The Lion's Smile

For every up, there's a down. For every square

- There's a round?

"The Sword in the Stone"

Wow, has it been three years since I last did a double Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen post?

As basically every year the last decade or so, the new Detective Conan film Kurogane no Submarine seems to be extremely well received, both by viewers in terms of the actual contents as well as financially, once again breaking the earnings record set by last year's film (The Bride of Halloween). I will have to wait for the home video release though, so as every year, I'll have to be content with the latest Detective Conan volume released simultaneously with the film. Detective Conan volume 103 was released mid-April and starts with the final two chapters of A Troublesome Triple Collaboration. Previously, Conan and the Detective Boys ended up at a family restaurant in the evening, where very coincidentally, three very unlikely pairs were having dinner too: for some reason Inspector Shiratori is joined by patrol officer Yumi, while Yumi's boyfriend is having dinner there too with patrol officer Naeko, while her boyfriend Chiba is joined by Inspector Shiratori's girlfriend Kobayashi. The discovery all three pairs are there, in secret, with a different partner obviously leads to a lot of angry faces, but during this, a murder occurs at the family restaurant: a group of four friend regularly meet up, and today they were at the family restaurant where one of them works. One of the women however is poisoned during their get together, but it seems impossible for anyone to have poisoned her specifically, as she picked her own food and several people handled the plate before her. As an impossible poisoning story, it's... nothing special. I like the basic idea of the how, though there's a bit of luck concerned when it comes to actually hiding the trick, and overall, it's just... too basic. Part of the story is dedicated to the mix-up between the couples, so that leaves little room for the mystery.

Oh, and let me tell you right now: this volume in general isn't really interesting, at least, not mystery-wise.

Which you wouldn't expect right away, considering the second story features Sera! The high school detective takes Conan back to the hotel she's staying, when they learn a new arriving guest on the same floor found a strange code on a sheet of paper in his room. It turns out the code is similar to the coded messages sent to two other hotels earlier: when the people at those hotels failed to solve the code in time, rooms in those hotels were blown up with explosives! Ran's mother Eri happens to be in the hotel too, as she's their corporate lawyer and she manages to arrange for Sera (and Conan) to work on the case in secret, as soon after the coded message is found, the hotel is called by someone who treatens to blow up a room here too unless they solve it. Even the sub-plot of Sera's "sister" pushing Sera to solve the case because she can't risk being seen if the hotel needs to be evacuated doesn't do much to change the fact this is just another code-solving story, and this one is really nothing remarkable. The identity of the bomber is also hilariously simple to guess, so there's just nothing memorable to this one.

In Two Attendants, the Detective Boys go to the beach with the assistant teacher Wakasa, with Okiya joining them too as he can drive there (and because Conan doesn't really trust Wakasa with Haibara). They enjoy the Kamen Yaiber sausage at a beach restaurant, but after the break, the owner of the restaurant is found strangled in the employees room, with one of his employees asleep in the same room. But why would the murderer go to sleep in the same room after strangling his boss? Part of the story also involves Okiya and Wakasa both trying to probe each other, but the core mystery is a bit disappointing, once again. I think I like the core idea of how the strangling was done, that certainly, but the story kinda tries to avoid focusing too much on it too early, making the first half of the mystery feel very slow and unfocused, as the mystery part ("what is the puzzle?") feels undeveloped. A shame, because I do like the "big" reveal in terms of how the murder was committed, as it's something that works best in the manga format.

Kaitou KID's Crown Magic is the last story in the volume, and starts mid-res, with Conan having cornered two Azusas from Cafe Poirot, with one of them obviously being the phantom thief KID in disguise. We then jump back in time a few hours, when we learn Suzuki Jiroukichi has made a new KID trap, with a jewel-embedded crown as the lure. Jiroukichi's trap is mainly built around a special corridor in front of the room where the crown is kept: the corridor is flanked by wind blowers and small enough so everyone has to crawl through it, rendering KID's usual tricks with his glider and cards useless. Of course, the crown does disappear after a sudden arrival by KID in the room, and it's up to Conan  to solve how he did it. Only... this has to be one of the least interesting acts of magic ever done by KID, because there's no way this trick could've fooled anyone for say longer than a minute. I can accept it working the initial moment, but the trick is so simple with so little misdirection going on, it should've been discovered immediately, or there should have been a secondary phase to the trick to flesh it out, but this shouldn't be the main and only mystery.

So overall, a rather disappointing volume, with none of the stories in any way memorable. I guess that's because the next volume seems to feature a very important story according to the preview, so this is the calm before the storm, but considering the slow pace nowadays, I guess this calm will last for like half a year before the storm finally arrives...

My last Kindaichi Shounen review also dates almost 8 months ago, when I discussed the first two volumes of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo 30th, or The Case File of Kindaichi 30th, a limited short series to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. And with short, I mean short, as the series was only four volumes long. The Oninohe - The Grave Lion Legend Murder Case starts with the 17-year old Hajime having no ideas for his summer project on Japanese folklore, so he joins Miyuki's project: she was planning to visit the village of Oninohe, where Tsumugi, a former elementary school classmate moved to. They have a rare local legend about a Grave Lion, holy beasts that calm the raging dead, and this year, Tsumugi is selected to perform the Lion Dance in a village ceremony. Miyuki and Hajime, and also Saki (2),  thus visit the small village and are invited to see Tsumugi perform the dance, but during the ceremony, which requires all villagers to be present, one of the few teenagers in the village is poisoned to death via a poisoned knife hidden in the back of his seat. Later, another teenager is also found murdered. Saki has recorded most of the ceremony and the surroundings with his trusty camcorder, but none of the suspects seems to have been able to arrange both murders. And what is the link between the victims, and a certain incident that happened some years ago?

A traditional Kindaichi Shounen story if there ever was one, with Hajime, Miyuki and Saki visiting a small village, an Old Friend of Hajime and Miyuki being there, an impossible mystery revolving around the suspects having an alibi for the time of the murder, Saki's video footage being a vital clue and of course An Incident of the Past. The series was of course always very much a 'by the numbers' series, and in that regards, this story is nothing special. I do think that mystery-wise, it's a bit too lean? I really the main trick of the story, where the murderer created an alibi for themselves during the ceremony, but that's basically only one impressive idea, and it's actually fairly small scale. A few more murders occur in the story, but those utilize fairly simple ideas and concepts, and ultimately, the story feels a bit dragging because the main idea is the only one that actually feels unique enough. Had this been a short story, with only the main trick, I would have loved this so much more, but not as much now, as a story that spans two volumes.

The final volume of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo 30th , also contains a short two chapter story titled Greetings from the Gentleman Thief, which has old series regular the Gentleman Thief threatening to steal a painting. The main focus of this story is actually just fanservice, as a lot of familiar faces make a short appearance in the story, but there's also a short mystery with Hajime quickly deducing how the Gentleman Thief managed to steal the painting as announced, and the trick is pretty good, so that's a plus.

So overall, I can't say the latest volumes of Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen were really high points in either series. Of course, considering both series have been running for thirty years (Conan's 30th anniversary is next year!), I guess you can't expect all volumes to be absolute bangers, but still, I can't deny I'm disappointed this time. Conan's next volume at least seems to be important plot-wise, while Kindaichi will now return to the  Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") series, so let's hope the upcoming volumes are more fun.

Original Japanese title(s):  青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第103巻

天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一少年の事件簿30th』第3, 4巻