-favorite characters interacting in ways you don't really see in the main series. It's such a shame that the actual mystery plot they are inserted into isn't anything special, because the manner in which they are featured in The Scarlet Bullet is actually done really well. I loved Shuukichi's scene in particular: he doesn't really appear very often in the comic and seldom does anything memorable there, so this was genuinely the first time I think he was really shown off as the shogi genius he's supposed to be. The film also plants a few minor seeds that tie in with the storyline of the comic, as has been the case the last few years.

By the way, the pandamic delay did lead to an interesting new project: a second film. The Scarlet Alibi is a compilation film that saw a limited release in theatres in February 2021, serving as a kind of 'refresher' regarding the story arcs of the four focus characters of The Scarlet Bullet. It uses material from the television animated series to bring the viewer up to date on the various characters and what storylines they're involved this last... decade, but interestingly, The Scarlet Alibi hadn't been originally planned for the original 2020 release of The Scarlet Bullet: they only made it because of the year delay of the main film. The Scarlet Alibi is included in the deluxe edition of the Japanese home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way!

Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet is by no means the best Conan movie of the last few years: the mystery plot is simply too light and due to its focus on a specific set of characters, it's also a bit difficult to recommend to casual fans because there are just so many character interactions going on that rely on context. Fans of these characters will have a blast though: I'm a fan of Sera myself, but she hadn't been featured in the films since Dimensional Sniper, and Shuukichi had never appeared before. I also think The Scarlet Bullet is worth a watch if you like the other panic action Detective Conan films, because this one feels very much like those older films, but with a modern feel to them. The teaser at the end of The Scarlet Bullet and a recently released Halloween-themed illustration has already shown us what the theme of next year's film will be, which probably won't surprise fans who have been keeping up with the spin-off series too, but we'll have to wait for the proper trailers to see what the next film will be about!

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 緋色の弾丸』