Detective Conan

First volume of the original Japanese release of the series

名探偵コナン (Meitantei Conan

Case Closed, known as Meitantei Conan (名探偵コナン) , lit. Great Detective Conan, officially translated as Detective Conan) in Japan, is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama and, since 1994, is serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. To avoid copyright issues with the name Detective Conan, the English language release was renamedCase Closed. The story follows the adventures of Jimmy Kudo, a prodigious young detective who was inadvertently transformed into a child after being poisoned.

Since its publication, Case Closed has spawned a substantial media franchise. Case Closedhas been continuously serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Sundaysince 1994 and has been collected in 70 tankōbon volumes as of November 2010. The manga has been adapted into an ongoing animated television series produced by TMS Entertainment and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation. The series has also spawned fourteen original video animations, fourteen animated feature films, numerous video games, and many types of Case Closed-related merchandise.

Viz Media licensed the manga series under the name for English-language publication in North America and released thirty-five volumes as of July 13, 2010. Funimation Entertainment licensed the anime series for North American broadcast. Both English adaptations went under the nameCase Closed and the characters in the series were given Americanized names. Fifty episodes of the English dubbed series aired on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004 until July 26, 2005 and were discontinued due to low ratings. The first six films, Case Closed: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, Case Closed: The Fourteenth Target,Case Closed: The Last Wizard of the Century, Case Closed: Captured in Her Eyes, Case Closed: Countdown to Heaven, Case Closed: The Phantom of Baker Street, were released onRegion 1 DVD in North America.

Compilation volumes of the manga have sold over 120 million copies in Japan. The anime adaptation has been well received, ranking in the top twenty in Animage's polls between 1996 until 2001 where it dropped below the top twenty. In the Japanese TV anime ranking, Case Closed often ranked the top six. Many featured films of the series were nominated for the Japan Academy Prize.

Plot

Jimmy Kudo was a 17-year-old high school prodigy and detective who frequently worked with the police. However, when visiting a carnival one day, he was attacked by two members of a mysterious crime syndicate while investigating a case regarding blackmail. He was then forced to take a newly developed experimental poison that was supposed to kill him, but due to a rare side-effect unknown to the two men, the drug transformed his body back into that of his seven-year-old self instead, after they left him for dead. In order to hide his identity and investigate the whereabouts of the syndicate called the Black Organization, he adopts the pseudonymConan Edogawa. To search for leads to the syndicate, he manages to move in with his childhood friend Rachel Moore, whose father, Richard Moore, works as a private investigator.He also enrolls at Teitan elementary school and forms the Junior Detective League with three other children in his class; Amy Yoshida, Mitch Tsuburaya, and George Kojima. Even as Conan, Jimmy continues solving criminal cases, usually posing as Richard Moore with the help of special gadgets, invented by his neighbor and friend, Dr. Agasa. Richard Moore, a rather inept detective, is bewildered at the sudden rise in his case-solving abilities, but does not question this as he is more than glad about his subsequent rise in fame.

Later in the series, another main character, Anita Hailey, appears. She was a former member of the Black Organization, codenamed "Sherry" though her name is actually Shiho Miyano. As a gifted chemist, she developed the poison APTX 4869 which turned Jimmy back into a child.After her sister was brutally murdered by members of the Black Organization, she tried to get out and was held captive. She then attempted to commit suicide by taking a dose of APTX 4869, but instead was transformed into a child as well, and managed to escape. She then enrolled in Conan's school under the pseudonym Anita Hailey. She knows Conan's true identity and helps him in his quest to bring down the Black Organization.

Later on, Conan becomes involved with the FBI, and they are able to capture Kir, a member of the Black Organization. Kir is later revealed to be an undercover CIA agent, and promises to relay information about the Black Organization to the FBI.They return Kir to the organization. Later, she tells the FBI that the Black Organization has a new member codenamed Bourbon.

Production

The manga, Meitantei Conan, the original title of the series, was conceived by Gosho Aoyamaand premiered in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday on February 2, 1994. Gosho Aoyama cited Arsène Lupin, Sherlock Holmes, and the samurai films by Akira Kurosawa influenced his work. It was adapted into an anime series directed by Kenji Kodama and Yasuichiro Yamamoto and produced by TMS Entertainment andYomiuri Telecasting Corporation. The first episode aired on Japan's Nippon Television Network System on January 8, 1996.

Funimation Entertainment announced it has licensed the first 104 episodes of the series in North America on July 5, 2003. Due to legal considerations with the name Detective Conan, the series was released under the name Case Closed and the main cast was renamed. Viz Media announced its license of the series in June 1, 2004 and, following Funimation Entertainment, published the series with the renamed title and cast.

Media

Manga

The chapters of the Case Closed manga are written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. In Japan, they have been published in Shogakukan'sWeekly Shōnen Sunday since February 2, 1994. Since Case Closed's premiere, over seven hundred chapters have been released in Japan making it the 24th longest running manga series. The individual chapters are collected by Shogakukan in a series of tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on June 18, 1994; as of November, 2010, seventy volumes have been released. A database consisting of all the cases of the manga was launched in 2007. Gosho Aoyoma's assistants have also written and published thirty-six volumes their own side stories of Case Closed.

Viz Media announced its license the series in June 1, 2004 and, following Funimation Entertainment, released the series under the nameCase Closed with renamed characters. The first was released on September 7, 2004, with thirty-six volumes released as of October 12, 2010. Victor Gollancz Ltd used Viz Media's translation to release the series in the United Kingdom.

The series has been released internationally under the name Detective Conan. The manga series is licensed for additional regional language releases by: Kana in France; Egmont Manga & Anime in Germany; Egmont in Sweden, Norway, and Finland; and Planeta DeAgostini to Spanish and Catalan speaking countries.

Anime

The episodes of the Case Closed anime series are directed by Kenji Kodama and Yasuichiro Yamamoto and produced by TMS Entertainment and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation. Case Closed has aired since January 8, 1996 on Nippon Television Network System in Japan and is currently ongoing. The episodes were later collected by Shogakukan and released on VHS; 138 video cassettes were released between June 26, 1996 and October 4, 2006 and contained 425 episodes of the series. Shogakukan began releasing the series to DVD starting with the first episode; 153 volumes have been released and are split into 18 seasons. For the fifteenth anniversary of the anime series, the episodes aired from the year 1996 were available for video on demand. The episodes that aired on 1997, 1998, and 1999 are set to be available on video on demand by January 2011, Spring 2011, and Summer 2011 respectively.

Funimation Entertainment announced it has licensed the first 104 episodes of the series in North America on July 5, 2003. Funimation dubbed the series into English and released it under the name Case Closed due to legal issues. Fifty episodes aired on Cartoon Networkas part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004 until August 16, 2004 and was discontinued due to low ratings.Funimation continued to dub the series direct-to-DVD and episodes 52–76 were encapsulated in eight DVD volumes released between August 24, 2004 and July 26, 2005. Funimation also released a starter set containing the DVDs Secret Life of Jimmy Kudo and Deadly Illusions which can also be bought separately on August 24, 2004. Five DVD collection boxes of the English adaption of the anime has been released by Funimation Entertainment between July 22, 2008 and May 12, 2009. The DVD box sets were re-released in a Viridian edition between July 14, 2009 and March 23, 2010.