The Destructive Angel

We may have lost our wings with which we flew up so high

But now, even now, I can feel your true mystical tide.

"We Were Angels" (Kageyama Hironobu) 

Surprisingly, the title of this year's Detective Conan film doesn't do that thing where you have to read a kanji combination as an English word. I wonder why they didn't have you read the combination that means "Fallen Angel" as "Lucifer", or why they didn't use the kanji combination meaning "highway" and have you read it as the English word... 

On the suggestion of high school student Sera Masumi, Ran, her father, Sonoko, Conan, the Detective Boys and Dr. Agasa are going to visit a motorcycle exhibition held in Yokohama. Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys visit Yokohama one day early and go out to see the stars at night in the mountains, but they witness a pitch-black motorcycle speeding through the mountains, with a.... headless rider. The following day, the rest of the entourage take the highway from Tokyo to Yokohama, when they too witness a black motorcyle (with a rider with a black helmet) chasing after a couple on another motorcycle on the highway. The couple can't shake off their pursuer and crash horribly on the highway. The black motorcyclist is chased by Hagiwara Chihaya, squad leader of the mobile unit of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and while she comes close to nabbing the mysterious cyclist, a traffic incident allows the rider to escape. The motorcyclist appears more often both in Yokohama and Tokyo, chasing after certain people on bikes and making them crash, and the police investigation soon assigns the name "Lucifer" to the suspect. At the motorcycle exhibition, Sera is conducting an investigation of her own, as she's looking for a missing friend. Meanwhile, the police unveils the Angel, a newly developed police motorcycle with built-in AI features that provide balancing and control assistance, allowing for the police to move faster and safer. Conan and the Detective Boys soon realize the "ghostly headless rider" and Lucifer all drove motorcycles that demonstrated capabilities eerily similar to the Angel, but how did "Lucifer" get hold of this technology and what is their goal in the 2026 Detective Conan film Fallen Angel of the Highway?

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway is the 29th(!) animated feature length film in the long-running series Detective Conan originally created by Aoyama Goushou. Starting in 1997, a new Detective Conan film, with a completely new story not featured in the original comic, has been released in the theaters practically every year (COVID messed up the schedule...) and now we're at installment 29. The scriptwriter for this film is mystery author Ookura Takahiro, who wrote 2017's The Crimson Love Letter (probably my favorite of the "modern" films), The Fist of Blue Sapphire (2019), Bride of Halloween (2022) and The Million-Dollar Pentagram (2024), alternating years with the other film scriptwriter Sakurai Takehiro (so he was responsible for last year's One-Eyed Flashback). As have been the trend since about ten years, these films have become highly character-drama focused films, with specific characters from the manga becoming the main characters of the film. What is important to note is that while the manga creator Aoyama Goushou doesn't write these films, he does provide ideas to them, and the films, especially nowadays, all feature backstories, reveals and character relationship developments that are then incorporated back into the manga. This means that these films basically expect you to be more-or-less up-to-date about the characters in each film, and vice-versa, the manga eventually also expects you to have seen these films as certain character-related details are only explained in the film. Fortunately, Detective Conan: The Fallen Angel of the Highway doesn't require that much homework: Chihaya, first appearing in the collected volumes in 2022, hasn't been featured in that many stories yet, and while her plot relevance is also dependent on the fact she's the older sister of a character who has already died in the line of duty by the time this series starts, basically just knowing that is enough to get into the film. The other focal character, Inspector Yokomizo of the Kanagawa police, doesn't have that much of a backstory anyway.

So I'm explicitly naming Chihaya and Inspector Yokomizo now, because unfortunately, it is clear this film, as it is now, was not the film envisioned when the film first went into production. This is due to the tragic death of the voice actresss Tanaka Atsuko, who originally played Chihaya. Tanaka is best known for her role as Kusanagi Motoko in the legendary Ghost in the Shell, and it just so happens that Inspector Yokomizo is voiced by... Ootsuka Akio, the voice actor of Batou, Kusanagi's right-hand man in Ghost in the Shell. Casting Tanaka in the role of a squad leader, and having her team up with a grumpy middle-aged second-in-command with a soft spot for her voiced by Ootsuka is of course no coincidence and it is clear from everything, Chihaya and Yokomizo in Conan were supposed to mirror Kusunagi and Batou (with their voice actors), the same this series did with Amuro and Char from Mobile Suit Gundam in the characters of Amuro and Akai, who were also voiced by their original voice actors. However, Tanaka passed away in 2024 and ultimately, it was decided Sawashiro Miyuki would take over the role of Chihaya. And as good as Sawashiro does the role in Fallen Angel of the Highway, one can't help but feel this film would have been so much funnier if we could have heard Tanaka and Ootsuka taking on roles close to their famous Ghost in the Shell characters, but in a rom-com setting. That layer is now completely gone and what's left are just thoughts of "What if...".

But even without the voice actor issue playing, I think Fallen Angel of the Highway had some difficult obstacles to deal with. Picking Chihaya as the main character already limits the kind of mystery this film could bring, as she's not a homicide detective (which would give endless possibilities), but a traffic police officer, with her trademark being her police motorcycle, so of course this film would be about motorcycles and chases and all of that. The fact there haven't been that many Chihaya stories also meant a lot of the film is used to firmly introduce her and the characters related to her. This results in a film that feels much slower than the average Detective Conan film and also one that has a very small cast of film-original characters. Ultimately, the mystery of who the mysterious motorcyclist Lucifer is and how they got to use a motorcyle similar to the prototype Angel is just too small-scale to really make an impression, as the focus is very clearly more on casting the spotlight on the focal characters and see *how* they react to the events that transpire in this film, rather than focusing on the process of solving the case. It doesn't help most of the crimes feel... less "deliberate" than actual murder. Sure, intentionally chasing after someone on a motorcycle and making them crash is nothing less than an attempt at killing them, but it still feels different from someone actually stabbing the victim with a knife, or something like that. For me personally, the threat of the culprit felt not as serious as probably intended, so I had trouble getting really invested in the mystery and the solving of the case.

Of course, a lot of the more recent Conan films have relatively simple mystery plots, but they usually throw enough explosions at me to still leave me satisfied as I leave the theater, but it seems they also dialed down the action this year. Perhaps it's because a lot of the set pieces revolved around chases in cars or motorcycles, but there weren't really grand ones this time (compared to previous years) and even "Conan or one of his allies figure out a clever trick to turn a literally explosive situation around" scene in the climax seemed very subdued and less... "oh, that's a clever way to get out of that tight spot" compared to previous entries. Perhaps the setting of Yokohama didn't help much either: of course, if you want to feature Chihaya, you'll have to set the story in Kanagawa, and mainly Yokohama, but visually, it's not like it's that different from Tokyo, while in previous years we had Hokkaido, the mountains of Nagano, the sea, Singapore, an amusement park....

So I can't say I'm a huge fan of Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway. This is partially because it couldn't be what it originally set out to be due to unfortunate circumstances, but looking solely at the mystery and the spectacle I expect of a Conan film, I found this year's entry a bit lacking. If you're really into the characters featured in this film (Chihaya, Yokomizo, Chihaya's brother and his bestie), you'll probably find some cool character drama developments here, but otherwise I think it's my least favorite Conan film until now written by Ookura. As always, the film's credits are followed by a short teaser that confirm there's a new Conan film coming next year around the same time that give a hint as to what the film'll be about. The little shown at least has a lot of potential,so I'll be in the theaters next year too of course, especially as it's the thirtieth film then!

Original Japanese title(s):  『名探偵コナン　ハイウエイの堕天使』

Death in a Ghost Town

"Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice."

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles"

Two Conan-related reviews in a week! Three actually!

Volume 107 of Aoyama Goushou's extremely long-running Detective Conan was released in April to coincide with the release of this year's theatrical release Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback, as they always ramp up the marketing around this time of the year, timing several releases together. The manga in particular is timed very specifcially with the film release, always featuring a story that is somehow connected to the film, for example featuring the same guest characters or having thematic ties. This does mean that mid-April is usually a hard deadline for the manga, with no room for compromise. Because Aoyama Goushou has been working more slowly in the last decade or so, with the serialization of the manga often taking breaks after a story has been finished, it's been harder and harder to actually fill out a complete volume each time: they can't wait for enough material to be made first, because certain dates do require a release of the manga. And thus volume 107, like previous volumes, cheats a bit by only featuring ten chapters of the manga, instead of the usual eleven, with behind-the-scenes storyboards/rough sketches of the manga used to fill out the page count. As a plus though, this volume features three complete stories, so no stories that are continued from the previous volume or continue into the next.

The volume opens with The Five They Met, where Ran finally recalls how she and Shinichi had met a certain group of five young police cadets when they were young: Shinichi had accidentally broken a faucet in the park with his soccer ball, but they were helped by the cadets. It takes some time for Shinichi to be convinced they are really police cadets, but once that's over, they confide to the five about a strange ghostly adventure they had last night: they had gone to an old decripit house, when they saw fiery fish swimming in a pond, a ghastly snake-like apparation jump out of nowhere, and the owners of the house even took a picture of the children, with a creepy oni face floating behind them. However, once the cadets hear about these strange happenings, they seem to suspect something's not right about the house so they go have a look...

This is one of those stories we have seen very often over the last decade where the focus lies more on the underlying story of explaining how certain characters met, rather than on the mystery plot. So it comes to no surprise that the mystery here is very simple: the question of "how" Shinichi and Ran became witness to all those ghostly appearances depends basically on 'specialist' knowledge or trivia, and that's seldom a really interesting basis for a mystery unless the build-up is really good, and as for the "why", that is pretty easily guessed. Perhaps it's a bit more surprising to the Japanese reader, but considering where I'm from, it was literally the first thought I had because it's not rare at all to see similar news articles where I come from...

The Truth Behind the Fire of the Dead is the story that loosely ties to the 2025 Conan film One-eyed Flashback, as this story is set in Nagano and of course stars the trio of the Nagano Prefectural Police: Inspectors Yamato and Koumei, and detective Uehara. Kogorou, Ran Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys were going to ski in Nagano, but because Kogorou caught a cold, he and Ran are staying home. Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys do swing by the Nagano Prefectural Police however, as detective Uehara had prepared some souvenirs for Kogorou to thank him for all he's done in the past for them. The kids get a tour around headquarters, but then run into the Compass Detectives: a group of influencers who check out haunted places, who derive their name from the fact they all have a kanji for a cardinal direction in their family names. Like the Detective Boys, the four members of the Compass Detectives have known each other since their childhood. There were actually five members, but Takehiko, the brother of Nanjou Kaori, passed away three months ago: the five of them were staying in a ski lodge, but while two of them were out for groceries, an earthquake happened, which led to a fire in the lodge. Kitakura Yuuta managed to carry Itou Tamaki out of the lodge, but couldn't find Takehiko. After the fire was extinguished, his remains were found trapped beneath a fallen cabinet. The four Compass Detectives are now visiting the police, because forensics have managed to retrieve the data from Takehiko's smartphone. The Compass Detectives are now heading to the ski resort Hakuryuu, where Takehiko died and are attempting to catch the ghostly apparation "The Fire of the Dead", a local Nagano supernatural phenomenon which claims that if someone thinks hard enough of a deceased person, their spirit can manifest itself in this world as spontaneous fire. The Detective Boys were also going to Hakuryuu to ski, and because Mitsuhiko is a huge fan of the Compass Detectives, they are allowed to watch them film as Itou Tamaki, the star of the channel, tries to contact the ghost of Takehiko. But just as things seem to end in a dud and they wrap up filming, her sleeve suddenly catches fire out of nowhere! At first, they think it could be a fluke, but then strange things happen to the other members too, from smoke appearing out of nowhere to someone's sleeve catching fire while he's driving a car. Is this really the handiwork of a ghost, or is someone playing tricks?

This story unfortunately feels a bit similar to the previous one, with the tricks behind the sudden fires being things that rely mostly on trivia/specalist knowledge. The whodunnit is not very interesting either, as one character seems to be given the most 'suspicious attributes', so even if you don't exactly know how the fires were created, the fact character X has all the "unusual things" the other characters don't have already informs the reader too much. There's a nice subtle visual clue, but that' s not enough to make this an interesting story, nor are the short childhood stories detective Uehara tells to the Detective Boys about her, Yamato and Koumei. The one great scene is the moment Haibara finally gets "even" with Uehara after their first meeting back in volume 65.

The final story, Three Liars and a Fortune is funnily enough the most interesting story mystery-wise, even if it has no important story lore compared to the previous two stories. Ran has noticed her father has been behaving a bit strangely lately and discusses this with Conan. They overhear Kogorou on the phone discussing what to buy as a present for Ran, and it's clear he's speaking with a woman: after jokingly suggesting Kogorou might be having an affair, the two decide Kogorou must just be talking with Ran's mother, but then Eri herself shows up, making it clear Kogorou is talking to another woman. The three decide to tail Kogorou, as he has going to meet the mystery woman in a restaurant, but as they arrive at the station, three men, all holding identical paper bags, bump into each otherand all drop their bags behind Kogorou. The three men all look in the bags to try to find their own, but to their great surprise the bags all contain explosive stuff, and almost literally so: one bag contains a bloody knife and t-shirt, another bag contains a pistol and the third... a large quantity of money bills! The three men all claim the bag with money is their own, and deny they are the owner of either the bloody knife or the pistol. One of the men claims they are an attorney and that the money is actually ransom money, which is why the police can't be involved, so Kogorou takes the three men, and their bags, to a nearby restaurant to determine who is the owner of the money.

While this is a simple 'one out of three' type of story, the premise is hugely entertaining, with all three men obviously trying to claim the money as their own, while wanting to deny to have anything to do with the knife or the pistol. While it is soon determined the blood is fake, and that the pistol is just a model gun, the money still gives the other two men enough of a motive to try and claim it's their money. While determining which men are lying once again relies on trivia, the trivia used are far more commonly known in Japan than the ones seen in the previous stories, so it feels more fair, and even then I feel this stories has more clues than just those bits of trivia. While not one of the best 'one-of-these-three' stories in the series on the whole, I do think it has one of the best set-ups.

Unfortunately, the next volume is scheduled for next spring, so I guess no Conan manga reviews anymore this year... 

To ease the pain, I'll do the same as volume 107 and fill out this post with some fluff, adding another very important Conan-related review: that of this year's McDonalds' Conan tie-up. The Chicken Tatsuta burger is a fried chicken burger McDonalds Japan offers for limited periods, and last year, it was offered in the form of a collaboration with Detective Conan, being sold around the time the 2024 film The Million-dollar Pentagram was released. The collaboration returned this year, with two Chicken Tatsuta burgers being offered simultaneously, the classic one, as well as the Tartar Sauce Namban Chicken Tatsuta. I went for the latter. Like the actual dish Chicken Namban, this fried chicken in this burger is covered in a vinegar-based sauce, which softens the fried chicken a bit, and gives it a tangy bite, which is softened by the creamy (but also slightly tangy) tartar sauce on top. I don't eat fried chicken with tartar sauce that often, but the two go well together and as it's becoming hotter in Japan, the slightly tangy taste of this burger makes it easy to wolf down. The bread they use for the Chicken Tatsuta burgers is also great, soft and fluffy. They are also offering a McFizz lemonade with Setouchi lemon & yoghurt taste, which is also really refreshing. And the special Conan cup they serve it in has a cool gimmick if you drink all of it!

Anyway, volume 107 of Detective Conan once again continues the trend of the last few years, with Aoyama not being able to do a full-time serialization of the manga anymore, resulting in almost all stories having some kind of connection to the overall storyline/focused on revealing backstory lore, with the mystery plots taking a backseat and becoming more and more reliant on random trivia. Which aren't ingredients that result in a medicore story per se mind you: volume 100's The FBI Serial Murder Case in a way relied a lot on trivia too, but that was one of the best cases in the last decade. But that one too is already 4 years old... I can understand why Aoyama tries to make every other story more "important" to reward long-time fans, if he's tied to this publication schedule, but I have to admit I'm getting disappointed some of the films are getting more interesting mystery-wise than the manga...

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第107巻

Murder in Retrospect

"Who does not remember that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far off places, the wo which is close at hand?"

"The Assignation"

This is the first time I actually caught a Detective Conan film on opening day. And I of course know Conan, especially the films, are huge, but when I arrived at the theater, they had seven films scheduled in the coming hour, and six of them were Detective Conan, with a new screening starting every ten minutes, which is insane.

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, 82~105 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), The Scarlet Bullet (24), Bride of Halloween (25) and The Black Iron Submarine (26) and The Million-Dollar Pentagram (27) in the library or via the Detective Conan tag)

The "sleeping detective" Mouri Kogorou receives a phone call from Sametani Kouji, a former co-worker who unlike Kogorou is still with the Metropolitan Police Force. He is investigating a shooting incident in the mountains that occured ten months ago involving Inspector Yamato of the Nagano Prefectural Police, and because Wani learned Kogorou has worked with him on a few cases in the past, he wants to ask Kogorou a few questions. The two are to meet in Hibiya Park the day after tomorrow, but when Kogorou, daughter Ran and Conan (the high-school detective turned into a child) arrive in the park, they are witness to Sametani being shot by a hooded assailant. While Conan gives chase on this turbo-powered skateboard, the assailant manages to escape in the hustle and bustle of the city. The Metropolitan Police Department suspect it was Sametani's investigation into the Nagano case that led to the attack, so Inspectors Satou and Takagi are sent to Nagano Prefecture, with Kogorou inviting himself to the team. The Tokyo inspectors meet with their Nagano colleagues Inspector Yamato, Uehara and "Koumei", and learn about the case ten months ago: Inspector Yamato had been chasing a convicted criminal on the run deep in the mountains of Nagano, near the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, when a third party suddenly shot at him. A terrible avalanche followed immediately, which swept Yamato away. While a search was initiated, they could not find the inspector, and he was initially assumed missing in action, but some time later, it was discovered Yamato had survived the avalanche and had been recovering in a local clinic. He had however lost the use of one eye after being shot, and he had also lost his memories initially, though he eventually recovered most of his memories and is now working again full-time as a police detective. Yamato however has no precise memories of who or what he saw the second before he was shot and the avalanche occured. However, if Sametani was shot because he was investigating this case, it seems likely Inspector Yamato himself too will become a target too because he is an actual eye-witness and involved party. Can they find out who the mysterious attacker is sealed within Inspector Yamato's memories before it's too late in the 2025 theatrical release Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback?

Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback is the 28th film in the long-running Detective Conan series originally created by Aoyama Goushou, with Sakurai Takeharu, a veteran in the animated adaptation of the series, once again responsible for the script. He was previously responsible for Private Eye in the Distant Sea, Sunflowers of Inferno, The Darkest Nightmare, Zero the Enforcer, The Scarlet Bullet and The Black Iron Submarine, and One-eyed Flashback shares a lot with especially the last four titles on the list: these films feature stories that build a lot on storylines and character arcs of the main series, and if you are not up-to-date with those storylines, you might feel left behind because these films are not really accessible without the proper prior knowledge (though they are generally fun as action films anyway). This is especially the case for One-eyed Flashback, where a large part of the story revolves around an untold episode from the main series: when we first met Inspector Yamato in the Fuurin Kazan case in volume 59, we heard bits and pieces about his backstory: he had been missing for some time after a certain incident in which he lost the use of his eye (hence the cross-shaped scar across his left eye) and had only recently recovered and returned to his work as a detective. In subsequent stories, we'd learn about his Chinese proverb-spouting rival/friend Morofushi Takaaki aka "Koumei" (Kongming) and how he'd been involved in finding Yamato, but exact details about what caused Yamato's disappearance, and how he lost his eye, were never given in the original manga. So to get the most out of this film, you ideally want to have seen/read the previous stories involving the Nagano Prefectural Police. If you are invested in the Nagano Prefectural Police trio, I do really recommend watching this film, as it clears a lot up regarding Yamato's background. While the events in the film-series of Conan are not "canon" per se for the manga (buildings don't blow up every week in the manga), series creator Aoyama Goushou does always provide the basic ideas for each film, and offers "stories he can't tell in the manga medium" to the film production committees, and ever since the first film, characters and pieces of backstory told in the films are considered as "canon" for the manga. 

And also watch this film if you're a Kogorou fan. It's been a while since he's been featured so prominently in the films (certainly not fter his original voice actor Kamiya Akira had been replaced by Koyama Rikiya starting Lost Ship in the Sky). Though to be honest, due to certain scenes in the film I really wished Kamiya Akira was still in this role... And regarding another voice change: while I had already heard Kusao Takeshi as the new voice of Amuro in the television anime series a few weeks ago, he had more "significant" scenes in this film as someone who helped Conan keep up to date with the police investigation, and I got used to him pretty quickly.

As a mystery film though, One-eyed Flashback is very simple, presenting itself as a police procedural. We realize very quickly that the assailant is trying to keep something that happened in the Nagano mountains ten months ago a secret, and that they are willing to go very far to keep it a secret, even targeting active police detectives. Meanwhile, the Tokyo detectives, in cooperation with their Nagano and Yamanashi Prefectural Police colleagues and Kogorou, hope to get a clue regarding the assailant's true identity by investigating the incident that occured ten months ago: Yamato had been chasing after a convicted armed robber, who had previous robbed a hunting rifle store with a conspirator. Ultimate this case is very simple in structure with few characters involved, and that leaves also little room for the current case to become interesting mystery-wise, as the accent lies on "somebody's shooting at these police detectives!!". The few attempts at misdirection are feeble, though I do really like the most direct hint pointing at this film's culprit: a very simple one, but it was implemented very competently. And I wonder whether something they did in regards to the culprit was a coincidence or not, but that was pretty funny too as a meta-clue in hindsight. Funnily enough, I can almost imagine this as one of those longer lore-based stories we see in the Conan manga lately, where the core mystery plot is just a vehicle to allow Aoyama to develop the underlying storylines/characters, as the last few years, these stories have featured simpler and simpler mystery plots. With the plot being less bombastic than previous film, the main story of One-eyed Flashback feels more like it could have been in the manga, if you ignore the ridiculous action scenes. So don't be watching One-eyed Flashback for the mystery, as it's nothing special. When scriptwriter Sakurai pulls out his old "political thriller" card (something he uses a lot in his Conan films), the story does become a lot more interesting to be honest, as he gives a certain character a fantastic scene in the post-credits, but the political angle not really deeply connected with the mystery save for informing us of the culprit's motive. 

A large part of the film is also set at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory by the way (as it's near where the avalanche happened ten months ago), which is not only a place Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys visit in the film... I happened to have visited it myself too earlier this year. After the initial trailer of One-eyed Flashback was revealed last year, it became clear the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, and its 45-m radio telescope would be featured heavily in the film, so I visited it in January when I was nearby, figuring I should probably have a look at it because there was a non-zero chance it would get blown up in the film considering that's generally what happens in Conan films with structures with an iconic look! Picture above was taken by me by the way! It was cool to have seen the real place first, and then reproduced in the film again, as it was really the exact same place and layout... well, except for how it's depicted in the climax of the film, but that's artistic licence for you...

While I did enjoy my time in the theater a lot, I do have to say Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback is probably best seen if you have done your homework first, and don't come here for mainly the mystery. It is a story that feels like it could have been a "somewhat drama/moviefied" adaptation of a manga episode with a somewhat subdued police procedural as its main framework to tell a story that had gone untold in the manga until now, focusing on Kogorou (who wants to know why his friend was shot) and Inspectors Yamato, Koumei and Uehara of the Nagano Prefectural Police, whose lives are still obscured by the shadow of the avalance ten months ago. So very much recommended for those who liked cases like Fuurin Kazan from the main series. The film ended, as per tradition, with a teaser for the 2026 film. Not super excited because it appears we'll have another character-focused film again and I am not particularly a great fan of this character, so not sure where the story will go, but whatever it'll be, I'll be sure to watch it!

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　隻眼の残像（フラッシュバック）』

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 

Mischievous Scientist

Once we were a race of beings roaming the universe on the search for answers and knowledge, but only found more questions and misery. Eons have passed before the first member of our people realised that there was a deeper structured process behind the common reality we were able to see and live. 

"Mystery of Time and Space"

A non-fiction book for a change!

While Detective Conan is at the core a fair-play mystery manga, it remains a series that also has a lot of unrealistic elements that are a part of the series identity: the core premise of high school student detective Kudo Shinichi being turned into a child due to an experimental drug is of course the prime example, but because the rom-com and action genres are also a fundamental part of Conan, we also see characters sometimes pull off things that would be completely impossible in a "realistic" setting, and if their feats were part of the mysteries, it'd definitely feel unfair, but usually, these superhuman scenes only occur after the core mystery has been solved. That said. sometimes it's fun to think a bit more about these superhuman feats. Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon ("The Fictional Science Reader") is a long-running series by Yanagida Rikao that explores the science in anime/manga/tokusatsu/games etcetera. Can our current knowledge of science explain how a certain scene in an anime played out? Or how much strength would be needed for someone to pull off that one memorable scene? Earlier this year, Yanagida released a special crossover volume with Detective Conan: Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon ("Detective Conan: The Fictional Science Reader" 2024) looks at the long-running mystery manga with a wink, exploring questions like "How does the drug that shrunk Conan's body work?", "How many murder cases *does* Conan encounter on average?" and "How hard can Ran kick people?".

Many years ago, I wrote a short piece about how I wanted to see more reference/guidebooks on established mystery series: I referred to a Conan guide among others, that had short summaries for each case, including a focus on the important clues/trick/murder weapon, and a Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney guide that had timelines for each case, showing what everyone was doing at what time. I haven't seen many interesting guides released since then, sadly enough. But while Detective Conan: Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon isn't exactly what I was talking about at the time, I think this was a pretty funny book for fans of the series, though not really for general mystery fans.

In the book, Yanagida explores several memorable scenes and pivotal moments from the Detective Conan series, focusing specifically on the manga until volume 105. He then uses science to muse about these scenes: a funny example is from one of the earliest chapters in the series, when Ran kicks a kidnapper and he flies a few meters until he lands on the ground. Obviously, it would be impossible in real-life for her to kick a grown adult so far: if she *could* be so strong, it'd mean other people in this world could also be so strong and use their strength to pull off what appear to be "impossible" crimes for us. But as I mentioned earlier, Ran's "super strength" (and that of other characters) is only seen after the core mystery plot has been resolved, so it's not really jarring, as you can easily see this is just "comics reality". Which is why it's so funny when Yanagida starts calculating how much force it'd require for Ran to kick that man the way she did, and ending up with the conclusion she has the kick strength of nearly 600 kickboxers.

There are some other interesting statistical analyses that are more mystery-related. It turns out that over the course of the first 105 volumes, there were "just" 202 murder cases,  a number which surprised me a bit, but I guess with the anime and other media around, you just get the idea there are more. As in-universe, not even a full year has passed since the first volume, Yanagida then uses that to compare Conan's "murder encounter" rate to that of the average Japanese civilian and to that of homicide detectives in Tokyo, which... of course makes it too clear Conan is really a death magnet. And if you count all the non-murder (but criminal) cases, it turns out Conan even averages over 1 incident per day. Something you kinda expect when reading the series of course, but it's more amusing by seeing the scientific support for the gut feeling. Life in Beika City is also shown to be a real dystopia, considering the murder rate in one single city...

Other funny musings are about the efficiency of Conan's tranquilizer wristwatch and his other gadgets like his turbo skateboard and ball-dispensing belt, the speed required for Kyougoku Makoto to dodge a shotgun shot at point-blank range, how painful would it really be to have a bag full of gold fall on you from a meter or ten (spoiler: very painful). Most of the scenes picked will be very familiar to Conan fans, and seeing them "nitpicked" like this is more than entertaining.

But as I said, this is really just for Conan fans, and not for mystery fans in general. But! I was thinking, it would be cool if there was a mystery-focused volume of Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon, just not focusing on one specific IP, but exploring several famous mystery novels. Sure, it'd be full of spoilers, but imagine Yanagida going over the science behind the locked room murder trick in Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders or all of those Kitayama Takekuni locked room murders. Going over the physics behind physical locked room tricks would of course be the major attraction, but I could also imagine a shorter column going over how poisons are shown to work in the novels and checking whether they really work like that. 

Anyway, Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon is a fun coffee table-type of book for Detective Conan fans, with just the right about of "seriousness" about silly subjects. Because it's mostly about really specific scenes, I can't recommend it to anyone else, but it does show a lot of potential for a more "general mystery" entry in this series, and I hope that in the future, such a volume will be released!

Original Japanese title(s): 柳田理科雄『名探偵コナン空想科学読本』

The Haunted Monastery

"Our readers are children! Millions of bloodthirsty little kids, and we give them what they want!"
"Ellery Queen: The Adventure of the Comic Book Crusader"

This might the first time since I started doing reviews of both the Detective Conan manga and films that I managed to get the film review out before the corresponding manga volume...

Detective Conan volume 105 was released in April 2024, timed together with the release of the 2024 film Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram and it also serves as the very first volume released as part of this anniversary year, as the manga of Detective Conan started its serialization 30 years ago, back in 1994. While the stories included in the volume themselves don't have any special "anniversary" themes, the physical volume itself does come in two variations: a normal one and a special edition one, which features an alternate cover that mirrors the cover of volume 1, as well as extra booklet with character sketches from when the series was still in the planning phase. Small note for collectors: the detective character introduced in the encyclopedia at the end of the volume is actually different in the special edition from the normal edition. Anyway, the contents of volume 105 itself are your standard fare for the series, so no big anniversary story. The volume opens with the remainder of Why He Became Her Butler, which started in the previous volume. Conan and Ran are travelling with Hattori and Kazuha in the express train, and it happens Hattori's self-proclaimed fiance Momiji is there too, accompanied by her butler Iori. During the trip, Iori is approached by a man, who forces the butler to cooperate, or else Momiji will be hurt. Via his phone, Iori is told to go to a certain seat in the train, where he finds a dead man, and he is ordered to find a USB memory stick this dead man has hidden somewhere. While Iori tries to deduce where the stick is, he also tries to remember where he knows the voice of the man threatening them from, which brings up memories of his time when he was a police officer with Public Security. Meanwhile, Conan and Hattori also notice Iori's acting strange...

A very, very mediocre story. The "where could the USB memory stick be hidden" mystery is just a device to tell the flashback story of Iori and Momiji meeting for the first time, fleshing out the perfect butler's background, but as a mystery, it's incredibly minimalistic and most of it is resolved before the reader gets any chance to even think about it. So a very character-focused story, which might entertain people who have become fans of Momiji and Iori ever since they were introduced around 2016, but not if you're just hoping to read a cool mystery once every five months...

So when I write my reviews of the Conan manga, I get the story titles from the official Shonen Sunday website for the series: the titles of the stories often will be used as the titles for the episodes when they are later adapted for the television anime, but sometimes they are changed, with the manga story titles retroactively changed to the anime story titles. Usually, this site is updated when the new volume releases, but for some reason, the site has not added volume 105 yet, meaning I don't really know the "official" titles for the following two stories.

Anyway, the second story is clearly one meant to tie in with the 2024 film The Million-Dollar Pentagram and set before the film, as Hattori is still planning to confess his love to Kazuha at a spot with a great scenery, and Ran, having learned Hattori's plans, has found the perfect spot: Mt. Washio, which offers a great sunset view. So Ran, her father, Conan, Hattori and Kazua go mountain hiking, but a sudden rain forces them to find shelter at a Buddhist temple on the mountain. Luckily for Hattori, Ran learns there's a great view from the temple too, so they stay here until the rain stops. During their stay, they learn about a monk who disappears some time ago, and that there are rumors of will-o'-wisp sightings here. The gang takes a look at the room where the monk had disappeared from, which is accessed via a small staircase. Later however, the gang witnesses the will-o'-wisp themselves as the fire moves up the staircase, and it is then they realize Mouri himself has also disappeared. What is happening at this temple? Not much interesting here, I'm afraid. What appears to be a potential interesting locked room mystery, provides you with the most unsatisfying solution ever, and while there are other mysterious events at the temple which are connected in the end, the events unfolding at the temple just don't really interest me, while at the same time, you know the Hattori plotline is going to be carried over to The Million-Dollar Pentagram, so none of this story feels even remotely engaging.

The final complete story in this volume features phantom thief KID, who is also a major character in The Million-Dollar Pentagram, so no surprises about him being featured here. Suzuki Jiroukichi has once again set-up another trap using a big jewel as bait to catch the thief. This time, he has rigged a special small exhibition room on the Bell Tree Tower, like a small box attached to the side of the tower. Because of its size and it being suspended mid-air, it's seen as the perfect trap, especially as the only entrance to the room (from the tower) has security cameras aimed at it, as well as other security measures, with the idea that if KID does manage to get inside the room, it'll lock from the outside, making escape impossible. A special team specializing in security has been hired to set-up this system, and they finish up just before KID's announced time of the theft. Conan is of course here to stop KID, and when the time arrives, things start to happen that prompt Conan to run to the security room to confront the thief. When he gets inside the room however, he finds not only KID, but the dead head of security too. Has KID finally stooped to murder? Well, of course not, and Conan too believes the thief didn't kill the man, but the situation doesn't look good for KID, as he was the only other person in the room besides the corpse and cameras had been aimed at the exhibition room entrance all the time, meaning the corpse appeared out of nowhere, and KID is known to be able to conjure up things out of nowhere.... To win some time, KID decides to "disguise" himself as high school student detective Kudou Shinichi (it's not really a disguise, as the two look remarkably similar), pretending to be here at the scene to catch KID too. Together with Conan, he tries to figure out who committed the murder and tried to pin the crime on him, but the duo run into a little, big problem: KID's rival, Hakuba Saguru, has returned from the United Kingdom, and this detective soon starts to have suspicions about "Shinichi's" actions at the scene...

By far the best story of the volume, as it's both funny and has a more robust mystery compared to the previous two stories, though because of the very, very specialized set-up of the room, and the manner in which Conan and KID discovered the body, I have a feeling many will find it easy to at least make a general guess about how the murder was committed, even though cameras had been aimed at the door entrance and they didn't register a thing besides the time KID forced entry into the room. Conan reluctantly doing his investigation while "tolerating" KID as Shinichi is funny, and the mystery does get a bit fleshed out due to the inverted mystery-element of the story: KID and Conan are being detectives as they try to solve the murder, but they are also "the culprits", trying to hide the fact KID has disguised himself as Shinichi, with Hakuba Saguru acting as the detective in that storyline. So you have a two-pronged mystery plot that gives this story some depth. There are some story seeds sown here that get reaped in the film too, so as also shown with the Hattori story, you'd better read this volume before you watch the film.

Oh, by the way, I did read this volume too before I went to the theatre, I just postponed writing this review for some time... They had some neat promotional material in the bookshop by the way: they had a newspaper about the exploits of the phantom thief KID (setting up the story of the film), as well as the newspaper featuring Shinichi on the frontpage seen in the very first chapter of the manga, and always shown in the opening scenes of the animated films each year.

Detective Conan 105 is not a really interesting volume mystery-wise, to be honest, and that's continuing a trend that's been going on for some time now, so I do find it harder to become really enthusiastic now for each new release. It wouldn't be so bad if we had the older release schedule of a new volume every three months, but nowadays it's basically one volume every half year... The volume does have ties with the film, so you'd better read 105 before watching the film, as you'll see more clearly how author Aoyama does try to "hype things up" for the film in the manga itself too. Anyway, we'll have to wait months again for the next volume unfortunately, but considering this is the 30th anniversary year, I do hope the next volume features a more substantional mystery tale, one that doesn't need to tie in with ongoing storylines or feels the need to flesh out characters. Just a six chapter story solely dedicated to telling a large mystery story. Please?

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌『名探偵コナン』105巻

The Secret of the Knight’s Sword

Meeting you with a view to a kill

Face to face in secret places, feel the chill

"A View to a Kill" (Duran Duran)

This is actually the first post I have written in over four months...

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, 82~104 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), The Scarlet Bullet (24), Bride of Halloween (25) and The Black Iron Submarine (26) in the library or via the Detective Conan tag)

 

High school student detective Hattori Heiji is attending a major kendo tournament in Hakodate, Hokkaido and he hopes to confess his love to his childhood friend Kazuha while they're in Hakodate, as Hokkaido features several spots with beautiful scenery, perfect for such an occassion. However, at the same time, the wealthy Onoe Takuzou, an Hakodate inhabitant, has received a notice from the notorious phantom thief KID, who declares he'll steal his two antique wakizashi swords, which were once gifted to Hishikata Toshizou of the Shingengumi. While wondering why KID is after the sword, as he usually only targets jewels, Hattori and Conan (high school student detective Kudou Shinichi who has been turned into a child and is hiding his identity) manage to fend off KID. However, Onoe's attorney's dead body is later found in the city, with a characteristic X-slash across his chest. Based on his belongings, the gang deduces the attorney had illegally brought another Japanese sword back from Dubai to Japan on orders of his employee, which now has been stolen. They eventually learn the swords were all made by swordmaker Higashikubo Eitatsu. Onoe Keizaburou (Takuzou's grandfather) had more sets of swords created during the war, as he was a high-ranking supplies official and rumors have it he hid a treasure somewhere in Hokkaido, with the swords serving as a clue to its whereabouts. Besides KID himself and the murderer, who is seen wearing a fox-mask, more parties appear on the scene who seem after the treasure, starting a race against the clock to see who can first obtain all the swords and find Onoe's treasure in the 2024 theatrical film Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram.

 

Wait... a Detective Conan film review... in this time of the year? Yes! This is the first time since 2012's The Eleventh Striker where I didn't need to wait for the home video release, but got to see it in the theatres again! First time I saw a Conan film in 4DX too by the way, and while I do complain about the recent films being so more much action-focused at the expense of the mystery plot, I do have to admit watching the modern films in 4DX is a lot of fun!

Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram is the 27th Detective Conan film and marks a return of mystery writer Ookura Takahiro as the screenwriter for the film. I wasn't too big a fan of the mystery plot of his Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (2019), but I consider Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter (2017) as one of the best Conan films overall, especially mystery plot-wise, and at the very least, one can definitely say Ookura has an excellent grasp on the characters, often inserting very fun character interaction scenes throughout his films. Like The Crimson Love Letter, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram focuses on the relationship between Hattori and Kazuha, with the film providing a conclusion to a storyline that has been running in the manga for some years now, with Hattori trying to confess his love to Kazuha at a memorable spot. For the character-focused fans of the franchise, The Million-Dollar Pentagram has a lot of great moments, from seeing Hattori finally confronting KID after their first clash in 2019, to the "big secret" of KID which the trailers have been talking about (Thought to be honest I.... don't like the reveal... I really don't) and some cool cameos. What I do appreciate about this film in general is that like The Crimson Love Letter, it's so much more accessible than some of the previous films, which built too strongly on the complicated character relations in the series. With so many character being (double) spies, having their own agendas and complicated pasts, some of the films would demand a lot of a viewer with nil knowledge of Conan, while this film keeps things relatively simple, with a murder mystery/treasure hunt plot, plus a simple rom-com plot of "boy wanting to confess love to girl", and not expecting you to remember that in volume XX, this and that character discussed this together. The previous two films (Black Iron Submarine and Bride of Halloween I both described as films that do "... things I hadn't expected a Detective Conan film to do, but also didn't do a lot of things I expect, or at least hope to get from a Detective Conan film." In that sense, I felt The Million-Dollar Pentagram was much more like a conventional Conan film, being universally easier to see for a wider audience.

As a mystery film however, The Million-Dollar Pentagram is really not especially memorable. While technically it is a murder mystery, the plot is mainly focused on the treasure hunt aspect, with all the parties trying to figure out 1) what Onoe's treasure was and 2) where the treasure is. While fortunately, the treasure hunt isn't reliant on one of those wordplay riddles you often see in the series, the actual puzzle-solving aspect of this film isn't really interesting, and you'll probably just be passively watching everything unfold, rather than really trying to solve any of this yourself. The mystery of the murderer is fairly simple too, partially due to a very small pool of viable suspects, and while there's a very minor piece of misdirection I feel is executed quite well on screen, I won't be recommending this film on its mystery merits. Fortunately, I was watching this in 4DX, so I did physically enjoy all the outrageous clashes between the various parties while chasing after the treasure!

Still, I do wish we have we get a more mystery plot-focused film soon again... I really loved The Crimson Love Letter, as I think it struck a great balance between the plot and the modern focus on action. As always, we already got a sneak preview/teaser of next year's film at the end of The Million-Dollar Pentagram, and while it honestly could go anyway, the teaser did suggest a focus on a set of characters that usually come with pretty robust mystery plots...

I happened to have been watching the 2008 Gegege no Kitarou animated film before this film, where they did a lot of local tourism PR by having Neko Musume visit various places briefly in the film, and I did think The Million-Dollar Pentagram felt a bit like a PR film at times. When the Conan films are set in Tokyo, they are usually set in fictional Beika, or use fictional landmarks like Touto Tower and the Bell Tree Tower instead of the Tokyo Tower and the Skytree. This film however features a lot of real Hakodate (and Hokkaido) landmarks, and with modern visuals, these sights are presented photo-realistically, as compared to the more drawn style we see in the earliest Conan films. Not really a bad thing per se, but seeing a hyper realistic Hakodate in this film did feel a bit weird as usually, real-life locations are drawn in a more stylized fashion in the television anime series.

Oh, and while not really related to this film, but I might as well mention it here: I did visit the special Detective Conan 30th Anniversary exhibition that's travelling across Japan now. Pretty interesting to see the original drawings and all of that. While it is understandably very character-focused, so not especially interesting for those who are only interested in Conan for the mystery stories, there were some fun displays for the mystery fans too, like this showcase of the various murder weapons used. Would be fun to see more of these mystery-focused exhibitions. Imagine how fun it'd be to visit sets of murder scenes of famous mystery stories!

Anyway, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram is a film that is probably best enjoyed by long-time fans of the series, who want to see characters like Hattori and KID interact with each other (and the conclusion to Hattori's attempts at confessing his love to Kazuha), while also being somewhat involved in a murder mystery. The film is better enjoyed for its action scenes than the mystery, but at the very least, it's a lot more accessible than its immediate predecessors as it does work as a standalone rom-com too.  That said, I do hope next year's entry will be a bit more substantial mystery-wise.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 100万ドルの五稜星』

Terminal Connection

"That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."

"Moby-Dick"

 

This year's Detective Conan film once again managed to beat the previous film's earnings record, which was already huge. It's crazy how the film series becomes stronger and stronger, even though this is the 26th entry!

 

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, 82~104 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), The Scarlet Bullet (24) and Bride of Halloween (25) in the library or via the Detective Conan tag)

 

Kudou Shinichi, the high school student detective who was turned into a boy by the Black Organization via an experimental drug and has now taken on the name of Edogawa Conan to lie low, is always on the lookout for any trail that'll lead him to his nemesis, and one day, Conan is informed by an ally about a recent infiltration operation by members of the Black Organization into an Interpol base in Frankfurt, which led to the death of an Interpol agent. Conan and his friends happen to be visiting the island of Hachijou to watch whales, but when Conan spots Inspector Shiratori and Metropolitan Police Department managing officer Kuroda also on the island, boarding a cruiser, he quickly connects their visit to the Frankfurt break-in and a new Interpol facility built near Hachijou. The Pacific Buoy is located in the middle of the ocean, built partially beneath water level and houses the new surveillance system of Interpol: it's connected to all police surveillance cameras in Japan and can be used to real-time track people and objects due its recognition software. The new facility also uses new software developed by Naomi Argento, an Italian-Japanese American. Her software analyses photographs and can predict how people will look as they age, allowing Interpol to also search for wanted persons who have been lying low for many years, or for example kidnapped children who might be older now. Today is the day this new facility will also be hooked up to the European side of Interpol, allowing them to also analyze European surveillance footage. Conan manages to join Shiratori and Kuroda during their visit to the Pacific Buoy, but during their stay, Naomi is abducted from the underwater facility. This is only possible if someone on the inside is helping the kidnappers (whom Conan is convinced is the Black Organization), but who is the Interpol traitor? However, events shift into high-gear when members of the Black Organization accidentally learn that Miyano Shiho, the ex-member of the organization whom they thought they had killed previously, is still alive: Naomi's software has recognized Shiho in Haibara Ai, the identity Shiho took when she took the experimental drug to turn herself into a child, just like what happened with Conan. Haibara becomes the Organization's new target, but can Conan save his friend in the 2023 theatrical film Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine?

 

As always, a new Detective Conan animated theatrical feature was released in April of this year. Black Iron Submarine is film 26 already, and next year's film has already been revealed and given a release date of April 12, 2024, so that means the film sub-franchise of Detective Conan will be at least 27 films long, and they manage to keep on breaking earning record after record (Black Iron Submarine is at the moment the second best performing film in Japan of this year, and currently ranked at no. 25 of the highest-earning films in Japan of all time, beating Jurassic Park). Of course, the films' tone have also changed in these almost three decades, adjusting to the preferences and tastes of the audience. The earlier films were tonally quite similar to the stories from the manga, being mystery-focused stories with a bit more spectacle (explosions), but more recently, the films are far more character-focused, showcasing fan-favorite characters in very marketable manners, and of course even more and bigger EXPLOSIONS. of the more recent films, I still think 2017's The Crimson Love Letter managed to strike the best balance between a well-developed mystery plot and character-focused spectacle and definitely the film I'd now recommend to new viewers. This year's Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine is in a way very similar to last year's Bride of Halloween, which I described as a film that ".,.does things I hadn't expected a Detective Conan film to do, but also didn't do a lot of things I expect, or at least hope to get from a Detective Conan film."

 

 

For again, we have a film that is fairly light-weight when it comes to the mystery-element, while at the same time, it dares to show aspects of characters in a way not even the main series has ever done, and it does this also by building strongly on events and the history of the main series. Whereas many of the films are written (to varying degrees of success) to be understandable to people who don't watch the main series (in fact, many people only watch the annual films), last year's The Bride of Halloween was very strongly connected to the main series, making numerous references to very specific stories, events and characters, even at times feeling like a sequel to certain storylines, and while the references this time are not as specific, a lot of what makes Black Iron Submarine work is because long-time fans know the context of the character interactions and what exactly drives them, and the film makes effective call-backs to earlier adventures with Haibara and her encounters with the Black Organization to tell its own original adventure, showing a Haibara we so seldom see in the main series. Up until now, the main series has shown us several stories where the Black Organization comes close on the trail of Haibara (Miyano Shiho) in their attempts to eliminate the traitor, and Black Iron Submarine is definitely a great addition to that tradition. In fact, the Black Organization has seldom felt so threatening and efficient. In recent years, only The FBI Serial Murder Case story from volume 100 comes close, but that was a small group of organization members versus one lone FBI agent on the run (backed up by Conan), while in Black Iron Submarine, we have the Black Organization being frighteningly effective in dealing with Interpol and their new undersea facility, while they also hunt for Haibara. I have to be honest, I hadn't expected the film to begin like that either! As a dramatic, character-focused suspense film, Black Iron Submarine is definitely highly entertaining material, with chases, fights and basically a war at sea going on between the Black Organization and Interpol, with Haibara caught in the middle, and with parties trying to outwit each other.

 

 

Because of this though, I think the film might be hard to follow who don't really know Detective Conan, as it juggles a very large cast of recurring characters this time, some only making very short appearances without much of an introduction. The film assumes you know the motivations of the characters, which can be especially difficult as a few characters in this film are in fact double agents, so sometimes they act for one party, and the next moment for another, and while this is shortly mentioned at the start of the film, there's no real "conclusion" to this, as their role as double agents of course continues in the main series, and there's no real "pay-off". On the other hand, the film is more straightforward than The Darkest Nightmare, which featured a lot of the same cast members, but in a more confusing "multiple parties with different agendas going against each other" plot... Also, the film does assume you're more-or-less up-to-date with the collected volumes at the time of release, so the film does for example show you the Black Organization member Rum, whose identity had been a plot-driving mystery for some time in the manga, but who was revealed a few volumes earlier.

 

As a mystery film however, I again have to stress Black Iron Submarine isn't anything special. The mystery-plot mostly revolves around who the traitor within the Pacific Buoy is who helped the Organization kidnap Naomi and later even commit a murder in the Buoy, but the tricks used by the murderer, and the clues pointing to them are rather basic, and I wouldn't really mind in a normal 24-minute episode of Detective Conan, but they feel rather underwhelming in a theatrical release. The best I can say is that yes, the clues are properly and fairly planted for the attentive viewer, but don't expect a sense of blissful comprehension when all the pieces fall into place, as the puzzle is just too simple. It also doesn't help the suspects have far too little screentime to make any impression on the viewer: they get an introduction at the start, but afterwards they all have like only one or two appearences saying one or two lines, as the film focuses more on the recurring characters from the main series. The murder half-way the film is also a bit too "on the nose" with its use of technology to facilitate the killing, and the kind of idea everybody will have played with in their mind at one time, and here it's used in the most non-surprising, direct manner imaginable. 

But in short: if you're just a mystery fan, you can skip Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine, as the mystery plot is fairly flimsy for a 110 minute film, and it's also not really the focus of the feature. For fans of Detective Conan, and especially the character of Haibara though, this is a must-see. Black Iron Submarine is a highly entertaining suspenseful thriller revolving around her and the Black Organization that feels at least as tenseful and captivating as previous such encounters in the main series, but this film even goes beyond those stories at time due to it stronger focus on character drama. So if you're more-or-less up-to-date with the main series, I'd definitely recommend watching this film too. Can't wait to see the next Detective Conan film, which will focus on Hattori, Kazuha and KID!

Original Japanese title(s):『名探偵コナン 黒鉄の魚影』