Why I Love Detective Conan/Case Closed

I've loved Detective Conan (Case Closed in the US) since middle school. Though I am not a huge anime/manga freak like some folks are, I appreciate a good detective story and some anime, such as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. I first discovered the poorly dubbed anime on television, but quickly learned to prefer the manga. The anime was also weakened by the attempts to take the show out of its Japanese context, even going as far as giving every character English or non-Japanese names and taking the story out of its Tokyo setting, which is actually central to the world crafted by Gosho Aoyama, the creator of the manga. Recently, I began re-watching and reading the anime and manga, but am a little turned off by how the episodes seem to go on beyond 600! As in, you know, 600 episodes of a TV show. I could never watch it in its entirety, but I plan on watching select episodes of the series with subtitles to avoid the horrible English dubbing. If only the series were shorter...and they got rid of the Junior Detective League-heavy cases where young Conan Edogawa has to collaborate with children who befriend him. Anywho, here are some of my reasons for loving this series:

1. Reading the manga is an intertextual experience. Many of the characters have named that are tributes to writers and detectives of mystery fiction, such as Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle, a cafe called Poirot, and even an American FBI agent named for the agent in The Silence of the Lambs. In addition, at the end of each book, Gosho Aoyama has little snippets on favorite detectives of his, including Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Father Brown, Hannibal, and many others. As a youth getting more and more into detective fiction, the manga helped out with numerous recommendations.

2. Though cheesy and a little unbelievable for so long (Jimmy Kudo, high school detective wiz, is turned into a child by a little substance and lives with Rachel, and they 'like' each other so the element of teen romance appears often), because Conan/Jimmy solves most cases by hitting Rachel's father over the head (or sometimes Rachel's friend Serena) with a gadget made by Dr. Agasa, then uses his bowtie voice simulator to speak in the voice of older folks so as to make his deductions believable. Also, there is at least one moment where Rachel figures out that Conan is Jimmy Kudo, her high school not-quite boyfriend, but she is somehow persuaded by Jimmy's mother that he isn't Kudo. The campiness and lack of realism in the series is probably part of the appeal, and allows the series to go on for so long. Indeed, from what I've read, the series is widely popular in Japan, and the quirkiness, humor, and cultural references are permeated with Toyko and Japanese references that can be hard to follow as a non-Japanese reader, yet still humorous. For instance, Richard, Rachel's (Ran) father, is an alcoholic slob after any cute face and his arrogance is hilarious! The comedic elements of the series really make it more bearable, and the typical high school romance theme between Rachel and Jimmy (Shinichi in the Japanese original)

3. The actual mysteries are often difficult to crack. Some of them are a little over the top or too bizarre to ever discover on your own, but the thrill of correctly identifying the murderer is an endless thrill. Indeed, the developing plot where Anita's character is introduced and we gradually learn more about the Men in Black from a Syndicate which had used the drug that turned Jimmy into a child becomes more and more engaging, although, again, drawn out way too long. I am still unsure of what exactly happens, but more characters are introduced, and the possibility of Rachel's father and mother getting together again becomes another lingering pairing with comedic effect.

4. Oh, did I mention how in the one time I saw a black person in the manga, he wasn't a caricature? In one of the cases, Kudo and Rachel are in New York City for a Broadway show with Kudo's actress mother, and, well, naturally murder occurs during the show. One of the police investigators is a black man, depicted with dark skin and glasses and none of that Mr. Popo Japanese anti-black racism stuff. Similarly, in one of the earlier cases in the series, a half-Brazilian, half-Japanese character appears and he is quite dark-skinned but lacking any of those caricature-like depictions of black people that proliferate in Japanese popular culture. I applaud such practices on the part of the manga-ka, Gosho Aoyoama, since seeing Mr. Popo-like blackface caricatures in Japanese anime and manga helped turn me away from most of it.

So, overall, I love Detective Conan because it's humorous, interesting, engaging, entertaining, is educational for non-Japanese readers (with references to Japanese culture, history, mythology, Tokyo, Osaka, etc.) and the campiness of the series gives in some charm. Though excessively long, the series achieves its main goal in entertaining readers or watchers. Perhaps I'll watch some of the movies, too, since it's been too long since that. In addition, my love for this series is the origin of my email address.