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Detective Conan (名探偵コナン, Meitantei Konan?) is a Japanese manga and anime series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama since January 19, 1994 and got serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Jump. Due to legal considerations the title has been renamed to "Case Closed". The series follows Shinichi Kudō, a prodigious young detective who was inadvertently transformed into a child after being poisoned by two men in black.

Funimation Entertainment licensed the anime series for North American broadcast in 2003 under the name Case Closed with the characters given Americanized names. The anime series came on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block and was discontinued due to low ratings. The manga has been licensed by Viz Media in North America and uses Funimation's renamed character names.

Case Closed[]

The title Detective Conan has been changed into "Case Closed" due to legal considerations. The series follows Jimmy Kudo, renamed from Shinichi Kudō, who has been drugged by two men in black and has shrunk into a kid, taking on the moniker Conan Edogawa. It is the same as the original series, only with the characters renamed. Viz uses the Americanized names in their mangas. The names are not based on any great detectives or puns, but attempt to retain the sound and pattern of the original (i.e, initial letters are the same).

Characters[]

Detective Conan has a large amount of characters, if suspects and victims are counted. Almost each major character has a dark memory about past events that have happened. Even some of them have memories concerning what happened in the Black Organization. The beginning starts with friendships of a new start which later grows to trusts, informational, heavy drama, past revelations etc.

Even if the series contains such a large amount of characters, many of them remain unknown and questionable, such as whether scarred Akai is really Shūichi Akai or Subaru Okiya, what the name of the Black Organization is, what the real names of the members of the Black Organization are except Vermouth, and the most popular of all: who the boss of the Black Organization is.

The character names are based on the detective novels that Gosho liked as a child, some seiyū's or from his assistants. For example: It is known that Conan Edogawa is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Rampo, and Kazuha Tōyama is based on the Edo period police detective Tōyama Kagemoto alias Tōyama no Kin-san, and Kazuha comes from one of Gosho Aoyama's assistants.

Plot[]

The story goes about the 17-year-old high school prodigy Shinichi Kudō also known as the Savior of the Japanese Police Department (日本警察の救世主, Nihon Keisatsu no Kyūseishu?) who frequently helps the police force solving complicated cases. After the incident at the famed theme park named Tropical Land at the roller coaster, he was investigating one of the two suspicious looking men that where been seen as suspects at the incident. He got attacked by one of them who's code-name is Gin and his partner named named Vodka. After hitting Shinichi knock-out Gin gave him a drug which is later known as APTX 4869 that was meant to kill him. The poison has in fact a rare side-effect which transform Shinichi into a body into that of a child instead of killing him.

After the crucial incident, Shinichi went home and adopted the name Conan Edogawa after being put under pressure by his childhood friend Ran. Shinichi managed to hide his secret identity to the ones he cared to investigate the Black Organization, but some of them figured out who he really is and a member of the Black Organization either. He pretends to be a child to gather evidence to apprehend the secret organization to get the antidote to transform back into his original body. Conan enrolls his former school the Teitan Elementary school and form the Detective Boys with his three other classmates: Ayumi Yoshida, Genta Kojima, and Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya. Conan also stays at the detective agency of a moronic detective Kogorō Mōri which is Ran's father. He gained fame as the Sleeping Kogorō (眠りの小五郎, Nemuri no Kogorō?), after getting help from Conan using the gadgets invented by Hiroshi Agasa, Shinichi's neighbor.

Later a girl named Shiho Miyano flees from the Black Organization after taking in her own creation and currently stays at Agasa's house. The Black Organization is still searching for her and tries to annihilate her for her escape from the organization and her betrayal for leaving it.

Settings[]

The series has been set in a large town located in Tokyo, Japan named "Beika City" after Sherlock Holmes' flat on "Baker Street". The spots in the town are named after famous detectives created by mystery novelists, such as a café in the series based on Dame Agatha Christie's "Hercule Poirot" and many others. Not only that, there are also names based on the places where Sherlock Holmes and his companion John H. Watson visit. The series can also be almost comparable of Sherlock Holmes battle with Arsène Lupin, which originally the name of Sherlock Holmes has been changed in Herlock Sholmes to prevent copyright claims, because of the battle between Conan and Kaitou Kid.

Media[]

Since the publication of the series, Detective Conan has spawned a substantial media franchise. The manga has been adopted into an ongoing anime series since January 8, 1996 by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment. The anime series reached more that 950 episodes in its 24 years of publishing. The series also got more than 10 OVAs and 5 magic files, sixteen animated feature films, three live action dramas, a live action series, numerous video games and many other types of Detective Conan merchandise. Detective Conan also had a two-hour television special titled Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan which aired on March 27, 2009, and featured a crossover with the series Lupin III.

Detective Conan Manga[]

Volume 1

The first tankōbon volume of Detective Conan.

The Detective Conan series was created on January 19, 1994, during the rise of mystery and detective genre manga due to the publishing of the Kindaichi Case Files manga series by Yōzaburō Kanari, Seimaru Amagi and Fumiya Satō. It appeared weekly in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Detective Conan became the 21st longest running manga series with over 1000 chapters that have been released in Japan. The individual chapters are collected by Shogakukan in a series of tankōbon volumes.

The manga consists of over 98 volumes as of July 2020, with volume 1 having released on June 18, 1994. Gosho Aoyama's assistant has written and published 36 volumes of their own side stories of Detective Conan, but it is more for children instead of children and adults.

In an interview, Gosho Aoyama says that he spends an average of four hours for each new case in the series, while a much more complicated case will take up more than 12 hours. The manga chapters contains parts and conclusions of the series, where the conclusions are mostly the third part of the case that explains the situation on how the mystery has occurred. Aoyama said that he tries to keep the language simple to help his readers follow the story.

The manga series has been licensed for publishing all over the world in different countries, such as: China, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Indonesia and Finland. Kana is the main publisher of the Detective Conan series in France, The Netherlands and Belgium while Egmont Manga & Anime is publishing the series in Germany, Sweden and Finland. In the United States, the series has been published by Viz Media, who obtained the license on June 1, 2004. Viz Media uses the translation of the characters' names from the anime in the published manga. Viz Media released the first English-language volume on September 7, 2004 and publication is currently ongoing. Victor Gollancz Ltd used Viz Media's translations to distribute the series in the United Kingdom.

Each Detective Conan volume cover contains the main character, Conan Edogawa, in various poses in front of a bricked wall with a real life image of one of the representing cases that has been published in the same volume behind him. Each volume contains a keyhole at the back with a certain character. Inside of the volume, there is also a dictionary of famous detectives, which Gosho gives around each volume that has been published information about his favorite or famous detectives from mystery novels or television drama. On the other side of the detective dictionary, there is Gosho Aoyama with a death image that he draw containing his avatar within it. Each manga artist leave a comment before they can read the series, which they are telling their experience in daily life.

Detective Conan Anime[]

The manga series has been adapted into an ongoing anime series by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment. The series has been directed by Kenji Kodama and Yasuichiro Yamamoto with a 25-minute episode time range. There are more than 900 episodes aired in Japan since January 8, 1996 making it the seventeenth longest anime series. For the fifteenth anniversary of the anime series it was available for video on demand. Detective Conan was later broadcasted in North America on NHK's cable network TV Japan.

The anime series has been licensed by Funimation Entertainment since 2003, but they only released 130 episodes. The name of the anime series has been changed to "Case Closed" with a slogan "One truth prevails" that comes from the Japanese "There's Only One Truth". The name change is because of legal considerations concerning "Conan the Barbarian". The names of the characters has been changed as well into more accessible, American names. Detective Conan debuted on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004. No more than 50 episodes were licensed from Funimation due to low ratings. After being taken off air, Funimation released further episodes direct-to-video only. The anime series has also been released on various other television programs and in different countries around the world. It is known that Germany still have the series ongoing almost as the same level of Japan and so does the manga.

Influences[]

Detective Conan has majorly influences from the infamous detective series Sherlock Holmes that has been written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The main character got the same similarities as Holmes but not quite a lot. The series is mostly influenced by Jirō Akagaw's: Mikeneko Holmes (三毛猫ホームズシリーズ). The Detective Conan series has also been influenced by series from Maurice LeBlanc's Arsène Lupin and samurai movies from Akira Kurosawa.

Popularity[]

Due that the fact the series has been mostly influenced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Detective Conan is known as one of the largest running series in the manga history of Weekly Shōnen Sunday, giving Gosho Aoyama the nickname "Striving star of Shōnen Sunday". Detective Conan got a lot of fan sites containing information about the series including guessing the boss of the Black Organization and any kind of others. The popularity of the series is extremely large, in Japan the series is popular with both young and older audiences. Gosho thought that the series would only be 3 months, but was surprised about the popularity.

Detective Conan also made several collaboration with other popular series such as "Kindaichi Case Files" and "Lupin III", creating a game (Kindaichi) and a 2-hour television special (Lupin). In North America, they created the Detective Conan trading card game, representing events, characters and objects in the series itself. These cards are used by players to fulfill certain conditions to solve a case and win the game.

Several scanlation and fansub group translated the series and made it available to download on the internet. Viz Media and Funimation are trying to do everything to make an end to such thing on the internet of the series.

Detective Conan also made several cameo appearances in other series, such as: "Yakitate!! Japan", "Black Cat", "Inuyasha", "Hayate the Combat Butler", "Proposal Daisakusen", "Sonic X", "Kenichi the Mighties Disciple", "Angelic Layer", and "Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney". Conan has also been used as a character to promote people to follow the law in Japan, due to the popularity of the series.

Detective Conan and Magic Kaito made also a appearance in a real-life Japanese drama Senryokugai Sousakan (戦力外捜査官 ) in Chinami Umiduki's (played by: Emi Takei) room. It displayed several volumes of the two series and a doll of Conan from the series.

Other Languages[]

Language Title Literally meaning
Arabic المحقق كونان Detective Conan
Bân-lâm-gú Miâ-thàm-cheng Konan Detective Conan
Bulgaria Detective Conan Detective Conan
Boarisch Detektiv Conan Detective Conan
Català Detectiu Conan Detective Conan
Česky Detektiv Conan Detective Conan
Dansk Mesterdetektiven Conan Great Detective Conan
Deutsch Detektiv Conan Detective Conan
Español Detective Conan Detective Conan
Esperanto Detektivo Konan Detective Conan
Persis کارآگاه_کونان Detective Conan
France Détective Conan Detective Conan
Vietnamese Thám tử lừng danh Conan Famous Detective Conan
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