In celebration of watching over 700 episodes of the anime and the comic being published for over 20 years now (20th anniversary was on February 2nd, 2014) I thought I should write about this show and comic I love so dearly. As there are at the time 18 films, 12 OVAs, specials, a light novel, the spin-off Magic Kaito and several games that could be accounted for except for the anime and original work, this will cover the comic and anime in general.
Shinichi Kudou (CV: Kappei Yamaguchi) is a 17-year-old living in Tokyo. His father is the mystery novelist Yuusaku Kudou (CV: Hideyuki Tanaka) and his mother is the retired star actress Yukiko Kudou (CV: Sumi Shimamoto). But Shinichi himself is famous too. He’s the famous high school detective that even the police trusts. After promising his childhood friend Ran Mouri (CV: Wakana Yamazaki) to take her to Tropical Land if she wins a tournament, the two of them end up in a murder case where a person was beheaded during the roller coaster ride they were on. On this ride were two men in black and – after he figured out the case and the perpetrator was taken to the police – Shinichi spots one of them being suspicious. He follows them while telling Ran to wait for him. The boy has stumbled upon a new case. But the other man in black noticed him and knocks him out cold before giving him a poison to kill him.
Left to die on the ground a police finds him and his taken to the police station where he’s wound from being hit is treated and he realizes he has turned small. He hurries home where he meets his neighbour, professor Hiroshi Agasa (CV: Kenichi Ogata) who – after a bit of deduction from Shinichi – learns about what happens. Professor Agasa manages to get Ran to take in Shinichi – who introduces himself and Conan Edogawa (CV: Minami Takayama) – to live with her and her father, a lousy detective called Kogorou Mouri (CV: Akira Kamiya (episodes 1-548), Rikiya Koyama (episodes 549 forwards) and with the help from the professor, Shinichi (or Conan) tries to find a way to turn back to his actual size.
The goal with the story is for Conan/Shinichi to get his body back. Every once in a while a clue is dropped here and there and now and then you think he’s come further to the conclusion, but after 20 years I really doubt it’s anywhere near. Except for the main story which takes a lot of time there are several sub-stories.
One of them is Shinichi’s and Ran’s love story, which over the later years has died down a bit. There’s less Shinichi and more Conan. Well, due to there being more bad guys or thought to be bad guys around them, it’s not odd that there aren’t much development. The main development in their love story must have been in the London arc which was in the comic and anime in recent years.
Another sub-story I would say is Ai Haibara/Shiho Miyano (CV: Megumi Hayashibara) which you could either say contains Shuuichi Akai (CV: Shuuichi Ikeda) and what happens around him, because he was the lover of Ai/Shiho’s sister.
We of course also have Wataru Takagi (CV: Wataru Takagi) and Miwako Satou (CV: Atsuko Yuya) on the police, the love life of Sonoko Suzuki (CV: Naoko Matsui), and Kaitou Kid (CV: Kappei Yamaguchi (Kid’s own voice) and every voice actor on earth too as he can mimic all kinds of voices) and the Detective Boys).
In my honest opinion, the show was indeed best in the late 90’s/early 00’s, but it’s still my absolute favourite show and comic. I just wish they could have ages at least a year in these 20 years. I’m not even going to count the times the should have celebrated Christmas, Valentine’s, New Year’s and what not, but it’s been a fair amount of times (probably mainly in the anime though). If you love mystery, at least the comic is worth a read. The anime originals are usually not as complicated and the films get more ridiculous by the year. The OVAs can be pretty funny though. The first one is a Yaiba, Conan, Kaitou Kid crossover, for instance.
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