Broadway Malady

"The show must go on"

Phrase in show business 

Note to self: typing with just one hand because of a broken elbow is time consuming. That is why this post is a bit shorter than usual.

Detective Conan volume 106 was released in October 2024, about six months after the 2024 film Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram, but it's main story is closely related to that film's plot and functions as a kind of epilogue, so it is worth it to first watch the film before reading this volume to get the intended effect. However, the volume itself starts with a fairly normal story: The SOS Message Delivered by Torakage started in the previous volume and has Conan and the gang notice a neighborhood playing with a piece of paper, on which someone called Saori asks for help. Meanwhile, Inspector Sato and Takagi are chasing after a kidnapper, who manages to escape, get rid of his jacket and disappear in a restaurant in the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. Because the kidnapper saw Sato, it's Takagi and Shinagawa traffic police officer Chihaya who enter the restaurant (posing as a couple) to find the kidnapper.

As you can guess, this story develops on two fronts: Conan and the Detective Boys found a note signed by the kidnapped Saori, meaning she should be nearby, while the plot set in the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse is a classic "which of the three suspects" set-up. I have to admit nether side really managed to impress me: the ultimate step to determine who the kidnapper is, is something the reader can't predict (any of the three could have been the kidnapper even with the decisive clue obtained), so it doesn't really feel fair, while the plot about the search for the kidnapped girl rvolves a lot around coded messages, and those often feel just like trivia storiees, like it did here.

The Enamoto Azusa Abduction Case starts in Cafe Poirot, where Ran, Sonoko, Sera and Conan are having a drink while watching Azusa and Amuro helping the other customers, When they run out of a certained herb-infused salt, Conan says he knows a shop in the neighboring district that stocks it, so he and Azusa go out for groceries, but they soon realize they're being followed. They try to make it back to Poirot, but are abducted right in front of Amuro and the others. A bystander overheard Conan and Azusa cry out the kidnapper was someone with a cough who was just now in the cafe: three men appear the main suspects: one who seemed intent on getting the recipe for Poirot's beef stew, another customer who asked Azusa to keep something secret and a man who was having coffee at the counter. Meanwhile, Azusa wakes up to find herself and Conan chained in a dark room and to her great surprise.... she sees a decapitated head in a glass jar. Have they been kidnapped by the notorious serial killer who's been terrorizing the city lately?

This was a simple, but okay story, considering its limited space. When Azusa wakes up, she uses Conan's Detective Boys badge to contact the people at Poirot, just as the abductors enter the room. Amuro and Sera overhear the culprits mentioning they will get rid of Azusa and Conan in four hours, once it's midnight, but then the kidnappers notice the badge and destroy it. However, this does allow for the story to do some  The Nine-Mile Walk-esque deductions about what's so special about midnight and how it could pertain to the three suspects. Ultimately, the story is not that grand and many may easily guess where it's going, but I liked it. I wonder if the story's plot came from sonething Aoyama himself experienced....

 The Curse of The Demon Puppeteer is a long story and the sequel to volume 102's Kyoto Sweets and Poison. The stage play based on Mouri Kogorou and Hattori Heiji has finally been performed, despite the death of the director in the previous story. Kogorou, Ran and Conan, as well as Hattori and Kazuha are of course present in the audience as the show is done in Osaka. After the succesful show however, one of the actresses falls of a building, followed by her phone falling next to her, with a message signed by "the Demon Puppeteer", the nickname of the deceased director because of he controlled his actors. It seems a lot of jealousy is going around backstage among the actors, and soon more deaths follow, all signed by the the Demon Puppeteer...

Oh, and there's of course still that subplot where Hattori is looking for the perfect place to confess his love to Kazuha...

I'm torn on this story! It's not one to be really memorable on its merits of plotting and tricks per se: as a mystery, the elements Aoyama used are likely to feel familiar one way or another and I don't like the clewing that much. On the other hand, I defintely liked how this tale built further on Kyoto Sweets and Poison and introduced an interesting cast (literally) for this series of murders. The story also has some implications for the ongoing story and introduces a new character in a way that is probably not as surprising as intended. So a story I can appreciate for its story/characters, but I had hoped for something grander trick-wise, as lately, a lot of the stories seem to rely too much on trivia or otherwise using the latest fad.

I can't say Detective Conan volume 106 really managed to overturn the trend of somewhat mediocre stories mystery-wise the last two years or so, but I think I liked it better than the previous one on the whole. The next volume has no official release window announced by the way, so I guess it'll release around April when the 2025 film hits the theaters... Really looking forward to that film by the way, so I'll try to review it as soon as I can!

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第106巻