Detective Conan World

[Monica Okane]

Themanga was adapted into an anime television series by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment, which premiered in January 1996. The anime resulted in animated feature films, original video animations, video games, audio disc releases and live action episodes. Funimation licensed the anime series for North American broadcast in 2003 under the name Case Closed with the characters given Americanized names. The anime premiered on Adult Swim but was discontinued due to low ratings.

In March 2013, Funimation began streaming their licensed episodes of Case Closed; Crunchyroll simulcast them in 2014. Funimation also localized the first six Case Closed films, while Discotek Media localized the Lupin III crossover special, its film sequel, and select films, starting with Case Closed Episode One. Meanwhile, the manga was localized by Viz Media, which used Funimation's changed title and character names. Shogakukan Asia made its own localized English version of the manga, which used the original title and Japanese names.

The tankōbon volumes of the manga had over 270 million copies in circulation worldwide by January 2023, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. In 2001, the manga was awarded the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category. The anime adaptation has been well received and ranked in the top twenty in Animage's polls between 1996 and 2001. In the Japanese anime television ranking, Case Closed episodes ranked in the top six weekly. Both the manga and the anime have had a positive response from critics for their plot and cases. The manga has been sold in 25 countries, while the anime has been broadcast in 40 countries.

Jimmy Kudo (Japanese name: Shinichi Kudo) is a high school detective who sometimes works with the police to solve cases.[2] During an investigation, he is ambushed and incapacitated by a member of a crime syndicate known as the Black Organization. In an attempt to murder the young detective, they force-fed him a dangerous experimental drug. However, instead of killing him, it shrinks his body into the size of an elementary school child.[3] Adopting the pseudonym Conan Edogawa and keeping his true identity a secret, Kudo lives with his childhood friend Rachel Moore (Ran Mori) and her father Richard (Kogoro Mori), who is a private detective. Throughout the series, he tags along on Richard's cases. Nonetheless, after Kudo solves one, he will use Dr. Agasa's hidden tranquilizer to sedate Richard and then uses a voice changer to simulate his voice to reveal the solution.[4] He also enrolls in Teitan Elementary School where he makes friends with a group of classmates who form their own Junior Detective League (Detective Boys). While he continues to dig deeper into the Black Organization, he frequently interacts with other characters, including his neighbor, Dr. Agasa, Ran's friend Serena Sebastian (Sonoko Suzuki), a fellow teenage detective Harley Hartwell (Heiji Hattori), assorted police detectives from different regions, and a phantom thief called Kaito Kid.

Kudo later encounters an elementary school transfer student, Anita Hailey (Ai Haibara), who reveals herself to be a former member of the Black Organization under the code name "Sherry" and the creator of the experimental drug that shrunk him. She too had ingested it to evade the pursuit of the organization.[5] She soon joins the Junior Detectives. During a rare encounter with the Black Organization, Conan helps the FBI plant a CIA agent, Kir, inside the Black Organization as a spy.[6]

Case Closed was conceived in 1994, during the rise of mystery genre manga due to the publishing of the series The Kindaichi Case Files; the first chapter appeared in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday on January 5.[7][8] Aoyama cites the stories of Arsne Lupin, Sherlock Holmes and the samurai films by Akira Kurosawa as influences on his work.[9] When scripting each chapter, he ensures the dialogue remains simple and spends an average of four hours for each new case and twelve for more complicated ones.[10][11] Aoyama's older brother is a scientist who helps him out with the "gimmicks" in the series.[12] Each case spans several chapters (except for a handful of shorter cases that only span one), and is resolved at the end where characters explain the details of their solutions in simple terms;[13] an online database consisting of all the cases from the manga was launched in 2007.[14][15] In 2007, Aoyama hinted he had an ending planned out but does not intend to end the series yet.[10] Aoyama and his staff decided to computerize their manga creation process in early 2011, although he still draws with a pen and paper.[16][17] The change began with the final page of chapter 760.[17]

Written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama, Case Closed started its serialization in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday on January 5, 1994.[c] Case Closed became one of the longest running manga series, with over 1,000 chapters released in Japan, and the first series with over 1,000 chapters published in Weekly Shōnen Sunday.[20] Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on June 18, 1994.[21] On October 18, 2021, the series reached one hundred volumes;[22] One Piece author, Eiichiro Oda, whose series achieved the same feat a month before, sent congratulations to Aoyama.[23] As of April 10, 2024, 105 volumes have been published.[24]

Viz Media announced its acquisition of the series for North America on June 1, 2004.[25] Following Funimation's localization, Viz released the series as Case Closed and took their character names to keep consistency between the two media.[26] Viz Media released the first volume in September 2004 and began releasing digital editions in 2013.[27][28] On May 9, 2023, Viz Media launched their Viz Manga digital manga service, with the series' chapters receiving simultaneous English publication in North America as they are released in Japan.[29][30] Gollancz licensed and distributed 15 of Viz Media's volumes in the United Kingdom before ceasing publication of manga. (Viz Media has since re-released them).[31] In 2014 Shogakukan Asia began its own English localization of the series for Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries as Detective Conan.[32] Laura Thornton of CBR.com, citing the common Japanese ownership in both Shogakukan Asia and Viz, described the Singapore version as, compared to the Viz one, "completely identical, word-for-word, even -- save for the names and the Detective Conan logo".[33]

The manga has also been localized in other regions such as China, France, Germany and Indonesia.[34][35][36][37] Localizations in Scandinavia ceased one by one, Finland being the last in 2013, when the publisher shut down the entire manga division.[38][39][40][41]

Another spin-off manga series, illustrated by Takahiro Arai with supervision by Aoyama, titled Case Closed: Zero's Tea Time started in issue #24 of Weekly Shōnen Sunday on May 9, 2018. The story centers on the agent Toru Amuro/Rei Furuya.[45] New chapters of the manga are only published when Case Closed is on hiatus.

The anime version of Case Closed is produced by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment.[49][50] Over 1110 episodes have aired in Japan since the anime's premiere on January 8, 1996, making it the fifteenth longest anime series to date.[51][52] Initially, Shogakukan collected and released the episodes on VHS video cassettes from June 1996 to October 2006.[53][54] Four hundred and twenty-six episodes were released on VHS until Shogakukan abandoned the format and switched over to DVDs, starting over from the first episode.[55] For the fifteenth anniversary of the anime series, the series was made available for video on demand.[56][57] The series celebrated its 25th anniversary in January 2021, and the "Moonlight Sonata Murder Case" episode (11th episode of the series) was given the remake treatment as the first part of its celebration, which featured the latest staff and production techniques, and classical pianist Aimi Kobayashi performed Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 for the episode. It aired on March 6, 2021.[58][59]

As of 2018, the Detective Conan anime has been broadcast in 40 countries around the world.[60] The Canadian channel YTV picked up the Case Closed series and broadcast 22 episodes between April 7, 2006, and September 2, 2006, before taking it off the air.[61][62][63] Case Closed was later broadcast in North America on NHK's cable network TV Japan.[64] Hanabee Entertainment licensed the series for distribution in Australia.[65]

In 2003, the first 104 episodes, as well as the first six movies were licensed by Funimation for distribution in North America, under the title Case Closed because of legal considerations.[2][66] The Case Closed anime has also been released in other languages such as French, German and Italian.[67][68][69] Case Closed debuted on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004;[70] no more than 50 episodes were licensed from Funimation due to low ratings.[71] Funimation made the series available with the launch of the Funimation Channel in November 2005; it was temporary available on Colours TV during its syndication with the Funimation Channel.[72][73] Funimation also released DVDs of their dubbed series beginning August 24, 2004.[74] Initially, the releases were done in single DVDs and future episodes were released in seasonal boxes; 130 episodes have been released in total.[75] The seasonal boxes were later re-released in redesigned boxes called Viridian edition.[76][77] Funimation began streaming Case Closed episodes in March 2013.[78] Finally, in 2018, Funimation lost the rights to the series.[79]

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